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Submission + - White House petitioned to save those in hot cars 13

Submitted by mr_mischief
mr_mischief writes: The White House, through the "We the People" petition site, has received a petition to allow civilians to proactively free children, the elderly, and animals stuck in hot cars and then contact authorities, as these situations are time-sensitive. The petition asks for a federal law granting people the right to do this uniformly across the country.

So far it has fewer than 1,000 signatures, but do we really need it to have more? Is there a jurisdiction in the US where breaking a window to save a human life is actually considered a crime by police and the courts? If so, what madness is that? Do Congress and the President really need to state in a statute that saving a life is justifiable grounds for what it basically minor property damage?

Is this a case of overly cautious people, overly litigious civil society, or overzealous enforcement of laws? How does it interact with good samaritan laws? What makes doing the right thing so hard?

Submission + - White House Approves Sonic Cannons For Atlantic Energy Exploration

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The White House on Friday gave final approval to allow the use of sonic cannons in finding energy deposits underneath the ocean floor on the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says that finding energy resources off the Atlantic seaboard "could generage thousands of jobs, but has also acknowledged that the process will harm sea creatures." Sonic cannons "fire sound waves 100 times louder than a jet engine." Mammals such as whales and dolphins that communicate through sound will most likely be affected, but scientists aren't sure to what extent. They also aren't sure how the cannons will affect fish and other sea creatures or how any physiological effects on them may impact the fishing industries of the U.S. and the other countries who rely on seafood that migrate in and out of the Atlantic Ocean.

Comment Re:They'd still be on Power if not for two things. (Score 1) 236

by mr_mischief (#47477463) Attached to: Nearly 25 Years Ago, IBM Helped Save Macintosh

A Cell is a PPC core with extra coprocessors, and was the secret processor that caused delays for Apple that IBM couldn't explain. IIRC it was no secret what chip was going into the PS3 before launch. Again, IIRC, Microsoft forced IBM into a minimum delivery rate and wouldn't allow them to disclose to other chip customers where the capacity had gone.

Comment They'd still be on Power if not for two things. (Score 1) 236

by mr_mischief (#47474279) Attached to: Nearly 25 Years Ago, IBM Helped Save Macintosh

G5s ran too hot for notebooks. IBM's manufacturing capacity for Power/PPC cores outside its own servers and workstations was eaten up by Microsoft for its XBox line. Apple was waiting too much on inventory. They switched to Intel not because their chips were more powerful, but because their chips were more available and could be used more flexibly.
Businesses

Nearly 25 Years Ago, IBM Helped Save Macintosh 236

Posted by samzenpus from the back-in-the-day dept.
dcblogs (1096431) writes "Apple and IBM, which just announced partnership to bring iOS and cloud services to enterprises, have helped each other before. IBM played a key role in turning the Macintosh into a successful hardware platform at a point when it — and the company itself — were struggling. Nearly 25 years ago, IBM was a part of an alliance that gave Apple access to PowerPC chips for Macintosh systems that were competitive, if not better performing in some benchmarks, than the processors Intel was producing at the time for Windows PCs. In 1991, Apple was looking for a RISC-based processor to replace the Motorola 68K it had been using in its Macintosh line. "The PCs of the era were definitely outperforming the Macintoshes that were based on the 68K," he said. "Apple was definitely behind the power, performance curve," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. The PowerPC processor that emerged from that earlier pairing changed that. PowerPC processors were used in Macintoshes for more than a decade, until 2006, when Apple switched to Intel chips.
IBM

Apple and IBM Announce Partnership To Bring iOS + Cloud Services To Enterprises 126

Posted by Soulskill from the international-onebutton-machines dept.
jmcbain writes: According to an article on Recode, Apple and IBM have announced a major partnership to bring mobile services to enterprise customers. "The deal calls for IBM and Apple to develop more than 100 industry-specific applications that will run on the iPhone and iPad. Apple will add a new class of service to its AppleCare program and support aimed at enterprise customers. IBM will also begin to sell iPhones and iPads to its corporate customers and will devote more than 100,000 people, including consultants and software developers, to the effort. Enterprise applications will in many cases run on IBM's cloud infrastructure or on private clouds that it has built for its customers. Data for those applications will co-exist with personal data like photos and personal email that will run on Apple's iCloud and other cloud services."

Comment Re: Well. (Score 1) 749

by mr_mischief (#47458907) Attached to: Obama Administration Says the World's Servers Are Ours

I am a US citizen. I don't consider criticism of the US government to be anti-American. In fact, I consider criticizing the US government to be one of the most pro-American and American-like things one can do. The US government isn't America. The people are the country. The government when it hurts the people is the anti-American one. Loving the government over the people is anti-American. Loving the people of America and pointing out or correcting the failings of the government is the legacy of the country.

And yes, I have been pointing out that the government here has been favoring businesses over people and favoring one business over another for some time. Basically whichever business is best for the legislators gets the best laws, and whichever is best for the executive gets the most preferential enforcement of those laws. I think it's hard to say that's far from fascism if we're to be honest. It's a kinder, gentler fascism than those we associate with the term, but for how long?

Comment Re: Maybe, maybe not. (Score 1) 749

by mr_mischief (#47458763) Attached to: Obama Administration Says the World's Servers Are Ours

You can subpoena the party to produce the evidence. The people in the US are answerable to US law by definition. The people in Ireland are by definition under the control regarding the employer's data of their employers in the US. What would seem to be the problem?

I guarantee you that if you smuggled evidence from the US to Ireland that the US government would punish you for not producing it.

Comment Louisiana and Mississippi (Score 1) 242

by mr_mischief (#47448449) Attached to: Texas Town Turns To Treated Sewage For Drinking Water

All along the Mississippi River towns filter and purify water from the river for drinking, then treat their sewage and put it back into the river. If you drink the water near the delta then part of what you're drinking has been through dozens or hundreds of people.

Connecting the output to the input eliminates some of the waste of wastewater. It's good enough for NASA, so it's good enough for you.

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