1340963
submission
dtjohnson writes:
A Harvard law school professor has submitted arguments on behalf of
Joel Tenenbaum in RIAA v. Tenenbaum in which Professor Charles
Neeson claims that the underlying law that the RIAA uses is actually a
criminal, rather than civil, statute and is therefore
unconstitutional. According to this article, "Neeson
charges that the federal law is essentially a criminal statute
in that it seeks to punish violators with minimum statutory penalties
far in excess of actual damages. The market value of a song is 99 cents
on iTunes; of seven songs, $6.93. Yet the statutory damages are a
minimum of $750 per song, escalating to as much as $150,000 per song
for infringement "committed willfully."" If the law is a criminal
statute, Neeson then claims that it violates the 5th
and 8th
amendments and is therefore unconstitutional. Litigation will
take a while but this may be the end for RIAA litigation, at least
until they can persuade
Congress to pass a new law.
836455
submission
dtjohnson writes:
Data from the United Kingdom Metereological Office suggests that 2008 will
be an unusually cold year due to the La Nina effect in the western
Pacific ocean. Not to worry, though, as the La Nina effect has
faded recently so its effect on next years temperatures will be
reduced. However, another natural cycle, the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation, is predicted to hold global temperatures
steady for the next decade before global warming takes our planet into
new warmth. If these predictions are correct, there must be
a lot of planetary heat being stored away somewhere...unless the heat
output from the sun
is decreasing
rather than increasing
or the heat being absorbed by the earth is decreasing due to changes in
the earth's albedo.
642418
submission
dtjohnson writes:
Microsft released their fiscal 3rd
quarter earnings yesterday and they are a shocker. Sales of
the Windows Client tumbled 24 percent from a year ago, sales of
Microsoft Office were down 2 percent, but sales of Xbox360 gear were up
68 percent. Unfortunately for Microsoft, though, the
'Entertainment' Division is still just a break-even business and most
of their profit comes from selling Windows and Office. Other
interesting stuff: they repurchased $5 billion less stock in 3Q08
than 3Q07 and they are carrying $10 billion on their books now as
'goodwill' versus only $5 billion in the year ago period.
Looks like all of those stories about problems with Windows Vista
were...right. What should Microsoft do now to fix the mess?
Rush out a new and improved Windows update or keep pushing on
Vista?
642384
submission
dtjohnson writes:
How much gas do you use to get to work?
A) Zero. I roller-skate.
B) Less than 1/4 gallon. Two wheels and a motor are all anyone should need.
C) 1/4 to 1/2 gallon. My carpool complains about my gas.
D) 1/2 to 1 gallon. My car sips gas like it's fine champagne.
E) 1 to 2 gallons. My job and I are at opposite ends of a space-time paradox.
F) More than 2 gallons. My carbon footprint looks like Sasquatch so I own stock in Exxon Mobil.
486906
submission
dtjohnson writes:
A new treatment
is being tested for people with Alzheimer's
disease in which the brain is bathed with infra-red radiation to
stimulate the growth of brain cells. Tests in mice have been very
promising at improving the learning ability of the mice. In tests
with people, 8 out of 9 have showed improvement. The treatment
requires that an infra-red emitting helmet be worn for 10 minutes a
day. From the article: "Currently all you can do with
dementia is to slow down the rate of decay — this new process will not
only stop that rate of decay but partially reverse it."
It's estimated by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
that the incidence of Alzheimer's will increase from the current 1 in
200 people to 1 out of 85 people worldwide by 2050 so any new potential
treatment is welcome news.
170673
submission
dtjohnson writes:
Google has just gone live with
their new javascript requirement. Now, you can no longer access
stuff like groups or images from the Google front page without having
javascript turned on. Given the security
weaknesses
of javascript, many turn it off or use plugins like noscript to block untrustworthy
sites. Google was in trouble not long ago for their search
logging. Now, you'll have to let Google in through your
javascript door if you want to use their stuff. What will
they do with that?
51560
submission
dtjohnson writes:
Semiconductor Insights has
selected the 65nm
AMD X2 manufacturing process for their 'Most
Innovative Process Technology' award for 2006. Says their
press squib: ""Our analysis of the device has confirmed that the
65nm AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 dual-core desktop processors produced at
AMD's Fab 36, use minimum gate lengths of 35nm, nine copper and one
aluminum metal levels, strained silicon channel and a
Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) substrate," stated Don Scansen, SI's lead
process analyst. "Put altogether, it is an impressive technology
package"
24942
submission
dtjohnson writes:
In a study
of 364 men by the Cleveland
Clinic Foundation, those who used cell phones heavily were found to
have fewer sperm that were less healthy than men who abstained from
cell phones. Men who logged 4 hours per day with
their cell phone had average sperm counts of 50 million per ml and the
least healthy sperm while men who did not use a cell phone had
sperm counts of 86 million per ml and their sperm was of superior
quality. Maybe the cell phone damages sperm or maybe any
man who would spend 4 hours a day chatting on a cell phone just
doesn't have very good sperm to begin with, compared with the strong,
silent types. More studies are needed...
10033
submission
dtjohnson writes:
The Inquirer writes about a script
to install the latest version on Internet Explorer on Linux
distributions using WINE. The program achieves "the feat
of running several Internet Explorer
versions side by side -something not possible on windows without some
hacking of the
Microsoft provided installers" and also manages to isolate IE from the
WINE installation. It even downloads and installs the
ActiveX version of the Flash 9 player for IE and installs it at the end
of its process. While it's always good to see more software
options, is running IE a good thing or is it a new no-security 'window'
for the world to leap through...on Linux? Even worse, could this make people less likely to use IE alternatives like Firefox?
6663
submission
dtjohnson writes:
Princeton University has published a paper and video describing the
results of their testing of a Diebold touchscreen voting machine
that is used at thousands of locations in the United
States. Princeton found that malicious vote stealing software
could be installed in a machine in less than one minute that would
miscount the votes and then delete itself when the 'election' was
ended, leaving no trace that it ever existed. In their
hypothetical election, George Washington loses to Benedict Arnold in
the final vote tally even though George Washington received more
'touchscreen' votes. It's amazing that these kinds of machines are still
allowed to be used. The short flash video at the bottom of
the page does an exceptionally good job of illustrating the
problem. Your local elected officials need to see it.
