Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 9/9/2010: PlayStation 3 Shuts Again





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Airbus Joins Open Source Think Tank Paris
    Olliance Group and DLA Piper are proud to announce that Airbus, a European consortium producing the Airbus family of passenger aircraft will present a business case with the support of the Eclipse Foundation at the Think Tank Sept 28 & 29. Among the topics to be addressed are; long-term community support models, shared innovation between industry, vendors and the community, and open source in supply chain management. With more than five years of strategic use of open source, Airbus will present sophisticated questions for the Think Tank audience to deliberate.


  • Events

    • A Tentative Schedule For XDS 2010
      For those interested in the X Developers' Summit (XDS) that is taking place next week at a tobacco factory in France, a tentative schedule has now been published by Matthieu Herrb for the 50 or so people that will be participating in the summit.




  • Oracle



  • CMS

    • Drupal featured on TV quiz
      According to Jo Wouters, Drupal was just featured on "De Canvascrack", a quiz on Belgian television. I know it is a quiz, but I don't think Drupal has ever been featured on television in such a mainstream way. Cool!




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Government

    • UK.gov finally pulls plug on National Programme for IT
      The ailing National Programme for IT has been cancelled, although most of its multi-billion pound spending will go ahead.

      A statement from the Department of Health said a shift to more local procurement would work better, "whilst continuing with national applications already procured".


    • Barroso’s State of the Union
      The Europe Union institutions copy more elements from the United States than I believe suit the dignity of the European Union. Even the “e pluribus unum“, you may also find that on the US seal, though the current US motto is “In God we trust”, ironically the EU started a competition to come up with a translation of the Latin phrase in its 27 member languages, and even reverse-translated it to Latin, in an odd fashion “In varietate concordia”.




  • Licensing

    • Linux Foundation Simplifies FOSS License Management
      The Linux Foundation used this year’s LinuxCon in Boston to launch its new Open Compliance Program, aimed at making it easier for companies that are new to using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to ensure that their products comply with open source licensing.






Leftovers

  • Ikea to sell second-hand furniture online


  • Science

    • Mars organics get new lease on life
      Martian soil could contain the building blocks of carbon-based life after all, a new study suggests, despite the negative results of an analysis performed by the Viking missions 34 years ago.

      When the Viking landers touched down on Mars in 1976 and scooped up soil samples, scientists were surprised that the two craft failed to unearth evidence that the Red Planet contained any organic compounds. The apparent lack of organic molecules — a basic requirement for carbon-based organisms — helped to cement the notion of Mars as an entity that would not easily support life.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss
      Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.


    • Land of Gas
      At issue now, however, are the steep decline rates observed from shale natural gas wells. Don’t these decline curves imply, axiomatically, that the new miracle of shale natural gas production is doomed?






  • Finance

    • Italian school lunches go organic, low-cost, local
      Rome school district with its 150,000 children, and a cafeteria budget of 140 million euros (or $180.5 million), has already pushed the boundary of healthy food to even greater heights.

      If there is one city that has done the most to shape the Ministry’s guidelines, it is Rome. The city served its first organic menu in late 2007.




  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Breaking News on EFF Location Privacy Win: Courts May Require Search Warrants for Cell Phone Location Records
      This morning, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia issued its highly anticipated ruling in a hotly contested cell phone location privacy case. EFF filed a friend-of-the-court brief and participated at oral argument in the case, arguing that federal electronic privacy law gives judges the discretion to deny government requests for cell phone location data when the government fails to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.


    • Online Ads, Privacy Remain in FTC Crosshairs
      A senior official at the Federal Trade Commission hinted on Wednesday that the agency is planning to prod online advertisers and Web companies to adopt new education tools and data-collection restrictions in an effort to protect consumer privacy.

      "Right now the consumers really don't understand what's going on. So I think that is the real issue that needs to be addressed," Loretta Garrison, a senior attorney at the FTC, said here at the O'Reilly Media Gov 2.0 Summit. "We think they sort of know they're being tracked, but they don't really understand the wealth of information that's being collected and the many different parties that are involved and the various ways in which [information] is being used."




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Film industry hires cyber hitmen to take down internet pirates
        The film industry is using pirate tactics to beat the pirates – by employing “cyber hitmen” to launch attacks that take out websites hosting illegal movies.


      • How an Anti-Piracy Firm Became Banned In Its Own Country
        A notorious Switzerland-based anti-piracy tracking company has to stop harvesting the IP addresses of citizens using P2P networks. The Swiss High Court ruled that IP addresses constitute personal information and when Logistep collected them without the owner’s knowledge, that amounted to a breach of privacy laws. From its eDonkey Razorback beginnings, via France through to yesterday’s conclusion, here is the full story.










Clip of the Day



The First Official Interactive Unboxing Of The Nokia N8 -- Call Quality



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Credit: TinyOgg

Recent Techrights' Posts

Expecting Failure
Some things would not happen to technology (tech) experts because they know how things work and what to expect (or watch out for)
unixcop.com is the Latest "Linux" Site to Have Become a Slopfarm After 2 Years of Death (Inactivity)
Not a way to stage a comeback
 
The Only Still-Supported Version of Windows Breaks Itself (Again), the Microsoft Layoffs Will Carry on in Secret
In the US they marked about 7% for removal just this past summer
Wikileaks Turns 20 Just 18 Days From Now
it's fair to say they've endured online, but aren't lively/active
The Cyber Show Debunks the Alleged Intelligence in Slop
It's shorter than usual
Links 16/09/2026: US Running Low/Out of Some Ammo Due to Wars, Slop Bots "Are Using an Outrageous Amount of Electricity"
Links for the day
"AI Slowdown" is Code Word for Bubble Imploding (Trying to Make This Slowdown Seem Wilful, an Act of Safety and Responsibility)
They help one another by inflating the bubble and making false excuses when expansion stalls
SLAPP Censorship - Part 185 Out of 200: What Reputation?
Helping monopolies and working for monopolies never made anybody popular
Gemini Links 16/09/2026: Slovenia, Catastrophe Ethics, and ROOPHLOCH 2026
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Microsoft Layoffs in September 2026 Are Silent, Hidden
Expect the same next month ahead of the fake results
Links 15/09/2026: 'Smartphone', Android TV Box, Stockholm Syndrome of [Slop Plagiarism] Acceptance
Links for the day
Carmen-Lisandrette Maris Prepares Audiobook to Explain Software Freedom/Digital Rights to Adolescents, Needs Help From Volunteers
needs help with narrating
Links 15/09/2026: Putin-Connected Money for The Insurrectionist Jr. and Turkey's Crackdown on Activists
Links for the day
publicdomainpictures.net Seems to Have Become Fed Up With Slop Contaminating Its Database (Wasting Storage, Bandwidth), Now It's Suitably Flagged, Should Be Demoted/Delisted
The site was redone, suffered some hours of downtime, then 'relaunched' with a new interface this week
Gemini Links 15/09/2026: Hiking in Munții Făgăraș, Scams, and Slop Plagiarism Considered Unethical
Links for the day
Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 1 - At the Beginning (Torvalds Knew It Was Trouble)
We still wonder if we should make and actively maintain a shame list (developer/employer) for the people who contaminate Linux the most with slop plagiarism
EPO Staff is Preparing to Take Up a Notch the Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Ahead of October's Meeting (It Can Help Oust the Corrupt Leadership)
mobilising perhaps thousands of workers at a critical time in the history of the Office
Allegedly Many PIP Layoffs in Nepal, IBM Does This Before a Known Death Toll in Avalanche (Caused by China-, Europe-, and US-Induced Global Warming)
Fresh wounds, before the bodies are even recovered (thousands still missing)
"Wail" by Alexandre Oliva
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) 4.0 International
This Morning The Register MS Published a Page With "AI" 83 Times in it. The Register MS Got Paid to Do This.
The Register MS is not a serious publisher and a lot of the stuff about "AI" on the Web isn't journalism but paid-for SPAM
While GAFAM/Microsoft Disguise Financial Crisis as "Investment in AI" the Slop Giants Make Up a Narrative of Wilful Slowdown
A BS artist is good at the art of BS when the artist's failures or weaknesses get twisted as moral or professional leadership
SLAPP Censorship - Part 184 Out of 200: A Tiny Law Firm That Knows Nothing But Microsoft (But Merely Pretends to Understand "IT")
They've managed to trick some mainstream media into thinking they're "Tech" experts or "Social [Control] Media" gurus; nothing could be further from the truth
Links 15/09/2026: Sweden’s Far Right Perishing and "Iceland Just Got Played"
Links for the day
It's Not About How Developers Vote
This isn't about politics, it's about users being in control of their own computers and computing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 14, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, September 14, 2026
Gemini Links 15/09/2026: Poetry, Enshittification of Ebay, and Mecha System
Links for the day
LG Lies to Cover Up Lies About Its Spying TVs (It Records and Transmits Conversations in Rooms)
This is what a lot of "modern" technology is like
Oracle's Debt Continues to Soar (Increase of 60 Billion Dollars in 15 Months, Not Counting the Secret Debt, With Off-balance-sheet Debt Having "Grown Roughly Thirtyfold in Four Years")
Oracle debt continues to grow
It Has Cost $215,000 in Legal Costs to Sue IBM for Wrongful Termination
IBM typically settles out of court and demands secrecy (to avoid anyone else benefiting from the very expensive outcome)
Apple's iOS and macOS Measured as Bigger Than Windows in the US, Linux-Based OSes at Almost 30%
Expect the silent layoffs at Microsoft to continue at a rapid pace
Oracle, Like Microsoft, Drowns in Debt and Discards Tens of Thousands of Staff (Microsoft Does the Same More Discreetly)
The main difference between Microsoft and Oracle is that the latter is honest about what's going on
Gemini Links 14/09/2026: First Android Phone, Leaving Sony, and Rant About Gemini-to-HTTP Proxy Providers
Links for the day
Links 14/09/2026: "Scam Altman Now Trying to Gain Control of Electric Grid" and Sweden Moving to the Right
Links for the day
Vista 11 Flunked
Microsoft cannot start a "Vista 12" campaign as it would only make matters worse
Microsoft Urgently Needs Distraction: There's No "Next XBox", But There's a New Boot Screen (Like 'Dark Mode', a Feature That Can be Implemented in Mere Minutes/Hours)
Anything to distract from XBox fiasco
The PIPs or 'Voluntary Termination Offers' Help IBM Fake Its Situation
"IBM is not a tech company"
IBM Flying Away to Sweatshops (So Will Red Hat)
Even on Sunday people post about 'leaving' IBM
RFID Ambitions Already Established by Widespread Skinnerbox Adoption
A society that cannot maintain privacy for those who deserve it will not manage to assure dignity of citizens
SLAPP Censorship - Part 183 Out of 200: What Actually Happened Two Months Ago (Based on People Who Attended)
It's dangerous to assert what happened in a hearing you did not attend (there was no video stream or recording, either)
Phil Harvey, an Editor-in-Chief in a B2B Site, Explains Why ChannelFutures (Connected to TechTarget) and Other Sites That Used to Cover Linux Deleted Many Articles
Every old article in channelfutures is gone!
Software Freedom Day 2026 is 5 Days From Now, Fresh Reminder to Boycott Proprietary Software
Let this be a timely reminder of why people should avoid proprietary software
Links 14/09/2026: Slop Hardly Used for Actual Work (Chatbots Are for Lonely People), Slop Bots (Scrapers, Plagiarism) "Are Thirsty for Power"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/09/2026: Trip, Hiding, and OCR
Links for the day
IBM PIPs Are Layoffs (RAs Come Later Even If You Satisfy the "Performance" and "Plan")
Notice how "the media" almost never mentions silent layoffs, as if just because they're silent, there's nothing to investigate, nothing to see there
Slop Companies Engage in Plagiarising the Web, Now They Pay People to Contaminate the Web With Their Lies
Remember that the lawfare against us is funded by slop salaries!
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 13, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, September 13, 2026