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Wine

Wine 1.2 Released 427

David Gerard writes "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text, and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."

Comment Citation Needed (Score 1) 113

You say that as if you need no facts to back it up. Looking around, the best estimates I could find were 3 to 5 percent of the cost of a plane are litigation and litigation-prevention costs. There's also a fairly significant amount for insurance, some of which goes to paying for litigation, but all totaled it still seems to be less than either of the two largest costs, parts and labor.

So, please stop pulling numbers out of your ass.

Comment Re:Take ball, go home (Score 1) 367

The fact that the idea you propose is like using a nuclear bomb to swat a fly. Most electric companies have literally billions of dollars of investments in the cities they service. They're not going to abandon that over a 3 or 4 cent a kilowatt hour difference that they could only use on a very small minority (those who generate their own power) of customers.

Comment Re:Can someone explain this guy's logic to me (Score 3, Informative) 367

Not really. The standard electric meter runs forward when you're buying electricity, backwards when you're selling electricity. With a standard meter, the company can only tell your net energy use. If you use 100 kilowatts, and put back 95 kilowatts, all they see is 5 kilowatts. There's no record of when each kilowatt was used, or anything like that.

This assumes a standard mechanical electric meter, which is what is in something like 95% of residential homes. Digital meters can keep track of when you use, and meter at different rates, but for the most part they're only used by larger commercial power users.

Further, several states forbid the electric company to buy from consumers at a lower rate than they sell to consumers.

Comment Not his first time. (Score 4, Informative) 319

Not long after being disbarred, Ol' Jack spammed the entire membership of the Florida Bar (all Florida lawyers) asking for personal stories about how other members have been "unfairly" targeted by the Florida Bar. I presume he wanted to start some sort of class action suit, but I haven't heard anything further about it.

United States

New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy 223

pigah writes "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act has been reintroduced into Congress. The bill will ban open access policies in federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These policies require scientists to provide public access to their work if it has been funded with money from an agency with an open access policy. Such policies ensure that the public has access to read the results of research that it has funded. It appears that Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the author of the bill, is doing the bidding of publishing companies who do not want to lose control of this valuable information that they sell for exorbitant fees thereby restricting access by the general public to an essentially public good."
Patents

IBM Wants Patent On Finding Areas Lacking Patents 151

theodp writes "It sounds like a goof — especially coming from a company that pledged to raise the bar on patent quality — but the USPTO last week disclosed that IBM is seeking a patent for Methodologies and Analytics Tools for Identifying White Space Opportunities in a Given Industry, which Big Blue explains allows one 'to maximize the value of its IP by investigating and identifying areas of relevant patent 'white space' in an industry, where white space is a term generally used to designate one or more technical fields in which little or no IP may exist,' and filling those voids with the creation of additional IP."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Video of wild crow tool use caught with tail cams

willatnewscientist writes: "Scientists from the University of Oxford have recorded New Caledonian crows using tools in the wild for first time after attaching tiny cameras to their tail feathers. The wireless cameras weigh just 14 grammes and can be worn by the crows without disturbing their natural behavior. The trick has provided the first direct evidence of the birds' using tools in the wild and may represent an important development in animal behavior studies."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Heinlein archives to go online (mercurynews.com)

RaymondRuptime writes: "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlen, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, "The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts." You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."

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