Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 16/5/2012: 125,000 GNU/Linux Machines for Pakistani Students, Android 4.0 Rollouts





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers

  • Pixar's Toy Story 2 was Nearly Lost because of a Linux Command
    In 'The Movie Vanishes' short animation film by Pixar, Oren Jacob and Galyn Susman tell how a big part of Toy Story 2 was almost deleted because of an accidental Linux command 'rm' and poor backup system.


  • Health/Nutrition



  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Virginia Firm Sells Gun Targets Resembling Trayvon Martin
      An online gun retailer has been criticized for promoting an advertisement for shooting targets that resemble 17-year old shooting victim Trayvon Martin. The target depicted a hooded figure holding skittles and tea with crosshairs on his chest. Martin was reportedly holding skittles and tea when he was shot dead -- in the chest -- by George Zimmerman in Florida in February 2012. The horrific shooting of the unarmed youth led to a national conversation about the NRA-crafted Stand Your Ground/Shoot to Kill law and the role the American Legislative Exchange Council played in spreading the Florida law across the nation.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance

    • LISTEN: Occupy Wall Street Gets an Album and Everyone Is On It


    • Gupta seeks calls thrown out of U.S. insider trial
      NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta, the most prominent corporate figure indicted in a U.S. crackdown on insider trading, has asked a judge to throw out more than two dozen phone conversations that the government has sought to present as evidence at his trial.


    • Goldman Traders Tried to Manipulate Derivatives Market in '07, Report Says
      Company documents show traders led by Michael J. Swenson sought to encourage a “short squeeze” by putting artificially low prices on derivatives that would gain in value as mortgage securities fell, according to the report yesterday by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The idea, abandoned after market conditions worsened, was to drive holders of such credit-default swaps to sell and help Goldman Sachs traders buy at reduced prices, according to the report.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • CMD Special Report: New Documents Confirm Koch Was on ALEC Crime Task Force Led by NRA
      ALEC announced it was dropping that task force in the wake of the controversy over the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin and so-called “Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws. However, the co-leader of that task force, Rep. Jerry Madden (R-TX), revealed ALEC's announcement to be a PR maneuver when he reassured The Christian Post that his task force's work would continue through other ALEC task forces.




  • Censorship



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • US Supremes hammer final nail into Psystar coffin
        The long and sordid Psystar saga creaked to its anti-climactic close on Monday: the US Supreme Court has refused to hear the hackintosher's request to review an appeals court's September 2011 decision not to overturn a December 2009 permanent injunction preventing the Florida company from selling Mac OS X–based clones.


      • Music labels force pioneering MP3tunes into bankruptcy
        MP3tunes, a music locker service that has spent years locked in litigation with major record labels, announced last week that it was closing up shop. The startup scored a partial victory in court last year, helping to establish the legality of cloud music services in the process. But founder Michael Robertson says that "four and a half years of legal torment" forced his company to file for bankruptcy on April 27.


      • Who Needs SOPA When Courts Will Pretend SOPA Already Exists?
        Back in November, we wrote about one of a series of cases we had seen where trademark holders were going to court with a list of domain names that they insisted were selling counterfeit goods and getting the courts to issue injunctions that appeared to be quite similar to what SOPA would have allowed had it passed. That is, basically upon request, a trademark holder was able to get domain registrars to kill domain names, while forcing search engines and social networks to put in place blockades barring such sites from being listed. It appears that more trademark holders are taking notice. Jeff Roberts has the story of (regular IP extremist) Louis Vuitton trying the same thing.


      • IP-Address Can’t Even Identify a State, BitTorrent Judge Rules
        The mass-BitTorrent lawsuits that are sweeping the United States are in a heap of trouble. After a Florida judge ruled that an IP-address is not a person, a Californian colleague has gone even further in protecting the First Amendment rights of BitTorrent users. The judge in question points out that geolocation tools are far from accurate and that it’s therefore uncertain that his court has jurisdiction over cases involving alleged BitTorrent pirates. As a result, 15 of these mass-BitTorrent lawsuits were dismissed.


      • MCA, the DMCA, and stifled collaboration
        Earlier this month, the world lost a music pioneer when Adam Yauch, a.k.a “MCA” of the Beastie Boys, succumbed to cancer at the age of 47. A founding member of the Beastie Boys, Yauch expanded upon his success in the music industry to exert his considerable influence and contributions outside music. He had a strong interest in film, which resulted in him directing several of the Boys’ music videos and in 2008 led to him founding Oscilloscope Studios, which produces and promotes independent films. In the 1990s, Yauch adopted Buddhism and began getting involved socially and politically in a variety of charities and activism.


      • ACTA









Recent Techrights' Posts

Deja vu: Hitler's Birthday, Andreas Tille elected Debian Project Leader again
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Microsoft's 'Lawsuit Diplomacy' (SLAPPs Riding UK Libel Law and Piggybacking UK GDPR, Inapplicable!) Will Only Give a Worse Image to Microsofters (and Microsoft), Give Exposure to Even More Suppressed Facts and Scandals
Microsoft came to dominate some sectors because of (or owing to) crimes; Microsoft won't just go away without some more crimes.
Five (or Three) Years Without Social Control Media
Glyn Moody quit X (Twitter)
Why GNU/Linux is Growing
There's growing interest in GNU/Linux right now because people do not fancy buying a new PC just to 'upgrade' (more spying) Windows
 
Links 20/04/2025: Partly Assorted Scientific and Political Leftovers
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Links 20/04/2025: Many Data Breaches and Growing Censorship Wave
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Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Canadian Elections and "Use the Best Tools You Have for the Current Environment"
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Links 20/04/2025: Bleeding Constitution and ChatGPT Infuriates Users Some More
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Chinese OEMs (and World's Largest) Pave a Path Out of Microsoft Windows
So Microsoft now values (or prices) Vista 11 at just $140?
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Contradictions of Mark Carney and Blog Questions Challenge
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 19, 2025
Electronics in People's Bedrooms
Modern technology not only blurred the gap between "functions" of rooms
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Contingencies, GTD, and Old Computers
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Links 19/04/2025: Economic Races, Charm Offensives, and USB-C Rants
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Links 19/04/2025: "Infantilization at Big Tech" and LLM Slop Abused in Defiance of Workplace Rules/Policies
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Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Palm Addiction and Real Experts
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Egypt is Controlled by Google, Not Microsoft
Moving from Microsoft to Google is not the answer
Microsofters Say They Cannot Find a Job (That They Want) Because of Techrights, But Techrights Merely Reported on Their Behaviour
Quit pointing the finger at people who are recipients of abuse or merely mention the abuse
Free Software and Standards - Not Marketing Blitz - Needed Amid Growing Severity of Dependency on Hostile Suppliers (or Another Country's Sovereignty)
ZenDiS can be described as the "Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration"
When It Comes to the Web, Google is Evil and It Destroys the Web's Integrity With LLM Slop
Even academia, which is meant to keep standards high, is being lured into LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 18, 2025
Links 18/04/2025: "Fentanylware (TikTok) Exodus Continues", Chinese Weapons Allegedly in Russia Already
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Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Price of Games and State of Tinylog
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Sounds Like IBM is Preparing for Mass Layoffs/Redundancies in Red Hat, Albeit in "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan) or "Relocation" Clothing
This isn't the "old" IBM; they're applying pressure by confusion and humiliation
Gemini Links 17/04/2025: Role of Language and Back to Mutt for E-mail
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"Sayonara" (さよなら), Microsoft
Windows had fallen below iOS in some countries
Links 18/04/2025: Layoffs at Microsoft Infosys and Qt Becoming Increasingly Proprietary (Plus Slop)
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Google News is Dying
treating MElon's algorithmic/biased site as a source of verified news
Microsoft's Attack Dogs Have Failed. Now What?
It would be utterly foolish to assume that Microsoft has any intention of changing
All Your "Github Projects" Will be Gone One Day (Just Like Skype)
If you have code you wish to share and keep, then start learning how to do so on your own
To Understand Who's Truly Controlling You Follow the Trail of Censorship (or Self-Censorship)
Do not let media steal and steer the narrative; CoCs are not about "social justice", they're about corporate domination
Fedora Already Lost Its Soul Under IBM
Fedora used to be very strict compared to many other distros and it had attracted very bright volunteers
Microsoft is Still Attacking GNU/Linux and the Net
Microsoft bribed the government using money that did not even exist
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 17, 2025
Gemini Links 18/04/2025: Pinephone Pro and Linux is too Easy
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