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Government

Submission + - Amazon v North Carolina? (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by garg0yle
garg0yle writes: Amazon is suing the Department of Revenue (DOR) for the state of North Carolina, after that government body attempted to get records of its citizens' purchases through the e-tailer.

Sales records are one thing, says Amazon. "But the DOR has no business seeking to uncover the identity of Amazon's customers who purchased expressive content, which makes up the majority of the nearly 50 million products sold to North Carolina residents during the audit period, let alone associating customers' names and addresses with the specific books, music, and video content that they have purchased during the past seven years."

While I can understand the state wanting to know how much its citizens spend with Amazon (for sales tax purposes), I can't see any legitimate reason for the state to know exactly what books and videos its citizens bought.

Submission + - ACTA treaty released (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by roju
roju writes: The full text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was released today. It differs from the earlier leaks in that the negotiating stances of each country has been scrubbed. Preliminary analysis is up at ars, who warn that "Several sections of the ACTA draft show that rightsholders can obtain an injunction just by showing that infringement is "imminent," even if it hasn't happened yet."
Nintendo

Submission + - Brain Training Games Don't Train Your Brain (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: A new study has shown that brain training games do little to exercise the grey matter. Millions of people who have been prodding away at their Nintendo DS portable consoles, smug in the knowledge that they are giving their brains a proper work-out, might have to rethink how they are going to stop the contents of their skulls turning into mush.
Communications

Submission + - WI Community Intimidates 10 Year Old Disabled Boy 1

Submitted by Anonym1ty
Anonym1ty writes: MOUNT PLEASANT, WI — Samm "Samm the Ham" Markstrom is a 10 year old ham radio operator in Mount Pleasant, WI who has cerebral palsy. Ham radio has helped Samm deal with his disability. Now The Village of Mount Pleasant wants Samm to stop operating and take down his ham radio tower.

The village board has been provided with permit fees, schematics and photos of it's installation. The tower has been inspected by professional engineers and proven it is safe. Also submitted to the board were documents proving the tower is well within FCC regulations. Samm's neighbors signed documents that they are not receiving interference from the tower.

Comment And this is news, how? (Score 1) 3

by garg0yle (#31910480) Attached to: Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

Seriously. These things can store and retrieve documents. How did people THINK that happened? Magical fairies living inside the copier wrote everything in pixie dust that magically evaporated every time the thing was turned off? Yes, there's a hard drive. Yes, things get deleted (usually), but the usual caveats about being able to read "deleted" documents off a hard drive apply. This is not news.
Medicine

Submission + - Xenon Gas Procedure Saves Oxygen Starved Babies (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: Riley Joice was one of more than one thousand children in the UK each year who are born oxygen deprived. He had about equal hopes of dying, having permanent brain damage, or surviving unharmed. To boost his chances, doctors at the University of Bristol and Swansea University cooled his body and gave him xenon gas to breathe. Joice was the first baby to ever receive this treatment and he has made a full recovery. At least a dozen more babies will undergo the same approved experimental procedure in the upcoming months. This work not only suggests a new technique for saving such children, it could lead to new treatments in anesthesia and brain protection for everyone.

Submission + - Another WWI Chemical Site In D.C. (yahoo.com)

Submitted by WrongSizeGlass
WrongSizeGlass writes:

AP is reporting that the US Army Corps of Engineers has uncovered what appears to be the fourth major disposal area for World War I-era munitions and chemical weapons in the nation's capital. Digging was suspended at a construction site after "workers pulled smoking glassware from the pit — preliminary tests show the glassware was contaminated with the toxic chemical arsenic trichloride." "Workers also discovered a jar about three-quarters full of a dark liquid that turned out to be the chemical agent mustard."

Someone needs to remind our government of the meaning of NIMBY.

Submission + - Meteor Spotted Over Midwestern United States (google.com)

Submitted by the1337g33k
the1337g33k writes: The National Weather Service is reporting that a fireball that many people had witnessed last night is a meteor that entered the atmosphere last night around 10:10PM Central Time. This meteor was spotted by many in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

Submission + - Videos/Reports of Unexplained Fireball Pour In (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by insufflate10mg
insufflate10mg writes: Incredible footage, undeniable evidence and massive numbers of people in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin phone in reports of an unbelievably large fireball. The footage from many surveillance cameras in the cities show a fireball seemingly larger than the city itself. Some are speculating it was a meteor, but the conspiracy theorists have dawned their tinfoil hats and feel the government will HAVE to explain this one!

Submission + - IPCC "peer reviewed" report not so much (noconsensus.org)

Submitted by garg0yle
garg0yle writes: In November, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri disparaged non-peer-reviewed research in an interview with the Times of India:

IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.

Sure sounds like they ONLY use peer-reviewed material, right? Except that a recent audit of the IPCC AR4 found that, of approximately 18,500 references in the report, 5,600 were "grey material" that did not undergo a peer-review process. The reason this is important is because a lot of the noise around the AGW debate has been regarding which material is "peer-reviewed". If the UN's IPCC can't be bothered to stick to its own chairman's claim of only using peer-reviewed material, then that drives a stake into anyone's complaint that Ross McKittrick's or Steve McIntyre's work hasn't been peer-reviewed.

Comment The error didn't kill anybody (Score 1) 2

by garg0yle (#31815874) Attached to: computer error kills only 21

The error involved incorrectly recording whether people wanted to donate organs after death. How you leap from that to stating that the computer error killed 21 people is beyond comprehension - it's not like there were harvesting teams taking people down for their kidneys. "Oh, he's been marked as a donor, nab him, we need a liver!"
Java

Submission + - James Gosling Quits Oracle (nighthacks.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "On his new blog, the "father of Java" James Gosling announces that he has decided that Oracle is not a place he wants to work after all, the latest in a long line of defections from Sun's new owner."

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