09.24.11
Gemini version available ♊︎Links – Wintel OEM Revolt., Various Environmental and Civil Issues.
Reader’s Picks
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Hardware
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OEMs are on the verge of ditching Wintel over low margins
He added that if Ultrabooks suffer from weak sales, while Apple continues to enjoy strong profit, the Wintel alliance will need to do something or else all the related IT player may be gone together.
Ultrabooks are a last attempt to sell high margin systems the Windows way, after having been bullied out of gnu/linux netbooks. Ultrabooks are projected to cost more than $1,000, prices not enjoyed by Microsoft hardware since XP. If these computers come with “secure” Windows 8, the makers will have a hard time giving them away.
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Defence/Police/Aggression
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Police shoot hundreds and murder dozens of peaceful protesters in Yemen.
About 1/3 of the population is hungry and the country is on the brink of mass starvation.
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200 people in Ecuador have been charged with “terrorism” for opposing mining and dam construction projects
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Rumsfeld and Bush face indictment and arrest for torture that was designed to extract false confessions.
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Palestinians are setting up a network to report the frequent violence and other harassment they suffer from “settlers”.
“We’re going to go out and make it clear to the Arabs who the home owners are,” settler Itamar Ben-Gvir told Yedioth Ahronot. “We’re going to take the initiative and march [with arms] towards Palestinian towns.”
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Buddhists in Sri Lanka destroyed a mosque.
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Understanding US Capital Punishment
Since the Supreme Court lifted a ban on death sentences in 1976, 1,264 people have been executed in the U.S. And 921 of those executions — or 73 percent of the total — took place in 13 Southern states. [the Texas death machine skews alone had 38 and is special] … As you might suspect, executions have their roots in the history of slavery.
The cultural legacy of slavery is violence and other lawless behavior.
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Cablegate
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Actic ice at lowest level since observations began in 1972.
Global average temperatures today are close to the maximum warmth seen during the Eemian [125,000 years ago]
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Siemens ditches nuclear power generation.
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Gulf storm floods bring BP oil miles inland in Mississippi
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The US makes a move towards flex fuel
Flexibility might bring price reductions as long as speculation is regulated back out of the market and half of a chicken and egg problem will be solved. Hopefully, alcohol fuels won’t come from food crops.
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As poisoning cases around fracking mount, industry and the US government denies the problem.
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Groups campaign to decharter Massey Energy, a dangerous and criminal coal company.
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An environmental movement is growing in China, despite censorship and repression
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Finance
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Anti-Trust
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The uproar over Microsoft’s new gnu/linux boot exclusion method begins.
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Microsoft announces a new EDGI effort in the US
Microsoft will work with state, city, nonprofit and private organizations — including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) and One Economy — to develop and accelerate reduced-cost programs and policies that will include the following: Windows-based PCs optimized for students; Broadband Internet access; Microsoft education software; Job skills training.
As usual, this is dumping to reinforce the Microsoft monopoly. The net city and state cash flow is overwhelmingly in Microsoft’s direction.
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HP continues to falter and hits a six year stock price low.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Censorship
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Can you think of a better way to vilify yourself?
The Zimbabwe Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu, warned media organisations may have their licences revoked for misusing their licenses to ‘vilify’ Zimbabwe and its leadership.
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50 lashes for blogging in Iran
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Berlusconi’s supporters have proposed a one strike and your out censorship law.
Internet service providers must comply to the blacklisting of citizens who are *suspected* of copyright or trademark or patent infringements (“proscription lists” to ban citizens from any access to the Net);
Anyone may be the accuser.
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Privacy
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Facebook wants to expand their data collection efforts with Frictionless Spying as a precondition for music, video and other services.
Not using Facebook to share with your friends this way does not keep Facebook from sharing with others behind your back.
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An intentionally unlinked NYT article claims the Obama administration is again pushing the “trusted identity” NSTIC
The reason given is to shore up “ecommerce confidence”. That confidence problem is really a Windows insecurity problem that won’t be fixed by any government database. Techrights pointed to this excellent NSTIC write up back in January.
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Your Pay History Disclosed, via Security That Sucks
“Interesting” site, run by Equifax. It’s a service used by most large employers to deal with requests for verification of employment and salary and such. But … it has much more information, and it’s not exactly clear why.
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US Bill makes some steps towards data privacy
Chairman Leahy’s Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2011 (S.1151) – presumably the most likely to see action on the Senate floor – also contains amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, including welcome language to focus the statute more narrowly on hackers and identity thieves.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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IP Regime flunkies in the UK work to criminalize copyright infringement and endorse censorship as a tool against sharing
it’s rather a mystery who is behind this bizarre statement that everyone seems to disavow
Corrupt policy is always a mystery that everyone seems to approve but no one wants credit for.
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