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Earth

One Giant Cargo Ship Pollutes As Much As 50M Cars 595

thecarchik writes "One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. Which means that just 15 of the huge ships emit as much as today's entire global 'car park' of roughly 750 million vehicles. Among the bad stuff: sulfur, soot, and other particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs to cause a variety of cardiopulmonary illnesses. Since the mid-1970s, developed countries have imposed increasingly stringent regulations on auto emissions. In three decades, precise electronic engine controls, new high-pressure injectors, and sophisticated catalytic converters have cut emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon dioxides, and hydrocarbons by more than 98 percent. New regulations will further reduce these already minute limits. But ships today are where cars were in 1965: utterly uncontrolled, free to emit whatever they like." According to Wikipedia, 57 giant container ships (rated from 9,200 to 15,200 twenty-foot equivalent units) are plying the world's oceans.

Comment Re:Par for the course? (Score 1) 510

I lucked out when my PS3 was bricked by a firmware update last year. I had just purchased an 80gb fat PS3 refurbished online. I was a little wary of buying refurbished, but the price was just too good to pass up on an 80gb with backwards compatibility. I hooked it up and it worked fine, until I let the update run. Bricked it immediately. After some research online I found other people who had the same problem. They explained a lengthy process of calling Sony support and eventually shipping their console to them for repairs-a process I wasn't interested in waiting for since I just bought the damned thing. So I boxed it back up, called the company that sold it to me and told them it never worked when I got it. They took it back, sent me a new one a few days later, and I've had no problems since.

Comment Re:There are pressure insensitive keyboards? (Score 1) 129

They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish.... then he's gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money. So he's got to get a job and get into the social security system and pay taxes, and now you're gonna audit the poor cocksucker, cuz' he's not really good with math. So he'll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he'll take all your shit. He'll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, cuz' you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn't even cook the fish cuz' you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the health department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are you going to dump the scales and the guts. 'This is not a sanitary environment', and ladies and gentlemen if you get sick of it all at the end of the day... not even legal to kill yourself.
The Almighty Buck

Download Taxes As a Weapon Against File-Sharing 451

An anonymous reader writes "An examination of a new "digital downloads" taxation law in Washington State suggests that files downloaded via file sharing programs may be covered by the law — meaning that you may be expected to pay taxes based on 'the value of the digital product ... determined by the retail selling price of a similar digital product.' Thus, if you were to download music or movies and not pay the taxes, would you be liable for tax evasion charges? How much do you want to bet the RIAA will push exactly that claim?"

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