geoffrobinson - Slashdot User

Submission + - Philadelphia Charging Bloggers $300 (citypaper.net)

Submitted by geoffrobinson on Monday August 23, 2010 @09:10AM

geoffrobinson writes: The City of Philadelphia, suffering from budget problems like many municipalities, has started to charge their $300 "business privilege" tax against bloggers. Yes, in Philadelphia running a business is a privilege.

You have to pay the tax even if your blog takes in less than $300. "According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business."

Submission + - APS Reverses Position on Global Warming (dailytech.com)

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Friday July 18, 2008 @09:34AM

geoffrobinson writes: "The American Physical Society is reversing its position on global warming. The APS says that there are a sizable number of skeptics among its 50,000 members. They previously described global warming as "incontrovertible." Now they are opening the issue up to debate."

Submission + - Man Arrested for YouTube Video (philly.com)

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Friday June 27, 2008 @10:20AM

geoffrobinson writes: "A Philadelphia man was arrested for making terroristic threats on YouTube Video. In the video, the man encourages shooting cops in the head or heart in order to kill them. It remains to be seen if the man will use a First Amendment defense. He works as a security guard in a Philadelphia hospital."

Submission + - IBM's Pilot Program for Internal Use of Macs

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Friday April 18, 2008 @08:35AM

geoffrobinson writes: "Roughly Drafted has obtained internal IBM documents detailing the results of a small pilot program for internal use of Macs. Positive and negative results were detailed. But, overall, most participants were happy with their experience. The pilot will be expanded this year. One advantage cited: they will be less reliant on Windows. So it seems a mix of Macs, PC's, and Linux boxes are in IBM's future. Given the history between the two companies, this is quite interesting."

Submission + - Beijing Police Launching Animated Web Patrols (geoffrobinson.net)

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @10:08AM

geoffrobinson writes: "And by "animated" they mean cartoons. From the Associated Press:

Police in China's capital said Tuesday they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content. Starting Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals, including Sohu and Sina, and by the end of the year will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers, the Beijing Public Security Ministry said in a statement. China stringently polices the Internet for material and content that the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening. Despite the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers.
"

Submission + - Study: Martian Soil Has Signs of Life (geoffrobinson.net)

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Thursday August 23, 2007 @03:19PM

geoffrobinson writes: "Reuters is reporting that a scientist from Germany believes Viking probe data shows signs of life. From the article: "But Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, said on Friday the spacecraft may in fact have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface. His analysis of one of the experiments carried out by the Viking spacecraft suggests that 0.1 percent of the Martian soil could be of biological origin." Houtkooper adds

We will have to find confirmatory evidence and see what kind of microbes these are and whether they are related to terrestrial microbes. It is a possibility that life has been transported from Earth to Mars or vice versa a long time ago.
"

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