● 10.26.10
● Links 26/10/2010: Facts From London Stock Exchange, webOS 2.0 Reviewed
Posted in News Roundup at 9:24 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux
Server
↺ London Stock Exchange “world record trade speeds” on new Linux systems
* Linux based systems are now standard technology in many exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange.
↺ London Stock Exchange sets trading speed world record using Linux
↺ Force10 Networks Announces Support for Oracle VM and Oracle Linux for its Virtualization Solutions
↺ How offshored software development and Linux put the London Stock Exchange ahead of its rivals
↺ Strata Week: Statistically speaking
* The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has reportedly “doubled” their networking speed with a new Linux-based system, clocking trading times at 126 microseconds as compared to previous times of several hundred microseconds.
Audiocasts/Shows
↺ Linux Outlaws 171 – Mindcrack
* This time on the show: Fab reviews Minecraft (a big reason why the release of this show took so long), Mozilla gets a new boss, is Canonical seeking open core?, Steve Jobs gets smacked down hard over Android, Microsoft send out Viagra spam and we talk about a lot of Linux news as usual.
Ballnux
↺ Sprint Galaxy Tab coming Nov. 14; Motorola i886 hits in January
↺ Samsung Galaxy Tab Rumored To Launch
* While we’ve got a pretty good idea as to what kind of pricing we might see with the Galaxy Tab, the one piece of information we didn’t have was exactly when we would need to break open the piggy bank. Well have no fear, TmoNews is here!
↺ Amazon To Offer Free Cloud Services
* A “micro” Linux server in the Elastic Compute Cloud will be free for a year as an inducement for prospects to try their first cloud experience.
Applications
↺ 7 of the Best Free Linux Online Backup Solutions
* Now, let’s explore the 7 online backup solutions at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
↺ SimpleAudioPlayer: A Basic Audio Player for Linux that Lives Up to Its Name
* For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching as a new program called SimpleAudioPlayer saw its initial release and then a few minor updates. I put off on compiling it since at the time of its initial release I was using GNOME Ubuntu, and since SimpleAudioPlayer is a KDE application, it would have required installing a lot of KDE libraries. But since I’m now using KDE, I decided to take the plunge. I downloaded and compiled the newest version yesterday (version 1.0.3), and have been trying it out ever since.
↺ Arcontech introduces Linux version of CityVision
* Arcontech, the real-time market data technology specialist has today announced the Linux version of its CityVision market data distribution and vendor contribution platform.
Instructionals/Technical
↺ What does caret (^) in an apt-get command mean?
↺ How to Fix a Windows Infection Using Linux
↺ Antec 300 Computer Case Quick Review
↺ How to install an OSSEC server on Linux and an OSSEC Windows agent
↺ Easiest way to set up Samba for file-sharing
↺ How to Install Virtual box 3.2.10 in Ubuntu 10.10
↺ Learn Linux, 101: Control mounting and unmounting of filesystems
↺ Configure Wine With Vineyard [Version 0.1.5 Beta, Released]
↺ How to automatically print or convert to PDF, MS Office or other formats OpenDocument files
Desktop Environments
K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
* On a sunny September weekend in Cambridge, England, ten KDE and Telepathy developers met in the Collabora office to plan the future of Instant Messaging in KDE software. Once everyone had arrived, our host George Goldberg gave us an overview of the current state of the codebase, which parts are usable, which parts still need writing, and which parts were written years ago and need revision. This turned into a project management session to determine the order for getting things done, and a discussion about a release schedule that will make the project visible without tying it prematurely into compatibility guarantees that slow down development.
↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 10th October 2010
↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 17th October 2010
Distributions
New Releases
↺ Pardus Linux 2011 Beta Comes With KDE SC 4.5.2
Debian Family
Canonical/Ubuntu
↺ Canonical Highlights Touch Support on Ubuntu Netbooks
* Most of the hype about touchscreen devices these days centers around the iPad and other highly proprietary hardware. But Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has made major bets in recent months that touch-enabled computers will become ubiquitous in the open-source world as well. It made that belief clear last week when it showcased the Unity interface running on a tablet computer. Read on for a look.
Flavours and Variants
* Recently, I burned the ISO file for Super OS. We’ve used Super OS in the past and found it to our liking for one simple reason. It makes available some of the codecs and “restricted” goodies that the regular Ubuntu install does not.
* Let’s say W32 Codecs, Nvidia and ATI prop drivers, libdvdcss and the Oracle/Sun version of Java 6.
* Yeah, I know, I know…iced tea this and iced tea that…..openjdk-6-jdk and openjdk-6-jre…I appreciate the effort. Many times they just don’t work.
* They have serious limitations in many banking and secure websites…it just doesn’t get the job done for many online applications…at least for the time being.
* So we needed a base distro to build to and we began to work with Super OS.
Devices/Embedded
↺ Powerloader Light Exo-Suit Adds 40kg of Kick-Power to Your Legs
* The idea behind it is that it can help with rehabilitation, but when it runs on Linux 2.6 and can be modded both at software and hardware levels, I know what I’d be using it for. Kicking down pinatas and sprinting off with my spoils, yes.
↺ MontaVista Releases Carrier Grade Edition Linux 6.0
* MontaVista Software recently released MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) 6.0, the next generation of its carrier grade quality Linux development platform. CGE 6.0 delivers the technologies required for next-generation multi-core architectures with the new MontaVista Bare Metal Engine for high performance, new multi-core resource management capabilities to maximise multi-core designs, and new high availability features incorporating the latest open source technologies. At the same time, CGE helps Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) and Telecom companies lower their total cost of ownership with extended power management capabilities and support for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, according to the company.
↺ MontaVista Carrier Grade Linux 6.0 – with configurable real-time environments
↺ Intel stretches hypervisor across Xeon 5600, Freescale
* Last week, chip maker and operating system wannabe Intel revved up its Wind River Linux with a version 4 update, putting a piping hot and steamy fresh Linux kernel at the heart of its cross-platform, embedded Linux platform. This week, the related Wind River Hypervisor is tweaked with a 1.2 release.
↺ ISEM Solutions Presents – Artila’s Matrix-504- Linux-ready ARM9 Embedded Computer.
* The Matrix-504 is Artila’s 2nd-generation ARM9- based box computer with pre-built Linux kernel and file system. It comes with 100% Linux 2.6.29 compatible computing platform, ATMEL AT91SAM9G20 400MHz CPU, 64MB SDRAM and 128MB NAND Flash, System backup Data Flash: 2MB, One 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, Four 921.6Kbps high speed TTY (serial ) ports, Two USB 2.0 host ports- 12Mbps, Fail-over mechanism against system crash, Provides four high-speed TTY ports: Port 1 supports RS-232/422/485 and Port 2 to Port 4 support RS-232/485. The RS-485 interface features hardware direction control to ease communication programming, GNU C/C++ tool chain for Linux/Windows, Extremely compact design, 78 x 108 x 24mm, Ultra-low power consumption, less than 3 Watts. Matrix-504 ARM9-based Linux Computer with 128MB on-board Flash, including one CD-ROM which contains GNU tool chain and user guide.
* A quick look at the WD’s GPL code reveals that the WD TV Live Plus runs a Linux 2.6.22.19 kernel as the underlying embedded operating system.
Phones
* Despite some issues, webOS 2.0 is probably neck and neck with iOS4 when it comes to polish and ease of use, and that’s a pretty huge thing for Palm.
Nokia/MeeGo
↺ Nokia N900 Can Run Unmodified webOS Games
* Love to play some of those WebOS games on your Nokia N900 without having to reboot into a different operating system? With both Palm and Nokia showcasing similar methods of developing native Linux apps (SDL 1.2) and the hardware between Palm Pre and the N900 being similar enough, Maemo users have found a way to put those cool WebOS games on your Nokia N900. It will not need you rebooting your OS and you can run all those games currently on offer by WebOS on your N900 handset!
Android
↺ Motorola Puts Together 7 Videos for T-Mobile Defy
* Looking more like a few Android 101 tips, the short clips cover topics like capturing and sharing video clips, setting up personal email, and using contacts.
Jolicloud
↺ Jolicloud to ship a social netbook with web-based OS
↺ Jolicloud said to be working on its own netbook
↺ Jolicloud confirms very own netbook
↺ Is Cloud OS Maker Jolicloud Preparing To Sell A Netbook Of Its Own?
↺ Jolicloud branded netbook on its way
↺ Jolicloud branded netbook on the way
Tablets
↺ DigiTimes: Android 3.0 Tablet Samples Ready by December
* DigiTimes is reporting on Android tablets yet again. According to their sources, Google recently notified their partners that Android 3.0 will be completed and tablet samples will start arriving in December.
Free Software/Open Source
↺ Revolution Analytics grabs $8.6M to help businesses examine large data sets
* Revolution Analytics, a developer of software for computational statistics, has raised $8.6 million in an add-on to its second round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Palo Alto, the firm creates software to support users of the open-source R programming language.
↺ The Real Free and Open Source Exchange Replacement
SaaS
↺ MaestroDev Launches Maestro 3 Enterprise Build and Private Cloud Environment
* Maestro 3 features an innovative application layer that orchestrates the broadest set of open source tools including Apache Maven, Apache Archiva, Hudson, Apache Continuum, Sonar, Selenium, Xen, Eucalyptus, Icinga and Puppet—in a single application interface.
Oracle
↺ OpenOffice Council Shows LibreOffice Fans the Door
* So, we’ve got two forks of Oracle-owned projects — OpenIndiana and LibreOffice, both intended to rejuvenate projects that had been left to stagnate in Redwood Shores. We also know that Oracle plans to stick with OpenOffice.org itself, rather than donating the brand to the Document Foundation.
* We’ve seen Oracle sue Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) over Java, of course. And more recently, we’ve also seen the emergence of a fork of MySQL called SkySQL.
↺ Java guru quits over Oracle ‘disregard’
* The JCP elections are vital to the future of Java. Yet I believe there is evidence of Oracle manipulation.
Healthcare
↺ VA will use open source model for health records system
* The Veterans Affairs Department will adopt an open source model to modernize its legacy electronic health records system, the department’s chief information officer said at a Senate hearing Oct. 6.
* The Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) runs on an archaic program language called MUMPS, which experts said must be modernized to properly serve the 8 million veterans who receive care at VA health facilities.
Business
↺ Open source keeps fueling global exchange
* We continue to see evidence that open source software is helping vendors expand and grow globally. The latest announcement from French BPM vendor BonitaSoft, which is establishing U.S. offices in Boston and San Francisco, is a prime example. We covered BonitaSoft’s expansion and approach in July, which leverages more than 300,000 downloads of the software and presence in more than 20 countries.
↺ Funambol Launches Open Source Framework for Smartphones to Simplify App Development
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
↺ FSFE Newsletter – October 2010
* In this edition we discuss the misleading term “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” (FRAND), we explain what we are doing about centralised computer systems and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and update you on our current campaign to end non-free software commercials by public institutions.
* FSFE celebrated Software Freedom Day with a variety of local events and activities. We organised talks and booths in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Cologne, Offenburg (Germany), Zurich (Switzerland), and The Hague (Netherlands). With our activities we reached new audiences, and explained to them why Free Software will become as important as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.
Project Releases
* GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off tools to complete application suites.
↺ The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache Maven Version 3.0
Leftovers
↺ Mark Cuban Wants to Pay Government Attorneys to Get Off Their Ass
* Frustrated by the snail’s pace of the SEC investigation into insider trading allegations, Cuban offered to pay government attorneys to work faster.
↺ Manila: A megacity where the living must share with the dead
* Land is precious in Manila, and people are prepared to endure incredible circumstances to claim their own piece. Baking’s family is one of hundreds that have set up home in the cemetery, jostling for space with the dead. “It’s much better living here than in a shanty town,” he assures me as we clamber over densely-packed powder pink and blue tombs on the way to his home. “It’s much more peaceful and quiet.”
↺ Drug addict has vasectomy in return for £200 cash
* A drug addict has become the first man in Britain to take part in a controversial project that saw him get cash to be sterilised.
↺ Report: Ancient ruins worldwide ‘on verge of vanishing’
* Twelve historic sites around the world are “on the verge of vanishing” because of mismanagement and neglect, according to a new report.
* Steal someone else’s game. Change its name. Make millions. Repeat.
↺ Judge Clears CAPTCHA-Breaking Case for Criminal Trial
* A federal judge in New Jersey has cleared the way for a landmark criminal case targeting CAPTCHA circumvention to proceed to trial.
↺ UberCab Ordered to Cease And Desist
* Did Ubercab just crash and burn? Taxi and limo industry insiders in California today informed TechCrunch that the San Francisco Metro Transit Authority & the Public Utilities Commission of California have ordered the startup to cease and desist.
Health/Nutrition
↺ Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made
* Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet, a study by University of Manchester scientists has strongly suggested.
* The study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and Greece and earlier periods – carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and published in Nature Reviews Cancer – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.
Defence/Police/Aggression
↺ Jesse Jackson: Britain’s moral authority is undermined by police discrimination
* The Rev Jesse Jackson has said that Britain’s moral authority is being damaged by the government’s failure to stop the police discriminating against ethnic minorities.
* With the impact of the soon-to-be-announced mega austerity cuts still to come, it could be that millions will soon find it hard to make ends meet.
* But help is it hand. There’ll be no shortage of people forced to turn to shoplifting or petty crime to survive – and now there’s a website that will pay you to sit at home and spy on everyone in the hope of catching them.
↺ Inquiry after police filmed hitting anti-fascist protester
* An investigation is under way after a police officer was filmed hitting an anti-fascist demonstrator in the face during a far-right rally.
* Alan Clough, 63, from Radcliffe, Bury, was protesting against the English Defence League (EDL) rally in Bolton in March when he was struck, fell to the ground and was subsequently arrested.
↺ Iraq war logs: military privatisation run amok
* Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2005, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down “Route Irish” – the Baghdad airport road – shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. While they were at it, the Blackwater men fired shots over the heads of a group of soldiers from the 69th Regiment of the US Army before they sped away heading west in their white armoured truck. When the dust cleared, the Iraqi driver was dead and his wife and daughter were injured.
↺ They’re Trying To Sell the Brooklyn Bridge Again
* So it was last month when a friendly couple dumped their paper on the train seat opposite me. And bingo, it was as bad as ever. “Defense Officials Predict Slow Afghan Progress.” And the sourcing for this hardly unexpected headline? “Senior US military officials”, “military officials”, “a senior US military official”, “Obama administration officials”, “defence officials”, “the senior military official”, “military leaders”, “the official”, “military officials”, “the officials”, “many in the military”, “military officials” (again), “officials” (again), “military officials” (yet again) and “officials” (yet again).
* Why do our scribes write this horseshit? My old mate Alexander Cockburn calls it “selling the Brooklyn Bridge” and claims that Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of The New York Times, is always ready to buy it.
↺ David Kelly files prove little for campaigners whose fight continues
* Kelly’s death has never been the subject of a proper inquest, Powers argues. The original inquest was replaced by the Hutton inquiry – a highly unusual and, to many observers, unjustified break with standard legal procedure for single deaths. Last month, lawyers acting for Kelly campaigners delivered an application for a fresh inquest to attorney general Dominic Grieve. Grieve is considering it, a process which may take several more months.
↺ Norwich Council uses ‘spying’ powers to catch smoke pub
* Norwich City Council used controversial spying powers to investigate and fine a pub for flouting the smoking ban.
* With allotments in mind, news has reached Big Brother Watch of the ludicrous situation of a Lincolnshire council demanding to know the sexual orientation, race and religion of those applying for one of the eighteen vacant plots in the City of Lincoln.
↺ Police chief wants Birmingham ‘spy’ cameras removed
↺ Sacrificing our liberties won’t win the war against terror
* The good news, according to Professor Audrey Cronin at the US National War College, is that terrorist campaigns always end. The only questions are when and how. The answers hinge on government policy. After the 2005 London bombings, Tony Blair proclaimed: “Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing.” Ministers proposed waves of authoritarian measures, including incursions on free speech, control orders, ID cards and extensions to detention without charge that one former chief constable labelled a “propaganda coup for Al-Qaeda”. If Al-Qaeda was looking for a repressive reaction, they got it. But, was it effective?
* AMY GOODMAN: So they’re doing it again on this 400,000-document leak?
* DANIEL ELLSBERG: They’re doing it again, and it’s much to their credit, and I appreciate it. I’ve waited forty years for a release on this scale. I think there should have been something on the scale of the Pentagon Papers every year. How often do we need this kind of thing? We haven’t seen it. So I’m very glad that someone is taking the risk and the initiative to inform us better now.
↺ Government web snooping back on the cards
* Government plans to intercept Internet communications and store details of “traffic data” are reportedly back on the cards.
Environment/Energy/Wildlife
↺ Climate change v capitalism: the feast is almost over
* Six weeks from now, in Cancun, Mexico, the world’s nations will gather under the auspices of the United Nations (the UNFCCC) to again discuss how to alleviate climate change. They’ll try to pick up the broken pieces from last December in Copenhagen, where we witnessed tortured dances by government leaders trying to avoid the realities of our time, and the profound conundrums we face as a society. They accomplished nothing, and may reprise that performance in Cancun.
↺ China unveils ambitious plan to protect wildlife at UN talks
* China has unveiled its most ambitious conservation plan in a generation, ahead of the opening today of a crucial UN biodiversity conference.
↺ What are the prospects for the Nagoya biodiversity summit?
↺ More toxic threats to eastern Europe
↺ Russian tiger summit offers ‘last chance’ to save species in the wild
* Leaders of the few remaining countries where tigers are still found in the wild are preparing for a make-or-break summit in Russia, which they believe offers the last chance to save the critically endangered animal.
↺ Taxpayer could be hit by nuclear waste bill for new reactors
* The nuclear industry could end up passing on to taxpayers the costs of disposing of waste from new reactors under government plans, according to official documents seen by the Guardian.
↺ Slowed population growth could lower emissions by 29 percent
* To meet goals of reduced emissions, we may need to look no further than our own populace, according to a study published in PNAS. By analyzing a few different data sets and projections for population and emissions growth, a group of researchers found that a concerted effort to slow population growth could contribute as much as 29 percent of the emissions reductions needed to avert dangerous levels of climate change. They also found that a more urban population causes a significant increase in emissions, while an older one lowers emissions.
Finance
↺ French protests jeopardise airport fuel supplies
* France’s main airport has only a few days’ worth of jet fuel left, it was announced today, as the strikes against government pension plans continued to disrupt infrastructure.
↺ Sarkozy should retire, says France
* More importantly, the French have decided to take to the streets in the millions – including large-scale strikes and work stoppages – to defend hard-won retirement gains. (It must be emphasised, since the media sometimes forgets to make the distinction, that only a tiny percentage of France’s demonstrators have engaged in any kind of property damage and even fewer in violence, with all but these few protesting peacefully.) French populist rage is being directed in a positive direction – unlike in the United States where it is most prominently being mobilised to elect political candidates who will do their best to increase the suffering of working- and middle-class citizens.
↺ Greece promises to crack down on tax evaders
* Saying Greeks had already made “unprecedented sacrifices”, the prime minister, George Papandreou, insisted today there would be no more hard-hitting austerity measures, despite the country bracing itself for an expected upward revision of a budget deficit that at 13.6% has already hit record highs.
* “Whatever happens, there will be no additional burden placed on wage earners and pensioners. There will be no additional increase in tax rates beyond the ones we have already committed to making,” Papandreou said.
↺ Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons
* [Editor’s note: In November 2009, MoJo reporter Andy Kroll received a tip about a little-known yet powerful firm, the Law Offices of David J. Stern, which handled staggering numbers of foreclosures in southeastern Florida—the throbbing heart of nation’s housing crisis. Among the allegations, the tipster had it from insiders that Stern employees were routinely falsifying legal paperwork in an effort to push borrowers out of their homes as quickly—and profitably—as possible.
* Kroll spent eight months investigating Stern’s firm and its ilk—a breed of deep-pocketed and controversial operations dubbed “foreclosure mills.” After sifting through thousands of pages of court documents, interviewing scores of legal experts and former Stern employees, and attending dozens of foreclosure hearings in drab Florida courtrooms, he emerged with a portrait of a law firm—indeed, an entire industry—that was willing to cut corners, deceive judges, and even (allegedly) commit fraud—all at the expense of America’s homeowners.
↺ Wall Street Sold `Tragically Deficient’ Product, Angelides Says
* Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. created products that were “tragically deficient,” in the view of the chairman of the panel charged by Congress with identifying the causes of the financial crisis.
↺ Timothy Geithner forecloses on the moratorium debate
* Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is good at telling fairy tales. Geithner first became known to the general public in September of 2008. Back then, he was head of the New York Federal Reserve Board. He was part of the triumvirate, along with Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke and then Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, who told congress that it had to pass the Tarp or the economy would collapse.
↺ Unemployment Benefits: The 99ers
* Even after an extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, many of those about to go off the program are in a quandary. Scott Pelley talks to some of them in Silicon Valley.
↺ California Data Autumnal: Dialing Back a Decade
* From the highs of 2007, total California employment is down about 6.5%. And, 2008 total oil product consumption compared to 2007 is down about 5.5%. There is no question that 2009 energy data from EIA Washington will show another notable fall, in California energy use. Meanwhile, as we can see from the labor market data, there is no economic recovery occurring in America’s largest state.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
↺ Tell the DOJ: Investigate the Chamber of Commerce’s campaign spending
* This year alone the Chamber has pledged to spend $75 million on ads attacking candidates who don’t meekly bow down to the biggest and wealthiest corporate interests.
↺ It’s Not Your Local Chamber of Commerce
* Many Americans think of the Chamber of Commerce as a local organization that supplies maps or information about local businesses, or thing of it as a sort of civics league, like the Elks Lodge. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. is completely different. It often has no ties to local Chambers of Commerce. It spends more money on lobbying than any other entity in Washington, D.C., outspending even the political parties on elections nationwide. The Chamber has a $200 million budget, and as a 501(c)(6) trade association, it doesn’t have to pay any taxes or disclose its donors.
↺ The Loaded Chamber: Secret Money
↺ How Radical Christian Conservatives May Succeed in Destroying Democracy
* The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes spent his life battling the assault on democracy by tyrants. It is disheartening to be reminded that he lost. But he understood that the hardest struggle for humankind is often stating and understanding the obvious. Aristophanes, who had the temerity to portray the ruling Greek tyrant, Cleon, as a dog, is the perfect playwright to turn to in trying to grasp the danger posed to us by movements from the tea party to militias to the Christian right, as well as the bankrupt and corrupt power elite that no longer concerns itself with the needs of its citizens. He saw the same corruption 2,400 years ago. He feared correctly that it would extinguish Athenian democracy. And he struggled in vain to rouse Athenians from their slumber.
↺ The Kochs, Glenn Beck and Titans of Industry Met to Plot 2010 Elections
* ThinkProgress has discovered that the oil billionaire brothers, David H. and Charles G. Koch, who played a key role in creating and funding the Tea Party movement, hold a quiet annual, invitation-only gathering where they coordinate their political agenda with other titans of industry — including the big health insurers, oil executives, Wall Street investors, real estate tycoons, conservative journalists and TV opinion show stars like Glenn Beck.
* In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups.
Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
↺ Google boss: ‘Creeped out by Street View? Just move’
* Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that if you don’t like Google Street View cars photographing your house, you can “just move.”
* “Street View. We drive exactly once,” Schmidt said during an appearance on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” late last week. “So, you can just move, right?”
* Schmidt’s words were broadcast across the net on Friday, but they’ve been edited from the video now available on the CNN website. Before it was edited out, the moment was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
↺ Why I’m suing the Department of Homeland Security
* Today the First Amendment Project is filing a lawsuit on my behalf against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (one of the divisions of the Department of Homeland Security) for violating the Privacy Act and the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to disclose their records of my travels, what they did with my requests for my records, and how they index, search for, and retrieve these travel surveillance records.
↺ Berlusconi ‘vendetta’ takes Italy’s Paxman off air again
* His fans see him as Italy’s Jeremy Paxman, an aggressive but penetrating TV anchorman. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns most of the country’s private channels and wields indirect control over the state network, RAI, sees him as a dangerous leftie. Meet Michele Santoro, the temporarily banned hero of Italian current affairs broadcasting.
↺ Egyptian government fears a Facebook revolution
* Many Egyptians, in what is still a police state, regard Facebook as a safe haven where they can campaign and express their opinions freely. But that could soon change following a crackdown by the authorities against various types of media.
* In Egypt, many opposition movements have either started or grown significantly on Facebook, most notably the April 6 youth movement and the national campaign to support Nobel peace prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei as a presidential candidate.
↺ Chinese police refuse to register human rights lawyer as missing
* Chinese police have refused to register an outspoken human rights lawyer who has not been seen since April as a missing person, his elder brother said today.
* The disappearance of Gao Zhisheng has caused international concern, particularly because he had previously made detailed claims of torture at the hands of security officials during detentions.
↺ Tibetan student protests spread to Beijing
↺ The west must stand up to China
* Pity the Chinese. The inhabitants of the world’s next superpower cannot search the internet or assemble or travel or speak or read or write or even reproduce without restriction. Yet in the lands where freedom is abundant, China, rather than earning well-deserved rebukes, continues to be championed as the ineluctable future. This disgraceful journey began with a liberal assumption: the west, it was claimed, is more likely to influence China by partnering with it, by giving it a prominent position inside, rather than pushing it outside, global institutions.
↺ Silence of the dissenters: How south-east Asia keeps web users in line
* Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have all moved or are moving towards monitoring internet use, blocking international sites regarded as critical and ruthlessly silencing web dissidents.
↺ NYCLU Settlement Ends Restriction on Photography Outside Federal Courthouses
↺ Plan to store Britons’ phone and internet data revived
Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM
↺ What Do Kids Say About The Internet? + Competition For Best Online Children’s Content
* And, by the way, we can get a good insight into where the internet might head by understanding what these kids use. School work or watching videos (84% and 83% respectively). Playing games (74%) and communicating via instant messaging (61%) are the next most popular activities online. One out of three youngsters now connect via their mobile phones or other portable devices.
Intellectual Monopolies
↺ Vatican to rich countries: stop “excessive zeal” for IP rights
* On September 21, the Vatican observer at the UN, Mons. Silvano Maria Tomasi, addressed the 48th general assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva (English translation). He let the group know that the Vatican supports intellectual property rights (IPR) because such protection “recognizes the dignity of man and his work” and because it contributes to “the growth of the individual personality and to the common good.”
* But Tomasi then went on to make a point we’ve harped on repeatedly here at Ars: supporting IP rights in general does not always mean supporting tougher patent and copyright rules; “better” does not always mean “stronger.”
↺ Steven Johnson: ‘Eureka moments are very, very rare’
* What all this means, in practical terms, is that the best way to encourage (or to have) new ideas isn’t to fetishise the “spark of genius”, to retreat to a mountain cabin in order to “be creative”, or to blabber interminably about “blue-sky”, “out-of-the-box” thinking. Rather, it’s to expand the range of your possible next moves – the perimeter of your potential – by exposing yourself to as much serendipity, as much argument and conversation, as many rival and related ideas as possible; to borrow, to repurpose, to recombine. This is one way of explaining the creativity generated by cities, by Europe’s 17th-century coffee-houses, and by the internet. Good ideas happen in networks; in one rather brain-bending sense, you could even say that “good ideas are networks”. Or as Johnson also puts it: “Chance favours the connected mind.”
Copyrights
↺ We should copyright the Canadian way
* The new copyright bill, C-32, places consumers and users at risk of infringement for a wide variety of things, such as circumventing digital locks to transfer a CD track to an MP3 Player, or to transfer e-book content from an old device to a new one. Alongside C-32, Canada has been involved in talks to establish an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Both C-32 and ACTA represent a departure from Canadian copyright…
↺ From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced Copyright” : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda
↺ Six more website operators facing Righthaven copyright lawsuits
* Hotel management students in Canada are receiving a lesson in U.S. copyright law courtesy of Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC.
↺ US Library of Congress: Copyright Is Destroying Historic Audio
↺ Critique of CBC’s new Anti-Creative Commons Policy
* The logical and ethical next step is to alter this policy, and as such I call for the CBC to do such; allowing for appropriately licensed Creative Commons music to exist alongside commercially licensed music, effectively giving back the rights of Artists and Show Producers to share content, and giving alternatives to Canadian Artists to decide for themselves how their content is to be used. A key issue here is artists’ right to give permission under copyright law for use of their works. They have various reasons for doing this, and why should CBC punish them? By blocking this, the CBC has effectively eliminated this potential on the larger scale. This is not the Canadian way of doing things – we share and we like sharing. Allowing policies like this to exist in our Public Services is a step backwards and creates justifications and rationalizations for similar policies in the future. As a Canadian, this upsets me – seeing my countries’ artists with alternative views set onto a back burner because they have been unfairly grouped in with others. This is not right at all.
↺ MPAA Calls Censorship Of Websites ‘Forward Looking’
* Ah, the word choices of the MPAA. The organization that once claimed the VCR was the “Boston Strangler” of the movie industry is now out there trying to get three strikes and censorship laws passed to protect their business model, and referring to these backwards looking protectionist policies as “forward looking.” That’s what MPAA boss Bob Pisano called the idea, found in the COICA proposal to censor web sites the MPAA doesn’t like. Of course, if this had been in effect when the VCR first came out, there would be no VCR.
↺ Is Mark Twain’s ‘New’ Autobiography Covered By Copyright?
* PometheeFeu pointed us to the news that Mark Twain’s autobiography, to be officially published for the first time 100 years after his death is already looking like it’s going to be a best seller. The book comes out on November 15th, but it’s already near the top of the bestseller lists on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble thanks to pre-orders. If you weren’t aware, Twain (real name Samuel Clemens), wrote this autobiography towards the end of his life, but demanded that it not be published until 100 years after his death (some of it, he demanded be withheld for 500 years). Allegedly, he did this so that he could say what he wanted without worrying about the people he spoke ill of ever finding out. Also, it’s not your typical autobiography. Apparently, it was more or less stream of consciousness, concerning whatever he felt like talking about. He would get up in the morning, talk about whatever he felt like, and people working for him would take it all down in dictation.
↺ Sarkozy Wants To Use Anti-Censorship Conference To Promote Censorship By Copyright
* We’ve pointed out many times how copyright is, by its nature, a law for censorship. Now, you can argue that it’s necessary or useful censorship (though, I doubt I would agree), but it cannot be denied that the basic purpose of copyright law is to stifle a form of speech. That’s why I’m always amazed at the disconnect of politicians, who support anti-censorship efforts online at the same time that they promote plans to censor-via-copyright law. Of course, most haven’t actually thought about it, or they insist that copyright is not censorship at all, and they can’t fathom how the two are connected.
* The Underground story in brief is this: their comic was pirated and bootlegged on 4Chan. They didn’t sue or whine: the authors went online at 4Chan to discuss their comic. What happened? More good publicity than you can imagine – go look at their website for what happened to their sales.
ACTA
↺ FFII: ACTA goes beyond present EU laws
* The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not in line with present EU laws, according to a Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) analysis. Previously, the European Commission has often stated that ACTA would remain fully in line with existing EU legislation.
* Health groups have pointed out that ACTA will hamper access to essential medicine in developing countries. FFII’s analysis focusses on the impact ACTA will have on European SMEs in the ICT field, and on diffusion of green technology, needed to fight climate change. The FFII concludes that patents have to be excluded from ACTA’s civil enforcement section.
Clip of the DayThe Digital Prism Screencast – MintBackupCredit: TinyOggContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux
Server
↺ London Stock Exchange “world record trade speeds” on new Linux systems
* Linux based systems are now standard technology in many exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange.
↺ London Stock Exchange sets trading speed world record using Linux
↺ Force10 Networks Announces Support for Oracle VM and Oracle Linux for its Virtualization Solutions
↺ How offshored software development and Linux put the London Stock Exchange ahead of its rivals
↺ Strata Week: Statistically speaking
* The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has reportedly “doubled” their networking speed with a new Linux-based system, clocking trading times at 126 microseconds as compared to previous times of several hundred microseconds.
Audiocasts/Shows
↺ Linux Outlaws 171 – Mindcrack
* This time on the show: Fab reviews Minecraft (a big reason why the release of this show took so long), Mozilla gets a new boss, is Canonical seeking open core?, Steve Jobs gets smacked down hard over Android, Microsoft send out Viagra spam and we talk about a lot of Linux news as usual.
Ballnux
↺ Sprint Galaxy Tab coming Nov. 14; Motorola i886 hits in January
↺ Samsung Galaxy Tab Rumored To Launch
* While we’ve got a pretty good idea as to what kind of pricing we might see with the Galaxy Tab, the one piece of information we didn’t have was exactly when we would need to break open the piggy bank. Well have no fear, TmoNews is here!
↺ Amazon To Offer Free Cloud Services
* A “micro” Linux server in the Elastic Compute Cloud will be free for a year as an inducement for prospects to try their first cloud experience.
Applications
↺ 7 of the Best Free Linux Online Backup Solutions
* Now, let’s explore the 7 online backup solutions at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
↺ SimpleAudioPlayer: A Basic Audio Player for Linux that Lives Up to Its Name
* For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching as a new program called SimpleAudioPlayer saw its initial release and then a few minor updates. I put off on compiling it since at the time of its initial release I was using GNOME Ubuntu, and since SimpleAudioPlayer is a KDE application, it would have required installing a lot of KDE libraries. But since I’m now using KDE, I decided to take the plunge. I downloaded and compiled the newest version yesterday (version 1.0.3), and have been trying it out ever since.
↺ Arcontech introduces Linux version of CityVision
* Arcontech, the real-time market data technology specialist has today announced the Linux version of its CityVision market data distribution and vendor contribution platform.
Instructionals/Technical
↺ What does caret (^) in an apt-get command mean?
↺ How to Fix a Windows Infection Using Linux
↺ Antec 300 Computer Case Quick Review
↺ How to install an OSSEC server on Linux and an OSSEC Windows agent
↺ Easiest way to set up Samba for file-sharing
↺ How to Install Virtual box 3.2.10 in Ubuntu 10.10
↺ Learn Linux, 101: Control mounting and unmounting of filesystems
↺ Configure Wine With Vineyard [Version 0.1.5 Beta, Released]
↺ How to automatically print or convert to PDF, MS Office or other formats OpenDocument files
Desktop Environments
K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
* On a sunny September weekend in Cambridge, England, ten KDE and Telepathy developers met in the Collabora office to plan the future of Instant Messaging in KDE software. Once everyone had arrived, our host George Goldberg gave us an overview of the current state of the codebase, which parts are usable, which parts still need writing, and which parts were written years ago and need revision. This turned into a project management session to determine the order for getting things done, and a discussion about a release schedule that will make the project visible without tying it prematurely into compatibility guarantees that slow down development.
↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 10th October 2010
↺ KDE Commit-Digest for 17th October 2010
Distributions
New Releases
↺ Pardus Linux 2011 Beta Comes With KDE SC 4.5.2
Debian Family
Canonical/Ubuntu
↺ Canonical Highlights Touch Support on Ubuntu Netbooks
* Most of the hype about touchscreen devices these days centers around the iPad and other highly proprietary hardware. But Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has made major bets in recent months that touch-enabled computers will become ubiquitous in the open-source world as well. It made that belief clear last week when it showcased the Unity interface running on a tablet computer. Read on for a look.
Flavours and Variants
* Recently, I burned the ISO file for Super OS. We’ve used Super OS in the past and found it to our liking for one simple reason. It makes available some of the codecs and “restricted” goodies that the regular Ubuntu install does not.
* Let’s say W32 Codecs, Nvidia and ATI prop drivers, libdvdcss and the Oracle/Sun version of Java 6.
* Yeah, I know, I know…iced tea this and iced tea that…..openjdk-6-jdk and openjdk-6-jre…I appreciate the effort. Many times they just don’t work.
* They have serious limitations in many banking and secure websites…it just doesn’t get the job done for many online applications…at least for the time being.
* So we needed a base distro to build to and we began to work with Super OS.
Devices/Embedded
↺ Powerloader Light Exo-Suit Adds 40kg of Kick-Power to Your Legs
* The idea behind it is that it can help with rehabilitation, but when it runs on Linux 2.6 and can be modded both at software and hardware levels, I know what I’d be using it for. Kicking down pinatas and sprinting off with my spoils, yes.
↺ MontaVista Releases Carrier Grade Edition Linux 6.0
* MontaVista Software recently released MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition (CGE) 6.0, the next generation of its carrier grade quality Linux development platform. CGE 6.0 delivers the technologies required for next-generation multi-core architectures with the new MontaVista Bare Metal Engine for high performance, new multi-core resource management capabilities to maximise multi-core designs, and new high availability features incorporating the latest open source technologies. At the same time, CGE helps Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) and Telecom companies lower their total cost of ownership with extended power management capabilities and support for commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, according to the company.
↺ MontaVista Carrier Grade Linux 6.0 – with configurable real-time environments
↺ Intel stretches hypervisor across Xeon 5600, Freescale
* Last week, chip maker and operating system wannabe Intel revved up its Wind River Linux with a version 4 update, putting a piping hot and steamy fresh Linux kernel at the heart of its cross-platform, embedded Linux platform. This week, the related Wind River Hypervisor is tweaked with a 1.2 release.
↺ ISEM Solutions Presents – Artila’s Matrix-504- Linux-ready ARM9 Embedded Computer.
* The Matrix-504 is Artila’s 2nd-generation ARM9- based box computer with pre-built Linux kernel and file system. It comes with 100% Linux 2.6.29 compatible computing platform, ATMEL AT91SAM9G20 400MHz CPU, 64MB SDRAM and 128MB NAND Flash, System backup Data Flash: 2MB, One 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, Four 921.6Kbps high speed TTY (serial ) ports, Two USB 2.0 host ports- 12Mbps, Fail-over mechanism against system crash, Provides four high-speed TTY ports: Port 1 supports RS-232/422/485 and Port 2 to Port 4 support RS-232/485. The RS-485 interface features hardware direction control to ease communication programming, GNU C/C++ tool chain for Linux/Windows, Extremely compact design, 78 x 108 x 24mm, Ultra-low power consumption, less than 3 Watts. Matrix-504 ARM9-based Linux Computer with 128MB on-board Flash, including one CD-ROM which contains GNU tool chain and user guide.
* A quick look at the WD’s GPL code reveals that the WD TV Live Plus runs a Linux 2.6.22.19 kernel as the underlying embedded operating system.
Phones
* Despite some issues, webOS 2.0 is probably neck and neck with iOS4 when it comes to polish and ease of use, and that’s a pretty huge thing for Palm.
Nokia/MeeGo
↺ Nokia N900 Can Run Unmodified webOS Games
* Love to play some of those WebOS games on your Nokia N900 without having to reboot into a different operating system? With both Palm and Nokia showcasing similar methods of developing native Linux apps (SDL 1.2) and the hardware between Palm Pre and the N900 being similar enough, Maemo users have found a way to put those cool WebOS games on your Nokia N900. It will not need you rebooting your OS and you can run all those games currently on offer by WebOS on your N900 handset!
Android
↺ Motorola Puts Together 7 Videos for T-Mobile Defy
* Looking more like a few Android 101 tips, the short clips cover topics like capturing and sharing video clips, setting up personal email, and using contacts.
Jolicloud
↺ Jolicloud to ship a social netbook with web-based OS
↺ Jolicloud said to be working on its own netbook
↺ Jolicloud confirms very own netbook
↺ Is Cloud OS Maker Jolicloud Preparing To Sell A Netbook Of Its Own?
↺ Jolicloud branded netbook on its way
↺ Jolicloud branded netbook on the way
Tablets
↺ DigiTimes: Android 3.0 Tablet Samples Ready by December
* DigiTimes is reporting on Android tablets yet again. According to their sources, Google recently notified their partners that Android 3.0 will be completed and tablet samples will start arriving in December.
Free Software/Open Source
↺ Revolution Analytics grabs $8.6M to help businesses examine large data sets
* Revolution Analytics, a developer of software for computational statistics, has raised $8.6 million in an add-on to its second round of funding, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Palo Alto, the firm creates software to support users of the open-source R programming language.
↺ The Real Free and Open Source Exchange Replacement
SaaS
↺ MaestroDev Launches Maestro 3 Enterprise Build and Private Cloud Environment
* Maestro 3 features an innovative application layer that orchestrates the broadest set of open source tools including Apache Maven, Apache Archiva, Hudson, Apache Continuum, Sonar, Selenium, Xen, Eucalyptus, Icinga and Puppet—in a single application interface.
Oracle
↺ OpenOffice Council Shows LibreOffice Fans the Door
* So, we’ve got two forks of Oracle-owned projects — OpenIndiana and LibreOffice, both intended to rejuvenate projects that had been left to stagnate in Redwood Shores. We also know that Oracle plans to stick with OpenOffice.org itself, rather than donating the brand to the Document Foundation.
* We’ve seen Oracle sue Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) over Java, of course. And more recently, we’ve also seen the emergence of a fork of MySQL called SkySQL.
↺ Java guru quits over Oracle ‘disregard’
* The JCP elections are vital to the future of Java. Yet I believe there is evidence of Oracle manipulation.
Healthcare
↺ VA will use open source model for health records system
* The Veterans Affairs Department will adopt an open source model to modernize its legacy electronic health records system, the department’s chief information officer said at a Senate hearing Oct. 6.
* The Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) runs on an archaic program language called MUMPS, which experts said must be modernized to properly serve the 8 million veterans who receive care at VA health facilities.
Business
↺ Open source keeps fueling global exchange
* We continue to see evidence that open source software is helping vendors expand and grow globally. The latest announcement from French BPM vendor BonitaSoft, which is establishing U.S. offices in Boston and San Francisco, is a prime example. We covered BonitaSoft’s expansion and approach in July, which leverages more than 300,000 downloads of the software and presence in more than 20 countries.
↺ Funambol Launches Open Source Framework for Smartphones to Simplify App Development
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
↺ FSFE Newsletter – October 2010
* In this edition we discuss the misleading term “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” (FRAND), we explain what we are doing about centralised computer systems and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and update you on our current campaign to end non-free software commercials by public institutions.
* FSFE celebrated Software Freedom Day with a variety of local events and activities. We organised talks and booths in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Cologne, Offenburg (Germany), Zurich (Switzerland), and The Hague (Netherlands). With our activities we reached new audiences, and explained to them why Free Software will become as important as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.
Project Releases
* GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off tools to complete application suites.
↺ The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache Maven Version 3.0
Leftovers
↺ Mark Cuban Wants to Pay Government Attorneys to Get Off Their Ass
* Frustrated by the snail’s pace of the SEC investigation into insider trading allegations, Cuban offered to pay government attorneys to work faster.
↺ Manila: A megacity where the living must share with the dead
* Land is precious in Manila, and people are prepared to endure incredible circumstances to claim their own piece. Baking’s family is one of hundreds that have set up home in the cemetery, jostling for space with the dead. “It’s much better living here than in a shanty town,” he assures me as we clamber over densely-packed powder pink and blue tombs on the way to his home. “It’s much more peaceful and quiet.”
↺ Drug addict has vasectomy in return for £200 cash
* A drug addict has become the first man in Britain to take part in a controversial project that saw him get cash to be sterilised.
↺ Report: Ancient ruins worldwide ‘on verge of vanishing’
* Twelve historic sites around the world are “on the verge of vanishing” because of mismanagement and neglect, according to a new report.
* Steal someone else’s game. Change its name. Make millions. Repeat.
↺ Judge Clears CAPTCHA-Breaking Case for Criminal Trial
* A federal judge in New Jersey has cleared the way for a landmark criminal case targeting CAPTCHA circumvention to proceed to trial.
↺ UberCab Ordered to Cease And Desist
* Did Ubercab just crash and burn? Taxi and limo industry insiders in California today informed TechCrunch that the San Francisco Metro Transit Authority & the Public Utilities Commission of California have ordered the startup to cease and desist.
Health/Nutrition
↺ Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made
* Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet, a study by University of Manchester scientists has strongly suggested.
* The study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and Greece and earlier periods – carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and published in Nature Reviews Cancer – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.
Defence/Police/Aggression
↺ Jesse Jackson: Britain’s moral authority is undermined by police discrimination
* The Rev Jesse Jackson has said that Britain’s moral authority is being damaged by the government’s failure to stop the police discriminating against ethnic minorities.
* With the impact of the soon-to-be-announced mega austerity cuts still to come, it could be that millions will soon find it hard to make ends meet.
* But help is it hand. There’ll be no shortage of people forced to turn to shoplifting or petty crime to survive – and now there’s a website that will pay you to sit at home and spy on everyone in the hope of catching them.
↺ Inquiry after police filmed hitting anti-fascist protester
* An investigation is under way after a police officer was filmed hitting an anti-fascist demonstrator in the face during a far-right rally.
* Alan Clough, 63, from Radcliffe, Bury, was protesting against the English Defence League (EDL) rally in Bolton in March when he was struck, fell to the ground and was subsequently arrested.
↺ Iraq war logs: military privatisation run amok
* Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2005, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down “Route Irish” – the Baghdad airport road – shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. While they were at it, the Blackwater men fired shots over the heads of a group of soldiers from the 69th Regiment of the US Army before they sped away heading west in their white armoured truck. When the dust cleared, the Iraqi driver was dead and his wife and daughter were injured.
↺ They’re Trying To Sell the Brooklyn Bridge Again
* So it was last month when a friendly couple dumped their paper on the train seat opposite me. And bingo, it was as bad as ever. “Defense Officials Predict Slow Afghan Progress.” And the sourcing for this hardly unexpected headline? “Senior US military officials”, “military officials”, “a senior US military official”, “Obama administration officials”, “defence officials”, “the senior military official”, “military leaders”, “the official”, “military officials”, “the officials”, “many in the military”, “military officials” (again), “officials” (again), “military officials” (yet again) and “officials” (yet again).
* Why do our scribes write this horseshit? My old mate Alexander Cockburn calls it “selling the Brooklyn Bridge” and claims that Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of The New York Times, is always ready to buy it.
↺ David Kelly files prove little for campaigners whose fight continues
* Kelly’s death has never been the subject of a proper inquest, Powers argues. The original inquest was replaced by the Hutton inquiry – a highly unusual and, to many observers, unjustified break with standard legal procedure for single deaths. Last month, lawyers acting for Kelly campaigners delivered an application for a fresh inquest to attorney general Dominic Grieve. Grieve is considering it, a process which may take several more months.
↺ Norwich Council uses ‘spying’ powers to catch smoke pub
* Norwich City Council used controversial spying powers to investigate and fine a pub for flouting the smoking ban.
* With allotments in mind, news has reached Big Brother Watch of the ludicrous situation of a Lincolnshire council demanding to know the sexual orientation, race and religion of those applying for one of the eighteen vacant plots in the City of Lincoln.
↺ Police chief wants Birmingham ‘spy’ cameras removed
↺ Sacrificing our liberties won’t win the war against terror
* The good news, according to Professor Audrey Cronin at the US National War College, is that terrorist campaigns always end. The only questions are when and how. The answers hinge on government policy. After the 2005 London bombings, Tony Blair proclaimed: “Let no one be in any doubt, the rules of the game are changing.” Ministers proposed waves of authoritarian measures, including incursions on free speech, control orders, ID cards and extensions to detention without charge that one former chief constable labelled a “propaganda coup for Al-Qaeda”. If Al-Qaeda was looking for a repressive reaction, they got it. But, was it effective?
* AMY GOODMAN: So they’re doing it again on this 400,000-document leak?
* DANIEL ELLSBERG: They’re doing it again, and it’s much to their credit, and I appreciate it. I’ve waited forty years for a release on this scale. I think there should have been something on the scale of the Pentagon Papers every year. How often do we need this kind of thing? We haven’t seen it. So I’m very glad that someone is taking the risk and the initiative to inform us better now.
↺ Government web snooping back on the cards
* Government plans to intercept Internet communications and store details of “traffic data” are reportedly back on the cards.
Environment/Energy/Wildlife
↺ Climate change v capitalism: the feast is almost over
* Six weeks from now, in Cancun, Mexico, the world’s nations will gather under the auspices of the United Nations (the UNFCCC) to again discuss how to alleviate climate change. They’ll try to pick up the broken pieces from last December in Copenhagen, where we witnessed tortured dances by government leaders trying to avoid the realities of our time, and the profound conundrums we face as a society. They accomplished nothing, and may reprise that performance in Cancun.
↺ China unveils ambitious plan to protect wildlife at UN talks
* China has unveiled its most ambitious conservation plan in a generation, ahead of the opening today of a crucial UN biodiversity conference.
↺ What are the prospects for the Nagoya biodiversity summit?
↺ More toxic threats to eastern Europe
↺ Russian tiger summit offers ‘last chance’ to save species in the wild
* Leaders of the few remaining countries where tigers are still found in the wild are preparing for a make-or-break summit in Russia, which they believe offers the last chance to save the critically endangered animal.
↺ Taxpayer could be hit by nuclear waste bill for new reactors
* The nuclear industry could end up passing on to taxpayers the costs of disposing of waste from new reactors under government plans, according to official documents seen by the Guardian.
↺ Slowed population growth could lower emissions by 29 percent
* To meet goals of reduced emissions, we may need to look no further than our own populace, according to a study published in PNAS. By analyzing a few different data sets and projections for population and emissions growth, a group of researchers found that a concerted effort to slow population growth could contribute as much as 29 percent of the emissions reductions needed to avert dangerous levels of climate change. They also found that a more urban population causes a significant increase in emissions, while an older one lowers emissions.
Finance
↺ French protests jeopardise airport fuel supplies
* France’s main airport has only a few days’ worth of jet fuel left, it was announced today, as the strikes against government pension plans continued to disrupt infrastructure.
↺ Sarkozy should retire, says France
* More importantly, the French have decided to take to the streets in the millions – including large-scale strikes and work stoppages – to defend hard-won retirement gains. (It must be emphasised, since the media sometimes forgets to make the distinction, that only a tiny percentage of France’s demonstrators have engaged in any kind of property damage and even fewer in violence, with all but these few protesting peacefully.) French populist rage is being directed in a positive direction – unlike in the United States where it is most prominently being mobilised to elect political candidates who will do their best to increase the suffering of working- and middle-class citizens.
↺ Greece promises to crack down on tax evaders
* Saying Greeks had already made “unprecedented sacrifices”, the prime minister, George Papandreou, insisted today there would be no more hard-hitting austerity measures, despite the country bracing itself for an expected upward revision of a budget deficit that at 13.6% has already hit record highs.
* “Whatever happens, there will be no additional burden placed on wage earners and pensioners. There will be no additional increase in tax rates beyond the ones we have already committed to making,” Papandreou said.
↺ Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons
* [Editor’s note: In November 2009, MoJo reporter Andy Kroll received a tip about a little-known yet powerful firm, the Law Offices of David J. Stern, which handled staggering numbers of foreclosures in southeastern Florida—the throbbing heart of nation’s housing crisis. Among the allegations, the tipster had it from insiders that Stern employees were routinely falsifying legal paperwork in an effort to push borrowers out of their homes as quickly—and profitably—as possible.
* Kroll spent eight months investigating Stern’s firm and its ilk—a breed of deep-pocketed and controversial operations dubbed “foreclosure mills.” After sifting through thousands of pages of court documents, interviewing scores of legal experts and former Stern employees, and attending dozens of foreclosure hearings in drab Florida courtrooms, he emerged with a portrait of a law firm—indeed, an entire industry—that was willing to cut corners, deceive judges, and even (allegedly) commit fraud—all at the expense of America’s homeowners.
↺ Wall Street Sold `Tragically Deficient’ Product, Angelides Says
* Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. created products that were “tragically deficient,” in the view of the chairman of the panel charged by Congress with identifying the causes of the financial crisis.
↺ Timothy Geithner forecloses on the moratorium debate
* Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is good at telling fairy tales. Geithner first became known to the general public in September of 2008. Back then, he was head of the New York Federal Reserve Board. He was part of the triumvirate, along with Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke and then Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, who told congress that it had to pass the Tarp or the economy would collapse.
↺ Unemployment Benefits: The 99ers
* Even after an extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, many of those about to go off the program are in a quandary. Scott Pelley talks to some of them in Silicon Valley.
↺ California Data Autumnal: Dialing Back a Decade
* From the highs of 2007, total California employment is down about 6.5%. And, 2008 total oil product consumption compared to 2007 is down about 5.5%. There is no question that 2009 energy data from EIA Washington will show another notable fall, in California energy use. Meanwhile, as we can see from the labor market data, there is no economic recovery occurring in America’s largest state.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
↺ Tell the DOJ: Investigate the Chamber of Commerce’s campaign spending
* This year alone the Chamber has pledged to spend $75 million on ads attacking candidates who don’t meekly bow down to the biggest and wealthiest corporate interests.
↺ It’s Not Your Local Chamber of Commerce
* Many Americans think of the Chamber of Commerce as a local organization that supplies maps or information about local businesses, or thing of it as a sort of civics league, like the Elks Lodge. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. is completely different. It often has no ties to local Chambers of Commerce. It spends more money on lobbying than any other entity in Washington, D.C., outspending even the political parties on elections nationwide. The Chamber has a $200 million budget, and as a 501(c)(6) trade association, it doesn’t have to pay any taxes or disclose its donors.
↺ The Loaded Chamber: Secret Money
↺ How Radical Christian Conservatives May Succeed in Destroying Democracy
* The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes spent his life battling the assault on democracy by tyrants. It is disheartening to be reminded that he lost. But he understood that the hardest struggle for humankind is often stating and understanding the obvious. Aristophanes, who had the temerity to portray the ruling Greek tyrant, Cleon, as a dog, is the perfect playwright to turn to in trying to grasp the danger posed to us by movements from the tea party to militias to the Christian right, as well as the bankrupt and corrupt power elite that no longer concerns itself with the needs of its citizens. He saw the same corruption 2,400 years ago. He feared correctly that it would extinguish Athenian democracy. And he struggled in vain to rouse Athenians from their slumber.
↺ The Kochs, Glenn Beck and Titans of Industry Met to Plot 2010 Elections
* ThinkProgress has discovered that the oil billionaire brothers, David H. and Charles G. Koch, who played a key role in creating and funding the Tea Party movement, hold a quiet annual, invitation-only gathering where they coordinate their political agenda with other titans of industry — including the big health insurers, oil executives, Wall Street investors, real estate tycoons, conservative journalists and TV opinion show stars like Glenn Beck.
* In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups.
Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
↺ Google boss: ‘Creeped out by Street View? Just move’
* Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that if you don’t like Google Street View cars photographing your house, you can “just move.”
* “Street View. We drive exactly once,” Schmidt said during an appearance on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” late last week. “So, you can just move, right?”
* Schmidt’s words were broadcast across the net on Friday, but they’ve been edited from the video now available on the CNN website. Before it was edited out, the moment was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
↺ Why I’m suing the Department of Homeland Security
* Today the First Amendment Project is filing a lawsuit on my behalf against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (one of the divisions of the Department of Homeland Security) for violating the Privacy Act and the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to disclose their records of my travels, what they did with my requests for my records, and how they index, search for, and retrieve these travel surveillance records.
↺ Berlusconi ‘vendetta’ takes Italy’s Paxman off air again
* His fans see him as Italy’s Jeremy Paxman, an aggressive but penetrating TV anchorman. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns most of the country’s private channels and wields indirect control over the state network, RAI, sees him as a dangerous leftie. Meet Michele Santoro, the temporarily banned hero of Italian current affairs broadcasting.
↺ Egyptian government fears a Facebook revolution
* Many Egyptians, in what is still a police state, regard Facebook as a safe haven where they can campaign and express their opinions freely. But that could soon change following a crackdown by the authorities against various types of media.
* In Egypt, many opposition movements have either started or grown significantly on Facebook, most notably the April 6 youth movement and the national campaign to support Nobel peace prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei as a presidential candidate.
↺ Chinese police refuse to register human rights lawyer as missing
* Chinese police have refused to register an outspoken human rights lawyer who has not been seen since April as a missing person, his elder brother said today.
* The disappearance of Gao Zhisheng has caused international concern, particularly because he had previously made detailed claims of torture at the hands of security officials during detentions.
↺ Tibetan student protests spread to Beijing
↺ The west must stand up to China
* Pity the Chinese. The inhabitants of the world’s next superpower cannot search the internet or assemble or travel or speak or read or write or even reproduce without restriction. Yet in the lands where freedom is abundant, China, rather than earning well-deserved rebukes, continues to be championed as the ineluctable future. This disgraceful journey began with a liberal assumption: the west, it was claimed, is more likely to influence China by partnering with it, by giving it a prominent position inside, rather than pushing it outside, global institutions.
↺ Silence of the dissenters: How south-east Asia keeps web users in line
* Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have all moved or are moving towards monitoring internet use, blocking international sites regarded as critical and ruthlessly silencing web dissidents.
↺ NYCLU Settlement Ends Restriction on Photography Outside Federal Courthouses
↺ Plan to store Britons’ phone and internet data revived
Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM
↺ What Do Kids Say About The Internet? + Competition For Best Online Children’s Content
* And, by the way, we can get a good insight into where the internet might head by understanding what these kids use. School work or watching videos (84% and 83% respectively). Playing games (74%) and communicating via instant messaging (61%) are the next most popular activities online. One out of three youngsters now connect via their mobile phones or other portable devices.
Intellectual Monopolies
↺ Vatican to rich countries: stop “excessive zeal” for IP rights
* On September 21, the Vatican observer at the UN, Mons. Silvano Maria Tomasi, addressed the 48th general assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva (English translation). He let the group know that the Vatican supports intellectual property rights (IPR) because such protection “recognizes the dignity of man and his work” and because it contributes to “the growth of the individual personality and to the common good.”
* But Tomasi then went on to make a point we’ve harped on repeatedly here at Ars: supporting IP rights in general does not always mean supporting tougher patent and copyright rules; “better” does not always mean “stronger.”
↺ Steven Johnson: ‘Eureka moments are very, very rare’
* What all this means, in practical terms, is that the best way to encourage (or to have) new ideas isn’t to fetishise the “spark of genius”, to retreat to a mountain cabin in order to “be creative”, or to blabber interminably about “blue-sky”, “out-of-the-box” thinking. Rather, it’s to expand the range of your possible next moves – the perimeter of your potential – by exposing yourself to as much serendipity, as much argument and conversation, as many rival and related ideas as possible; to borrow, to repurpose, to recombine. This is one way of explaining the creativity generated by cities, by Europe’s 17th-century coffee-houses, and by the internet. Good ideas happen in networks; in one rather brain-bending sense, you could even say that “good ideas are networks”. Or as Johnson also puts it: “Chance favours the connected mind.”
Copyrights
↺ We should copyright the Canadian way
* The new copyright bill, C-32, places consumers and users at risk of infringement for a wide variety of things, such as circumventing digital locks to transfer a CD track to an MP3 Player, or to transfer e-book content from an old device to a new one. Alongside C-32, Canada has been involved in talks to establish an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Both C-32 and ACTA represent a departure from Canadian copyright…
↺ From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced Copyright” : Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda
↺ Six more website operators facing Righthaven copyright lawsuits
* Hotel management students in Canada are receiving a lesson in U.S. copyright law courtesy of Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC.
↺ US Library of Congress: Copyright Is Destroying Historic Audio
↺ Critique of CBC’s new Anti-Creative Commons Policy
* The logical and ethical next step is to alter this policy, and as such I call for the CBC to do such; allowing for appropriately licensed Creative Commons music to exist alongside commercially licensed music, effectively giving back the rights of Artists and Show Producers to share content, and giving alternatives to Canadian Artists to decide for themselves how their content is to be used. A key issue here is artists’ right to give permission under copyright law for use of their works. They have various reasons for doing this, and why should CBC punish them? By blocking this, the CBC has effectively eliminated this potential on the larger scale. This is not the Canadian way of doing things – we share and we like sharing. Allowing policies like this to exist in our Public Services is a step backwards and creates justifications and rationalizations for similar policies in the future. As a Canadian, this upsets me – seeing my countries’ artists with alternative views set onto a back burner because they have been unfairly grouped in with others. This is not right at all.
↺ MPAA Calls Censorship Of Websites ‘Forward Looking’
* Ah, the word choices of the MPAA. The organization that once claimed the VCR was the “Boston Strangler” of the movie industry is now out there trying to get three strikes and censorship laws passed to protect their business model, and referring to these backwards looking protectionist policies as “forward looking.” That’s what MPAA boss Bob Pisano called the idea, found in the COICA proposal to censor web sites the MPAA doesn’t like. Of course, if this had been in effect when the VCR first came out, there would be no VCR.
↺ Is Mark Twain’s ‘New’ Autobiography Covered By Copyright?
* PometheeFeu pointed us to the news that Mark Twain’s autobiography, to be officially published for the first time 100 years after his death is already looking like it’s going to be a best seller. The book comes out on November 15th, but it’s already near the top of the bestseller lists on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble thanks to pre-orders. If you weren’t aware, Twain (real name Samuel Clemens), wrote this autobiography towards the end of his life, but demanded that it not be published until 100 years after his death (some of it, he demanded be withheld for 500 years). Allegedly, he did this so that he could say what he wanted without worrying about the people he spoke ill of ever finding out. Also, it’s not your typical autobiography. Apparently, it was more or less stream of consciousness, concerning whatever he felt like talking about. He would get up in the morning, talk about whatever he felt like, and people working for him would take it all down in dictation.
↺ Sarkozy Wants To Use Anti-Censorship Conference To Promote Censorship By Copyright
* We’ve pointed out many times how copyright is, by its nature, a law for censorship. Now, you can argue that it’s necessary or useful censorship (though, I doubt I would agree), but it cannot be denied that the basic purpose of copyright law is to stifle a form of speech. That’s why I’m always amazed at the disconnect of politicians, who support anti-censorship efforts online at the same time that they promote plans to censor-via-copyright law. Of course, most haven’t actually thought about it, or they insist that copyright is not censorship at all, and they can’t fathom how the two are connected.
* The Underground story in brief is this: their comic was pirated and bootlegged on 4Chan. They didn’t sue or whine: the authors went online at 4Chan to discuss their comic. What happened? More good publicity than you can imagine – go look at their website for what happened to their sales.
ACTA
↺ FFII: ACTA goes beyond present EU laws
* The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is not in line with present EU laws, according to a Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) analysis. Previously, the European Commission has often stated that ACTA would remain fully in line with existing EU legislation.
* Health groups have pointed out that ACTA will hamper access to essential medicine in developing countries. FFII’s analysis focusses on the impact ACTA will have on European SMEs in the ICT field, and on diffusion of green technology, needed to fight climate change. The FFII concludes that patents have to be excluded from ACTA’s civil enforcement section.
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