Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Facebook Un-Ban, Exploding Laptop, FFXI II
Kent State Facebook ban reversed. Corvaith writes "Just a few days after it was originally noted that Kent State University had banned athletes from posting on Facebook, the Kent Stater announced that the ban was reversed. From the article: 'The athletic department had previously expressed concern about athletes' personal information being available to the public, allowing for possible stalking situations. They were also concerned about athletes displaying inappropriate information on their profiles.' But, in the end, they 'had a change of heart after reviewing the privacy measures available on Facebook.' Athletes must now lock their profiles to friends only."
Exploding laptop old news to Dell? Anonymous writes "CRN is reporting that Dell had about a dozen reports of burned laptops before they announced last year's battery recall. The recall was launched in response to a exploding laptop caught on film at a Japanese conference. Dozens more cases popped up with apparently severe overheating, melted cases, etc., according to the report."
XM moves to dismiss RIAA suit. mikesd81 writes "Apparently, XM is asking a judge to dismiss a a copy right law suit brought by the recording industry. The law suit is over the ipod-like device that can store up to 50 hours of music. XM Satellite said the 1992 Home Recording Audio act protects it from being sued over its $400 handheld device. From the article: 'In a court filing, XM Satellite said the 1992 protections represent Congress' efforts to insure that the powerful recording industry would not be able to restrict the right of consumers to record songs that are broadcast over the radio or stifle innovation by chilling the development and use of the latest recording technologies.'"
J2EE death greatly exaggerated. Peter writes "A recent Burton Group report has stated that the Java Enterprise Edition platform is 'dying due to its complexity and lack of suitability for SOA.' Major vendors supporting JEE have responded with rebuttals, stating that the complexity has arisen due to customer needs and that it is well positioned for companies to build SOA solutions on."
Square's next MMOG not FFXI II. Despite some of the rumblings around the net, it appears that the next MMOG to come out of Square will not be a sequel to the popular FFXI. While Square may have shot down this rumor, the question still remains, what MMO are they working on?
I hope sincerely that XM gets it's suit dismissed. For one, it's a subscription service, I've already paid for it, why not be able to listen to songs I may have missed out on, even though I paid for that capability? Secondly, doesn't the RIAA also get a cut of XM's subscription revenue? Why the fuck should they be complaining? They're getting money. Oh, I forgot, this is the RIAA - greed is the motivating factor, here. They think they're not getting ENOUGH, even though they've already agreed to some contract signed with XM. Someone EMP the hell out of any facility affiliated with the RIAA and put them out of our misery forever, already.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Square's next MMOG not FFXI II.
Thank God. While I did play some of the MMOFF and enjoyed it this is not what Square does best. I hope they return to their roots and release a game with innovative game elements and a great story line. Oh, and for the love of God, NO DANCE SPHERES.
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Ironically enough, for the last few days Facebook.com would have been a good site to ban. One of their ad banners was loaded with a virus, and it took them quite a while to fix it. It was a trojan with a .wmf extension. Thankfully, my anti-virus caught it as Firefox attempted to auto-download it for some reason (I suspect FlashGot of being that reason).
and as such they have a responsibility not to embarass the program or school; if the average student posts trash talk about the arch-rival's star player on FB, it is no problem, if an athelete does it, it could blow up into an NCAA investigation, and worse, loads of bad publicity on Spotscenter.
when you choose to be an athelete and get your schooling comped for the trouble, you take the public persona that comes with it.
I can tell you this: I don't program in Java, but I do have to install and support it as part of my job, and I can't think of a more odd set of install criteria than the Java installers.
./file and cross your fingers. Sometimes it's /usr/java/bin/java, sometimes, it's /usr/bin/java, sometimes it's /usr/local/java, sometimes it's /usr/local/bin/java, sometimes it's /opt/SUNWappserver/java/bin/java. Who knows? Good thing all Unix and Linux distro's use exactly the same order in their $PATH and the same file structure and organization. Not to mention, you kind of have to trust that it installs libraries and whatever else in all the correct spots, and is familiar with every linux distro from RHEL to Bob's Discount Linux to create a bazillion symlinks.
/etc/alternatives/java -> /usr/bin/java -> /usr/local/java/bin/java etc). Oh, and some of the installers are command line and some are X windows required. And I've had trouble with the J2EE 1.4 installer claiming it was out of diskspace on a partition with 60 GB free, aside from all that.
.... google. There's a file somewhere called libjavaplugin_oji.so, but it could be anywhere. Then you've got to find your firefox or mozilla installation, which could also be anywhere depending on whether you're using the default install, whether the user has run updates, whether the version is a self-compiled version, and what linux distro you're using. Then you have to symlink the object into the plugins folder. What? Come on. You've got to be kidding. There's not a "Download this 4 meg file and stick it here" option? Nope, it relys on 1500 libraries. Oh, and every time you run a full update that also catches firefox, it's going to break (thanks yum). And when you need to update java? Good luck. Here's hoping there's a binary update that knows what it's doing.
For one, we use primarialy redhat-based linux installs for desktop and server, including Fedora, RHEL, and Centos. Sun Java, for reasons that I've never fully understood (something to do with the licensing, and it makes my brain hurt to figure it out) cannot be distributed with Linux distros. Or, that's what I thought, but then I heard that Mepis comes with java installed and working. See? Wierd already. But, at any rate, when you install a RH-based Linux install, you get the gnu java. Since I support University professors, most of them have been using Sun's java, and the GNU has (appearantly) enough querks that they don't like using it (same with the g77 fortran, but that's a different story).
So, at that point, you need to install Java. Which one? Nobody knows. People want to be able to use java plugins in their web browser (more on that in a sec), they want to be able to compile java, and they want to be able to run java apps in some sort of java environment. I think. But which one do you install? Java_jdk, Java_Jre, or Java_j2ee? Some of them include functionality replicated in the others, but there's no like clear-cut FAQ on the java website to tell you which (like, a simple four-column by X row table with the distros across the top and the expected functionality down the left side, and X's or O's, or green and red squares, to indicate which versions include which functionality). If you independantly read the descriptions, it's a LOT of buzzwords, and very short on substance.
Then, there's the "where does it install" question. They distribute as binaries, so you just kind of chmod u+x file;
Then, you've got to figure out which one to run. "which java" can yeild any one of 50 outputs, and that's if you don't let users set their own shells and rc scripts. Not to mention, you may end up chasing symlinks down for an hour to find the exact binary (/usr/java ->
Then, you have to get it so the plugins run in the web browser. How do you do this? Well, you
ON TOP OF THAT, on o
sig?
AH, Well it's good to see that at least someone in the shallow end of the gene pool is attempting the art of the critique.
Needs a tad more work though. I recommend going for four sylable words next time.
You could've stopped after the AdBlock comment. Flash animation is actually quite popular in its niche communities, and I'm certainly not uninstalling it, or fully disabling Java or JavaScript. I prevent JavaScript doing specific things (thanks Firefox), but small, useful Javascript widgets are just that: harmless.
This place is too paranoid...
It's the 3rd biggest university in Ohio with 34,491 students and its main campus is the 115th biggest campus in the nation. They have seven regional satellite campuses.
I think they're plenty big enough to have sports teams.
Just a few days after it was originally noted that Kent State University had banned athletes from posting on Facebook, the Kent Stater announced that the ban was reversed.
;)
Really? So now you lose your scholarship if you don't use Facebook? Or is it just really late and my mind is working way too literally?
--
This is a joke. I am joking. You have been joked with.
CRN is reporting that Dell had about a dozen reports of burned laptops before they announced last year's battery recall.
I'm not surprised, since there is a good chance that out of the thousands and thousands of laptops they sell, a couple bad batteries could be a fluke, and you need a bigger sample to see a trend... It's hard to fault them for this unless you make money off page impressions...
On the other hand, if this were an Apple story it would have made the front page as it's own story, and would be parroted across the web. Funny how that stuff goes.
So a company waited for problems to show up more than once before issuing a complete product recall. Why is this news? One or two could be a quirk, and "dozens," vague as it is, sounds about right.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I wanted to suggest everybody to stop using the term "GNU/Linux" and using "Linux"
I think everyone else is way ahead of you.
Is there another operating system for the Linux kernel?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ is the one you want; replaces flash content with a play button.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Dude: A new laptop built by my company is switched on and the battery overheats. The system fan fails. The laptop explodes and burns with the hard disk trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptops in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of explosions, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Lady switching off her laptop: Are there a lot of these kinds of explosions?
Dude: You wouldn't believe.
Shocked lady: Which computer company do you work for?
Dude: A major one.
I read a little bit about the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), and came up with the following relevant bits (from answers.com).
(1) It requires digital recorders to use the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), which prevents digital dubbing beyond one generation (section 1002(a))
(2) Imposes a "royalty" on digital recorders (section 1004(a))
I don't know what the SCMS is, but I suppose if XM can show that it implemented some sort of SCMS system (or if it can demonstrate that the device is not able to transfer recorded information to another device -- preventing "beyond one generation" digital dubbing) AND that it tried to pay a "royalty" for each recorder sold, then it would have a case.
But if XM just marketed the recorder without any regard for the required "royalty", then sadly, the RIAA will probably win. I hope that is not the case, otherwise it could prove fatal to XM's existence.
As an aside, I haven't stolen music in years. Apple's iTunes, my XM subscription, and other listen-before-you-buy, instant-gratification, digital distribution mediums have caused me to buy more music in the last year or two than in all the other prior years combined. Unfortunately, until consumers care enough to actually boycott the industry, the RIAA can do whatever it wants. This is a capitalist society after all, we DO have the power. Do we choose to use it?