Submission + - Bussard to get fusion funding from California
KNGPaul writes: Polywell fusion to get funding from the state of California.
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/nextnews7.24b. html
Submission + - UK Government rejects copyright term extension (culture.gov.uk) 1
e6003 writes: "The UK Government has responded to a report from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which (inter alia) had backed the extension of phonographic performance copyright from its present 50 years. The Government response [PDF document] notes (in response to paragraph 28 on page 15 of the PDF) that the Gowers Report considered the call for a term extension on economic and moral grounds but rejected all the arguments in favour of term extension, as did an EU Commission report. The Response concludes, "Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the [European] Commission for action at this stage." Pleasingly, the Response also notes "The Government will undertake a public consultation this Autumn about making an exception to copyright legislation to allow format-shifting for private use." It's technically an infringement of copyright in the UK to rip CDs to your iPod and even the music industry has agreed something needs to be done about this."
Submission + - NFL Will Force Press To Wear Sponsor Logos
i_like_spam writes: In a story covered by the National Press Photographers Association, photojournalists are protesting a new rule for the upcoming NFL season that will force them to wear red vests emblazoned with the corporate logos of Reebok and Canon during televised games. The chair of the NPPA's Ethics & Standards Committee responds
In a related incident, photographers covering the Fiesta bowl earlier this year were told to wear vests with the Tostitos logo. They retaliated by wearing the vests inside out.
'It totally goes against our Code of Ethics to force photographers to advertise as if they were some sort of NASCAR vehicle. We are independent gatherers of news, storytellers with no agendas. Our integrity comes from objectivity. Do reporters put up with this kind of disrespect from the NFL?'
In a related incident, photographers covering the Fiesta bowl earlier this year were told to wear vests with the Tostitos logo. They retaliated by wearing the vests inside out.
Submission + - Boeing Helping to Develop Algae-based Jet-Fuel (stuff.co.nz)
jon_cooper writes: Air New Zealand, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation and Boeing are working together to develop and test a bio-fuel derived from algae. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation began operating in May last year after it met a request from the local council to deal with excess algae on sewage ponds. Boeing's Dave Daggett was reported this year as saying algae ponds totalling 34,000 square kilometres could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero.
Submission + - RIAA Directed to Pay $68,685.23 in Attorneys Fees
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the RIAA has been directed to pay the defendant $68,685.23 in attorneys fees. This is the first instance of which I am aware of the RIAA being ordered to pay the defendant attorneys fees. The judge in this case has previously criticized the RIAA's lawyers' motives as "questionable", and their legal theories as "marginal" (pdf). Although the judge had previously ordered the RIAA to turn over its own attorneys billing records, today's decision (pdf) made no mention of that the RIAA had spent in paying its own lawyers."
Submission + - MPAA are pirates too
pdtp writes: Just ran across this on Break.com where Director Kirby Dick has submitted his film to be rated by CARA only to find out that there have been illegal copies of the film made by the MPAA, and distributed.
Submission + - How many people have the same name as you? (howmanyofme.com)
HowMany writes: There are over 300 million people living in the United states. With that many people the chances of you being the only person with your name are pretty low. HowManyOfMe endeavors to determine how many people in the US have your (or any other) name. Using data from the Census Bureau and a few statistical tricks, they make a rough guess of the number of people that have a particular name.
For example, there are over 50,000 people with the name James Smith. However, to everyone's relief, there is apparently only one Paris Hilton.
For example, there are over 50,000 people with the name James Smith. However, to everyone's relief, there is apparently only one Paris Hilton.
Submission + - GM CEO Bob Lutz says clean diesel is too expensive (youtube.com)
Bombula writes: In a video on GM's blog, CEO Bob Lutz says clean diesel engines, already widespread in Europe, would add $4,000 — $5,000 to the price of each car and are therefore impractical for the US market. He adds that emissions standards are more stringent in the United States, and that this is also part of the problem with switching to diesel engines. Given the enormous latent interest in moving towards biodiesel people are leaping to call BS on his statements, but is there any truth to them?
Submission + - 1935 Meccano "Dam Busters" Computer restor (computerworld.co.nz)
rob1959 writes: "A 1935 analogue computer, built at Cambridge University and used to help plan the "Dam Busters" attacks on the Ruhr hyro dams in WWII has been restored and put on diplay at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology.
The computers came to NZ around 1950 and was used, ironically, to build hydro dams there — and to calculate rabbit population numbers."
Submission + - Will pervasive multithreading make a comeback? (google.com)
exigentsky writes: "Having looked at BeOS technology, it is clear that like NeXTSTEP, it was ahead of its time. Most remarkable to me is the incredible responsiveness of the whole OS. On relatively slow hardware, BeOS could run eight movies simultaneously while still being responsive in all of its GUI controls and launching programs almost instantaneously. Today, more than ten years after BeOS's introduction, its legendary responsiveness is still unmatched. There is simply no other OS (major) that has pervasive multithreading from the lowest level up (requiring no programmer tricks). Is it likely, or at least possible that future versions of Windows or OS X could become pervasively multithreaded without creating an entirely new OS?"
Submission + - America's First Cellulosic Ethanol Plant (ecogeek.org)
hankmt writes: ""The state of Georgia just granted Range Fuels a permit to create the first cellulosic ethanol plant in America. HECK YES! This is very exciting...why?"
In short: First: Because cellulosic ethanol produces ethanol from cellulose, which all plants have, instead of sugar, which is only abundant in food crops. Second: Because while corn ethanol only produces 1.3 units of energy for everyone unit of energy that goes into growing the crop and converting the sugar to ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can produce as much as 16 units of energy for every one unit of energy put into the process.
The new plant will be online, producing 100 million gallons in 2008."
In short: First: Because cellulosic ethanol produces ethanol from cellulose, which all plants have, instead of sugar, which is only abundant in food crops. Second: Because while corn ethanol only produces 1.3 units of energy for everyone unit of energy that goes into growing the crop and converting the sugar to ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can produce as much as 16 units of energy for every one unit of energy put into the process.
The new plant will be online, producing 100 million gallons in 2008."
Submission + - Ice Block Air Conditioning (yahoo.com)
JumperCable writes: The AP has an interesting article on the use of ice blocks as air conditioning in New York high rises. The concept is pretty basic. Overnight during off peak energy pricing hours & during the coolest part of the 24 hour day, the system freezes water in storage tanks into giant blocks of ice. These storage tanks are located in the basement (coolest location). They are frozen with ethylene glycol.
Given that most of the brown outs occur during the summer months due to high electric demand for air conditioning, I wonder how much of an effect this system would have in reducing brownouts if it's use was more wide spread. The article mentions it is only cost efficient for large companies. But how much of this is profit padding? Couldn't a smaller system be worked out for home use? CALMAC is one of the producers of these systems.
Given that most of the brown outs occur during the summer months due to high electric demand for air conditioning, I wonder how much of an effect this system would have in reducing brownouts if it's use was more wide spread. The article mentions it is only cost efficient for large companies. But how much of this is profit padding? Couldn't a smaller system be worked out for home use? CALMAC is one of the producers of these systems.
Submission + - HD-DVD to be dead 'in months' sez Sony exec. (gamasutra.com)
EWAdams writes: Gamasutra is running a brief interview with Peter Dille, senior VP of marketing for Playstation. He pulls no punches in his comments on the viability of the Xbox and HD-DVD:
A longer version of the interview will be published later.With the Xbox 360 you've got an inconsistent design, some have a hard drive, some don't, and none of them have Blu-Ray, and the HD-DVD will be out of business in a matter of months. Is this a 10 year product? And by the way, it doesn't even work. Do they want to be selling it for 10 years and refurbishing them all for 10 more years? I don't think that's a 10 year product. You could disagree with me, or they could disagree with me, but I'd put that up against the PS3 any day.
Submission + - Politician Can't Take The Heat, Stops Using E-mail
Dekortage writes: "In a technological step backwards, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine announced he will no longer use e-mail. This is largely his response to a lawsuit against him that seeks to publicly disclose e-mails he sent, which Corzine insists should be private. Nevertheless, it changes the way constituents can reach the Governor. "We'll go back to the 1920s, and have direct conversations with people," says Corzine."
Submission + - All 11.6 million Xbox360's are faulty
Anonymous non-xbox360-owning Coward writes: It seems that Microsoft has admitted that all of the 11.6 million sold Xbox360 units are faulty with a design error. So beware, your console may be dead tomorrow. Read more here
