07.22.10
Links: Putting GNU/Linux On One’s Netbook, Free Software Week in the Basque Country, and Leftover News
Photo from the Basque Country
Summary: One last bunch of news items for the day
Devices
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Why You SHOULD Try Linux On Your Netbook…
The biggest plus about Linux Distros (besides being free that is) is that nothing gets released before it has been peer reviewed through beta and alpha stages, so everything, from Operating systems to the thousands of programs available, is stable (unless you intentionally want to test something in beta or alpha stage that is). In other words, you’ll be downloading fully developed and stable software. Because of the manner in which software is developed and tested, most of it tends to be free of unnecessary bloat and tends to be incredibly well written and light. As a result your Linux distros can run from a bit over 50MB for the minimalist super light distros, to about 3-4GB for the fully installed full featured distros. Compare that to Mac OS which is about 10-12 GBs in size or windows which is a bit over 20GB. This means that Linux by and large can run very well with all of it’s features on older systems with lower specd hardware (and if a particular distro doesn’t run as efficiently as you would like, there is always another one that will). Linux is famous for giving old computers a new lease on life or by turning lower specd modern computers (such as netbooks) into full-fledged computers by running modern, powerful and up to date software. Again, VERY NICE!
Free Software/Open Source
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A better Knitter
Everybody has a hobby, and for every hobby there’s software to help the hobbyist – even for something as apparently non-technical as knitting. A few 2-D visualization programs help knitters create patterns or turn a specific image into a chart, and that’s helpful, but if you want a full simulation of the fabric so you can tell not only what it’s going to look like, but how it’ll behave in your hands, your best bet is Knitter.
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Careers Q&A: Damian Hickey’s gentler approach to open source
Though only having been in the IT business for 11 years, ZacWare chief executive officer and founder, Damian Hickey, has already survived government work in two locations and has since become a contributor to the open-source community through his Joomla!-based Jentla multi-site content management system (CMS) offerings. Computerworld Australia recently talked to Damian about the transition from government IT to self-employment, and the perils of arrogance when looking for a job.
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We earn our income from subscriptions around support, we don’t earn any income from licensing. The whole software world is tending to move in the direction of software subscriptions now and services-based income streams as well.
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A Free Software week in the Basque Country
With sights like the old town of San Sebastián and the Guggenheim museum at Bilbao, the Basque country in northern Spain is certainly worth a visit. But the reason that I and FSFE staffer Rainer Kersten spent a week there had nothing to do with old houses, art or pintxos. (Well, *almost* nothing to do with pintxos.) We went there to meet with people from the vibrant community of Free Software activists, to give talks and to build links between the local and the European level.
Leftovers
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Escalating the war on piracy: domain names
There have been several reports about the next stage in the War on Piracy (must avoid making off-topic comments about the inherent stupidity of declaring armed hostilities against abstract concepts). I am talking of course about “Operation In Our Sites” (must not comment about some poor smug bureaucrat who thought the pun was funny). This new project from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is designed to execute domain name seizure warrants against websites engaged in movie piracy. In other words, ICE will ask a court to issue a warrant against these websites, and these will have their domain names removed.
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Finance
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Excluded from invitation list for Obama’s signing of Wall Street reform: Wall Street titans
When President Obama steps Wednesday onto the stage at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center to sign Wall Street reform into law, many of the titans of Wall Street will be absent.
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Germany’s Merkel: stress tests credible
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to counter skepticism about Europe’s bank stress tests ahead of their publication, saying Wednesday that the scenarios against which banks’ strength is to be tested will be realistic enough to be credible.
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Goldman Sachs to Face a `Headwind’ in Germany, Nussbaum Tells Handelsblatt
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may face a “headwind” for business in Germany even after a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Handelsblatt reported, citing Berlin Finance Senator Ulrich Nussbaum.
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Europe freezes out Goldman Sachs
European governments are turning their backs on Goldman Sachs, the all-conquering investment bank that has suffered a series of blows to its reputation, capped by the biggest ever fine imposed on a Wall Street firm.
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Broker-dealer duty in SEC’s hands
Even as the president prepares to sign the financial reform bill, lobbying groups are rearming for a second round of advocacy for a universal fiduciary standard. This time, however, the battleground is not Congress but the Securities and Exchange Commission, to which Congress punted the issue.
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Goldman Sachs Waives Tax Deduction on SEC Settlement
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to waive tax deductions it could have claimed after paying a $550 million penalty in a settlement with U.S. regulators, giving up as much as $187.5 million in savings.
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RBS May Launch Civil Suit Against Goldman Sachs – Source
Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS) is considering launching a civil suit against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) to recoup additional losses sustained through its investment in a controversial mortgage-backed security…
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Will the Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) Settlement Play With the Public?
This much is clear. We haven’t heard the last about Goldman Sachs’ settlement with the SEC.
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Settlement in fraud case against Goldman Sachs: A cover-up of Wall Street crimes
The Abacus CDO, the SEC indictment indicated, was devised for precisely that purpose. The CDO was a so-called “synthetic” instrument—meaning investors did not actually buy any securities. Rather, they gambled on the future price of a selection of securities, much as people gamble on a horse race.
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With Settlement, Blankfein Keeps His Grip
Even before the official announcement arrived an hour later — that Goldman would pay $550 million to settle federal claims that it had misled investors in a complex mortgage investment — the financial markets gave Mr. Blankfein, Goldman’s leader, a resounding thumbs up, The New York Times’s Graham Bowley writes.
Goldman’s share price jumped nearly 4.3 percent on hopes that Mr. Blankfein and his bank had, in a stroke, put one of the most embarrassing episodes in the bank’s recent history behind them.
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SEC Was Split Over Decision to Settle With Goldman Sachs
The paper goes on to say that the SEC probably had some doubts about the strength of its case, and the news that the commissioners did not vote unanimously may undermine the agency’s PR that it was a major victory.
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SEC settlement is a major victory — for Goldman Sachs
The SEC’s $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs is naturally being touted by the feds as a major victory, “the largest penalty ever assessed against a financial services firm in the history of the SEC.” Maybe. But there’s another way to look at it.
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The Goldman Sachs Settlement, the Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffett, and the White House
But perhaps another tidbit might well be considered. Earlier this week President Obama met with Warren Buffett at the White House. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. had invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. According to the New York Times report on July 14th “the meeting covered everything under the economic sky”. Were the gathering storm clouds of the Goldman litigation part of the vista in view as well?
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S.E.C. Pursuing More Cases Tied to Financial Crisis
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We can use less of a casino mentality on Wall Street
Observers noted that the fines were a fraction of the $13.4 billion in 2009 profits at Goldman. Since 2008, Goldman has been a federally insured bank holding company that was bailed out of the financial crisis along with Citigroup, AIG and other financial giants whose exotic products and executive gluttony nearly choked to death the financial system.
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Obama’s Risky Business
The financial reregulation package just passed by Congress is far from a comprehensive reform of American finance. Despite the enormous threat to the world’s financial markets created by the failure of Lehman Brothers and the stunning excesses of insurance giant AIG and banking conglomerate Citigroup, the reforms are in truth modest. Neither the Obama administration nor Congress opted to cut banks down to size, and the bill is only placing mild limits on risky banking activities. The giant financial institutions, meanwhile, are as big—even bigger—than ever and bankers’ compensation is once again at stunning levels.
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The “War” On Wall Street May Be Over: Who Won?
In fact, the current “war on Wall Street” seems all but over even before the President signs the financial “reform” bill. We have seen very few criminal prosecutions coming out of Obamaland. The recent settlement with Goldman Sachs was limited to one transaction, and quite affordable for the bank that’s been called a “vampire squid on the face of humanity.” Their shares went up when the slimy deal was done, and in any event, that $550 million they paid just represented 15 days of profit taking.
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Copyrights
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Google Explains Why Making Special Copyright Laws For Newspapers Is A Mistake
We’ve written a few times about how ridiculous the FTC’s proposals to “save journalism” are. They’re much more focused on saving newspapers, not journalism. And they seem to totally misunderstand the problem — or to believe the problem is some amorphous threat from “internet aggregators,” which is based on no actual evidence. Google has now responded to the FTC’s proposal, and, as Jeff Jarvis notes, effectively “taken the FTC to school” on the basics of journalism economics and copyright.
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Hopefully the FTC pays attention, but you could see them just dismissing Google as a “biased” party. The newspapers pushing these sorts of solutions are barking up the wrong tree, and hopefully the FTC realizes this, rather than providing a big crutch for the news organizations unwilling to adapt to a changing market.
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Police To Receive Evidence Against ‘Large Scale’ File-Sharers
An IFPI-affiliated anti-piracy group has announced that it has gathered evidence on dozens of file-sharers and will shortly hand it to the police. The group says it will hand over the results of its investigation into large scale file-sharers to the authorities this month and warns that the law allows those convicted to be jailed for up to 4 years.
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Digital Act To Create Pirate ISPs In UK
Service providers will split up to make smaller ‘pirate’ ISPs, in response to Ofcom’s draconian file-sharing proposals, says the Pirate Party
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