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Comment Re:Use the Coax as a wirepull for the cat5 (Score 1, Informative) 608

by driftingwalrus (#31187666) Attached to: Suggestions For a Coax-To-Ethernet Solution?

It won't, no way, no how. The capacitance of the coax cable will screw the whole thing up. You'll get relfections and crosstalk *everywhere*. What you need is an old fashioned 10Base2 card designed for coax, you need terminators and you need to make sure the cable is of the right impedance.

Comment Expensive Lock, Cheap Casing (Score 1) 252

by driftingwalrus (#30660464) Attached to: Encryption Cracked On NIST-Certified Flash Drives

This is like having a bank vault, and investing thousands in an expensive lock - then placing that lock on the outside of the vault in a tin box. All they have to do is smash off the box and turn the knob behind it. There's a word for this: incompetence. I'm not sure why companies still put up with this kind of stupidity. Seriously, if a doctor pulled this kind of stunt he'd lose his license.
The Courts

Constitutionality of RIAA Damages Challenged 360

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the too-bad-common-sense-and-the-law-don't-mix dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the defendant has filed a motion for new trial, attacking, among other things, the constitutionality of the jury's $675,000 award as being violative of due process. In his 32-page brief (PDF), Tenenbaum argues that the award exceeded constitutional due process standards, both under the Court's 1919 decision in St. Louis Railway v. Williams, as well as under its more recent authorities State Farm v. Campbell and BMW v. Gore. Defendant also argues that the Court's application of fair use doctrine was incorrect, that statutory damages should not be imposed against music consumers, and that the Court erred in a key evidentiary ruling."
Patents

Microsoft Invents $1.15/Hour Homework Fee For Kids 580

Posted by timothy from the defining-the-edge-of-invention dept.
theodp writes "Microsoft's vision of your computing future is on display in its just-published patent application for the Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience. The plan, as Microsoft explains it, involves charging students $1.15 an hour to do their homework, making an Office bundle available for $1/hour, and billing gamers $1.25 for each hour of fun. In addition to your PC, Microsoft also discloses plans to bring the chargeback scheme to your cellphone and automobile — GPS, satellite radio, backseat video entertainment system. 'Both users and suppliers benefit from this new business model,' concludes Microsoft, while conceding that 'the supplier can develop a revenue stream business that may actually have higher value than the one-time purchase model currently practiced.' But don't worry kids, that's only if you do more than 52 hours of homework a year!"
Power

Ubiquitous Hydrogen Power Not Getting Any Closer 267

Posted by Soulskill from the isn't-it-ionic dept.
NewScientist has a story about the "hydrogen economy" that has been resting on the horizon for a decade or more. Despite a great deal of enthusiasm for and research into hydrogen-based power systems, the technology seems just as far away from everyday use as it's always been. A British startup, ITM Power, has recently claimed a breakthrough in lowering production costs by using a nickel catalyst (rather than platinum) with a membrane small enough for home use. But, even if their method is proven and adopted, it still wouldn't address huge energy efficiency problems in the process. "The point was made forcefully by Gary Kendall of the conservation group WWF in a recent report called Plugged In (PDF, pgs. 135-149). Kendall, a chemist who previously spent almost a decade working for ExxonMobil, highlights how the energy losses in the fuel chain - from electrolysis to compression of the hydrogen for use to inefficiencies in the fuel cell itself — mean that only 24 per cent of the energy used to make the fuel does any useful work on the road."
Graphics

Silverlight On the Way To Linux 475

Posted by timothy from the howl-at-the-moonlight dept.
Afforess writes "For the past two years Microsoft and Novell have been working on the 'Moonlight' project. It is a runtime library for websites that run Silverlight. It should allow PCs running Linux to view sites that use Siverlight. Betanews reports 'In the next stage of what has turned out to be a more successful project than even its creators envisioned, the public beta of Moonlight — a runtime library for Linux supporting sites that expect Silverlight — is expected within days.' Moonlight 2.0 is already in the works."

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