Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Membership, Quarkiness, Audioggogy
A tornado's worth of spin control. telstar writes "The Code Report is reporting that last week's story from the New York Times concerning the death of Hailstorm was not entirely accurate. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that Microsoft is shifting from a model in which MSN was the sole operator to a model where the operation of these services is available to multiple operators."
Onan Meets Midas. daoine writes: "Reversing the outcome of an earlier argument, boston.com is reporting that MGM and New Line Cinema have reached an agreement that permits New Line to continue with the Goldmember name. It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM."
Does dishes, saves gas, freshens your breath, cleans your pets ... Apparently, Gentoo Linux is contagious. JigSaw writes: "OSNews features an interesting review of Gentoo Linux 1.0 and they call it 'the fastest loading, fastest-operating Linux distribution to date.' Gentoo may be the fastest Linux for a workstation today, but according to the review, it still has some problems, most notably, annoying bugs. However, it still manages to score a glowing 8.2 out of 10 overall."
Reader sckevyn also points to the Gentoo PowerPC page for those equipped different.
First steps always seem small. camusflage writes "Yahoo has a story from ZDNet about TheKompany's recent release of tkcPlayer for the Zaurus, which is being billed as the first portable Ogg Vorbis player. A player for a format not many people are using on a platform even fewer people are using. Admirable, but not likely to be a commercial success."
Honey, your quark is showing. ngrier writes "As a quick follow-up to the story posted here a few days ago regarding the potential quark star, the NASA APOD today is a picture of the aforementioned star."
this fine tax-day evening (you did remember, right?)
Oh shit...
That's: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020414.html.
Eh, even if you forgot it's tax day, you can at least file for an extension which will buy you some more time. So all is not lost.
"It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM."
Since when do they need permission to use a parodized name? I thought that parody law not only allowed one to use a similar name ('Goldmember' is not THAT similar...), but also their original artwork could be closely mimicked.
Anybody remember reading about that guy who put up an 'aolsucks.com' site? AOL attempted to sue him because he used their artwork to parodize him. His lawyer said he was well within his rights because it was a pardoy/criticism of the company.
Question: Wouldn't the same logic be applied as it was for this guy, or is there a variable I'm not considering?
"Derp de derp."
MGM pulled the same shenanigans with The Spy Who Shagged Me. Threaten to sue (even though you'd almost certainly lose under parody protection), and force some trailers to be shown before the film.
Yawn, I hope they put all of that in the agreement this time, so we don't have to hear about it in future installments.
They're moving to a federated model, meaning MS will not be the only one providing the services.
Nothing to add - the original article was just wrong.
HOMER: Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!
LISA: You have to do your taxes every year, dad.
Homer: Ahh! Marge! How many kids do we have? Oh, no time to count, I'll just estimate! Uh...nine!
Marge: Homer, you know we don't h--
Homer: Shut up, shut up! If I don't hear you it's not illegal! OK, I need some deductions, deductions... ah!! Business gifts!
[Homer grabs the boat painting from above the couch and hands it to Marge.]
Here you go, keep using nuclear power!
Marge: Homer! I painted that for you!
Homer: OK, Marge, if anyone asks, you require twenty four hour nursing care, Lisa's a clergyman, Maggie is seven people, and Bart was wounded in Vietnam!
Bart: Cool!
From the article:
.net technologies with the many varied devices out there, we will introduce subtle incompatibilities into the .net product line so that competing companies' products will break or function less efficiently.
.doc's), they will then be forced to dump their for the competing MS one. This is how we will leverage our way out from just making the servers to trying to make every single device you use a Microsoft one."
"Don't confuse an expansion of the operator strategy with any kind of de-commitment from the idea of user-centric web services that help create a more personalized, more consistent experience across the different technologies in an individual's life."
Let me paraphrase the MicroSpeak:
"We are still committed to the idea of controlling all aspects of people's lives beyond the PC. Once we get widespread adoption of
Since users have already committed too much time and effort (much like word
If I am wrong, I will eat my shoes.
This has been fixed today. It was apparently a problem with the portage database. Re-run "emerge rsync" and your problem should be solved.
sm
I actually saw the video press release go out on NASA TV last week (woohoo, I get to watch NASA TV at work). They did a fade FROM that picture to another one done in the X-ray spectrum (Chandra) where that virtually invisible star turned into a shining beacon of quark.
One simple rule for its versus it's
A note that I think should have gotten into today's Slashback -- the New Scientist is reporting that the IEEE has rescinded its decision to make all paper submitters agree not to violate the DMCA in their articles, amid a storm of protest.
"The plan is to remove the reference to the DCMA," says Bill Hagen, intellectual property rights manager for the IEEE. "It's controversial to say the least. We've been getting a lot of correspondence, comment and opinion and have been forced to reconsider it."
This is even better than preserving the status quo, because in this case the hooplah got the problems of the DMCA out in front of the IEEE membership, which is very large and includes some extremely influential people. Score one for the good guys.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
Another case of over eager media looking to see the worst in tech companies. Or maybe just the worst in Microsoft.
.NET with it. Hailstorm was .NET's flag-ship product. Saying "Hailstorm is alive and well" is nothing but a damage control spin.
Nope, Hailstorm is dead dead dead. A key feature of Hailstorm was that Microsoft wants to be the "gatekeeper" of the internet. In order collect a toll requires a monopoly. People are NOT going to pay at a toll booth when there's a free street to the same place.
The "new and improved" version of hailstorm is nothing but a glorified version of a standard username/password database. I doubt many companies are going to buy the software, and even if they do the proffits of selling the software are nothing compared to OWNING the identity of everyone on the net and selling the service.
The "new and improved" hailstorm is a desperate attempt to keep a colossal failure from sinking
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
MGM was negotiating to place an ad for the upcoming Bond adventure "Die Another Day" before the "Austin Powers" film
:)
That really sums up the value of MGM's case against Goldmember. If they genuinely felt that the name tarnished their James Bond property then why the hell would they want to use it to advertize a Bond film?!
It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM.
Ok, maybe I'm having delusions that lawyers are actually rational human beings, but you *could* read that to mean MGM realized it was a frivolous lawsuit and to avoid a countersuit they stipulated they would approve any and all satirical names in the future.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.