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Submission + - Superhero move may save black holes from nakedness (newscientist.com)

An anonymous reader writes: NewScientist reports that black holes may dodge the speeding "bullets" that would otherwise strip them naked – and pose problems for Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Comment I don't believe those stats for a moment... (Score 1) 468

The average teen (even including teens without cell phones) sends and receives five times more text messages a day than a typical adult. A teen typically sends or receives 50 text messages a day, while the average adult sends or receives 10.

Pew really ought to try interviewing a few people outside of the urban DJ population.

Submission + - Darth Vader's professional diagnosis is not good. (screenrant.com)

An anonymous reader writes: French psychologists have taken a closer look at Anakin Skywalker’s descent to madness in the Star Wars saga as he eventually became Darth Vader. It turns out the issues may have more to do with nurture than nature.

If only the Jedi Council had thought to provide psychiatric analysis of its prospective Jedi, they may have been able to prevent the ultimate disturbance in the force – Darth Vader. A panel of French psychiatrists spent some time studying Anakin Skywalker’s life, including his turn as Darth Vader and concluded he suffers from “borderline personality disorder.”

Comment Re:So, that's 74 democrats and 37 republicans who. (Score 1) 427

You do realize that ISPs are not and have never been common carriers, right?

The FCC proposal is to designate ISPs as common carriers which will subject them to net-neutrality regulation.

Technically, ISPs should already be common carriers under the definition in the 1996 Telecom Act, which applies to all persons who engage in "interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio or in interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy..."

It's just that the FCC has been treating them as "information service providers" so now the FCC will have to make a finding that they are, in fact, common carriers and then will make rules governing them.

There's a whole lot of paperwork and public hearings involved, but it's entirely within their authority so any opposition from congress will either have to involve passing a law that changes that authority or (as was previously mentioned) coercing the FCC chair by screwing with his budget.

Comment They've X-Rayed and Dissected the Freaking Chip... (Score 2, Insightful) 432

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1

It's not a "dual core Power Architecture."

According to the teardown, the chip is "quite similar to the Samsung processor Apple uses in the iPhone."

iFixit concluded that it was a Cortex A8 in there and I've seen nothing to contradict that.

Comment Statutory Damages... (Score 4, Insightful) 426

17 million sales of $.37 stamps = 46 million or so stamps actually produced.

Statutory damages can run from $750-$30,000 per copy, assuming that it wasn't a willful infringement.

That's a minimum award of $34,500,000,000 (34.5 billion) and a maximum award of 1,380,000,000,000 (1.4 trillion). Plus attorney's fees, of course. Roughly last year's federal deficit not counting off-budget spending bills.

Would anyone here care to argue that statutory damages in the U.S. are not way out of proportion to the scope of the infringement?

Comment You sue the wrong party or pursue the wrong action (Score 5, Informative) 203

how do you not prove that they benefited by having OEMs sell the newer version of their software before allowing a downgrade path?

This is from the article:

Computer makers, not Microsoft, charged users the additional fees for downgrading a new PC from Vista to XP at the factory. However, Alvarado did not name Lenovo Group Ltd. in her lawsuit.

She sued MS for a practice of the OEM. Wrong defendant.

It's possible that she could have shown vertical market manipulation, but that might not have been relevant. Such practices might give rise to a federal antitrust suit, but she brought a state unfair practices action.

I'm no expert in the laws of Washington state, but from the article it appears that among other things she had to show that she did not receive value for her money and she failed to do so.

Comment Unlike the TiVo, my PVR doesn't spy on me... (Score 3, Interesting) 490

My LiteOn PVR has a simple timer for recording like a VCR.

It has user-replaceable parts.

It doesn't require a paid subscription.

LiteOn doesn't sell records of my viewing habits.

It hasn't got a partition allocated for ads.

It doesn't display ad-banners when I pause or fast forward.

It has editing features.

It has a built-in DVD burner.

Yeah, TiVo offers a few neat features, but I'd have to give up a lot of utility and a great deal of privacy to get them. F-k that. My next PVR will be a computer with a Hauppauge tuner.

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