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Comment Re:And what are us Americans going to do about it? (Score 1) 574

by istewart (#24714937) Attached to: As of October, FBI To Allow Warrantless Investigations

Why bother involving yourself with the existing parties or trying to seize a seat in Congress? There are far too many compromises down that road. Get involved in transforming your local politics away from a pathetic sideshow, and build sustainable institutions on the local level. Disregard what the national government is trying to do. It will collapse in upon itself.

Counterproductive, unsustainable, divisive policies like this one might appear to be the roots of dystopia to most people, but it really amounts to the last desperate thrashings of a dinosaur as it drowns in a tar pit.
Music

Collective Licensing for Web-Based Music Distribution 236

Posted by Soulskill from the thinking-hard-so-you-don't-have-to dept.
Two weeks ago we discussed a proposal from music industry veteran Jim Griffin to implement a monthly fee from ISPs in exchange for the legal distribution of copyrighted music. Now, quinthar brings news that Warner Music Group has hired Griffin with the intention to make that proposal a reality. Warner wants Griffin to establish a collective licensing deal with ISPs that would let the ISPs stop worrying about their legal responsibilities for file-sharing while contributing to a pool of money (potentially up to $20 billion per year) that would be distributed amongst the music industry. "Griffin says that in just the few weeks since Warner began working on this plan, the company has been approached by internet service providers 'who want to discharge their risk.' Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don't want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don't mind advertising wouldn't pay a dime. 'I.S.P.'s want to distinguish themselves with marketing," Griffin says. "You can only imagine that an I.S.P. that marketed a 'fair trade' network connection would see a marketing advantage.'"
Medicine

Zebrafish Regenerative Ability May Lead To Help In Humans 106

Posted by Soulskill from the incredible-edible-zebrafish dept.
esocid tips us to news out of Duke University Medical Center, where researchers have discovered a type of microRNA that is related to the ability of zebrafish to regenerate lost or damaged organs. This is the result of a study initiated after it was discovered that zebrafish were able to recover from "massive injury" to the heart through their own regenerative biology. The scientists hope to be able to use this information to bring about similar healing in humans. Zebrafish have also been helpful in cancer research. "In zebrafish, one or more microRNAs appear to be important to keep regeneration on hold until the fish needs new tissue, the Duke researchers say. In response to an injury, the fish then damp down levels of these microRNAs to aid regrowth. Poss and many other cell biologists believe that mammals may have the same tissue regeneration capability as zebrafish, salamanders and newts, but that it is locked away somewhere in our genome, silenced in the course of evolution."
Hardware

Wikileaks Releases Early Atomic Bomb Diagram 429

Posted by Soulskill from the some-assembly-required dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks has released a diagram of the first atomic weapon, as used in the Trinity test and subsequently exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, together with an extremely interesting scientific analysis. Wikileaks has not been able to fault the document or find reference to it elsewhere. Given the high quality of other Wikileaks submissions, the document may be what it purports to be, or it may be a sophisticated intelligence agency fraud, designed to mislead the atomic weapons development programs of countries like Iran. The neutron initiator is particularly novel. 'When polonium is crushed onto beryllium by explosion, reaction occurs between polonium alpha emissions and beryllium leading to Carbon-12 & 1 neutron. This, in practice, would lead to a predictable neutron flux, sufficient to set off device.'"
Government

If IP Is Property, Where Is the Property Tax? 691

Posted by kdawson from the making-the-world-safe-for-mickey dept.
nweaver writes "In a response to the LA Times editorial on copyright which we discussed a week ago, the paper published a response arguing: 'If Intellectual Property is actually property, why isn't it covered by a property tax?' If copyright maintenance involved paying a fee and registration, this would keep Mickey Mouse safely protected by copyright, while ensuring that works that are no longer economically relevant to the copyright holder pass into the public domain, where the residual social value can serve the real purpose of copyright: to enhance the progress of science and useful arts. Disclaimer: the author is my father."
Moon

The Economic Development of the Moon 408

Posted by Zonk from the looking-forward-to-my-io-apartment dept.
MarkWhittington writes "Andrew Smith, the author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, recently published a polemic in the British newspaper The Guardian, entitled Plundering the Moon, that argued against the economic development of the Moon. Apparently the idea of mining Helium 3, an isotope found on the Moon but not on the Earth (at least in nature) disturbs Mr. Smith from an environmentalist standpoint. An examination of the issue makes one wonder why."
News

Man Arrested for Refusing to Show Drivers License 1972

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the living-your-life-with-principles dept.
NMerriam writes "Michael Righi was arrested in Ohio over the weekend after refusing to show his receipt when leaving Circuit City. When the manger and 'loss prevention' employee physically prevented the vehicle he was a passenger in from leaving the parking lot, he called the police, who arrived, searched his bag and found he hadn't stolen anything. The officer then asked for Michael's driver's license, which he declined to provide since he wasn't operating a motor vehicle. The officer then arrested him, and upon finding out Michael was legally right about not having to provide a license, went ahead and charged him with 'obstructing official business' anyways."
Science

Student Finds 5000-Year-Old Chewing Gum 143

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the ur-tree-has-a-flavor dept.
itsthebin writes "Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar — complete with neolithic tooth prints — on a dig in Finland. Ms Pickin's tutor at the University of Derby, Professor Trevor Brown, said birch bark tar contained phenols, which are antiseptic compounds. 'It is generally believed that neolithic people found that by chewing this stuff if they had gum infections it helped to treat the condition. It's particularly significant because well-defined tooth imprints were found on the gum which Sarah discovered,' he said. Ms Pickin was on a volunteer program at the Kierikki Centre on the west coast of Finland when she made the find."
United States

Submission + - Missile Launcher Dumped at Gun Amnesty

Submitted by nevillethedevil
nevillethedevil writes: The BBC has a story about a man who "found" a missile launcher in a shed in Florida. Having tried to dispose of it he finally handed it to the Kicks for Guns scheme. After inspecting the rocket launcher, police spokeswoman Sgt Barbara Jones said: "I tell you, you never know what you're going to get."
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Woz Details His Plans for Energy-Efficient House (ecnmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ECN magazine posted a long interview with the Woz. "Apple Inc. co-founder and legendary hacker Steve Wozniak recently found a new passion in energy-efficienct housing. Last month he told PC World magazine, 'I have a long dream to build my own house in a very energy-efficient approach,' and here at ECN we thought you'd like to know more. So we interviewed Woz by email. Here is a transcript of our questions and his answers." Good insight into the mind of a living genius!
Nintendo

Submission + - Carmack's Rage, plus games for the Wii & DS

Submitted by ILikeRed
ILikeRed writes: In a Quakecon 2007 interview, John Carmack introduced his new high end game Rage, and then went on to call the Wii "a spark of newness". He talks about creating a Quake Arena themed game for the DS, and porting Orks & Elves to the Wii. He was less than happy with current cell phone hardware and Java however.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft and Kittens join forces to stop spam (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by Onlyodin
Onlyodin writes: An executive at Microsoft has an unusual idea for beating spammers. Powerful software tools and supercomputers aren't involved, but kittens are. Or rather, photos of kittens.

Kevin Larson, a researcher at Microsoft's advanced reading technologies group, has found that asking a user to identify the subject of a photo, like a kitten, could help block spam programs.

Services like Microsoft's free e-mail service Hotmail commonly require new users to type in a string of distorted letters as proof that it's a human signing up for the account and not a computer. The trouble is, computers are getting smart enough to recognize the characters and it's a race for Microsoft to continue to alter its HIP (Human Interactive Proofs) system to fool the computers before they catch on.

With 90 billion pieces of e-mail spam sent every day, according to Larson, companies like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft that offer free online mail services have an incentive to try to block spam. Otherwise they pay for the resources that help send the spam.
United States

Best Presidential Candidate for Nerds? 1140

Posted by Zonk from the vote-quimby dept.
blast writes "Given the broad field of candidates, I was wondering who the community thinks will make the best President when it comes to representing issues Slashdot readers might care about? Eg: privacy, 'total information awareness', Internet regulation and taxation, net neutrality, copyright/patent reform, the right to read, the right to secure communications, the right to tinker. Who do you think best represents your views? "

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