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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Why Your e-Books Are No Longer Yours
* The Wrath of the Apple Tribe
* The P.G. Wodehouse Method of Refactoring
* White House Says Hard Drives Were Destroyed
* ISPs Losing Interest In Citywide Wireless Coverage
* Quantum Computing Not an Imminent Threat To Public Encryption
* Australian WiMax Pioneer Calls It a Disaster
* Astronomers Find Oldest Known Asteroids
* Calculating the Date of Easter
* University of Penn. Recommends Against Vista SP1
* Network Solutions Suspends Site of Anti-Islam Film
* Does IE8 Really Pass Acid2? [Updated]
* IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Why Your e-Books Are No Longer Yours |
| from the i-am-not-a-lawyer-but-they-are-or-at-least-will-be dept.|
| posted by kdawson on Saturday March 22, @21:47 (Books) |
|
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/22/2150244
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Predictions Market sends us to Gizmodo for an interesting take on the
question: when you "buy" "content" for Amazon's Kindle or the Sony
Reader, are you buying a [1]crippled license to intellectual property
when you download, or are you buying a book? If the latter, then the
first sale doctrine, which lets you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers
on eBay, would apply. Some law students at Columbia took a swing at the
question and Gizmodo reprints the "surprisingly readable" legal summary.
Short answer: those restrictive licenses may very well be legal, and even
if you had rights under the first sale doctrine, you might only be able
to resell or give away your Kindle ��� not a copy of the work.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/22/2150244
Links:
0. http://thepredictionsmarket.com/
1. http://gizmodo.com/369235/amazon-kindle-and-sony-reader-locked-up-why-your-books-are-no-longer-yours
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Wrath of the Apple Tribe |
| from the blame-it-on-eve dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @00:38 (It's funny. Laugh.|
|
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/0151225
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Narrative Fallacy writes "If you've ever [1]written about Apple
products with even a hint of negativity, you'll appreciate Salon's
excerpt from Farhad Manjoo's True Enough, about why the Apple tribe is so
rabid. 'There are many tribes in the tech world: TiVo lovers, Blackberry
addicts, Palm Treo fanatics, and people who exhibit unhealthy affection
for their Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners,' writes Manjoo. 'But there is
no bigger tribe, and none more zealous, than fans of Apple, who are
infamous for their sensitivity to slams, real or imagined, against the
beloved company.' Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg has even
coined a name for the phenomenon ��� the 'Doctrine of Insufficient
Adulation.' 'If I see the world as all black and you see the world as all
white and some person comes along and says it's partially black and
partially white, we both are going to be unhappy,' says psychologist Lee
Ross at Stanford University. 'You think there are more facts and better
facts on your side than on the other side. The very act of giving them
equal weight seems like bias. Like inappropriate evenhandedness.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/0151225
Links:
0. http://narrativefallacy.com/
1. http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/18/true_enough_excerpt_2/index.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The P.G. Wodehouse Method of Refactoring |
| from the on-the-wall dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @04:02 (Programming) |
|
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/22/2330226
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
covertbadger notes a developer's blog entry on a [0]novel way of judging
progress in refactoring code. "Software quality tools can never
completely replace the gut instinct of a developer ��� you might have
massive test coverage, but that won't help with subjective measures such
as code smells. With Wodehouse-style refactoring, we can now easily keep
track of which code we are happy with, and which code we remain deeply
suspicious of."
Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/22/2330226
Links:
0. http://basildoncoder.com/blog/2008/03/21/the-pg-wodehouse-method-of-refactoring/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| White House Says Hard Drives Were Destroyed |
| from the just-in-case dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @07:58 (Republicans) |
|
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/0053215
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
wanderindiana brings us an update on the White House missing emails mess,
which we have [0]discussed [1]before. It seems the hard drives of many
White House computers are [2]gone beyond the possibility of recovery. Is
it unusual in your experience for, say, a corporate IT department to
destroy hard drives by policy? "Older White House computer hard drives
have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday
in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to
2005. The White House revealed new information about how it handles its
computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be
fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed."
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/0053215
Links:
0. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/14/2335219&tid=266
1. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/08/2022244&tid=266
2. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hKKWSY_43nHexg55YcW2X9YXNayAD8VI4D680
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ISPs Losing Interest In Citywide Wireless Coverage |
| from the too-busy-monitoring-traffic dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 23, @09:14 (Wireless Networki|
|
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1213255
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The New York Times is running a story about how hope is fading for the
[0]implementation of municipal wireless access in cities across the US.
Major cities and small towns alike are finding that ISPs are withdrawing
from such plans due to the low profitability of ventures that are similar
to Philadelphia's incomplete network. We've previously discussed
[1]Chicago's and [2]San Francisco's wireless status, and also some of the
[3]stumbling blocks other cities have faced. From the Times: "In Tempe,
Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have
found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their
losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity.
EarthLink announced on Feb. 7 that 'the operations of the municipal Wi-Fi
assets were no longer consistent with the company's strategic direction.'
Philadelphia officials say they are not sure when or if the promised
network will now be completed."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1213255
Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology
1. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/29/1325209&tid=193
2. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/24/1328215&tid=193
3. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/22/2010213&tid=193
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Quantum Computing Not an Imminent Threat To Public Encryption |
| from the in-search-of-schrodinger's-catastrophe dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 23, @10:35 (Encryption) |
|
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1338216
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bruce Schneier's latest blog entry points out an interesting analysis of
[0]how quantum computing will affect public encryption. The author takes
a look at some of the mathematics involved with using a quantum computer
to run a factoring algorithm, and makes some reasonable assumptions about
the [1]technological constraints faced by the developers of the
technology. He concludes that while quantum computing could be a threat
to modern encryption, it is not the [2]dire emergency some researchers
suggest.
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1338216
Links:
0. http://www.emergentchaos.com/archives/2008/03/quantum_progress.html
1. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/19/0318229&tid=231
2. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/1720251&tid=172
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Australian WiMax Pioneer Calls It a Disaster |
| from the evolution-of-the-tubes dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 23, @11:53 (Wireless Networki|
|
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1512220
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Anonymous Coward writes "Garth Freeman, CEO of Australia's first WiMax
operator, sat down at the recent International WiMax Conference in
Bangkok and unleashed a tirade about [0]the failings of the technology,
leaving an otherwise pro-WiMax audience stunned. His company, Buzz
Broadband, had deployed a WiMax network over a year ago, and Freeman left
no doubt about what conclusions he had drawn. He claimed that 'its
non-line of sight performance was "non-existent" beyond just 2 kilometres
from the base station, indoor performance decayed at just 400m and that
latency rates reached as high as 1000 milliseconds. Poor latency and
jitter made it unacceptable for many Internet applications and
specifically VoIP, which Buzz has employed as the main selling point to
induce people to shed their use of incumbent services.' We've previously
discussed the [1]beginnings of WiMax as well as recent plans for a
[2]massive network in India.
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1512220
Links:
0. http://www.commsday.com/node/228
1. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/26/064200&tid=193
2. http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/26/158236&tid=193
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Astronomers Find Oldest Known Asteroids |
| from the peaceful-and-benevolent-doomrocks dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 23, @13:11 (Space) |
|
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1610239
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Researchers from the University of Maryland have recently discovered
three asteroids that appear to be [0]roughly 4.55 billion years old,
dating back to the formation of the Solar System. The scientists say that
the asteroids have survived relatively unchanged since that time, and
make good candidates for future [1]space [2]missions. "'The fall of the
Allende meteorite in 1969 initiated a revolution in the study of the
early Solar System,' said Tim McCoy, curator of the national meteorite
collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. 'I
find it amazing that it took us nearly 40 years to collect spectra of
these [CAI-rich] objects and that those spectra would now initiate
another revolution, pointing us to the asteroids that record this
earliest stage in the history of our Solar System.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1610239
Links:
0. http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1618
1. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/16/1456222&tid=160
2. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/22/1624209&tid=160
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Calculating the Date of Easter |
| from the computus-giganticus dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @14:31 (Math) |
|
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/177241
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The God Plays Dice blog has an entertaining post on [0]how the date of
Easter is calculated. Wikipedia has [1]all the messy details of course,
but the blog makes a good introduction to the topic. "Easter is the date
of the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21...
[T]he cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The
cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian
calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to
the epact, each of which depend[s] only on the century; one repeats
(modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every
375 centuries, so the [p]air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days
of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's
a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common
multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000 [years]."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/177241
Links:
0. http://godplaysdice.blogspot.com/2008/03/easters-early-this-year-deal-with-it.html
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| University of Penn. Recommends Against Vista SP1 |
| from the windows-me-plus-seven dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @15:49 (Windows) |
|
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/181210
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
At least one university liberal enough to accept the [0]deeply flawed and
mostly rejected Vista OS is [1]recommending faculty and students stay
away from SP1. "University of Pennsylvania tech staffers are advising
faculty and students not to upgrade their computers to the new service
pack for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. The school's
Information Systems & Computing department said it will support Vista SP1
on new systems where it's pre-installed, but added that it 'strongly
recommends that all other users adopt a "wait and see" attitude,'
according to a newly published department bulletin." And CIO magazine
doesn't quite go so far as to call on Microsoft to [2]throw away Vista,
but it does ask its readers to weigh in on that topic.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/181210
Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/177855
1. http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206905083&subSection=All+Stories
2. http://advice.cio.com/laurianne_mclaughlin/should_microsoft_throw_away_vista
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Network Solutions Suspends Site of Anti-Islam Film |
| from the pre-emptive-suppression dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @17:11 (Censorship) |
|
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1914238
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]h4rm0ny notes the [1]furor over an anti-Islamic movie due to be
released on the Web in the next week. After [2]Pakistan disrupted YouTube
worldwide over an interview with right-wing Dutch MP and filmmaker Geert
Wilders, Network Solutions, acting as host as well as registrar, has
suspended Wilders's site promoting the 15-minute film "Fitna" (a Koranic
term translated as "strife"). The [3]site now displays a notice that it
is under investigation for possible violations of NetSol's acceptable use
policy. According to the article the company's guidelines include "a
sweeping prohibition against 'objectionable material of any kind or
nature.'" The article describes the site's content before NetSol pulled
the plug as a single page with the film's title, an image of the Koran,
and the words "Coming Soon." No one but Wilders has seen the film to
date. The Dutch government has distanced itself from the film, fearing
Muslim backlash. A million Muslims live in The Netherlands. Wilders's
party, which controls 9 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, was elected
on an anti-immigration platform.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1914238
Links:
0. mailto:h4rm0ny@tarddell.net
1. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/23/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Quran-Film.php
2. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/25/1322252&tid=95
3. http://www.fitnathemovie.com/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Does IE8 Really Pass Acid2? [Updated] |
| from the two-green-eyes-please dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @18:31 (Internet Explorer) |
|
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1939256
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
thevirtualcat found some [0] inconsistencies in IE8's Acid2 results that
made him wonder what's going on. Can anyone replicate these results or,
better yet, explain them?
Update: 03/22 23:54 GMT by [1]KD : Several readers pointed out this has
to do with cross-site scripting prevention, as described [2]here.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/1939256
Links:
0. http://userpages.umbc.edu/~wedo1/ie8acid2/ie8.html
1. http://slashdot.org/~kdawson/
2. http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/why-isn-t-ie8-passing-acid2.aspx
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IT Workers Split For McCain, Obama |
| from the deadlock-condition dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday March 23, @19:49 (United States) |
|
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/2049202
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]antipeon alerts us to a presidential preference survey, done in late
February and early March, indicating that [1]Obama and McCain lead among
IT workers with 29% each. Clinton follows with 13%, just ahead of
Huckabee (11%) and Ron Paul (9%). The Computing Technology Industry
Association commissioned the poll, and the article notes that this trade
group claims the population of IT workers is four times as large as the
Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks it is ��� the better to make a voting
block whose views must be attended to.
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/03/23/2049202
Links:
0. mailto:hanness@siminn.is
1. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143730-c,currentevents/article.html
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