07.07.13
Posted in Bill Gates at 2:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Action against Gates’ school ‘reform’ is taken by parents, educators, and community groups in Washington, Gates’ and Microsoft’s back yard
The Gates-based learning methodology of expelling based on arbitrary criteria (defined by Gates Foundation-funded ‘studies’) has gotten on the nerves of many teachers, as we showed before. They are getting better informed these days. Over in Seattle or Washington as a whole there are some blogs which protest Gates’ agenda.
“Over in Seattle or Washington as a whole there are some blogs which protest Gates’ agenda.”There is former Microsoft staff inside Washington’s local government, facilitating tax evasion by Microsoft and making other favours like building a bridge for the company at taxpayers' expense. Now they try to make Gates’ ideology the law, leading to lawsuits. According to this teachers’ blog, parents, educators, and various groups are using their government over this sellout. “Protesters in front of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle” says this post which has the details of the lawsuit.
Win this one for the sake of the whole country. By some indications, the UK is already in Gates' mind for expansion of education privatisation. █
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Posted in Africa, Bill Gates, Patents at 2:20 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Monsanto does to seeds what Microsoft did to computers (taxing them all)
Summary: The man who turned almost all computers into Microsoft (and NSA) property is trying to turn the world’s food supplies into property of American companies he invests in while lobbying politicians to legislate for his personal gain
The poor Gates Foundation just can’t catch a break these days. All these ‘pesky’ journalists — those whom Bill Gates has not bribed yet — are increasingly aware of what his profitable-but-tax-exempt foundation is up to. Here is an article criticising Gates for his Monsanto agenda. To quote some parts of the analysis:
Gates Foundation’s support of Monsanto reveals it has put ending hunger on the back burner
Last month, more than 2,000 people in Seattle joined protestors in more than 400 cities and 50 countries to collectively speak out against Monsanto, one of the world’s biggest agricultural biotechnology corporations, which specializes in genetically engineered (GE) seeds. But in a sense, those people were also protesting the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, since the world’s wealthiest nonprofit supports the biotech giant.
This is an unfortunate connection that perpetuates hunger around the globe.
From its beginning, Monsanto has been responsible for manufacturing and distributing highly toxic and carcinogenic products such as polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, and Agent Orange. In the 1940s Monsanto was one of 15 companies that produced the insecticide DDT, the use of which was criticized in Rachel Carson’s landmark environmental book “Silent Spring.” In 1972, U.S. officials banned the agricultural use of DDT.
Now, the company claims it has left chemical manufacturing behind and is exclusively focused on sustainable solutions to food production promoting the use of GE corn, soy, cotton and other crops. And this is where the Gates Foundation comes in: A financial donor to Monsanto, the Gates Foundation advocates for the use of GE foods to solve hunger in developing countries. However, history has shown that instead of eradicating hunger, GE seeds perpetuate food insecurity.
[...]
Industrial agriculture continues to fall short of feeding the world but provides tremendous financial gains to Monsanto’s shareholders. It’s a shame the Gates Foundation, which many consider a local leading light, can’t see this. Until Monsanto and the Gates Foundation realize that sustainable agriculture, not GE seeds, is the solution to feed the world, many people around the globe will remain hungry.
That’s correct, mainly because the goal of Gates is to control and to profit. It is not a charity and there are many strings attached. Bill Gates is appointing people in politics and running nations in Africa (by proxy), pretending to fight polio while in fact causing it with some of his investments [1, 2]. The goal is to control policy, with which Gates can profit as he already does (he gets richer over time, despite the fact that the corporate media paints him as a giver).
“When Gates spends an average of $1,000,000 day (or more) just buying the media, then it’s easy to be bamboozled.”Watch Gates playing politics not just in his home country, He keeps playing the game of politics while trying to get politicians to hand over taxpayers’ money to investments of the Gates Foundation.
Some gullible — but not necessarily foolish — people really believe Gates has changed, even though he is still working for the abusive monopolist Microsoft and publicly lobbying for Microsoft. “Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will deliver the keynote address at a Microsoft research event later this month, the first time he has done so in eight years, Microsoft said.” That’s from IDG. People who think that the main shareholder of Microsoft and the man behind the company’s crimes is somehow a saint now should simply consider themselves easily bamboozled. When Gates spends an average of $1,000,000 day (or more) just buying the media, then it’s easy to be bamboozled. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Hardware, Kernel, Patents at 8:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
UEFI comes with untold baggage
Summary: A word about the lesser known threats in UEFI, which has many patents tied to it (including pure software patents)
We very recently (the end of last week) wrote two posts tying together restricted boot and software patents as a threat [1, 2]. UEFI apologist Dr. Garrett says that “Intel-based systems often implement something called Intel Rapid Start Technology. Like many things with the word “Technology” in the name, there’s a large part of this that’s marketing.” (via) And patents, too. Another term often used is “innovation”, which is a euphemism for patent monopoly.
“Another term often used is “innovation”, which is a euphemism for patent monopoly.”One subject that came up in the conversation I had with UEFI Forum's president is patents. We spent quite a long time chatting about it (I had asked for permission to record but not to publish). Basically, he agreed that many patents were involved in UEFI and I reminded him that Intel lobbies for software patents, which makes Intel a foe of Free software at an ideological level. Based on the posts above, licensing is part of the deal with UEFI. In my hour (and beyond) long conversation I brought up Intel legal actions, patent acquisitions, patent thickets, etc. These are definitely worth discussing. They are the black elephant in the room. Never assume that because the patent holder is a FOSS-friendly company like Sun the patents would never be scooped by some troll like Intellectual Ventures or TMSoft, aggressors who deny being trolls. The former of those, Intellectual Ventures, is notorious for hoarding hardware patents, too, then extorting semiconductor makers, too (this firm got the patents from Torvalds' former employer, Transmeta, which also had Torvalds' patents).
Don’t ever forget how Oracle used Sun’s patents to fight against Linux. Here is the latest:
Oracle has filed its Reply [PDF] to Google’s Appeal and Cross-Appeal Brief. Google’s was in response to Oracle’s opening appeal brief, so now the 3-section symphony of appellate briefs is complete. Next will come oral argument, and then a decision from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
This case is nearly 3 years old now. It can go on for several more years. The SCO case is over a decade old and still going.
The bottom line is, patents related to UEFI are not benign and one day they can come to haunt us just like Java patents. This is yet another reason to cling onto BIOS legacy (old and expired patents) and not eschew another trap which has multiple dimensions of threat. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 7:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The ship keeps sinking, but it doesn’t broadcast Mayday signals
Summary: Microsoft gets some infiltrators ‘installed’ inside rivals while its own staff flees or gets fired
Microsoft is a shrinking company, but one area of apparent expansion is other companies like Nokia and competing ideologies like Open Source and software freedom. Very recently we saw Outercurve, a Microsoft proxy, snatching someone from Apache:
The Microsoft-founded Outercurve Foundation sets its sights on nurturing new open-source projects with the naming of Apache veteran Jim Jagielski as president.
This will help Microsoft confuse people, pretending that Microsoft is ‘open’. This proxy was “originally launched as the CodePlex Foundation before changing its name” (it had gained bad publicity, so nymshifted).
While Microsoft is trying to expand inside rivals (like a parasite inside a host) it is actually shrinking as a whole, with layoffs becoming routine. Microsoft has been good at hiding the layoffs, using techniques which we covered here in prior years. Microroft’s AstroTurfing division suffered the greatest wrath of Microsoft choppers back in February 2012, even though the chopping got executed later in Seattle in particular. That was the last highly publicised round of layoffs. The PR agencies, unaccountable entities like Waggener Edstrom, can do the illegal AstroTurfing more effectively via proxies. Here is the last publicised round of layoffs, which was far from the last. One just needs to dig a little deeper.
Back in December, just 4 months or so later, Microsoft laid off people. This was being spun as “Microsoft moving 39 area jobs” (mostly hiding it by hiring temporary staff and outsourcing, based on prior observations of face-saving moves). Just a couple of months later Microsoft laid off some more people. Now that we expect some announcement of so-called 'reorgs' — and oddly enough those changes (reorgs), scheduled for July 1st, have not happened yet, based on Microsoft PR (Mary Jo Foley), except the Xbox chief leaving (shortly after the CIO) — we should probably expect some layoffs too. Microsoft will do the best it can to hide these, but some reports already suggest layoffs are on the table. There are financial difficulties [1, 2].
It is worth noting that somehow we missed further Microsoft layoffs, going back to 2011. Where was the corporate press? No coverage. Here are the details:
According to a report by Edge Online, 42 jobs are being cut at the Twycross headquarters with those affected invited to apply to 23 roles a the new Birmingham facility. 19 is the maximum number of redundancies allowed under EU law without the need for consultation.
Here is more on that:
A number of staff at UK studio Lionhead have his afternoon been told that their jobs are in danger.
It is hoped that at least some of those affected will be found new roles within the wider Microsoft Studios network. The exact number of staff affected remains unknown.
“Following the completion of Fable: The Journey, Lionhead Studios has begun work on its next projects,” a statement released to MCV explains. “As is common in the games industry, a smaller headcount is needed as projects kick-off and ramp up as full-production gets underway.
The pattern is, Microsoft tries to do it very quietly, leaving us dependent on niche sites. Look between the sheets and read between the lines when Microsoft announces so-called ‘reorgs’ very soon. There are many ways to distract from layoffs, e.g. by overwhelming journalists with noise and irrelevant changes, mostly marketing hype. Ask not what Microsoft is telling; ask what Microsoft is not telling or avoids talking about. █
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Posted in IRC Logs at 3:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
IRC Proceedings: June 30th, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 1st, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 2nd, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 3rd, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 4th, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 5th, 2013
IRC Proceedings: July 6th, 2013
Enter the IRC channels now
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