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Submission + - Is Copyright Infringement Really Not Stealing ?

Submitted by Pieroxy
Pieroxy writes: I hear way too often the regular rebutal : "Copyright infringement is not stealing, because you don't deprive the copyright owner of his property". And I always wonder if it is really true... After all, everything that the copyright grants its owner is just control over the distribution of the specific piece of art. By downloading illegally the song, you deprive the owner of his property: Control to forbid you to do so. In this light, I am really wondering: Is copyright infringement really not stealing after all? I understand that stealing in the strictest sense of the world apply to material goods, but if you had to transpose it to immaterial goods, would it be just what piracy is? And no, I'm not on the RIAA's side ;-)
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Eight common misunderstandings about GPLv3

Submitted by
snoyberg
snoyberg writes: "To quoth the article: 'The official release of the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3) is still a couple of months away, yet already, the misunderstandings about it are almost as numerous as those for the second version (GPLv2).'
Perhaps Slashdotters would like to hear what we've been getting wrong for the past era."
Music

Submission + - Student Shows iPods Interfere with Pacemakers

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "High school student Jay Thaker presented a report today to a meeting of heart specialists that detailed tests done with patients using iPods. The student showed that "Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient's chest for 5 to 10 seconds." iPods interfere with the "telemetry equipment which caused the device to misread the heart's pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether." Don't get grandpa an iPod for Christmas!"
Republicans

Submission + - Rep. block cineast from proving war profiteering

Submitted by
Ariastis
Ariastis writes: "Progressive film director Robert Greenwald is scheduled to testify at a hearing on Thursday, May 10 about war profiteering. He requested to show a few minutes of one of his films, showing testimonies from soldiers, contractors, mechanics, etc. which all convey the same message : The Iraq war is big business for companies who rip off the American taxpayers. Republicans blocked the video from being show to congress."
Announcements

Submission + - CNN to Release 2008 Debate under Creative Commons

Submitted by
remove office
remove office writes: "After calls from several prominent bloggers and a couple of presidential candidates themselves, CNN has agreed to release the footage from its upcoming June presidential debates uncopyrighted. Senator Barack Obama was the first candidate to call for all presidential debates to be released under Creative Commons, with fellow Demcoratic hopeful John Edwards following shortly afterwards. CNN will be the first to do so with their June 3rd and 5th Democratic and Republican debates. The NBC-Microsoft co-venture MSNBC hosted the first presidential debates recently but refused to release it under Creative Commons, opting instead to post only commercial-ridden clips online in Windows Media format."
The Internet

Submission + - Ruby on Rails App wins PC Magazine Editors Choice

Submitted by supat
supat writes: I just saw over at PC Magazine, that Spiceworks has won an editors choice award for their Ruby on Rails IT application. As far as I can tell, this is the first time a RoR application as one a PC Magazine award. Even more interesting is the fact that Spiceworks is a RoR app that is not a hosted application, but is downloaded and ran local on your machine.
NASA

Submission + - Did NASA Accidentally "Nuke" Jupiter?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Title: Did NASA Accidentally "Nuke" Jupiter? Source: Enterprise URL Source: http://www.enterprisemission.com//NukingJupiter.ht ml Published: Apr 11, 2007 NASA's decision to finally terminate Galileo in September 2003 via a fiery plunge into Jupiter, was designed to prevent any possible biological contamination of Europa from a future random collision with the spacecraft, once its fuel was exhausted. An engineer named Jacco van der Worp claimed that, plunging into Jupiter's deep and increasingly dense atmosphere, the on-board Galileo electrical power supply — a set of 144 plutonium-238 fuel pellets — would ultimately "implode"; that the plutonium Galileo carried would ultimately collapse in upon itself under the enormous pressures of Jupiter's overwhelming atmosphere and go critical. Noone listened. One month later ... October 19, 2003 — an amateur astronomer in Belgium, Olivier Meeckers, secured a remarkable image, a dark black "splotch" showing up on the southern edge of Jupiter's well-known "North Equatorial Belt," trailing a fainter "tail" southwest (image center). Richard Hoagland http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?Art Num=183496 has now calculated that, given the slow fall through a highly pressurised atmosphere, it is possible that the splotch is the result of about 50lb of plutonium going critical 700 miles below. Way to go, NASA!
Quickies

Submission + - The Science of a Very Beautiful Sunrise or Sunset

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In his excellent paper " The Colors of Twilight and Sunset ," Stephen F. Corfidi, a Lead Forecaster with the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, explains why "some parts of the world enjoy more beautiful sunsets than others, and why do they favor certain months? What are the ingredients for truly memorable sunrises and sunsets?" (Hint: Lots of clean air.)
Businesses

Submission + - The Automotive X PRIZE

Submitted by BoredStiff
BoredStiff writes: The NPR show OnPoint (you can listen online with Real Alternative) had a show about the first successor to the Space X-PRIZE called the Automotive X-PRIZE, and it's the next big competition coming down the road offering a $25 million dollar prize to the builder of the first commercially-viable 100 mile per gallon car. The goal of the competition is to stimulate automotive technology breakthroughs that will allow for the design and manufacturing of super-efficient cars that radically reduce oil consumption, harmful emissions, and have and mainstream appeal.
Education

Submission + - Purdue University decides not to follow UW-Madison

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I attend Purdue University and apparently, they will be bowing to the RIAA not soon after another Big 10 school spat in their face (University of Wisconsin). Every student has been sent the following email:

Some users of the Purdue University Internet network this week will begin receiving notices of threatened legal action from the Recording Industry Association of America.

In a stepped-up effort to enforce music copyright, the association is harvesting Internet addresses of computers that allegedly offered music for others to download illegally. It then is sending emails to Internet service providers and asking that the emails be forwarded to these computer users.
The notices offer the option of paying a settlement fee or facing legal action.

Purdue University, as an Internet service provider, will forward these emails to the user of the specified address when the user can be accurately identified. While the university will do its best to deliver these notices to the proper individuals, it is not responsible for the accuracy of the identification or address to which such notices are sent.

It will be up to each recipient to decide how to respond to these notices.
All users of Purdue IT resources are ultimately responsible for their own conduct and for responding to any notification received from a copyright owner. Should an individual choose not to pay the settlement, the RIAA may ask Purdue for its logs for the purpose of pursuing legal action. The next step would be for RIAA to file a request to subpoena the name of the computer owner. The university will at all times honor valid subpoenas.

Purdue does not generally monitor the content of Internet transmissions.
The university, however, can match computers to the addresses they use when connecting to the Internet.

Information on your legal obligations and methods to protect yourself can be found at:
http://www.purdue.edu/securepurdue/copyright.cfm

Individuals with questions regarding the settlement notice should contact legal counsel of their own choosing for advice.

Sincerely,

Gerry McCartney
Interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Purdue University

Thomas B. Robinson
Vice President for Student Services
Purdue University
Spam

Submission + - Vendors selling your contact info?

Submitted by
Sorthum
Sorthum writes: "I ordered a memory card from Tiger Direct using a dedicated email address a few days ago. The card hasn't even arrived yet, and yet I found something VERY interesting in my inbox this morning: a lottery scam email to that tagged address, relayed through Cox's outbound servers. Apparently TigerDirect is either compromised, or selling their addresses to spammers — this address has never received a hit until I placed the order, and no one else has it. There is no evidence of a dictionary attack in the server logs either. My call to their customer service line proved to be fruitless — their drone refused to escalate the call, or provide a satisfactory response. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - France opens secret UFO files covering 50 years

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades. Here's an interesting tidbit from the article: A phalanx of beefy security guards formed a barrier in front of the space agency (CNES) headquarters where the announcement was made, "to screen out uninvited UFOlogists," an official explained. Website at: http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/

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"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll

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