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Zinho writes:

A legal battle is heating up between the producers of a Star Trek fan film, Anaxar, and Paramount (the corporation that owns Star Trek). Paramount is suing the film producers, claiming not only trademark over the iconic alien races and the look and feel of their equipment, but also copyright ownership of the language they speak. This became interesting when a lawyer, representing Pro Bono the Language Creation Society (LCS), filed an Amicus brief arguing that Klingon has moved beyond the point where anyone can logically own it, and has taken on a life of its own. For bonus points, part of the brief was written in Klingon.

Paramount Copyright Claim on Klingon Language Challenged in Klingon Language; Paramount's arguments lack reason, or "meq Hutlh."
Is Klingon A Living Language? That's For (Human) Courts To Decide (NPR Broadcast recording and transcript)
Why a lawyer wrote a legal brief partially in Klingon (listen to the recording for this one, it's particularly funny and to-the-point)

Paramount, for its part, predictably stands by its claim; they say that they made it, and Klingons aren't real anyway, so they should be able to own copyright on the language.

This argument is of interest to the tech world as well, as some of the same arguments can be made regarding computer language. A person or corporation can create a computer language, but what control then does it give them over how that language is used? The brief touches on various famous software cases such as Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc and Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai Inc. The broad issues of whether copyright can/should be applied to a language as a whole affect both the Constructed Language community and the world of programming.

The LCS' page covering the Axanar case has an impressive list of further reading on this topic; the Internet has made this into a meme and discussion of it has gone viral.

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takyon writes:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/09/477310339/uber-lyft-vow-to-stop-driving-in-austin-after-voters-affirm-regulations

After voters in Austin, Texas, rejected a proposal for loosened regulations on ride-hailing apps, both Uber and Lyft have announced they will be "pausing" operations in the city.

In late 2015, Austin's City Council approved an ordinance requiring companies like Uber and Lyft to be regulated like taxis. That meant, among other things, drivers would have to be fingerprinted as part of a background check. Uber and Lyft, in response, pushed a ballot proposal asking voters to choose between that city ordinance and a looser statewide law. NPR's John Burnett reports that the two companies dropped $8 million to promote their stance on Proposal 1 — a record for Austin ballot proposals. "Despite spending what amounted to $200 on each vote in their favor, Uber and Lyft lost by 44 to 56," John says.

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takyon writes:

Twitter has cut off U.S. intelligence agency access to Dataminr, a partly-owned search tool that sifts through tweets in real time. The decision may be due to the bad "optics" of being closely associated with U.S. spies:

Twitter Inc. cut off U.S. intelligence agencies from access to a service that sifts through the entire output of its social-media postings, the latest example of tension between Silicon Valley and the federal government over terrorism and privacy.

The move, which hasn't been publicly announced, was confirmed by a senior U.S. intelligence official and other people familiar with the matter. The service — which sends out alerts of unfolding terrorist attacks, political unrest and other potentially important events — isn't directly provided by Twitter, but instead by Dataminr Inc., a private company that mines public Twitter feeds for clients.

Also at The Verge and PC World.

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takyon writes:

Topographical maps of Mercury, created from imagery taken by the Messenger probe, have been released by NASA:

NASA's MESSENGER mission has unveiled the first global digital elevation model (DEM) of Mercury, revealing in stunning detail the topography across the entire innermost planet and paving the way for scientists to fully characterize Mercury's geologic history.

The global topographic model is among three new products from the Planetary Data System (PDS), a NASA-funded organization that archives and distributes all of NASA's planetary mission data to the public. With this 15th and last major data release, the MESSENGER mission has shared more than 10 terabytes of Mercury science data, including nearly 300,000 images, millions of spectra, and numerous map products, along with interactive tools that allow the public to explore those data.

The release at the Planetary Data System.

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butthurt writes:

Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party has been elected as mayor of London. He is to replace the Conservative Boris Johnson, who has served since 2008. Mr. Khan won with 56.8% of the votes as against 43.2% for his Conservative opponent Zac Goldsmith. Sian Berry of the Greens came in third; Caroline Pidgeon of the Liberal Democrats, fourth; and Peter Whittle of the UKIP, fifth.

Coverage:

• BBC News (results only)
• BBC News
• BBC News (biography of Khan)
• The Guardian
• The Guardian
• The Guardian (editorial)
• The Independent
• Washington Post
• CNN
• USA Today

[Ed. addition.] London is currently the 19th largest city in the world — it was the largest city in the world from the late 1800s until 1925 (when it was surpassed by New York City.)

Approximately 3 million people or 36.7% of London's population are foreign-born making London the city with the second largest immigrant population, behind New York City, in terms of absolute numbers.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The World Socialist Web Site reports

The US economy continued to stagnate in April, creating a mere 160,000 jobs, far fewer than the 200,000 predicted by economists and the lowest number in seven months, according to the monthly employment report released Friday by the Labor Department.

Employment gains have averaged 192,000 a month so far this year, well below 2015's average of 229,000 jobs a month.

The official unemployment remained at 5.0 percent, while employment fell by the most since 2013. The labor force actually declined, with 362,000 people dropping out of the labor market. The labor participation rate--the share of working-age people in the labor force--dropped to 62.8 percent from the previous month's 63 percent. The employment-to-population ratio also declined, falling to 59.7 percent.

These dismal figures are consistent with recent data showing a sharp deceleration in US economic growth, which has slowed for three consecutive quarters. Last week, the government reported that the nation's gross domestic product rose by only 0.5 percent in the first three months of 2016, the weakest quarterly pace in two years. Of particular significance was a dramatic decline in business investment, portending more months of minimal job growth.

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mcgrew writes:

I originally posted this as a journal, and darnkitten opined "Great article, and one I'd like to see on the front page", so I'll leave it to you folks whether or not to agree with him (her?). It will be in my newest book, out next month.

Useful Dead Technologies Redux

Ten years ago I wrote a humorous article titled "Useful Dead Technologies" about technologies that are no longer used that I sorely miss, like furnaces that still worked when the power went out, or things made of durable steel instead of today's fragile and short-lived plastics.

Read on for McGrew's full list and commentary.

aristarchus writes:

A short while ago, a student pointed out that what Socrates was doing back in Ancient Athens was actually what today would be called “trolling”. And a case was made that philosophy itself is trolling. Well, now we a have paper purportedly by Aristotle, philosophically analyzing trolling.

If you want something speciated and specifically differentiated, Aristotle is your philosopher. The concept of the "excellence of the troll" is intriguing.

Trolls bring regret? Hmm, this could actually be true. But they are not responsible for it? This could also be true! But the author is maintaining that the strife is caused by the trolling. This will not end well.

The ultimate conclusion is available in the paper itself. It behooves all aspiring trolls and philosophers to read this recently discovered work by The Philosopher!

Original source: The Daily Nous , which in turn references the abstract published in Journal of the American Philosophical Association. (Abstract features links to the full text.)

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Bobs writes:

Hi Soylentils,

I am looking for ideas for an extended summer project for a handful of kids from 10 - 15 while they are out of school.

Ideally researching, designing, building something that does something interesting.

Kids are relatively nerdy, well-read, with some interest and/or experience with programing, aviation, robots, chemistry, Estes-rockets, Lego-Mindstorms, rocks, electricity, tanks, black holes.

I have a few ideas below but I imagine that you all can come up with and/or have stories about interesting projects built by kids.

Some ideas I have come up with:

• Build a decent-sized trebuchet
• Program Lego-based "battle-bots"
• Build a floating, thermite-detonator
• An R/C blimpy, drone launcher
• Build a large 'ball-machine' out of PVC tubes.
• Geo-caching?

Contraints:

• should take 20-80 hours to complete,
• should be interactive / engaging / interesting once completed,
• needs to allow at least 2 groups to work in a parallel,
• should cost less than $500,
• should take some thought, not just time and effort,
• better if involves a more activity than just sitting at a computer.

Based upon your experience, what have you done or think would be fun to do?

Thanks for any ideas.

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frojack writes:

The Register and a few other sources report that Microsoft's KB3133977 update may half-brick your machine if you have a relatively recent Asus motherboard and are running Windows 7.

KB3133977 patch triggers certain Asus motherboards into raising a UEFI alarm, preventing the system from booting.

Asus makes mother boards for a lot of different whitebox machines, so this may affect a lot of different computers. Asus suggests turning off UEFI in the bios if that option is available.

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HughPickens.com writes:

According to a new study, the chance of an obese person attaining normal body weight is 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women, increasing[sic] to 1 in 1,290 for men and 1 in 677 for women with severe obesity, suggesting that current weight management programs focused on dieting and exercise are not effective in tackling obesity.

Now Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt writes in The New York Times that in the long run dieting is rarely effective, doesn't reliably improve health and does more harm than good and according to Aamodt, the root of the problem is not willpower but neuroscience. Metabolic suppression is one of several powerful tools that the brain uses to keep the body within a certain weight range, called the set point. The range, which varies from person to person, is determined by genes and life experience.

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Appalbarry writes:

CBC Radio's Under the Influence is currently presenting a series of programs that examines how Internet porn sites have managed to attract mainstream advertisers. Well worth a half hour of your time to listen! (on-line, podcast, iTunes etc....)

This week, we explore the increasingly blurry line between advertising and porn. There has always been a line advertisers wouldn't cross to promote their wares - but now some marketers have tiptoed over that line to advertise on porn sites. From food companies to fashion brands to Hollywood movies, marketers have breached the final frontier in their search for bigger, more affordable audiences. And on the other side of the tracks, porn sites are beginning to advertise in mainstream media. It's a big risk for these strange bedfellows.

Among the companies profiled is Eat24, who made headlines a few years ago for discovering that porn fans were also great customers for take out food.

Lots of fascinating industry info about the on-line porn industry, its history, and the reasons why advertisers can't entirely ignore such a massive audience.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

The German city of Augsburg is embedding warning lights in the pavement at traffic intersections to alert smartphone users who don't looking[sic] up before crossing the road.

Rows of red LEDs have been embedded in the pavement after a 15-year-old girl was killed when she stepped in front of a tram while looking at her smartphone and listening to music. Two other people have been seriously injured in separate but similar incidents.

The city authorities have installed the lights at two tram stops near the local university and will roll out the scheme if successful. It's particularly concerned that young people are most at risk.

The Germans have invented a word for these preoccupied people: smombies (a contraction of smartphone and zombie).

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

This just in from the front lines of the War on the Unusual:

University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio was solving a set of differential equations on a plane departing the Philadelphia airport when the woman next to him surreptitiously passed a note to a flight attendant telling them she thought he was a terrorist because of the strange things he was writing on a pad of paper. The plane returned to the gate where he was questioned. At least this time the pilot had enough sense not to kick him off the flight.

Remember folks, if you see something say something!

Original Submission

Pyra, the Successor of the OpenPandora Handheld is One Step Closer to Production.

Anonymous Coward or just a Lazy Bastard? writes:

For those of you who don't know what either of them is, the TL;DR follows:
- Pyra is a Linux-based handheld computer equipped with a keyboard and gaming controls.
- It is an open and modular design which can be easily disassembled and upgraded.
- The official OS is Debian based.

It bears repeating that this is a handheld, not a notebook.
Fans of the Nokia N900 and of the clamshell Sharp Zaurus models now finally have a modern replacement.
There are two main variations: one with the phone hardware, one without.
The phone hardware goes on the mainboard so you have to take that into account right upfront.

Oh, and yes, it's expensive. There's also nothing like it.
I remember paying just as much for my Zaurus and the support was not even remotely comparable with what OpenPandora received.
Before anybody points out it is 2016, bear in mind this is mostly the work of a small group of enthusiasts who intend to stick around for a while. Kickstarter and the like are not really a good comparison either.

Expectations being set, warnings given, you can read more here:
    https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/

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