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Submission + - Gas Prices Stable as Largest US Oil Refinery Partially Closes After Fires

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Joao Peixe reports in the Christian Science Monitor that since undergoing a $10 billion expansion, the the 600,000 barrel a day Royal Dutch Shell's Motiva oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, has experienced a long line of incidents, the latest being a fire which has forced it to reduce production output by a half, for at least two weeks. One week ago the facility suffered from a fire in the sulphur recovery unit, forcing a closure and reducing production. The sulphur unit will undergo repairs, and is expected to go back into operation in two or three weeks. But a second fire, which began on Saturday, broke out in a hydrocracker unit next to the refinery`s largest crude distillation unit (CDU), known as the VPS-5. "Maybe it was cursed," says a veteran Gulf Coast products trader about Motiva's struggles. "I think people are not surprised by problems there." A source with knowledge of the incident told Reuters that the fire damaged communication lines and instrumentation needed to run the 75,000 bpd hydrocracker, but its production sections were unharmed. Refinery managers admitted that “it was a bad weekend for us. We're all feeling snake-bit. It just seems like we get up and going and then something else goes wrong." The good news is that the US Gulf Coast is so well supplied with motor fuels that wholesale gasoline and diesel prices in the region moved only modestly on Motiva's latest woes. Inventories are close to their highest levels in two decades in the region, which has close to half of all U.S. refining capacity, as other refiners run nearly full bore to reap profits from exports that make up for softer US demand.

Submission + - German Government Warns Windows 8 is an Unacceptable Security Risk (www.zeit.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Die Zeit has access to leaked documents from the German government warning that Windows 8 is an unacceptable security risk for sensitive workloads. The story is written in German here: http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2013-08/trusted-computing-microsoft-windows-8-nsa but automatic translators (such as Google Translate) do a readable job. Particularly of concern is the inability to opt out of TPM 2.0 usage.

Submission + - Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy in One Month 2

Submitted by oritonic1
oritonic1 writes: Germany is rapidly developing a tradition of shattering its own renewable energy goals and leaving the rest of the world in the dust. This past July was no exception, as the nation produced 5.1 TWh of solar power, beating not only its own solar production record, but also eclipsing the record 5TWh of wind power produced by German turbines in January. Renewables are doing so well, in fact, that one of Germany's biggest utilities is threatening to migrate to Turkey.

Submission + - Two US Representatives Mouth Identical DMCA Talking Points at Same Hearing (xrepublic.tv)

Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius
Jeremiah Cornelius writes: Comedy gold, as US House members sellout to the copyright industry. Watch two Congressional Representatives ask identical leading questions, framed for them by entertainment industry lobbyists, word-for-word. No pause, one right after the other. Ultimately, its the voter/taxpayer/consumer who is both paying for this directly and subsidizing it, while subject to the restraints that are being demanded.

Submission + - Are Young Adults Getting Over Weed? (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: For the first time in four decades of polling, a national survey showed that a 52 percent of Americans want to legalize the sticky stuff. With 20 states already having approved medical marijuana, another sixteen states decriminalizing possession, and two states, Colorado and Washington, legalizing bud outright for recreational use, the US is going greener and greener country as we roll out of first decade of the new millennium. But another national poll conducted this summer hints at a cultural trend seemingly at odds with this mass population shift towards drug love. A Gallup report published at the beginning of August says that while general support of cannabis has been increasing, experimentation and use among 18- to 29-year-olds is actually decreasing.

Comment Re:Meanwhile, back at the bean counting dept. (Score 1) 139

by tukang (#44570981) Attached to: Cisco Slashes 4,000 Jobs

There was a time, believe it or not, when profitable companies would generally not layoff people because the company was, uh, profitable. If a company did layoff people the stock market usually took it as an indication that something was wrong (which it generally was).

Ah yes, I can remember those times as if they were a few hours ago - maybe because they were: Cisco to cut 4,000 jobs; stock falls 10%

Comment Re:Debt-backed economies.... (Score 1) 159

by tukang (#44569415) Attached to: Is Europe's Recession Really Over?

It already is happening. The amount of interest we pay as a % of total tax revenue collected has been steadily rising and is at a a 10 year high even though the interest rate on treasury bonds is at relatively low levels. In other words the money we're borrowing is really cheap, yet we're borrowing so much of it that we're still paying more in interest relative to total revenues collected than we have in the past decade and there's no reason to believe that we will be able to continue to borrow money cheaply especially if we increase our public debt too much.

Submission + - Study: Facebook usage causes users' life satisfaction levels to decline (plosone.org)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: According to the Research Article, "Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults", the more people used Facebook, the worse they feel and the more their life satisfaction levels decline over time.

On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may actually undermine it.

The research was led by the University of Michigan and is published in PLOS ONE, an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Comment Re:Debt-backed economies.... (Score 2) 159

by tukang (#44568541) Attached to: Is Europe's Recession Really Over?

We will never send real resources backwards in time in order to "repay" public debts.

Who said anything about sending resources back in time? We'll send our resources to our creditors and as the debt and interest increase future generations will have to send more of it to our creditors than we do now. You seem to think that increased spending leads to increased output but that's debatable and even if you do get an increase in output you can't guarantee that it will be domestic output.

Submission + - What are the next Big Space Life Questions? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Getting NASA's astrobiology community to agree on a set of specific future space life exploration goals must be like herding cats — there are over 500 members, but the group is currently trying to do just that by defining the most important questions it want to focus on for the 2014 Strategic Plan.

Submission + - How should I wean myself off of Google services?

Submitted by grahamsaa
grahamsaa writes: My primary e-mail account is with gmail, and has been for years. I catch up with remote friends and family by using Google chat (within gmail). I have an Android phone and tablet, and am generally happy with them. Unfortunately, due to Google's cooperation with the NSA and other agencies, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my dependency on their services.

I do have a riseup.net e-mail account, but their webmail interface (squirrelmail) isn't nearly as polished as gmail's is (I can't fault them for this — Riseup is small and funded entirely on donations — but giving up some of gmail's features will be difficult). I'm not opposed to setting up my own mail server and I'm experienced enough with Linux to do this, but that presents the some of the same problems. In addition to that, it will take time to update my contacts with new address information, and surely some people will slip through the cracks, probably resulting in complete loss of communication.

Getting away from Google on mobile platforms is even more difficult. Google Now already knows where I live and work, what sports teams I follow, etc. Occasionally I rely on GPS to get around, which works very well, but it also leaks my location data to Google Maps. I need to use a smartphone for work (and my employer pays for my phone), but there don't seem to be any good alternatives to Android. iOS is locked down, and no better from a privacy perspective, and Windows Mobile (or whatever they're calling it these days) is no better.

I'm not interested in switching away from insecure / monitored services because I'm engaged in anything illegal, or because I have anything "to hide" per se. . . I just think that Google already knows too much about me. Switching to a search engine like Duckduckgo is easy enough, but getting away from other services looks like it's going to be very cumbersome. I ditched Facebook years ago and haven't looked back, but I expect this transition to be far more difficult.

Has anyone done this successfully? What services / applications work well? What do you recommend?

Submission + - 9-digit numbers copyrighted and DMCA notice issued (chillingeffects.org) 2

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The American Bankers Association claims that it has copyrighted 9-digit numbers

An individual whose website is offering a searchable list of American banks' routing numbers receives a DMCA notice from the American Bankers' Association, claiming copyright in those numbers

Greg Thatcher runs a website that provides a variety of information and services. One of those is, or was, an alphabetized list of the routing numbers associated with American banks. If you've ever had to make a wire transfer, or set up on-line payments from your bank account, you've used one of these numbers, each of which is unique to a particular bank. It's the other long number on your checks that isn't your account number

Thatcher got these routing numbers from a federal government website , as in fact anyone still can. He first began providing them on his website in 2005

Given that the numbers are available from the Federal Reserve, it was therefore to Thatcher's great surprise when he received this DMCA notice

Sent by a law firm representing the American Bankers Association, ("ABA") the letter requested that Thatcher remove the numbers from his website because they were violating the copyright in those numbers held by the ABA

A search of the U.S. Copyright Office records reveals that the ABA does indeed have a registered copyright in what is described as the key to the routing numbers, with the most recent entry at 2012 ( http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=57&ti=51,57&Search_Arg=routing%20numbers&Search_Code=FT*&CNT=25&PID=ps_HRgBR2Rg-OnuCuOTD6EM6T2_i&SEQ=20130627164332 )

More information at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130621/13594123566/american-bankers-association-claims-routing-numbers-are-copyrighted.shtml

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