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Music

Submission + - Last Updated: Monday, 1 October 2007, 10:45 GMT (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Kangburra
Kangburra writes: The BBC has a story that Radiohead fans will be able to choose how much to pay for the band's next album, In Rainbows, which is available for download on 10 October.
Instead of listing a price for the music, the group's website simply states "it's up to you" — and then adds: "No really, it's up to you."

This will be Radiohead's seventh album, but they are not using a record label, having fulfilled their contract with EMI following their 2003 album Hail to the Thief.
It's funny. Laugh.

Pentagon Developed 'Laughing Bullets' 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-must-not-have-a-hysteria-gap dept.
plasmadroid writes "It might sound like a joke, but documents unearthed by New Scientist show that the Pentagon actually funded research into 'non-lethal' bullets that would also hit a target with a dose of laughing gas. That way, they'd not only be stunned but incapacitated by fits of giggles. Another idea was to put stink bombs inside rubber bullets. I guess it would work, but the idea of crowds of rioters giggling uncontrollably while being pelted with rubber bullets is truly bizarre..."
Education

On Diamond-Based Quantum Computing 77

Posted by Zonk from the expensive-processing dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Quantum computing is usually associated with extremely low temperatures. Physicists at Harvard University have shown that diamonds can be used to create stable quantum computing building blocks at room temperature. A nitrogen vacancy in diamond could lead to quantum registers able to store or retrieve data. '"The problem is, what makes single nuclear spin so stable - its weak interaction with its surroundings - also prevents us from directly manipulating it," Lukin says. "How do you control something that can't interact with anything?" You do it gingerly and indirectly, the Harvard physicists report in Science. They found that nuclear spins associated with single atoms of carbon-13 - which make up some 1.1 percent of natural diamond - can be manipulated via a nearby single electron whose own spin can be controlled with optical and microwave radiation.'"
Music

Submission + - SPAM: Online music; What the Music Industry Doesn't Want

Submitted by
Brian Beshore
Brian Beshore writes: "Online music. It's a revolution. Everyone knows about it. What you mainly hear about, however, is what the big record companies have to say about online music. They talk about piracy, and what do they say about that? They say 'it's not fair to the artist!' 'You're ripping the artist off!' they say. 'The artist is not getting their royalties!' The big record companies are really concerned about the artists in their stables. Right. Let's take a look at how record companies 'take care' of their stars. "According to Ronald Zalkind, in Getting Ahead in the Music Business (Schirmer Books), the expenses an artist incurs for record production often outweigh record royalties: 'Let us now hypothesize an artists with initial record royalties, on the sale of 100,000 units, of $40,600. The artist has a personal manager who gets 20 percent off the top, which reduces the $40,600 figure to $32,480. The average cost of producing an album today (which is what our hypothetical artist ran up at session costs) is $75,000. This means that the artist owes the record company $34,400. Also, the artist receives a $10,000 advance against royalties as bare subsistence income on which federal, state. and local taxes were paid. This raises the artist's outstanding debt, on his first release, to $44,400. Now, let us suppose that the artist's second album with the record company sells gold: The initial payout, less container charges, is $203,000. The personal manager gets 20 percent, which brings the artist's take down to $162,400. The artist owes $44,400 from the first album, which further reduces the artist's gold record income to $118,000. Finally, the artist spent $100,000 on the second go-round in the studio and took a $15,000 advance. With a gold record on the wall, the artist after two successful album releases, has only earned $3,000.' " The above quote is from Making Money Making Music (No Matter Where You Live) by James W. Dearing. (Writer's Digest Books) Is it any wonder that we saw Don Henley appealing to congress about his and other artists recording contracts, saying he felt like an indentured servant. Is it any wonder that more and more artists are turning to the internet to promote their music. Even though mostly what we've heard about online music is about the piracy that goes on, and truly this is not right, what we will see more and more of is that online music is where to look for new music. [spam URL stripped]"
Censorship

Submission + - Surprise arrest for online Scientology critic

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants, and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in Feburary. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000, he'd been arrested for "threatening a religion" over a Usenet joke about "Tom Cruise Missiles.") But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested and sent to prison."
Security

Submission + - Code posted for Internet Explorer attack

Submitted by Theslasher
Theslasher writes: The code, which was posted Monday to the Milw0rm.com Web site, exploits a recently patched flaw in Microsoft's browser. It could be used to run unauthorized software on a computer that was not updated with the latest Microsoft patches, security experts warn.

The vulnerability was first discovered by security researcher HD Moore who posted code last July that could be used to crash the browser. Microsoft patched the flaw in February, but some security researchers say that it will get more attention from criminals because of this latest exploit code.

"This type of vulnerability has been very popular with malicious attacks in the past, and we expect to see its usage increase substantially, now that exploit code is publicly available," security vendor Websense. warned in a note published Monday.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security Inc. say the Milw0rm code works on IE6, but not on the latest version of Microsoft's browser.

"We've tested it against IE7 and haven't got it to work yet," said Andre Protas, director of eEye's Preview research service.

Protas said that more reliable exploit code likely will be published in the future.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/26/HNieatta ckcodeposted_1.html
The Internet

Submission + - March 26, 2007 Marks the Nadir of A-Blogging

Submitted by
jg21
jg21 writes: ""If an ass peers into a mirror," say the Spanish, "you cannot expect a bishop to peer out." But even so, the revelation today by Kathy Sierra that she has been subjected to threats of violence and sex seemingly as a direct consequence of her being a blogger, and a very popular one, #66 in Technorati's rankings, gives a whole new perspective on the truism that technology will always reflect the failings of human beings. And perhaps even magnify them. Sierra says she's stopping blogging as a result. Robert Scoble, Tim Bray, Daniel Steinberg, and others have all contributed to Kathy's post to offer their sympathies and express their horror. [From Bray's response: "Way, way out of control. The community needs to rally around..."]"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - GNU/Linux to the masses one step at a time

Submitted by
Anonymous
Anonymous writes: "A common problem with GNU/Linux for new users is not the operating system, but the switch in applications they must undertake to use it. Many who try and make the switch have little experience with the common open source applications available under GNU/Linux. The Kutztown GNU/Linux User Group is helping to change that on a massive scale by converting users at a nearby university on Microsoft Windows machines first. Instead of selling GNU/Linux, the group is selling open source. Faculty at the school have been provided discs containing several popular open source applications compatible with Microsoft Windows in part of a bigger program to get more users to switch operating systems."
The Internet

Submission + - South Korean Government Blocks Porn Sites

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Following the posting of a porn video on Yahoo! Korea widely used video sharing site, the South Korean government has decided to fight back against the spread of pornography on the internet. According to The Age : "The Ministry of Information and Communication already has blocked 211 foreign pornographic Web sites, mostly based in the United States, as well as all local porn sites. It plans to extend the crackdown to another 180 major foreign sites by May." Good luck with that one! Besides the waste of manpower and resources involved in blocking porn sites, there is something profoundly hilarious about this. The South Korean government is trying to plug the hole in the dam with its (sticky) finger. http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200703/kt20070 32620151011900.htm http://www.theage.com.au/news/Technology/South-Kor ea-widens-crackdown-on-foreign-pornography-Web-sit es/2007/03/26/1174761356172.html"

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