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The Internet

Submission + - Network Neutrality without regulation? (cato.org)

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes: "Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written "The Durable Internet," a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet's open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn't necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective.

In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front."

Comment Democracy = Opium of the Masses (Score 1) 182

by NEOtaku17 (#25278149) Attached to: Voters In Many States Must Register By October 6
Come back when you learn basic statistics. Your individual vote is practically worthless. The odds of being the deciding vote in a national election isn't any better than winning the lottery. Even if your candidate wins by one vote, there still is a good chance that the president will act differently than promised and enact policy that would harm you anyway! Trying to determine policy by voting is like trying to make money by playing the lottery. You could do a hell of a lot better by using your time and energy doing something that actually has a good chance of making a difference. Voting gives you a good feeling that your voice is being heard, but how can you be heard when 100,000,000 other people are all talking at once? Democracy feels good but with a country as big as the U.S. you can take the outcome of elections as given.
Power

Helium Leads to Geothermal Energy Resources 317

Posted by Zonk from the who-doesn't-love-clean-burning-earth dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "When we think about alternative sources of energy, we often forget the potential of geothermal energy resources. In fact, it has been estimated that accessible geothermal energy in the U.S. represents 90 quadrillion kilowatt-hours or 3,000 times the country's total annual energy consumption. So far, it has been difficult and expensive to locate good sources of geothermal energy. But now, two U.S. researchers have found a new method which doesn't require drilling. They are using the ratio of helium isotopes in surface waters to point to the best sources of geothermal energy."
NASA

Submission + - Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data (dailytech.com)

Submitted by NEOtaku17
NEOtaku17 writes: NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. This news has huge ramifications on the current state of climate science and government policy on combating global warming. Perhaps we have more time to correct our negative impact on the planet than we thought.
The Internet

Submission + - Pirate Bay earns 20,000 Euros a day (rixstep.com) 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: controverisal pro-piracy website the piratebay likes to portray itself as an innocent hobby site that provides a free index without censorship, but recent facts show that the site is earning up to 20,000 Euros per day from its advertising. Taking in money on this scale puts a different slant on the motives behind the Swedish filesharing site, and could open up the runners of the site to prosecution for profiting from copyright infringement.

Feed Science Daily: Researchers Look At Antidepressants And Risk Of Suicide Among Kids (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Which is more likely to push a depressed child to suicide: not taking antidepressant drugs or taking antidepressant drugs? Medical experts have struggled with this question at least since 1990 when Harvard researchers reported that six people developed suicidal feelings soon after taking Prozac (fluoxetine). This was the first of the now widely prescribed serotonin drugs to ease depression. Called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such medications ease the problems of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive behavior by decreasing the activity of a brain chemical known to affect moods.
Software

Do "Illegal" Codecs Actually Scare Linux Users? 510

Posted by kdawson from the hardened-criminals-listening-to-music dept.
jammag writes "In this article, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out why he keeps giving money to Microsoft and Apple despite the clear advantages of Linux: the scary legalese dialogs you have to click through to install codecs for common multimedia formats. Quoting: 'Despite strong points that go far beyond price, Linux falls short when it comes to legally supporting file formats such as MP3, WMA/WMV and DVDs.' He talks about using Ubuntu and booting up Totem Movie Player, only to be confronted with a burst of legalese about what a hardened criminal he'll be if he uses Totem without a license. This problem is 'a deal breaker' for him."
Businesses

$298 Wal-Mart PC Has OO.org, No Crapware 422

Posted by kdawson from the tell-me-again-why-dell-can't-do-this dept.
cristarol writes "Wal-Mart has begun selling a $298 PC (Everex IMPACT GC3502). It comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2, as well as a complete lack of crapware: 'Users accustomed to being bombarded with trialware offers and seeing their would-be pristine Windows desktops littered with shortcuts to AOL and other applications will likely be pleased at their absence from the GC3502.' The machine is targeted at the back-to-school market. The hardware is nothing to write home about: a 1.5GHz Via C7 with 1GB of RAM and integrated graphics, but as Ars points out, it should be more than capable of performing basic tasks." Dell sells a low-end PC through Wal-Mart for $200 more, and one assumes it is loaded with crapware. Anybody know for sure?

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