An anonymous reader sends us to LinuxElectrons.com for an announcement from the Free Software Foundation Europe, in the form of a letter (PDF) sent to the European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. FSFE offers to support a possible EU antitrust investigation of Microsoft, declaring that "Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to implement free and open industry standards." Opera Software issued a complaint to the Competition Commissioner based on anti-competitive behavior in the web browser market. FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter, "Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market."

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drewmoney writes "A LinuxDevices.com article introduces several of Netgear's Linux-based NAS devices, technology they acquired with the purchase of Infrant earlier this year. (Here is Netgear's product page.) There are models from 1.5 TB, at about $1,100, to 4 TB, topped by a 4-TB rack-mount version. They are geared towards the professional home user and small and medium businesses. The NAS devices come complete with the usual RAID features, file-system access, and a built in USB print server. All are controlled through a Web GUI and some even offer SSH access."

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Felipe Hoffa writes "One week ago Google Reader's team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven't been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family who says they won't be able to enjoy this Christmas because of this 'feature.' Will Google start doing this with all their products? You can check a summary of complaints in my journal here or browse the whole thread in Google Groups."

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I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "David Pogue of the New York Times has an interesting story about how fewer and fewer people believe that infringement is wrong. He mentions talks he gave back in 2005 where people were willing to believe that making backups of DVDs you own is wrong. Today, however, at his talks, he was only able to get two people out of a crowd of five hundred college students to say that downloading a movie or album is wrong. He goes on, like many before him, to bemoan the immorality of young people today, saying: 'I do know, though, that the TV, movie and record companies' problems have only just begun. Right now, the customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?'"

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As if the entire office full of guitar-controlled lights wasn't enough to make any holiday complete, some enterprising geek has taken it upon himself to give you a rendition of Jingle Bells played on his graphics card heat sink. He probably wont debut at Carnegie Hall, but I'll give him points for effort.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you still haven't found that special (geeky) someone something, how about giving the gift of mini-humanoid? He farts (and makes fart jokes), he lifts his leg and urinates like a dog, he plays air guitar (and air drums). He's a 6.5" tall frat boy. He's i-SOBOT, at your command. Read my review of i-SOBOT on the Federated Media Gift Guide. He should still be available where all humanoid lifeforms are sold.

i-SOBOT, at your command. Sorta. - Link

Related:

• Demo vid of Tomy's i-SOBOT - Link
• i-Sobot Fight Club - Link

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mrcgran writes "The Chicago Tribune is running a feel-good story about the effects of OLPC on a remote village in Peru. 'Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they're dozing off in front of them — if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines. Peru made the single biggest order to date — more than 272,000 machines — in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed.'"

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Last week, I posted about "occulture" music, a genre of electronica inspired by anomalous phenomena, fantastic fiction, and the occult. One of the artists I mentioned is Mount Vernon Arts Lab, aka Drew Mulholland, a Glasgow-based musician with a penchant for sacred sites and strange locales. The column from Arthur magazine that I linked to in my post listed Mulholland's album "Seance at Hobbs Lane" as essential listening in the occulture genre. The album includes Mulholland's collaborations with members of Coil, Portishead, Add N to X, and others. Turns out, my friend Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Journal interviewed Mulholland in 2001. Fortean Times republished Mark's interview this summer to coincide with the release of "Seance of Hobbs Lane." From the interview:

What are the roots of your interest in the ‘power of place’? Do you think this can be a literal power, like a form of energy, or is it a psychological – or psychogeographical – effect? Or both?!
It’s something that I’ve only rediscovered recently. As a much younger gentleman I sued to explore our local area, which was quite strange at that time. World War II air raid shelters, bomb craters, abandoned railway tunnels, anything off the beaten track. I think this is the sort of thing most boys do. But after playing at the nuclear command bunker a few years ago I started to be fascinated by not only derelict military structures but also obscure urban stuff and then discovering that there was a kind of network of urban trespass fanzines and web sites, and a subject called psychogeography. For me this took in everything from visiting the location of The Wicker Man’s climax to the scene of the ambush of Percy Toplis, the Monocled Mutineer, to the bombing range used by 633 Squadron. It was the alternative away day aspect that appealed to me. What would you rather do? Have a drink in the Green Man or watch Eastenders?...

You’ve played gigs in some unusual places. What has been your favourite and what would be your ultimate gig venue? How do you do live gigs?
The disused nuclear bunker (in Scotland) was quite far out although after I played there I went exploring and came across a locked room that only contained a table and a submachine gun. They also have a chapel down there and some of the locals have been married in it, which is too far out even for me! My ultimate gig would have to be Hobbs Lane Underground station!

Link to interview, Link to buy "Seance at Hobbs Lane"

Previously on BB:
• Occulture music Link
• John Balance, RIP Link

Roland Piquepaille writes "A new report from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) looks at the future of military's unmanned systems over the next 25 years. This 188-page report covers air-, land- and sea-based unmanned technology from 2007 to 2032. The long document notes that drone aircraft and ground-based robots have already proved they could be useful in Iraq and Afghanistan by saving soldiers lives. The report also integrates contributions of combat commanders pointing out at possible improvements to today's systems, such as 'better sensor technology for use on unmanned systems to identify underwater mines and land-based improvised explosive devices.' This report also looks at how developments in artificial intelligence and robotics might lead to 'autonomous, 'thinking' unmanned systems that could, for example, be used in aerial platforms to suppress enemy air defenses.'"

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Ian Lamont writes "Computerworld has an interview with Craig Newmark about the history of Craigslist and it's growth over the years (it's now expanding into foreign-language markets — it recently created several Spanish sites in Spanish cities). He also disputes the notion that Craigslist is responsible for dismantling newspapers' revenue models. Rather, he blames niche-classified sites like autotrader.com and Monster as well as newspapers' unrealistic profit expectations in the new media world: 'Newspapers are going after 10% to 30% profit margins for their businesses and that hurts them more than anything. A lot of things are happening on the Internet that never happened before because the Internet is a vehicle for everyone. The mass media is no longer only for the powerful, and that's a huge change for the entire newspaper and news industry." http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9053838

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There was a time, a long time ago when I thought we'd have awards here on Scripting News. I'd nominate several blogs in different categories and the readers would vote and we'd have winners, and could celebrate, and prepare for next year, with some idea of what we value in blogging.

But the first year I did it, 2001, there was a huge outcry of anger at my hubris in thinking I could play a role in defining some form of blogging excellence. The anger was so loud that we only did it that once.

We're getting close to the end of another year, they go so fast these days, one of the last things my departed Uncle Ken said to me was that it gets ridiculous near the end, time runs so fast, it's December just after it's January and then of course it's January again, until there's no more time.

This morning I was doing some work at my desk in the upstairs study, looking out over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. On the stereo I'm listening to old George Harrison tunes, and decided to catch up reading Naked Jen's blog. After reading the last three posts, my eyes welled up, and my heart so proud of her for being so true to herself and sharing so much of her feelings so nakedly, at the very same time just by coincidence Harrison's All Things Must Pass is playing.

Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloudburst doesn't last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It's not always going to be this grey

How funny. These are exactly the words I want to say to Jen. I've been where you are, honey. When it feels so bad you don't know how you're going to go on, one foot follows the other anyway, at first you're just going through the motions, but then, you start to heal and without marking it with any special ceremony, you find life is flowing. You still miss what you lost, of course.

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this grey

Truth is, while it feels like you're stopped, you never really are as long as your heart keeps beating and you keep breathing. You want to stay where you are, but you don't, you can't.

I've often described Jen to others as the perfect blogger. What she does is exactly what I hoped people would do with the medium many years ago. Holding Hands in Cyberspace. Not being celebrity, just being yourself. A new form for a human body, not only intellectual or physical or emotional, all those things and more. Something new.

So I'm giving an award this year, Blogger Of The Year to the person who I feel exemplifies the best of blogging.

Not because she's sad, or hurt, rather because she is herself.

Local Girl's Day in Pictures has a delightful blog format -- the author scribbles notes and doodles about her day and uploads them as images, turning them into posts. I don't know that I've ever seen a blog quite like it. Link (Thanks, Caroline!)

tripmine writes "The Orlando Sentinel has a story about a geek who can't get enough Christmas light. 'This Christmas, tech-savvy people such as Hansen are increasingly building the biggest, most elaborate holiday lights in neighborhoods across Central Florida and throughout the country. They typically work in fields such as computer programming, Web development, engineering or audio and visual services and are armed with a technical knowledge that the average person lacks. They trade tips and stories on message boards and set up Web sites with step-by-step descriptions of how they installed their lights as well as pictures and videos of the finished product.'" Many cities have neighborhoods where the spectacle takes up blocks at a time, not just individual houses, too, as anyone who's strolled down Austin's 37th Street can attest. Links invited (in comments) to the best / worst light-spectacles you know of.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Harry Cordaiy, an 11-year-old Australian boy, was tired of thieves stealing his and other students' lunch money and bus tickets from classrooms. The school administrators weren't doing anything about it, so he rigged up a mousetrap coated with green food coloring, attached a $5 bill to it, stashed it in his backpack, and waited.

He had squirted the device's main bar and metal fittings with green food colouring, cutting a small hole in the note and securing it on the bait hook with sticky tape, so that the thief would have to wrestle with it, thereby setting off the spring and getting hit with the coloured bar.

To his surprise, the thieves took the bait and - after he spread the word among classmates - a witch-hunt began.

"I thought 'Oh my God, I might catch these guys'," Harry said. "Everybody was running around seeing who had green on their fingers."

One of the offenders was caught green-handed en route to the bathroom in a desperate bid to wash off the evidence. The younger boy confessed his guilt. An accomplice in the same year was also nabbed.

Link (Via Arbroath)

A new facsimile edition of the 14th century Holkham Bible was recently published by the British Library. Last week's Time Out London featured a fascinating (and, frustratingly, offline!) article on the Bible, which was drawn by a cockney who started off to produce a pamphlet and quickly expanded out to produce a mammoth retelling of the life of Christ, cheekily inserting himself into many of the illustrations. It features Mary being ribbed for getting knocked up, Noah reeling with drink, an Jesus (residing among the cockneys of Paternoster Row) literally reassembling a lad who falls off a roof and falls into many pieces. London barmaid and bankers are sent to hell, and many other elements that are emblematic of life in 1330s London. Link

(Essay by Jasmina Tešanovi?, photoshop by Oibibio)

Since December 20th, 2007, ever-smaller Serbia is surrounded by the ever-larger European Union. Nine countries have joined - bringing to 24 the number of nations to have abolished internal passport controls.

The latest wave of members includes eight former communist states, and Malta.

Switzerland will become the 25th Schengen country when it joins next year.

The enlarged free-travel area encompasses some 400 million people - 30 percent more than the population of the U.S.

This wall is called Schengen, imposed against the Others in the region who will not comply with the standards emanating from Brussels. Every state around Serbia has come to make its peace, more or less, with the huge fact of European soft-power. Serbs do not comply.

The negotiations in Vienna about the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo have clamorously failed, yet again. The province is threatening to proclaim a unilateral independence from Serbia, which will likely be recognized by every state in the EU except for Cyprus. Serbia is declaring that it will fight to the bitter end for its ancient heritage, although Kosovo is currently inhabited by a 90 percent Albanian populace.

The Serbian president Boris Tadic just returned from the US where he sought the understanding of Condoleezza Rice. God knows why.

The Russians, with their newly assertive and deeply nationalist policy, are busily buying up Serbia with their boom in oil funds. Serbia as an economic and diplomatic pawn within EU territory would be very handy for Russian intrigues and wonderfully painful for everyone else including Serbs.

With its own clamorous failure in the negations in Vienna, the European Union timorously hands over a European problem and a fractious chunk of European territory, back to the planet's violently assertive power players: Russia and the US.

European reluctance was symbolized last week in Vicenza, Italy, where a big anti-NATO rally was held. Vicenza holds a major airbase from which NATO, in 1999, launched the (mostly American) warplanes that bombed a European state for the first time since 1945.

This holiday season, Serbia will observe the New World Order's consumer rite of Christmas, then perform the pagan ritual of New Year, when people hit the streets, flinging firecrackers and firing weapons into the sky in a storm of resolutions, wishes and kisses before the Serbian Orthodox Christmas.

The upcoming presidential elections in January 20th 2008 will show supposedly what small Serbia has decided for its own fate: to become European, Russian or American. In reality, Serbia stands decoratively armed as the banana republic of Ruritania, a frozen-conflict in love with melodramatic national notions from a historical pulp novel, with its own rules and edicts, which it flings into the teeth of a disbelieving world. The world does not comply with Serbia.

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Jasmina Tešanovi? is an author, filmmaker, and wandering thinker who shares her thoughts with BoingBoing from time to time. Email: politicalidiot at yahoo dot com. Her blog is here.

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Previous essays by Jasmina Tešanovi? on BoingBoing:

- Neonazism in Serbia
- Korea - South, not North.
- "I heard they are making a movie on her life."
- Serbia and the Flames
- Return to Srebenica
- Sagmeister in Belgrade
- Jasmina Tešanovi?: What About the Russians?
- Milan Martic sentenced in Hague
- Mothers of Mass Graves
- Hope for Serbia
- Stelarc in Ritopek
- Sarajevo Mon Amour
- MBOs
- Killing Journalists
- Jasmina Tešanovi?: Where Did Our History Go?
- Serbia Not Guilty of Genocide
- Carnival of Ruritania
- "Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"
- Faking Bombings
- Dispatch from Amsterdam
- Where are your Americans now?
- Anna Politkovskaya Silenced
- Slaughter in the Monastery
- Mermaid's Trail
- A Burial in Srebenica
- Report from a concert by a Serbian war criminal
- To Hague, to Hague
- Preachers and Fascists, Out of My Panties
- Floods and Bombs
- Scorpions Trial, April 13
- The Muslim Women 
- Belgrade: New Normality
- Serbia: An Underworld Journey
- Scorpions Trial, Day Three: March 15, 2006
- Scorpions Trial, Day Two: March 14, 2006
- Scorpions Trial, Day One: March 13, 2006
- The Long Goodbye
- Milosevic Arrives in Belgrade
- Slobodan Milosevic Died
- Milosevic Funeral

AlpineR writes "Is there an opposite to absolute zero? An article from PBS's NOVA online explains several theories of the maximum possible temperature. Maybe it's the Planck temperature, 10^32 K, beyond which the known laws of physics break down. Or maybe just 10^30 K, the limit of some versions of string theory. If space is actually 11-dimensional then the maximum temperature could even be as low as 10^17 K, attainable by the Large Hadron Collider. Or maybe infinite temperature wraps around to negative temperature and absolute hot is the same as absolute cold."

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Engadget has noted a report in the New York Times that that the US has "passed a law barring stores from selling incandescent light bulbs after 2012. 'Course, the EU and Australia have already decided to ditch the inefficient devices in the not-too-distant future, but a new energy bill signed into law this week throws the US into the aforementioned group. Better grab a pack of the current bulbs while you still can — soon you'll be holding a sliver of history."

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