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My card is registered to "Safeway Customer" as per this article>. In the future, I hope to see Safeway place Vodka in the isle along side orange juice.

History does not record the forward leaps and bounds civilized society has made, nor the precipices from which it has been pulled, by the judiciously well-placed but otherwise private administration of a veteran law-officer's wooden stick.

For instance, consider the fine officers of Selma, AL and Seattle, WA.

Oh man, once again Microsoft is leading the way. I remember several years ago seeing this article in the Seattle Weekly that was a real eye-opener. This kid, some scruffy dweeb from the hills, gets to be Bill Gates' brain-child prodigy! They discovered him after he built a neural television remote control for his crippled granny. Be sure to check the date on the article... Cute kid, though.

since last I heard sales were up here!

...here's a link to the actual article.

This doesn't mean that MS is annoyed with Slate, it means they are changing their business strategy.

The question in my mind is: what happens to MSN as a whole?

1) Open-source. I like to know what my software is doing, and if it lacks some desired functionality, I want to be able to add it. Additionally, this is a matter of trust and privacy. Open-source software helps ensure software makers are competing fairly). Open-source software will rarely, if ever, report web browsing, word processing, or media viewing habits back to 'home base', at least without asking you first. And if they do, there's a great chance someone will notice and speak up (usually very loudly).

2) Security. I don't think I need to say much about this because the inadequacies of Windows, with regards to security and the sometimes unacceptably long invterval of finding a critical bug and patching it, are very well documented. Also, I'm a big fan of security by peer review of source code.

3) Stability. Windows was grossly unstable until Windows 2000 was released. Anyone that's been subjected to using Windows 95/98 should know exactly what I'm talking about, and systems administrators should know well enough the bizarre rituals and alchemies involved in convincing an NT 4.0 server to stay up for even months at a time.

I've been enjoying a stable computing environment since I switched to Linux in 1996. I reboot only after building a new kernel or on the (very) rare occasion that the nVidia module panics the kernel. I've also been using the same Debian installation for the last four years.

(Ironically, though persons who are pro-Microsoft compain that Windows XP still has major stability problems, I've been using it daily on my roommate's laptop for a few months now and the only noticable problem is that sometimes it doesn't like to shut down properly.)

4) Choice. For example, there are scores of open-source window managers that run on Linux and free BSDs, and some of these have eye candy and features still not available in Windows. There are hundreds of third-party extensions and applets for these window managers. There are numerous distributions of Linux and BSD that all have different benefits and shortcomings, sometimes aiming to solve different niche problems. And the best part is that they can all take advantage of each others' contributions - no lock-in. The list goes on and on.

5) Unix. Unix is a well-designed, modular system that is still heavily used thirty years after its inception. And it is thoroughly defined in open, public standards. I've come to be addicted to this system; I'd simply go mad if I were restricted to the DOS command line (though I hear Microsoft is attempting improvements in this area).

Just to name a few...

- Nick

Yes, but check THIS out!

Paul Allan also has trouble getting laid normally.

Some of his victims fight back in court though More info

He 'settled out of court' - kinda like Michael Jackson 'settled out of court.'

The people given a warrant are not always suspected of doing something wrong. They're just thought to have evidence or clues that might help prove that somebody did something criminal

Go RTFA. It may make you worry more than you seem to be from your reaction.

"It is a wonderful thing to know you are right and the rest of the world is wrong." Bill James wrote those words nearly 20 years ago in one of his groundbreaking series of annual Baseball Abstract books. The founding father of the objective performance analysis movement came to realize that baseball is the one game in which virtually every aspect of performance can be measured and value-weighted through the compilation and analysis of statistics, in much the same way a business can use data about sales and revenue, weigh them against market-force indicators, and make quarterly projections about expected future performance. He found that the statistics can be used to predict, with reasonable accuracy, what teams will win and which players will be effective. James also found, to his surprise, that the people who ran Major League Baseball organizations didn't much give a shit.

• Giant Food Inc. was caught providing its customers' prescription purchasing info to marketers
• A customer's alcohol buying habits was brought up by Von's (part of Safeway) when he sued after slipping on spilled yogurt in their store (it didn't make it to court)
• You could get rejected for health care coverage if you have a heart condition and your insurance company finds out that you've been filling your cart with potato chips and desserts.
• Any number of other problems from the sharing of your purchasing information between business partners.

And you think Windows Media Player is not a malware.

If anything Media Player is the WORSE of the two since it doesn't tell you anything...

You're quite right.

There has to be a concentration on the demand side of the equation.

Clients of the spammers need to feel it in the pocketbook for a solution to really work.

Unfortunately, a 98% effective boycott of the spamhaus clients by recipients of spam won't do much, considering that response rates are less than 1% already. Rather than attack the spammers directly, the clients should be made to pay big time if they've employed a spammer for advertising.

I don't trust Michael Powell. After caving in to media interests and allowing further consolidation in the face of absolutely zero public support for such measures (and widespread opposition once the results of his hearings became known), his current position on spammers seems to be an attempt to position future policy to insure that there is no possible anonymity on the Internet. I dislike that solution to that problem because whistleblowers, politic dissidents in repressive regimes, etc. would be silenced alongside the despicable spammers.

BTW, along the same lines of supply and demand, there's a recent article about current and former law enforcement officials that want a different approach to the "war on drugs" than what's been not working for the last number of decades.

Aah...thats for wimps

How bout a jet powered bike?

The smartest independent game developers, even when they have a hot "commercial" game, don't tie every title up with a single big publisher. Instead, they let the income from commercial success(es) fund the stuff they want to experiment on or just screw around with.

Unless, of course, they get greedy. Then they're doomed.

One look at indie developers in the Seattle area was published in Seattle Weekly recently. It's written for a mass (non-developer) audience, but points out how invisible most developers are to the general public -- partly by their own desire, and partly by publishers' design (who don't want the world to know "their" hit game was developed by someone else, and perhaps a very small someone else). And, it notes there's a wide range of game types cranked out by the indies. Still, most indies deserve more credit than they get.

After my reply discussing server-side Java, I noticed that another /. item refered to this article. Allow me to quote the pertinent paragraph:

"Microsoft tries to do all things for all people in software. As you scale down devices, it tends to overload them with too much software for what people need," notes Dwight Davis, vice president and practice director for tech analysis firm Summit Strategies and one-time editorial director of the Microsoft-centric newsletter Windows Watcher. Davis points to Microsoft's mobile- phone software efforts as a train wreck in the making: "By contrast, I think their long-time foe Java is moving much more rapidly and successfully in that market."

So, it appears that microsoft is being squeezed by Java at both ends of the market.

It might calm some people to know that such a system is in place to detect certain terror-inducing chemical attacks or bioweapons, but it may not actually detect anything.

The traffic in the greater Seattle area is atrocious, and the State Government has been working hard to find a way to solve the issue.

That is not true at all. The only thing that one might be able to say they work hard on is finding ways to convince everyone to ride the bus. Nevermind that almost every bus I see is near empty and that a single city bus pollutes more than 15 SUVs.

In the interim, they may use eBay as an innovative solution for estimating demand and raising funds.

This will never happen.

How does a sticker help you, anyways? You get pulled over for driving in the HOV lane, the cop sees your sticker, and says "ok, sorry, go on your way". Very convenient!

If you're not familiar with Seattle-area HOV lanes... the sticker will also not be all too helpful because all HOV lanes in the area are incomplete runs. For example, the HOV lane on southbound I-5 ends at Northgate, long before you even reach downtown Seattle. Same thing on I-405, same thing on northbound I-5 in Everett. Same thing on 520. So the sticker would allow you to pass a short run of cars before becoming part of the lane-merge bottleneck problem which is what is really slowing everyone down.

No more buses, no HOV lanes. Just more lanes. Thank you.

This is the same David Brame who also is accused of raping a woman in 1988. Of course nothing happened to David Brame. And the Pierce County sheriff's department did nothing about Crystal Brame's complaints because her husband was the chief of police.

Perhaps we can make the object of the game to shoot Tacoma cops, who are corrupt and Pierce County Sheriff's deputies, who are stupid and corrupt. Oh, and you could add Pat Frantz to the list. He's the head of the police union in Tacoma who has been threatening journalists and blaming the media for David Brame's actions.

Yeah, I think that having a game where you waste these useless and corrupt cocksuckers would be a good thing, I think that having kids play this game would be even better.

Hmmm... how much do you wanna bet these PC's being suggested "under the pretext of saving paper" aren't Linux boxen?

I mean, even their toys aren't targeted toward kids.

>> Paul also raped a girl at his home - He setteled out of court and the girl refused to testify - it never went to trial.

> I just searched Google [google.com] and can find no stories whatsoever to even remotely substantiate this claim.

Try again:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/9924/feature s-anderson.shtml

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/9939/feature s-anderson.php

Allegedly raped & not a girl, but a woman.

>> Paul also raped a girl at his home - He setteled out of court and the girl refused to testify - it never went to trial.

> I just searched Google [google.com] and can find no stories whatsoever to even remotely substantiate this claim.

Try again:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/9924/feature s-anderson.shtml

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/9939/feature s-anderson.php

Allegedly raped & not a girl, but a woman.

Well they are trying to do just that in fact.
Read this article about a really tough fight.

For whatever reason, both WP and Lotus' Windows products were years late and the early versions were crash-happy under Windows to boot.

Hmm. With cries of `DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run' ringing in my imagination, it's not that hard to figure out what one of the reasons was. It's not as if DR-DOS was welcomed to Windows or anything.

My hunch, in fact, is that considering the various reviews, interviews, and articles, Slashdot's percentage of original content compares favorably with lots of so-called mass media outlets. In fact, it's got a big leg up on mass media insofar as one often finds the people mentioned in the stories, or people with a personal connection to the story, posting comments, giving readers a different perspective on the article. I'm not prone to hyperbole, so I won't call slashdot "visionary" or "groundbreaking" but I do call it "really cool" and, most definitely, "journalism".

Blogs, too, are journalism. Personal diaries may be the most trivial form of journalism, but it is, at least, reporting. It may not be up to the standards of Columbia, or conformant to the AP style guide, but I've read a lot of crap in "real" news outlets and a lot of informative, if non-traditional, reporting on blog sites. In any case, I'm leery of refusing to call blogs journalism, as it plays into the hands of those who would separate "journalists" from the rest of the public and confer upon them rights that are (IMO) properly invested in us all - particularly freedoms of speech and of the press.

Consider the case of Paul Trummel who has been jailed for refusing to take down articles on his website, on the grounds that he is "not really a journalist." Understand why I'm not so keen on drawing a line between "journalist" and blogger?

-Isaac

1. the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America;
   
2. the "shield laws" which protect reporters in some states against subpoena of their notes and unpublished materials;
   
3. defamation law (slander and libel); and
   
4. the contempt power of a judicial officer.
   

Mr. Trummel was evicted from a housing situation, and was unhappy with the persons who managed that situation. Mr. Trummel posted a number of negative comments and allegations about certain persons at his web site. He also apparently engaged in other, more traditional "harassment" (visiting the location, making statements, etc.). Those persons took exception and sued for "harassment." It is unclear if the lawsuit included claims for libel or slander. It is unclear if an evidentiary hearing was held. It is unclear if the judge ruled on whether the persons criticized were "public figures" (which under established U.S. Supreme Court rulings under the First Amendment, would change the rules for a libel suit). While there are statements that the judge ruled that certain of Mr. Trummel's defenses were not valid (apparently concluding that the first amendment defense did not apply), it is unclear whether the judge ever made a ruling as to whether Mr. Trummel was a "journalist" or if so, whether that was somehow relevant to the determination of the case.

I wish someone had the actual facts to present, rather than the bald assertion that the judge says the First Amendment only applies to journalists, which seems unlikely.

Where is the copy of the judge's order? Where is the copy of the lawsuit pleadings? These are all public records, and their absence (and the absence of any direct reference to the information needed to confirm the remarkable claims) make me quite suspicious and unwilling to leap to the support of this fellow.

If there was never any evidence submitted or considered, or if the judge ruled that publication of truthful statements, or expressions of opinion, could be enjoined without violating the first amendment, I would be glad to jump in and support the poor jailed fellow.

Don't misinterpret this: I have a web site where I often post strong opinions, mixed with statements of fact, which annoy certain people. I have a degree in journalism and worked full-time as a reporter and editor for a number of years. My current site does not accept advertising, and does not charge subscription fees. So, in many ways, I am in the situation described as applying to Mr. Trummel, and the claims in the Slashdot piece and the Seattle Times article do concern me -- but I need more facts before I will believe that there really is an affront to the First Amendment.

Finally: Comparisons to the "shield law" case of Vanessa Leggett (in Texas) are not applicable. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no protection under the First Amendment to absolutely protect reporters from having to turn over their notes to prosecutors or defense attorneys under subpoena, certainly when there is a bone fide claim that the notes are substantially likely to contain information that might exonerate the defendant. To "cure" this defect, many states have enacted "shield laws" which create such a privilege (not a right) for journalists. The statutes do not extend this privelege to everyone who might gather information and who might wish to express it -- the legislatures have chosen to narrowly define the class of protected persons, usually requiring a direct association or assignment from an established news organization. While courts may rule that the First Amendment requires that any such law not discriminate between different types of journalists (and thus that the privilege should extend to "true crime book" writers like Ms. Vanessa Leggett, or to a person who maintains a not-for-profit web site), this would not mean that the First Amendment creates the "shield privilege," and a legislature could elect to repeal the statute and require all journalists to turn over their notes under specific circumstances.

Let's get the facts first, and use them in reaching our conclusion -- it sounds like several folks have done the reverse: they want to believe that any jailing of any "expressive person" (writer or artist) is invalid.

The Seattle Weekly has the story here.

• Is Paul Trummel a crusading journalist or the neighbor from hell?
• News Clips-- Judicial copyediting
• Judge jails writer for contempt of court.
• Trummel still jailed

• Is Paul Trummel a crusading journalist or the neighbor from hell?
• News Clips-- Judicial copyediting
• Judge jails writer for contempt of court.
• Trummel still jailed

• Is Paul Trummel a crusading journalist or the neighbor from hell?
• News Clips-- Judicial copyediting
• Judge jails writer for contempt of court.
• Trummel still jailed

• Is Paul Trummel a crusading journalist or the neighbor from hell?
• News Clips-- Judicial copyediting
• Judge jails writer for contempt of court.
• Trummel still jailed

Another news source. (From March, so not the absolute latest on the case)

I started a thread on MacNN about the fact that any cocoa application can read a new Macintosh's unique serial number. I even wrote a sample program that accesses and displays it.

I thought that others might be as concerned as I was. Instead, someone confirmed that, yes-- the Mac's GUID is globally accessible, yes-- it's on the motherboard... but no need to worry because "As much as you feel that the serial number can be abused it won't. No vendor has shown any indication that they will use unique IDs in their programs and all we can do is hope that they won't."

Uh yeah right. Except for Windows 98, RealNetworks, Word for Mac, etc.

Why is that Intel's GUID problems were such a big deal and this barely gets a shrug?

W

"The moon was ours once... now every time I step outside at night and look up I see another example of failure."

Perhaps the failure is your own for not seeing that the moon has the same poetic beauty it has always had. Looking at the moon as another object of ownership is the exact point of contention with the privatization of space. Coca Cola has wanted to put an advertisement the size of the moon in space. That would be the day that I would officially become a criminal...

LS

Wow. That's pretty impressive. Especially when at the beginning of this year, I took a ride on a recumbent bike with a microjet on the back, and didn't get nearly that fast.

Yah, some bike freaks in North Seattle put a real engineer-designed jet engine onto one of their bikes as a marketing stunt, and I was stupid enough to take it for a ride on city streets. But I only got up to about 45mph with a jet engine, fercrissakes! (Of course, I weigh ~275#, and the turbine had an output of under 20ft/lbs at 150,000rpm...)

Jon

Notice that no mention is made of Microsoft's "Black Ops" division (often referred to as "R&D"), whose current research documents include "Mind Control using pre-packaged Windows Sound Schemes" and "The Manchurian Candidate and You: What it All Means."

You forgot about their black ops attempts to pay for ownership of intelligent children with stock options.

Disclaimer for those who don't get the above article: just to be entirely clear so as to distinguish my usual complaints about Microsoft from the above joke, the linked article above is a joke and is not a real complaint.

The most classified program at Microsoft isn't an operating system. It isn't a Web browser. It's a 9-year-old boy named Rupert.

Matt

Yes, this is off the initial topic, but the arbitration that is currently ocurring is, quite frankly, ominous and disturbing.

While the wheels of the tort law machine are fuxx0red, arbitration is not much better.

If you had a problem with your employer, say Wal-Mart not approving your compensation for on the job injuries, you could be forced, depending on contract, to use an arbitrator that hears several hundred cases a year for your erstwhile employer. Or is from the state of the company, or.... The result of this is that the lawsuits still occur--only the lawsuit attempts to get the arbitration agreement overturned. Once that happens, then a second lawsuit must be brought in order to receive redress from the company for whatever offence they may have committed.

So instead of one trip to the lawyer's, you either have a) Trip to the arbitrator (a lawyer) or b) 2 trips to the lawyer--one to overturn the arbitration agreement, and if successful, another to bring a lawsuit against the company in question. And this hurts the financial prospects of lawyers how? And is supposed to eliminate lawsuits? Heh. good one.

Not to mention the fact that one of the parties has much more power than the other and can contractually guarantee a friendly venue and the other party can't. This, in no uncertain terms, sucks.

KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

Just something I figured you folks might want, even though it's probably more redundant than the term "backup tape drive". fmoody@seattleweekly.com Happy flaming. codespace

After a bit of searching I found his e-mail address fmoody@seattleweekly.com, or you can go the the ABC mailer page at http://abcnews.go.com /sections/tech/FredMoody/mail_moody.html.

Last time he got a story on Slashdot, his email was posted as fmoody@seattleweekly.com. Dont know if this is still valid.

Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is

According to one of their reporters, the influential Seattle Weekly, one of our free weeklies that all the politicos and arts crowd reads, is doing stories on the DCMA and also on MSFT suing Slashdot.

They say that they can't get any of the Slashdot staffers to comment on it, though.

I just so love dropping nuclear bombs in Bill G's lap - the expression is priceless and you can hear the screams all the way across Lake Washington ...

Looks like it's on cNet, according to this story here.

Anyone seen it on CNN in Tech, or NY Times, or Washington Post yet? How about Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer or Seattle Weekly or The Stranger?

I just ran a Google search on "Mattel lawsuit." Jeezis Moe! They sued the sorehands.com guy. They sent a nastygram to a guy with a Barbie joke on his site (which he didn't even write). They sued over cphack. They sued Seal Press over the Adios, Barbie book. And this is just on the first page of search results! Didn't they also go after Aqua over the Barbie Girl song (yes, the song sucks, but that's neither here nor there)?

Methinks Mattel's legal staff has way too much free time.

The Seattle Weekly recently published an article about Seal Press' battle with Mattel.

Seal published a women's-studies anthology called Goodbye Barbie that featured several Mattel-trademarked items on the cover. Including Barbie's own, special shade of pink.

Yes, Mattel owns a color. Does the sun pay trademark duties? Was there no prior art?

This case was also settled out-of-court, with Seal Press agreeing to change the title and cover art.

Don't fsck with Barbie, man.

P.S.-- the Weekly cover featured a drawing of Barbie clubbing a harp seal. Wonder if they'll be receiving a li'l note from Mattel?

The Seattle Weekly recently published an article about Seal Press' battle with Mattel.

Seal published a women's-studies anthology called Goodbye Barbie that featured several Mattel-trademarked items on the cover. Including Barbie's own, special shade of pink.

Yes, Mattel owns a color. Does the sun pay trademark duties? Was there no prior art?

This case was also settled out-of-court, with Seal Press agreeing to change the title and cover art.

Don't fsck with Barbie, man.

P.S.-- the Weekly cover featured a drawing of Barbie clubbing a harp seal. Wonder if they'll be receiving a li'l note from Mattel?

Pretty sad, replying to my own post...

Anyway check this out and tell me if this doesn't seem oddly prescient...