rozthepimp - Slashdot User

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill on Monday December 14, 2009 @05:52PM from the i-for-one dept.

likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

Submission + - Alan Ralsky Gets 51 Months in Prison (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @09:02AM

tsu doh nimh writes: Alan Ralsky, the 64 year-old dubbed the "Godfather of Spam," was sentenced to 51 months in prison on Monday, The Washington Post's Security Fix reports. According to anti-spam group Spamhaus.org, Ralsky has been spamming since at least 1997, using dozens of aliases and tens of thousands of "zombies" or hacked PCs to relay junk e-mail. Also sentenced — to 40 months in jail — was Ralsky's 48-year-old son-in-law, Scott K. Bradley and two other men named last year in a 41-count indictment for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Comment I Call BS (Score 1) 263

by rozthepimp on Wednesday September 30, 2009 @11:42PM (#29601703) Attached to: Cosmic Ray Intensity Reaches Highest Levels In 50 years

I went to school with Cosmic Ray and I know for a fact that he died in some ugly drowning incident involving a bong. Ray Dead = No more Cosmic Ray.

Comment Re:Is it just me or..... (Score 1) 154

by rozthepimp on Thursday August 27, 2009 @11:29AM (#29217521) Attached to: Database Records and "In Plain Sight" Searches

I call BS. 2009 attendance data (to date) - Best are the Yankees, with a 45K per game average. Worst are the Marlins, with a 18K per game average.

Submission + - RIAA Case, Capitol v. Thomas #2, Starts Monday (startribune.com)

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Saturday June 13, 2009 @02:06PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA's first trial verdict having been tossed out last year, the RIAA is coming back for a second bite at the apple starting Monday. This time the trial will be in Minneapolis, rather than Duluth, and this time the defendant will have a team of pro bono lawyers on her side. But perhaps the most important new development is that this time the 'technical' evidence garnered by MediaSentry and 'explained' by the RIAA's expert witness Doug Jacobson, will not get the free pass it got the first time around. In the 2007 trial in Capitol Records v. Thomas, no objection was made by defendant's lawyer to the MediaSentry/Doug Jacobson 'evidence' upon which the RIAA relied, and the evidence was admitted without objection. This time there will be no free ride, as defendant's tech-savvy lawyers have already filed a list of objections to the RIAA's proposed exhibits. Most notably they attack the 'technical' materials submitted by MediaSentry and Dr. Doug Jacobson under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which requires evidence based on 'scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge' to be based on sufficient facts or data, to be the product of reliable principles and methods, and to be the result of those principles and methods having been applied reliably to the facts of the case. If the evidence fails to meet those standards, it is inadmissible. This judge has already evidenced acute awareness of these principles, in deciding which subjects defendant's expert could and could not address. So this should be interesting."

Comment Re:Wow, the RIAA is bad at this (Score 3, Interesting) 197

by rozthepimp on Tuesday May 19, 2009 @11:10PM (#28021283) Attached to: Court Rejects RIAA's Proposed Protective Order

Regarding your comments re the filings of RIAA lawyers, the oldest /. expression comes to mind - "You must be new here". The unbelievable filings of HRO, Dwyer & Collora, and their predecessors over the last few years leads to the conclusion that there are a lot more bottom feeder law firms out there than anyone in the practice of law would like to admit. As someone who left the law profession a few years ago, I can say now that IANAL, but the inane motions/filings on behalf of the record company plaintiffs truly stagger the imagination. As far as I can tell, the only qualification to act as a plaintiff lawyer in these cases is that the you must suck it up and write as dictated by Matt Oppemheim. So the law firm must balance their reputation and bad PR against the fees.

Comment Re:Confusing (Score 1) 215

by rozthepimp on Wednesday February 18, 2009 @10:05AM (#26901291) Attached to: Major Cache of Fossils Unearthed In Los Angeles

As far as the time period mentioned in the summary, 20 years (english units) ~ 20 metric years.

Submission + - FSF Helps Jammie Thomas Get Expert vs. RIAA (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Monday January 26, 2009 @06:59PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "With a $3000 grant in hand from the Expert Witness Defense Fund administered by the Free Software Foundation to help defendants in RIAA lawsuits, Jammie Thomas has asked the Court for an extension of time for discovery to enable her to retain an expert witness. The first time around, in her October, 2007, trial, she was unable to afford an expert. That verdict has since been set aside, and a new trial scheduled for March 9th of this year. This will be the second case in which the FSF has lent a hand, the first being UMG Recordings v. Lindor, where it contributed $2046.92 for the expert and $750.00 for the tech consultant. FSF's executive director Peter Brown told p2pnet today that 'Our concern was how the RIAA is trying to use this sledge-hammer against the poorest people in society to set precedents in copyright' and that 'the FSF still needs contributions so the fund can be used to help other people'."

Comment Re:Thanks for stealing! (Score 1) 164

by rozthepimp on Sunday January 18, 2009 @02:22PM (#26507783) Attached to: RIAA Walks Away From Another "Discovery" Case

So let's consider the case where more purchased music is paid for/downloaded instead of being purchased as a CD. A distributor that handles CD's find themselves with 1000 employees when they now need only 600. They lay off 400 employees because the business model has changed. Your fiance gets to look for a new job because.....

Comment Re:Any ideas WHY the RIAA's decisionmaking is so b (Score 2, Funny) 209

by rozthepimp on Saturday January 17, 2009 @08:47PM (#26501845) Attached to: RIAA Tries To Appeal Order Allowing Internet TV Court Broadcast

Sounds like you are looking for an explanation from Matt "The Dentist" Oppenheim, who directs the HRO team and local counsel. Based on his demeanor in the Joel Tenenbaum deposition in this case, he appears to have gone from just plain nasty to borderline obsessive.

Submission + - RIAA Hearing Next Week To Be Televised (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @07:25PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "One commentator labels it 'another fly in the RIAA's ointment'. In SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the Boston, Massachusetts, RIAA case in which the defendant is represented by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson and a group of his students, the Judge has ruled that the hearing scheduled for January 22nd will be televised over the internet. The hearing will relate to Mr. Tenenbaum's counterclaims against the record companies and against the RIAA. In her 11-page opinion (PDF), District Judge Nancy Gertner labeled as 'curious' the record companies' opposition to televising the proceedings, since their professed reason for bringing the cases is deterrence, 'a strategy [which] effectively relies on the publicity arising from this litigation'."

Submission + - Entire Transcript of RIAA's Only Trial Now Online (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Sunday December 28, 2008 @12:56PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The entire transcript of the RIAA's 'perfect storm', its first and only trial, which resulted in a $222,000 verdict in a case involving 24 MP3's having a retail value of $23.76, is now available online. After over a year of trying, we have finally obtained the transcript of the Duluth, Minnesota, jury trial which took place October 2, 2007, to October 4, 2007, in Capitol Records v. Thomas. Its 643 pages represent a treasure trove for (a) lawyers representing defendants in other RIAA cases, (b) technologists anxious to see how a MediaSentry investigator and the RIAA's expert witness combined to convince the jurors that the RIAA had proved its case, and (c) anybody interested in finding out about such things as the early-morning October 4th argument in which the RIAA lawyer convinced the judge to make the mistake which forced him to eventually vacate the jury's verdict, and the testimony of SONY BMG's Jennifer Pariser in which she 'misspoke' according to the RIAA's Cary Sherman when she testified under oath that making a copy from one's CD to one's computer is 'stealing'. The transcript was a gift from the 'Joel Fights Back Against RIAA' team defending SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston, Massachusetts. I have the transcript in 3 segments: October 2nd (278 pages(PDF), October 3rd (263 pages)(PDF), and October 4th (100 pages)(PDF)."

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