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The Almighty Buck

+ - A Monopsony for the Music and Movie Industry?->

Submitted by
SocialWorm
SocialWorm writes "Over at Original Cin, I've written some musings on how it may be possible for a group of technologists to form a gatekeeping nonprofit to wield monopsony power against the music and movie industry, and other copyright holders: "...given that current copyright law gives monopoly power over information for a very long time, how can this be done? I suspect that some clever contracts, marketing, and technology can combine to effectively force the information monopolists to submit to the public good.""
Link to Original Source
It's funny. Laugh.

+ - MacGyver Physics

Submitted by counterfriction
counterfriction writes "This month's issue of Symmetry, a magazine jointly published by SLAC and Fermilab, is featuring an article that points out the sometimes extemporaneous and unconventional solutions physicists have come up with in (and out of) the laboratory.
From TFA, 'Leon Lederman ... used a pocket knife, tape, and items on anyone's grocery list to confirm that interactions involving the weak force do now show perfect mirror symmetry, or parity, as scientists had long assumed.'"
Censorship

+ - Please sign the petition to free Keith Henson

Submitted by AmberH
AmberH writes "This story, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/10/13 49237 that was posted on May 10th, is about my father, Keith Henson. If you do not support the abuses committed by Scientology, please do not let them follow through on the death threats they've sent to my dad. Please sign this petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freekeithhenson

Thank you,
Amber Henson

www.operatingthetan.com for more information"

Russia's Precambrian Layer Hides The Riddle Of The Earth's Oxygen->

From feed by sdfeed
Two geologists from the Geological Survey of Norway will drill into 2.5 to 2 billion year-old rocks in Russia to seek to understand the interaction between geological processes that created the "modern Earth." The increase of oxygen in the atmosphere marked the very beginning of the "modern Earth" as it functions today. The rocks from the birth of the "modern Earth" have isotopic and chemical signatures that contain proof of dramatic events like the break-up of continents, volcanism and repeated global ice ages or the "Snowball Earth."
Link to Original Source
Censorship

+ - Why Did Nominet Pull The Plug On Deleting.co.uk?

Submitted by
Anonymous Reader
Anonymous Reader writes "Nominet the .uk internet registry on Tuesday shut down www.deleting.co.uk the only UK drop list service. A statement on the website reads "the site was found to be in breach of the Domain Availability Checker (DAC) contract". However the decision has caused an outcry in the secondary domain name market community. One upset Nominet member has wrote on his blog "I'm surprised and saddened by the action taken by Nominet to close down the service"."
Privacy

+ - Identification through Reverse DNS?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "I've recently noticed that the reverse DNS name given to my IP from my ISP contains my mac address. It seems to me that regardless of IP address/dhcp logs that this could serve as a permanent unique identifier for a person. How many other ISPs do this? Are we clearing our google cookies periodically for nothing? Is this a privacy hole that should be closed up? I can see the ISPs internally being able to recognize their clients uniquely, but to the rest of the Internet is it a security violation for people to be tracked by an unchanging hostname?"
Biotech

+ - Promissing cancer cure at University of Alberta

Submitted by
dsieme01
dsieme01 writes "Human trials will start in the near future is the goal. It's exciting to see research that should provide for a low cost, simple method. Unfortunately big drug companies appear not to be interested.

Quoting from http://www.depmed.ualberta.ca/dca/

DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.

Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.

Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastian Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.

Scientists and doctors have used DCA for decades to treat children with inborn errors of metabolism due to mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present.

Until recently, researchers believed that cancer-affected mitochondria are permanently damaged and that this damage is the result, not the cause, of the cancer. But Michelakis, a cardiologist, questioned this belief and began testing DCA, which activates a critical mitochondrial enzyme, as a way to "revive" cancer-affected mitochondria.

The results astounded him.

Michelakis and his colleagues found that DCA normalized the mitochondrial function in many cancers, showing that their function was actively suppressed by the cancer but was not permanently damaged by it.

More importantly, they found that the normalization of mitochondrial function resulted in a significant decrease in tumor growth both in test tubes and in animal models. Also, they noted that DCA, unlike most currently used chemotherapies, did not have any effects on normal, non-cancerous tissues.

"I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells," Michelakis said. "One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer".

Another encouraging thing about DCA is that, being so small, it is easily absorbed in the body, and, after oral intake, it can reach areas in the body that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example.

Also, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and sick patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers already know that it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested patients with cancer."
Sun Microsystems

Sun to Make Solaris More Linux Like 400

Posted by samzenpus
from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.
ramboando writes "In an effort to spur adoption of Solaris, Sun Microsystems has begun a project code-named Indiana to try to give its operating system some of Linux's success. Sun has been trying for years to restore the luster of Solaris, but that since has faced a strong challenge chiefly from Linux. Sun wants to embrace some Linux elements so "we make Solaris a better Linux than Linux," said Ian Murdock, Sun's chief operating systems officer, quoting Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, whose latest start-up, Ning, uses Solaris. But it's a tricky balance to adopt elements of Linux while preserving Solaris technology and advantages such as the promise of backward compatibility. "As we make Solaris more familiar to Linux users, we don't [want to] lose what makes it more compelling and competitive.""
Microsoft

Bill Gates' Management Style 362

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the behold-the-glorious-borg-icon dept.
replicant108 wrote in to give us Tom Evslin's fascinating account of working for Microsoft in the early 90s. "So you're in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he's rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you're saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don't know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn't looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on. At some point in your presentation billg will say "that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can't really let it faze you. Moreover, you can't afford to look fazed; remember: he's a bully."
Role Playing (Games)

Paizo to Discontinue Dragon and Dungeon Magazines 82

Posted by Zonk
from the but-my-ecology-and-sniffle-my-adventure-path dept.
An anonymous reader slipped us a link to a page on the Wizards.com site marking the end of an era. As of September of this year Dungeon and Dragon Magazines will cease publication. Dragon has been in continuous circulation since 1976, while Dungeon will be marking its 150th issue at the end of its run in August. Paizo Publishing, the current printing house for the magazines, is offering several options for what to do with your ongoing subscription. From the announcement on the Wizards site: "'Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information,' said Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast. 'By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world. Paizo has been a great partner to us over the last several years. We wish them well on their future endeavors.'" I've looked forward to my issue of Dragon every month for over a decade. It will be sad to see it go.
Operating Systems

OLPC Operating System Available to Download 65

Posted by Zonk
from the make-your-own-one-laptop dept.
ThePopeLayton writes "Engadget is reporting that the operating system made specifically for the OLPC project is now available for download. 'Apparently, the Linux-based Sugar OS from the One Laptop Per Child project is now available via a bootable LiveCD ISO, and according to user reports, works quite well aside from the lack of WiFi capability on a certain MacBook.'"
Google

+ - Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

Submitted by
loid_void
loid_void writes "In remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers, New York Tims reports that the associate general counsel of Microsoft, Thomas Rubin, argues that Google's move into new media markets has come at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software. Mr. Rubin's comments echo arguments at the heart of a 16-month-old copyright lawsuit against Google brought by five book publishers and organized by the Association of American Publishers, an industry trade group. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google worked with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and had recently added the BBC and N.B.A. as YouTube video partners."

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