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Comment Re:My proposal (Score 1) 755

So shift work/school schedules in Winter to make people start/end their days at different times; going to sleep at 22:00 instead of pretend-21:00 isn't going to kill you. This would also eliminate countless scheduling problems.
Car analogy: Moving the road to get to work.

Government

Submission + - Germany moves to ban Scientology (bbc.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: "German federal and state interior ministers declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional on Friday, opening the door for a possible ban on the organization.
Earlier this week, a Berlin district set up an office to deal with complaints about Scientology.
Koerting said Germany's domestic intelligence agencies should continue gathering information on the legality of Scientology's activities in Germany so that a decision could be made on what to do about it next year."

Government

Submission + - Wikileaks coup: Guantanamo and rendition manuals (wikileaks.org)

James Hardine writes: The Washington Post is reporting that Wikileaks has released another manual for Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay together with the US military's rendition operations manual. This release follows from the Wikileaks release of the 2003 SOP Manual as reported in Slashdot and the New York Times last month. Wikileaks compares the two manuals (2003, 2004) and reveals damning changes in official US detainee policy in exquisite detail. Who knew that diff could be such a powerful political weapon?
Spam

Submission + - NJ Spammer Gets Two Years Jail for AOL Spam Scam (techluver.com)

Tech.Luver writes: "Nov 02, '07 — A New Jersey man was sentenced to more than two years in prison on Friday for helping send "spam" e-mails to more than 1.2 million America Online subscribers. Todd Moeller, 28, was sentenced 27 months in prison in a federal court in New York after he was caught making a deal with a government informant to send junk e-mails — known as spam — advertising a computer security program in return for 50 percent of the profits, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/03/nj-spammer-gets-two-years-jail-for-aol-spam-scam/ )"
Music

Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music 158

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist posts to his site about a study commissioned by the Canadian government intended to look into the buying habits of music fans. What the study found is that 'there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing.' The report is entitled The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada, and it was 'conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits. The authors believe this is the first ever empirical study to employ representative microeconomic data.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Average number of links on a web page (uclue.com)

flatbush52 writes: According to Uclue, the average website includes 62.5 links. Actually, the figure is really according to IBM, Microsoft, and HP researchers who studies a few hundred million pages. But Uclue is the one who puts it into perspective in a nicely done write-up. The figure includes all links on a page, including anchor tags, image links, advertising, etc. Because of the heavily skewed nature of the web, with a small number of sites housing thousands upon thousands of links, there's a sizable discrepancy between the mean and median figures, which is also discussed in the Uclue article. By the way, Uclue is the same group who gave us the controversial estimate on the Enegy Use of the Internet a few weeks ago...they're getting to be an interesting little operation.
Television

Submission + - 20/20 airing Hans Reiser interview on eve of trial 1

An anonymous reader writes: ABCNews 20/20 television magazine will broadcast an interview tonight with Hans Reisier, the author of the Linux ReiserFS filesystem, who is accused of killing his wife, although no body has been found. Jury selection is complete, and the trial is schedule to begin next week.
Music

Submission + - P2P file-sharing study released by Industry Canada

Techie Coward writes: Industry Canada has released a study regarding the effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchases. The study concludes that P2P file-sharing does not have an overall positive or negative effect on CD sales. Additionaly, the study finds that among those who do download, those who download more purchase more CDs, and that the price of CDs has no overall effect on CD sales.
Security

Submission + - Dislike a Relative? Turn Them in as a Terrorist! 9

Stanislav_J writes: A Swedish man who had less than fond feelings for his daughter's hubby, took advantage of the son-in-law's trip to America by reporting him to the FBI as a terrorist. The e-mail, which the father-in-law admits to sending, earned him a libel charge after his poor son-in-law was arrested on his arrival in Florida, handcuffed, interrogated, and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being released.

It's a brief article, but dovetails nicely with the recent Slashdot story about "The War on the Unexpected." That article touched on many examples of well-meaning, but misguided and paranoid citizens reporting innocent activities to the authorities. In the current climate, the potential also exists for maliciously false and far from well-meaning reports made to the Feds about people one simply doesn't care for, or those made merely as a sick prank.

While the man admitted to sending the e-mail to the FBI, he claims he thought no harm would come from it because "he did not think the US authorities would be stupid enough to believe him." To quote the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, 'Nyahh....he don't know us very well, do he?'
Books

Submission + - Top Ten Strangest or Cruellest Science Experiments 1

aalobode writes: "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. See for yourself at the url http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2779808.ece?OTC-HPtoppuff&ATTR=elephants"
Handhelds

Submission + - NSA able to wirelessly take over your Smartphone.

l8f57 writes: Cryptome.org is reporting that the NSA is able to perform wireless wiretapping of MS based smart phones. From the article: "Microsoft remote administrative privileges allow "backdooring" into Microsoft operating systems via IP/TCP ports 1024 through 1030."
Software

Submission + - FSF initiatees Software Abolition Campaign

QuantumCow writes: "Bruce Byfield is reporting that the Free Software Foundation is taking steps to abolish software patents with the formation of the End Software Patents coalition. To lead this group is author and Brookings Institution scholar, Ben Klemens. Byfield reports that the FSF has received a quarter million dollar anonymous donation to seed the effort. Timing for the campaign comes on the heals of FFII's success in diminishing software patents in the EU, a recent http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141, the Novel-Microsoft deal being deflated by clauses in the GPLv3, and months of outward claims made by Microsoft of possible infringements."
Music

Submission + - Trent Reznor Says "Steal My Music" (youtube.com)

THX-1138 writes: A few months ago, Trent Reznor (frontman of the band Nine Inch Nails), was in Australia doing an interview when he commented on the outrageous prices of CDs there. Apparently now his label, Universal Media Group is angry at him for having said that. During a concert last night , he told this to fans, "...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these mother**** will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that that's not right."

The YouTube link contains a video recorded by a fan that shows his full speech during the concert.

Power

Submission + - 12-inch Miracle Tube Could Halve Heating Bills (dailymail.co.uk)

Nullav writes:
It sounds too good to be true — not to mention the fact that it violates almost every known law of physics.
But British scientists claim they have invented a revolutionary device that seems to 'create' energy from virtually nothing.
The device seems to break the fundamental physical law that energy cannot be created from nothing — but researchers believe it taps into a previously unrecognized source of energy, stored at a sub-atomic level within the hydrogen atoms in water.
If the technology can be developed on a domestic scale, it means consumers will need much less energy for heating and hot water — creating smaller bills and fewer greenhouse gases.

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