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Comment Consider a masters (Score 1) 296

by Spamicles (#37308698) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Second Major For a Mechanical Engineer?
In the time it would take you to fulfill the requirements for another bachelors, you could already have earned at least a year (if not more) towards a masters degree in comp. sci. or ME. It is not unheard of to get a science bachelors in one field and then switch to something else for your graduate work. Worst case scenario, you would be registered as a masters student and have to take a handful of comp. sci. courses in order to get up to speed.

Comment Logic (Score 1) 810

by Spamicles (#34804216) Attached to: Running Your Own Ghost Investigation?
If there were ghosts, that would mean there is an afterlife. If the afterlife were confirmed, people would be committing suicide in droves to get to "heaven". If there were a Big Guy Upstairs, he probably wouldn't like this, so he wouldn't allow ghosts to be seen on Earth. So: ghosts don't exist if there isn't an afterlife, and ghosts don't exist if there is an afterlife. The End.

Comment Comparing blindness and diabetes...RIGHT.... (Score 1) 663

by Spamicles (#23113846) Attached to: Do the Blind Deserve More Effort on the Web?
If that person has that mindset about people who are disabled, then by their own logic they should be required to synthesize their own insulin from scratch. I can't believe a diabetic had the nerve to compare themselves to someone with a severe disability who cannot drive a car or get around without the assistance of others.
Music

Submission + - Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."
Privacy

Submission + - Subpoenas Issued over NSA Warrantless Wiretapping (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena documents from the Bush Administration related to the government's admitted eavesdropping on Americans' overseas emails and phone calls without getting court approval. In a 13-3 vote, the Committee decided to authorize chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to issue subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program. Nearly any request is going to be met with tough resistance from the White House, and the confrontation over the documents "could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.""
Media

Submission + - Court Ruling Limits Copyright Claims (lawbean.com)

Submitted by Spamicles
Spamicles writes: A federal appellate panel in Atlanta has reversed its circuit's 6-year-old opinion in a major copyright case, declaring the ruling's mandate on behalf of freelance photographers to be "moot." Until now, publishers could be forced to share with freelancers whenever they reproduce and sell those freelancers' previously published works in merchandise designed for computer access. The new ruling says that reproduction on a CD or other media is not a new use of formerly published issues. The full court decision can be read here (pdf).
Censorship

Submission + - Pirate Bay Launches Uncensored Image Hosting (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "The guys over at the Pirate Bay have launched a new, censorship-free image hosting website called BayImg. Users of the new service don't have to sign-up in order to upload images. However, they can assign a "removal code" to uploaded images, in case they want to delete the files after a while, and tags to categorize images. BayImg currently supports 100+ file formats, and supports uploading Zip and Rar archives. The maximum file size of uploads is 100MB. The article also discusses TPB's plans for launching a video streaming service that will potentially compete with YouTube."
Republicans

White House E-mail Scandal Widens 839

Posted by kdawson from the what-did-they-know-and-when dept.
Spamicles alerts us to a report just issued (PDF) by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. At least 88 White House officials used Republican National Committee email accounts for government business. The RNC has destroyed at least some of the emails from 51 of those officials. Law requires emails sent by officials to be stored or recorded. There is evidence that White House lawyers and the (current) Attorney General knew of this but did not act to stop it. From the article: "These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies... Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive."
Republicans

Submission + - Evidence found in White House E-mail Scandal (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "According to a report issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, at least 88 White House officials used Republican National Committee (RNC) for government business. Law requires emails sent by officials to be stored or recorded. There is evidence that White House lawyers and the Attorney General knew of this but did not act to stop it."
Biotech

Submission + - Ancestry.com to Add DNA Test Results (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "For less than $200 and a cheek-swiped cotton swab, you will soon be able to add DNA results to family tree Web sites. Ancestry.com plans to launch the DNA testing product by the end of summer, offering customers the possibility of finding DNA matches in the site's 24,000 genealogical databases. By taking a simple cheek-swab test and comparing results against DNA profiles in a test-results database, virtually anyone can uncover genealogical associations unimaginable just a few years ago. Users can easily connect with and discover lost or unknown relatives within a few generations, as well as gain insight into where their families originated thousands of years ago."
The Internet

Submission + - Maine First State to Pass Net Neutrality (www.lawbehttp)

Submitted by Spamicles
Spamicles writes: Maine has become the first state in the union to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of "full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet" and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine internet users. A 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission put net neutrality principles, ones that had been in place since the inception of the internet, in jeopardy.
Privacy

Submission + - Judge Orders FBI to Release Abuse Records (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "A judge has ordered the FBI to release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information. The ruling came just a day after the EFF urged the judge to immediately respond in its lawsuit over agency delays. This is the same case in which an internal FBI audit found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years."
Patents

eBay May Lose 'Buy it Now' Button in Patent Case 177

Posted by CowboyNeal from the ain't-it-obvious-yet dept.
Spamicles writes "A judge has delayed his ruling on the eBay patent infringement case. eBay has been involved in a legal dispute over the use of its popular "Buy it Now" button, which allows consumers to skip the bidding and purchase items on eBay directly. The patent suit was filed six years ago by MercExchange L.L.C. In May of 2003, a jury ruled in MercExchange's favor finding that eBay did in fact infringe on the patent, but in 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service, essentially handing a victory down to patent reform advocates. However, the ruling by the Supreme Court does not affect the final judgment of the court."

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