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Submission + - Oil Production Peak Looms

Submitted by anthemaniac
anthemaniac writes: Oil prices are rising again and 'will move inexorably higher' in the face of 'a stormy geopolitical climate' according to one analyst. We're all used to seeing oil prices rise and fall because of global politics and big-business policies, of course. But what if the amount of oil that can be produced reaches a peak? Talk about a stormy geopolitical climate. That's just what a new Swedish study predicts might happen next year. Fredrik Robelius, a physicist and petroleum engineer, analyzed the production rates of 333 existing giant oil fields known and concludes the global production peak will occur between 2008 and 2018. Caltech physicist David Goodsteinagrees with the methodology and also thinks the peak is near. But the controversial prediction doesn't take into account new extraction technologies and other possible discoveries, critics say.
United States

Submission + - Chemical ban in Washington Beginning of the End

Submitted by
Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: "Although since 2005, the chemical industry has spent more than $220,000 in Washington State lobbying against a it, Gov. Chris Gregoire is scheduled to sign the legislation today to ban flame retardants called PBDEs in Washington furniture, televisions and computers. Why the big spending? Because at a time when the federal government is largely ineffectual in its regulation of long-used but potentially dangerous industrial chemicals, a ban here could be the beginning of the end for PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers across the nation. 'The industry that makes deca and PBDEs is freaking out because they lost so severely in Washington state and other states will follow,' said Laurie Valeriano, policy director for the Washington Toxics Coalition, an environmental group. 'It really is a message from Washington state and policymakers that we won't accept chemicals that build up in our bodies and our children.' Reads more at the Seattle Post Intellegencer."
The Internet

Canadian DMCA Coming This Spring 153

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the riding-the-band-wagon dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government is reportedly ready to introduce copyright reform legislation this spring, provided that no election is called. The new bill would move Canada far closer to the U.S. on copyright, with DMCA-style anti-circumvention legislation that prohibits circumvention of DRM systems and bans software and mod chips that can be used to circumvent such systems."
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox destroys disks

Submitted by morie
morie writes: The dutch consumer program "Kassa" got Microsoft to acknowledge that even normal use of an Xbox 360 will result in damage to your games, DVDs or CDs (English story here). Up until now, Microsoft had always responded to the complaints by blaming scratches on wrong use of the equipment. The problem turned out to be a design problem in the drive.

"Kassa" did recieve over a thousend complaints adressed to Microsoft. In the show (streaming video, dutch, start min 17), they admitted there was a problem and said they would arrange for replacements, but they did not want to take full responsibility.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Teardown of Prius Reveals Toyota Design Philosophy

Submitted by
MarsGov
MarsGov writes: "A group of automotive engineers recently tore down a Toyota Prius to dissect the design techniques and choices that went into the vehicle. The results are becoming available at AutomotiveDesignLine and at TechOnline's Under The Hood — search for "Prius" at both of these links — and will be also published as a paper supplement to the May 14th issue of EE Times. There's even a video."
Media

Submission + - Web art turned to plagiaristized gold.

Submitted by Moraiat
Moraiat writes: Plagiarism on the internet is tricky business. For some, it's quite profitable. Todd Goliath (Goldman) of David and Goliath Tees has had much of his art discovered to be copied, derived, or blatantly traced(SomethingAwful.com). Shmorky's (Dave Kelly) art was recognized as duplicated by Goliath and the outcry from the online community has been rapidly intensifying over the course of a day. The main story can be found on SomethingAwful's forum, progress is added as the story develops. The artwork in question, the original, and the overlay of it being visibly "traced" (Image) can be found, posted by the real artist, can be found on his forum post.
Other artists are joining Kelly in his plight, Goldman's been copying others' work for many years, only now someone is standing up to him. Goldman's art is self-proclaimed to be random, zany, stupid, and in your face. His self-biography can be seen here.
Hardware Hacking

Hacker Replaces iPod HDD With Flash Memory 125

Posted by Zonk from the and-now-i-can-drop-it dept.
Via a Wired Blog, an anonymous reader wrote with a link to a post on the Geek Technique website. There, post author Mark Hoekstra details how to replace an iPod's HDD with flash memory. It's not an inexpensive procedure, as 16 Gigs of flash memory is still a mite expensive, and the post is not a 'how-to'. Just the same, the project took painstaking work and is well worth recognizing. "I guess I can say I found ways of eliminating almost every hard drive out of almost every hard drive based iPod thereby eliminating all moving parts. The only one left is the iPod video which would only need a slightly different adapter. But next to that I've got a gut feeling that one's being upgraded to flash memory by Apple themselves any time soon."

Global Warming Debunked? 1120

Posted by kdawson from the concensus-or-what? dept.
limbicsystem writes, "I'm a scientist. I like Al Gore. I donate to the Sierra club, I bicycle everywhere and I eat granola. And I just read a very convincing article in the UK Telegraph that makes me think that the 'scientific consensus' on global warming is more than a little shaky. Now IANACS (I am not a climate scientist). And the Telegraph is notoriously reactionary. Can anyone out there go through this piece and tell me why it might be wrong? Because it seems to be solid, well researched, and somewhat damning of a host of authorities (the UN, the editors of Nature, the Canadian Government) who seem to have picked a side in the global warming debate without looking at the evidence." The author of the Telegraph piece is Christopher Monckton, a retired journalist and former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher.

Irish Company Claims Free Energy 1125

Posted by samzenpus from the and-a-robot-in-every-house dept.
raghus writes "An Irish company has thrown down the gauntlet to the worldwide scientific community to test a technology it has developed that it claims produces free energy. The company, Steorn, says its discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy — a concept that challenges one of the basic rules of physics." I can't wait until I can use this free energy to power my flying car and heat my aquarium of mermaids.

A Stark Warning On Climate Change 926

Posted by Zonk from the that's-not-good dept.
cliffski writes "In a report based on computer predictions, UK government advisor Professor David King said that an increase of even three degrees Celsius would cause drought and famine and threaten millions of lives The US refuses to cut emissions and those of India and China are rising. A government report based on computer modeling projects a 3C rise would cause a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops, about 400 million more people at risk of hunger and between 1.2bn and 3bn more people at risk of water stress."

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