gruntkowski - Slashdot User

Submission + - ACTA in Europe - The beginning of the end? (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by

WhyNotAskMe

on Friday April 06, 2012 @08:54AM

WhyNotAskMe writes: "the European Parliament's INTA committee gets it. Last week, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy of the European Parliment came out with its draft opinion (short pdf) of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). It was an eye opener. Its conclusion was that it feels compelled to call on the Committee on International Trade to withhold its consent to the agreement.

Glyn Moody of ComputerWorld UK sums it up his latest ACTA update. This is the clearest and most rational analyses of the problems with ACTA that I have seen to date. It is like a breath of fresh air.

Did you know that ACTA is so worrysome that even Amesty International has felt compelled to weigh in on the issue? They urged the EU to reject international anti-counterfeiting pact. "Implementing the agreement could open a Pandora's box of potential human rights violations. Worryingly, ACTA’s text does not even contain references to safeguards like ‘fundamental rights’, ‘fair use’, or ‘due process’, which are universally understood and clearly defined in international law,”.

In the USA, Senator Wyden has demanded that ACTA go Before Congress. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, MPAA Chief Dodd Hints At Talks To Revive SOPA

There is an election coming up in the USA. Is there some way these issues can be pushed to the fore? A way to force every candiddate to take a stand on copyright issues? In the Chris Dodd discussion linked to in the paragraph above, people are so angry the tone is scary. The question is, are they angry enough to show up with pickets at every candidate rally? Can internet freedoms be made into The single biggest issue of election?

Politicians are skilled at discerning the will of the people when their attention is properly focused and they are encouraged to do so. We must give them that encouragement and focus, by whatever means we have at our disposal. We must demand a moratorium on secret and fast-tracked negotiations while governments consult the people they represent. It's the democratic way.The power of the corporate lobbies needs to be curbed and their voices muted. The people must be heard. Legislation crafted to respect the will of the majority will garner their respect and consequently, will be easier to enforce. Please see our manifesto."

Submission + - Elgin Gas Leak: who's paying attention? (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

cedarhillbilly

on Friday April 06, 2012 @06:06AM

cedarhillbilly writes: "New Scientist has been doing a bang up job of covering a major drilling 'accident' in the North Sea where a drilling rig operated by France's Total has released a pool of natural gas into the atmosphere. Because it's not on CNN's doorstep and no one's been killed so far, the Elgin leak has received scant attention in US media. Still it's huge and raises some interesting questions about drilling safety. In today's installment of the coverage, New Scientist shows the 'purple haze' (great graffix) hovering over the site of the leak. Look at the photo, then drill down (ouch) thru the links to get the rest of the story!"

Submission + - Scientists create quantum computer in a diamond (extremetech.com)

Submitted by

MrSeb

on Friday April 06, 2012 @06:01AM

MrSeb writes: "A new experiment out of the University of Southern California (USC) might have solved one of the toughest problems in quantum computing, and it did so by building a computer inside a diamond. This new computer isn’t going to be doing your taxes any time soon, but it shows the viability of solid-state quantum computers to lessen decoherence. Put simply, decoherence is a loss of observable information, which is the last thing you want in a computer. The diamond computer developed at USC makes use of the impurities in the crystalline structure to make up its two quantum bits, or qubits. The researchers were able to prove that they had indeed built a solid-state quantum computer by supplying it with a simple data set, and applying Grover’s algorithm, which is a mathematical proof demonstrating the potential power of quantum computers. Grover’s algorithm states that a quantum computer will be able to find a specified entry in an unsorted list on the first try, every time. A human trying to do this would have to go down the list checking each entry to see if it was the right one. Going this route, you would on average check half the list before finding the right entry. USC's diamond-encrusted computer was able to find the correct choice on the first try 95% of the time, thus proving that the researchers successfully built a functional quantum computer."

Submission + - How to stop files from opening in Windows 8 Metro style apps (pureinfotech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05, 2012 @10:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: If you are testing Windows 8, you might have noticed that a lot of file formats (music, images and videos) by default open in Metro style apps, which by the way these apps are in beta as well, and if you still are a desktop user and you aren’t ready to fully embrace Metro, you may want to stop files from opening in Metro.

Submission + - Farewell, Slashdot

Submitted by g051051 on Thursday April 05, 2012 @09:55AM

g051051 writes: The latest round of changes is just too much. The obvious ads inserted as news, the video junk, the constant posting of non-tech stories, overposting by a few contributors (I'm looking at you, Hugh Pickens)... I just don't enjoy reading Slashdot anymore. Worse, I started dreading loading up the page. I'm especially upset since I'm a paying subscriber so I can eliminate ads, but the news "ads as stories" apparently overrides that.

There were quite a few good years there, but it's over now. Farewell Slashdot, I wish you best of luck in your new life as a light political news/ads site. I'll really miss the News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters.

Submission + - 'Father of Loud' Electric Amplifier inventor Jim Marshall dies (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by asavin on Thursday April 05, 2012 @09:31AM

asavin writes: The founder of Marshall Amplification, Jim Marshall OBE, has died at the age of 88. A tribute to the man known as the Father of Loud was posted on his official website, praising the man whose name became iconic for electric guitarists.

Submission + - Ammonia Used in Many Foods, Not Just "Pink Slime" (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05, 2012 @09:20AM

An anonymous reader writes: Surprise rippled across America last month as a new wave of consumers discovered that hamburgers often contained ammonia-treated beef, or what critics dub "pink slime".

Submission + - Next Great Depression? MIT researchers predict 'global economic collapse' by2030 (yahoo.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Thursday April 05, 2012 @05:52AM

suraj.sun writes: A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace(http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/next-great-depression-mit-researchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html). The study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.

Submission + - LHC at 4TeV (web.cern.ch)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05, 2012 @05:35AM

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists from CERN announced a new world record in the energy beam.The collision energy of 8 TeV is a new world record, and increases the machine’s discovery potential considerably. Although the increase in collision energy is relatively modest, it translates to an increased discovery potential that can be several times higher for certain hypothetical particles. Though it is suspected supersymmetry may not be a fortunate approach, operation at 4 TeV will likely rule out or confirm the existence of Higgs boson.

Submission + - Apple Releases Patch for Trojan that Affects 600,000 Macs (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by

tekgoblin

on Thursday April 05, 2012 @04:46AM

tekgoblin writes: "Apple released an update to Java bringing the version on Mac to 1.6.0_31 for Mac’s running OS X. This patch actually closes multiple vulnerabilities that were found in the previous Java version being 1.6.0_29. The most serious exploit that it patched was the allowance of malicious code to be executed by visiting a compromised website."

Submission + - Curiosity, NASA's Latest Rover, is Halfway To Mars (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Tuesday April 03, 2012 @11:35PM

kkleiner writes: "The Mars Science Laboratory mission, with a rover affectionately named Curiosity, reached a milestone this past Sunday, April 1, as it hurtled across the halfway point at over 10,000 miles per hour on its 254 day-long journey to the red planet. Scheduled to land on August 6, the rover will spend close to two years analyzing Martian soil around its landing site near the Gale Crater to determine whether conditions are favorable for microbial life to thrive on the planet. But its back on Earth where the real threat to the Mars mission looms as President Obama’s proposed budget includes a 20% reduction in NASA’s funds for planetary science"

Submission + - White House's New Attack On IT Spending Waste (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

CowboyRobot

on Tuesday April 03, 2012 @10:58PM

CowboyRobot writes: "Last week, the White House announced new requirements for agencies to consolidate and centralize IT services, telling them to "look into the darkest corners" to eliminate redundant and inefficient technology.

"The stove-piped and complex nature of the federal enterprise has led over the years to a proliferation of duplicative and low-priority investments in information technology... agencies too often seek to develop homegrown, proprietary solutions first, before assessing existing options for shared services or components.""

Beaver Dam Visible From Space 286

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @06:41PM from the dam-big-job dept.

ygslash writes "The Hoover Dam no longer holds the title of the world's widest dam. Satellite photos of northern Alberta, Canada, show that several families of beavers have apparently joined forces to build a dam 850 meters wide, more than twice as wide as the Hoover Dam."

Life's Building Blocks Found On Asteroid 24 Themis 135

Posted by timothy on Friday April 30, 2010 @08:08AM from the pinning-down-origins dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that scientists analyzing infrared light reflected by 24 Themis, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system, have discovered evidence of water ice as well as organic compounds — findings that bolster a leading theory for the origins of life on Earth that the essential building blocks of life came from asteroids. 'Up until now there was no sign that asteroids had any abundant organics or ice on them,' says Joshua P. Emery, a planetary astronomer at the University of Tennessee. Typically, ice on the surface of an object such as 24 Themis would quickly vaporize and vanish, says planetary scientist Richard Binzel. 'Seeing freshly exposed ice on the surface, now that's a surprise. It has to be replenished from below, somehow.' The possibility that water could have come from asteroids adds weight to the theory that water and organic molecules may not have originated on Earth because the Earth did not become conducive to water or organic molecules until relatively recently."

All of Gopherspace Available For Download 200

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 29, 2010 @06:16PM from the gopherspace-is-negative-space dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Cory Doctorow tells us that '[i]n 2007, John Goerzen scraped every gopher site he could find (gopher was a menu-driven text-only precursor to the Web; I got my first online gig programming gopher sites). He saved 780,000 documents, totalling 40GB. Today, most of this is offline, so he's making the entire archive available as a .torrent file; the compressed data is only 15GB. Wanna host the entire history of a medium? Here's your chance!' Get yourself a piece of pre-Internet history (torrent)." Update: 04/30 00:16 GMT by T: As several readers have pointed out below, our anonymous friend probably meant to say "pre-Web," rather than "pre-Internet."

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