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Piracy

The Case For Piracy 318

Posted by Soulskill
from the arrr-me-hearties dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A mainstream media outlet has published an article called 'The Case for Piracy. The writer shows how copyright has been hijacked by corporations and that publishers are their own worst enemies. 'One of the main reasons we all have anti-piracy slogans embedded in our brains is because the music industry chose to try and protect its existing market and revenue streams at all costs and marginalise and vilify those who didn't want to conform to the harsh new rules being set.' There's a lot in the article that Slashdot readers can relate to, and it's interesting that so many replies seem to agree with the author."
Earth

Global Warming 'Confirmed' By Independent Study 967

Posted by Soulskill
from the time-to-crank-the-AC dept.
chrb writes "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project — an independent study of Earth's historical temperature record partly funded by climate skeptics, including the Koch brothers — has released preliminary results that show the same warming trend as previous research. Project leader and physics professor Richard Muller, of the University of California, has stated that he was 'surprised' at the close agreement, and it 'confirms that these studies were done carefully.' The study also found that warming in the temperature record was not caused by poor quality weather monitoring stations — thus rejecting a frequent claim of skeptics. Climate skeptic Stephen McIntyre has previously said 'anything that [Muller] does will be well done.'"
Transportation

The Quest For an EV Fast-Charge Standard 248

Posted by Soulskill
from the everyone's-plugging-their-own-plug dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This article explores one of the stumbling blocks currently facing EV adoption: 'Sure, there are already public charging stations in service, and new ones are coming online daily. But those typically take several hours to fully replenish a battery. As a result, the ability for quick battery boosts — using a compatible direct current fast charger, the Leaf can refill to 80 percent capacity in 30 minutes — could potentially become an important point of differentiation among electric models. But the availability of fast charging points has in part been held up by the lack of an agreement among automakers on a universal method for fast charging — or even on a single electrical connector.'"
Data Storage

Hurricane Irene Threatens US Northeast; Cover Your Assets 202

Posted by timothy
from the oh-she's-always-theatening-people dept.
jfruhlinger writes "Hurricane Irene is bearing down on the heavily populated U.S. Northeast Corridor. If you work in IT, you know that there are few things that are worse for electronics than water; so, what's your plan? Tom Henderson has come up with a checklist, which sensibly includes backing everything up, twice; not that you have time for it now, but for future reference you might want to consider just moving your whole data center to a location that's been conveniently pre-hardened, like a water tower or a boiler room." Note that Irene has been no joke in the Caribbean; in Puerto Rico (with relatively modern infrastructure), about a third of the island lost power.

Comment: Re:Only ONE thing you're leaving out.... (Score 1) 184

by ccp (#33980030) Attached to: The Ease of Publishing an Ebook

So, if market domination is based on creating a product with more convenience to the consumer, the e-book just does not have what it takes to supplant the printed book.

For me, at least, going on vacation with an e-reader loaded with a few hundred books is more convenient than carrying a trunk full of them. YMMV

Comment: Re:The cop committed perjury or he's very bad at m (Score 1) 526

by Americano (#32221060) Attached to: Judge Orders Gizmodo Search Warrant Unsealed

Most people go into police work because they get a kick from the artificial power and authority and because they don't have any real power or authority.

Followed by this signature:

I like your black & white world; mine has too many shades of gray.

Is very rich irony. But okay, I'll play too:

Most people who hate cops do so because they are immoral people who frequently break the law knowingly, and resent the fact that police make them nervous.

See? I can generalize like an asshole too!

Comment: Re:Pork! Pork! Pork! (Score 1) 152

by slick7 (#32220910) Attached to: Senators Demand NASA Continue Spending On Ares
If the government funded NASA like they fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would be just outside of Alpha Centauri by now. We bail out the asshole banksters, incompetent automakers, coke driven wall streeters and yet, we nickel and dime the nations only foothold on the high frontier.
There is no long term national initiative. If you want to go into space, learn Chinese and hope your genetic makeup is acceptable; or you could pay millions of dollars/ Euros/ pounds of gold and fly Russian. There is money to be made in space and IF you can't see that, XIE XIE and Dos Svydanya.

Dyslexia means never having to say that you're ysror.