Comment Re:How have patents helped the world lately? (Score 2) 134
"why bother doing it if someone will steal your work"
Comment Re:How have patents helped the world lately? (Score 2, Informative) 134
They're not about helping the world. They're about protecting the rights of inventors, rather than having large companies steal their work and reproduce it in a manner they can't compete with.
Comment Re:It's not "Mass Hysteria"; it's "Mass Terror" . (Score 1) 146
3 centuries ago? I guess you've never been to an Old Firm game.
Of course, now you'll never have to.
Ahahahahahaha!
Comment Re:It's not "Mass Hysteria"; it's "Mass Terror" . (Score 1) 146
Hahahaha oh man, that's great.
I guess you never hear about the other benefits of immaculate conception.
The Destruction of Iraq's Once-Great Universities 444
Harperdog writes "Hugh Gusterson has written a devastating article about what has happened to Iraq's once great university system, and puts most of the blame for its total collapse on the U.S. Quoting: 'While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior but ignored cultural heritage sites, looters ransacked the universities. For example, the entire library collections at the University of Baghdad's College of Arts and at the University of Basra were destroyed. The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandresekara described the scene at Mustansiriya University in 2003: "By April 12, the campus of yellow-brick buildings and grassy courtyards was stripped of its books, computers, lab equipment and desks. Even electrical wiring was pulled from the walls. What was not stolen was set ablaze, sending dark smoke billowing over the capital that day."'"
Facebook On Collision Course With New EU Privacy Laws 195
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook and other U.S. internet companies are faced with a new EU data protection regime, the Christian Science Monitor reports. U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce will battle European support for privacy and state legislation. 'Companies must understand that if they want access to 500 million consumers in the EU, then they have to comply. This is not an option,' said a spokesman for the EU Justice Commissioner."
Comment Re:I think (Score 1) 351
It's more that they've lost territory, but are winning the war. You can't break the latest update on the Wii without owning specific, unpopular games. The old ones used incredibly common games or required no game at all, but how many people are going to buy an obscure game just to install a software hack?
You could buy a modchip for the same price, and that will always work.
Developer Demands Pirate Bay Not Remove Torrent
203
An anonymous reader writes "This week TPB got a very unusual e-mail. It was a 'Notice of Ridiculous Activity' from a company that had found one of its apps cracked and listed as a torrent on TPB. The app in question is called Memoires, developed by Coding Robots. Memoires is marketed as the easiest way to keep a journal on your Mac. It costs $29.99 to buy after you've enjoyed a 30-day free trial. That, of course, didn't stop someone from cracking the software and making it available for free as a torrent. Dmitry Chestnykh, founder of Coding Robots, noticed the cracked torrent and decided to download it to see what had been done. After using it, he was upset — not because the cracked version was available, but because the cracker (named Minamoto) had done such a bad job of cracking it. The best section of the e-mail has to be this: 'I demand that you don't remove this torrent, so that people can laugh at Minamoto and CORE skills. However, I also demand the[sic] better crack to be made, so that it doesn't cripple the user experience of my beautiful program.'"
Comment Re:Analysis of tones? (Score 1) 222
It's changed a few times, but it has essentially just been broadcasting the same thing for decades, excepting the spoken word transmissions.
Subtle encoding are completely useless for number stations, so it's unlikely it does that anyway. The point of number stations is that they broadcast to huge areas using shortwave, in easily recordable formats. This way, agents in foreign territory can use basic shortwave radios that can be found anywhere, and decode the messages using the one-time pads they are issued with. This method of encryption is impossible to break, and can be done with essentially no equipment.
Comment Re:Why so discriminating? (Score 1) 1036
#178890
*** Now talking in #christian
-Word_of_God- Welcome Abstruse to #christian I am a Bible Bot. For more info type:
!kjv numbers 22:21
Numbers 22:21 -- And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. - (KJV)
*** SageRider sets mode: +b *!*@c211-30-208-111.rivrw3.nsw.optusnet.com.au
*** Word_of_God was kicked from #christian by SageRider (Please dont Swear)
I know I'm never going to be able to come back in this channel again after this, but damn was it worth it to see that...
Comment Re:More crazy US laws. (Score 5, Informative) 112
GP said electricity, not energy, they could well be producing more electricity than they use.
For an example of an industry producing more electricity than it uses, may I point you towards something called "power stations"?
How To Grow a Head 355
Taco Cowboy writes "British scientists have found a mechanism within our gene sequence that allows the growing of a new head — with brains, etc. The gene is tentatively known as smed-prep, and the information contained in smed-prep also makes the new cells appear in the right place and organise themselves into working structures."
Comment Re:Meat cows? (Score 1) 640
Doesn't matter if they are dairy cows. Exercised cows = happy cows = better milk.
Yes, I too learned all my farming knowledge from playing Harvest Moon.
Comment Re:by that logic (Score 4, Insightful) 188
More accurately, this is like saying "I don't own a car, so my petrol costs are zero", and everyone in the comments going "But that doesn't include your bus tickets or the time you spend walking!", and completely missing the point.
Comment Re:European Court Ruling (Score 1) 372
This is a ruling which has been completely ignored by UK authorities, so no. It isn't relevant.
It should be, but apparently legal obligations don't mean anything if you're the government.
