Comment: Re:It's theater... (Score 4, Insightful) 342
It's not even theater anymore, it's about the TSA buying expensive machines to make their friends rich.
Comment: Re:Get used to the Police State... (Score 5, Insightful) 297
It's not just too late, there was never anything we could do to prevent this. For every person who cares, there's a hundred people who don't give a shit. For every hundred people who care, there's maybe one who cares enough to do something. It's a lost cause, not because it's been too long, but because the system follows the people. The people are happy to tolerate this shit in order to feel safe.
Got a problem with the scanners? Care about civil liberties? Guess what? You're a minority that nobody gives a shit about, except much of the country finds your views suspicious. Those of us who care about civil liberties can't compete with the masses who are happy as long as they get theirs.
Building a Telegraph Using Only Stone Age Materials 238
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the from-scratch dept.
from the from-scratch dept.
MMBK writes "It's the ultimate salvagepunk experiment, building a telegraph out of things found in the woods. From the article: 'During the summer of 2009, artist Jamie O’Shea of the organization Substitute Materials set out to test whether or not electronic communication could have been built at any time in history with the proper knowledge, and with only tools and materials found in the wilderness of New Jersey.'"
Universal Sends DMCA Takedown On 1980 Report 189
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.
from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "For many, many years, every time some new technology has come along, the music industry has insisted that it's going to "kill" the industry. The player piano was supposed to kill live music. So was the radio. And, of course, every time this happens the press is willing to take the industry's word at face value. In 1980, the news program 20/20 posted a report all about how "home taping is killing music," with various recording industry execs insisting the industry was on its last legs unless something was done. Someone posted that 20/20 episode to YouTube a few years back, where it sat in obscurity until people noticed it a couple weeks ago. And suddenly, Universal Music issued a takedown notice for the show. Universal Music does not own 20/20, and there were only brief clips of music in the show. It appears the only reason for Universal to issue the takedown is that it doesn't want you seeing how badly it overreacted in the past."
Mystery of the Dying Bees Solved 347
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the flower-counterattack-theories-disproved dept.
from the flower-counterattack-theories-disproved dept.
jamie points out news of a study attempting to explain the decline of honeybee populations across the US. As it turns out, the fungus N. ceranae that was thought to be killing off bee colonies had a partner in crime — a DNA-based virus that worked in tandem with N. ceranae to compromise nutrition uptake. From the NY Times:
"Dr. Bromenshenk's team at the University of Montana and Montana State University in Bozeman, working with the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center northeast of Baltimore, said in their jointly written paper that the virus-fungus one-two punch was found in every killed colony the group studied. Neither agent alone seems able to devastate; together, the research suggests, they are 100 percent fatal. 'It's chicken and egg in a sense — we don't know which came first,' Dr. Bromenshenk said of the virus-fungus combo — nor is it clear, he added, whether one malady weakens the bees enough to be finished off by the second, or whether they somehow compound the other's destructive power. 'They're co-factors, that's all we can say at the moment,' he said. 'They're both present in all these collapsed colonies.'"
Comment: Begging for phishing (Score 1) 196
Comcast is creating a system where unrelated websites will notify you of problems in your computer. This is the "Virus detected click here to install antivirus 2011!", except being legitimate it tells people to trust what a random website tells them. Way to train users to trust any website popup, I expect this will result in new phishing scams.
The only upshot is that the people who are infected are often the ones who already install anything that a popup warning tells them to.
Safety Commission To Rule On Safety of Rulers In Science Kits 446
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the won't-someone-please-think-of-the-rulers dept.
from the won't-someone-please-think-of-the-rulers dept.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been trying decide for weeks if science kits designed to teach children are safe enough for children to use without vigorous testing. It's not just the chemicals or sharp items in the kits that they are troubled with however. They are also concerned about the dangers of paper clips, magnets, and rulers. From the article: "Science kit makers asked for a testing exemption for the paper clips and other materials. The commission declined to grant them a blanket waiver as part of the guidance the agency approved Wednesday on a 3-2 vote." To be fair, paper clips can cause a lot of damage — just look at what Clippy did to Microsoft Office.
High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover 646
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the same-great-taste dept.
from the same-great-taste dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
Czech copyright may limit licensing.->
Submitted
by
SEWilco
SEWilco writes "The Czech Republic is considering a copyright law change which will require government approval of publication outside strict copyright methods, thus disrupting open licensing."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Czech Government Wants to Kill Creative Commons-> 1
Submitted
by
Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes "Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid is pointing to a dramatic report from the Czech Republic. A Czech Republic media website managed to obtain a leaked copy of the draft copyright bill that could make its way into government (report available both in Czech and in English) The idea is to mandate all open licenses (Creative Commons, GPL/GNU, etc.) to go through a bureaucratic process in an effort to discourage people from using the licenses. EDRI and ZeroPaid both note that this is contrary to the spirit of Creative Commons and could severely constrain its usability.
The leaked draft is available, but is in Czech only."
Link to Original Source
The leaked draft is available, but is in Czech only."
Link to Original Source