http://kotaku.com/…

Melissa Batten, 36, a software development engineer in Microsoft’s Xbox division, was murdered by her estranged husband, who then shot himself to death, earlier this week.

Batten, a Harvard-educated lawyer, was a Software Development Engineer in Test for Microsoft, supporting Rare on its 360 titles work. She had worked for Microsoft since 2002, earning credits in Halo 3 and Gears of War as an SDET. Earlier, as a lawyer, she had been a public defender for the Mecklenburg County (Charlotte, N.C.) Public Defender’s Office.

Her husband, Joseph Batten, was also 36. He had also worked for Microsoft but most recently worked for Wizards of the Coast, publisher of hobby games such as Magic: the Gathering. Melissa had obtained a restraining order against her husband on July 21. Another news story describes Joseph Batten as obsessive and verbally abusive, and when she learned he had obtained a handgun, she sought the protection order.

If our society put greater emphasis on self defense and personal responsibility likely these happenings would occur less often. It looks like Washington state has fairly liberal gun laws, if that is in fact where it happened, she could have armed herself in addition to requesting protection. Instead she went with begging the government to protect her… something which the SCOTUS has said the government has no obligation to do.

(If this article surprises anyone, then you just haven’t been paying attention… to anything. Ever.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency. The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit — including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who requested the study along with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), said that money “intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing.”

“Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit,” Coleman said. “It’s time to cut up their cards and start over.”

I was delighted at how easy this was to stumble upon: A Practical Guide for Reviewing Government Purchase Card Programs A nice little pdf pamphlet that kindly goes over the processes of government purchase cards with fun Microsoft Word clip-art. Fancy.

Why not just cut up the cards and be done with it? Why bother to “start over”?
I suppose, while there’s still tax dollars coming in, why the hell not?!
Oh, yea, and throw in some proposed legislation while you’re at it: The Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act.

(All fixed!)

http://arstechnica.com/…

If there’s a sense of déjà vu permeating a rather massive corporate campus in Redmond, Washington right now, it wouldn’t be surprising. The European Commission, which regulates competition for the European Union, today announced a brand new antitrust investigation against Microsoft.

Like the investigation that resulted in a €497 million fine in 2004, the new investigation will look at whether Microsoft abused its dominant market position to give some of its own products an unfair advantage. This time around, the EC will be proceeding on two separate fronts.

The first area of investigation will concern the interoperability of some of Microsoft’s products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some of Microsoft’s server products. The investigation stems from a complaint filed by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, which alleges that the new Office Open XML does not play nice with competing products.

The EC will also fully investigate a complaint filed late last year by Norwegian browser maker Opera. In it, Opera accused Microsoft of illegally tying Internet Explorer to Windows operating systems and not following “fundamental and open” standards for how web browsers render pages. Opera wants the EC to force Microsoft to begin offering versions of Windows without IE installed and to make the browser more standards-compliant.

Sad. Opera can’t compete with Microsoft so they try to use the government to hurt their competitors. I give them props as a software development firm but their legal department appears to be filled with sore losers.

Microsoft is not a monopoly. They have a huge market share because they where in the right places at the right times with the right software. You want to out do them you’re going to need to do more than provide a decent browser for free. There’s a decent amount of competition in that game. Why not focus on the mobile market and stop whining.

As for Office… if you don’t like its interoperability or lack thereof than don’t use it. Problem solved. Latex, RTF, etc are supported by plenty of apps.

http://arstechnica.com/…

California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia have moved (PDF) to extend their antitrust judgment against Microsoft until November 12, 2012. This decree is a modification of last month’s request to a judge that the judgment be extended by five years. The current antitrust decree is scheduled to expire in November of this year.

Firstly, they claim that there have been “continuing problems” with Microsoft’s efforts to document its server communications protocols.

Secondly, the report laments the state of OEM web browser bundling, saying that “no major OEM currently distributes a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).”

I’m no fan of Microsoft but it’s laughable to think people actually consider them a monopoly. Sure they own lots of stuff and a whole lot of hardware run their software… but there are dozens of alternatives both for sale in the traditional sense but also free and open source projects. It’s really amazing all this has gone on for so long.

And why aren’t these states going after MS, Sony and Nintendo for having closed platforms? Shouldn’t my 360 game be able to work on my Wii?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/…

I affirm, I really was going to drop this Ron Paul rant I pursued in my earlier post.

But some facts in this morning’s post by my highly respected Washington, D.C.-centric colleague Declan McCullagh entitled Ron Paul: The Internet’s Favorite Candidate” made me realize there are some lessons that still need to be taught to all you Libertarian-leaning fans of the Republican Presidential candidate.

Read More…

http://gizmodo.com/…

I’m impressed and a bit disgusted.