Said By Lawrence Lessig
(...) But there are many who use the space to engage in public discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing politicians about the decisions they make, offering solutions to problems we all see: blogs create a virtual public meeting (...)
Said By Lessig
One direct effect is on stories that had a different life cycle in the mainstream media. The Trent Lott affair is an example. When Lott "misspoke" at a party for Senator Strom Thurmond, essentially praising Thurmond's segregationist policies, he calculated correctly that this story would disappear from the mainstream press within forty-eight hours. It did. But he didn't calculate its life cycle in blog space. The bloggers kept researching the story. Over time, more and more instances of the same "misspeaking" emerged. Finally, the story broke back into mainstream press. In the end, Lott was forced to resign as senate majority leader. [1]
Said By Lessig
But democracy has never just been about elections. Democracy means rule by the people, but rule means something more than mere elections. In our [US-American] tradition, it also means comtrol through reasoned discourse. (...) It wasn't popular elections that fascinated him — it was the jury, an institution that gave ordinary people the right to choose life or death for other citizens.
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There is little doubt the game, which goes on sale at midnight on Tuesday, will be a blockbuster release. Brokerage Wedbush Morgan predicts that Microsoft could sell 3 million copies in the product's first 12 days. The 2004 release of Halo 2 brought in $125 million in its first day, a then-record, Kim said. That's a far cry from the kind of revenue that Windows or Office generates in a quarter, but it's still some serious cash.
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Available for download now, OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an extensive array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it.
Plus: It is only with 2.3 that users can make full use of our growing extensions library.
Said By Pancakes
Magic: The Gathering is right up there with D&D, GURPS, and Settlers of Catan for one of the best games ever made.
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The PDT project is working towards providing a PHP Development Tools framework for the Eclipse platform. This project will encompass all development components necessary to develop PHP and will facilitate extensibility. It will leverage the existing Web Tools Project in providing developers with PHP capabilities.
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The new corporation will draw the two or three dedicated Thunderbird programmers out from under their current Firefox umbrella and hire new staff, Baker said. As with its sister Mozilla Corp., the foundation set up the corporation as a convenient legal mechanism to meet overall Mozilla Foundation goals, not to be a moneymaking business, she added. The dynamic nature of the e-mail business was on display Monday when Yahoo, which operates a leading Web-based e-mail service, spent $350 million to acquire Zimbra, which develops open-source software that gives Web-based e-mail much of the feel of PC-based e-mail software. Zimbra also offers an offline version that lets people read and write e-mail from computers when they're not connected to a network, further blurring the boundaries between Web- and PC-based e-mail software.
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"The Court criticises, in particular, the obligation imposed on Microsoft to allow the monitoring trustee, independently of the Commission, access to its information, documents, premises and employees and also to the source code of its relevant products," it said. Microsoft has now been ordered to pay 80% of the Commission's legal costs, while the Commission has to carry a specific part of Microsoft's costs. The Commission welcomed the verdict. It will give its competition commissioner Neelie Kroes a much needed boost, after her office lost several high-profile anti-trust cases. Ms Kroes described the victory as "bittersweet", saying that software customers still have no more choice than they did three years ago.
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Havok most recently announced Havok 5 at the Austin Game Developers Conference, adding "major new features" in this latest edition of its modular suite of run-time technology and artists' tools. As the firm noted, Havok 5 features enhancements to its core products, Havok Physics and Havok Animation, and introduces new features for Havok Behavior, a system for developing event-driven character behaviors in a game. Some of the games using Havok technology, particularly its Havok Physics solution, include BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2, Oblivion, Crackdown, and MotorStorm - the company is also rapidly developing and marketing further tool products.
Said By Aron Schatz
What a surprise.