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Earth

Oil Exploration Leads To Video of a Mysterious Elbowed Squid 256

Posted by timothy from the that-is-one-freaky-cephalopod dept.
eldavojohn writes "A rare glimpse from Shell Oil of a giant squid brings to light the strange relationships some deep sea marine biologists have with drilling companies. The video of the squid (Magnapinna) is very rare as this creature remains largely a mystery to science. While some are concerned of a conflict of interest, biologists and big oil sure make for strange bedfellows. The video is from 200 miles off the coast of Houston, TX and about 4,000 feet down." Looking at this creature gives me the willies, frankly.
Microsoft

Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled 587

Posted by samzenpus from the put-it-to-bed dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Valleywag says the Jerry Seinfeld ads are over — In a phone call, Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the 'potential to do other things' with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still 'possible.' He adds: 'People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.'"
United States

Report is Critical of US For Dumping E-Waste Overseas 152

Posted by samzenpus from the not-in-my-backyard dept.
coondoggie writes "In what may be the least astonishing news of the day, some major US companies who say they are environmentally recycling electronic waste — aren't. Rather more startling — they are dumping everything from cell phones and old computers to televisions in countries such as China and India where disposal practices are unsafe to people and dangerous to the environment. Controlling the exportation of all of the e-waste plops on the doorstep of the US Environmental Protection Agency which is doing a woeful job, according to a scathing 67-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office today."
Image

City Uses DNA To Sniff Out Dog Poop Offenders 252

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-bite-out-of-crime dept.
An Israeli city is using DNA analysis of dog droppings to reward pet owners who clean up after their pets and punish those who don't. A six-month trial program launched this week, in the city of Petah Tikva, to tackle the dog mess problem in a high tech way. The program asks dog owners to take their pets to a veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA. The city will use the DNA database it is building to match droppings to a dog and identify its owner. Owners who scoop up their dogs' droppings and place them in specially marked bins will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys. Those who leave the poo on the street face fines. I wonder what sin you had to commit in a previous life to find yourself the official dog poop examiner of Petah Tikva, Israel.
AMD

AMD Open Sources the AMD Performance Library 59

Posted by samzenpus from the let-my-library-go dept.
bluephone writes "Today AMD announced that they're now opening the source to the AMD Performance Library (APL) under the Apache license. The newly opened code is now hosted at SourceForge (the corporate overlord of Slashdot) under its new name, Framewave. Phoronix says, "The AMD Performance Library / Framewave covers a multitude of operations from simple math operations to media processing and optimizations for multi-core environments." No word as to if it does your laundry. The SourceForge page says that while Framewave is 'sponsored' by AMD, it is "very much an open-source venture. While AMD will continue to participate in and contribute to the project, third-party developers are welcome and encouraged to implement all or part of the code base and/or to create derivative works." Being Apache licensed, it's quite open, so this doesn't seem to be mere lip service."

Comment The article's "natural experiment" method. (Score 1) 294

by clausen (#17997422) Attached to: Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales

In economics, it's rather difficult to run experiments. For example, we can't ask President Bush to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime 100 more times so that we can get statistically significant data on its effects on unemployment! The next best thing is to look for "natural experiments" that generate data that is just as good.

In this case, the authors wanted to experiment with the supply of P2P "servers". If the number of people offering to share P2P songs increases, then they hoped to measure the corresponding decrease in music sales. Naturally, they didn't actually run this experiment -- the RIAA would have objected to the researchers engaging in piracy!

So, they did the next best thing -- a natural experiment. When German students have their vacation, they share more files. This makes it easier to download songs in the US. They found easier access to P2P file sharing in the US did not cause a large drop in music sales.

Of course, this natural experiment isn't as good as a real experiment:

  • German vacations aren't randomly assigned -- but the authors argue that since German holidays vary in each state, that there is enough variation to get robust results.
  • The "German vacation" effect on the ease of downloading songs might be too small to measure anything reliably. Germans P2P users supply only one sixth of all songs that US users download. This "experiment" might be akin to doing a drug trial with a very small dose of medicine. In this case, you need to collect a lot of data to reliably measure the effects.
There are many other concerns discussed in the article. But, this is probably the best evidence we are ever going to get.

Chinese Gamers Circumvent Anti-Obsession Measures 176

Posted by timothy from the in-autocratic-china-the-hand-wrings-you dept.
Turtlewind writes "A survey by iResearch China shows that the Chinese Government's "anti obsession" measures, reported on Slashdot last year, are being bypassed by MMORPG gamers. While the controls - which force operators of popular games such as World of Warcraft to impose penalties on players who play for more than three to five hours a day - were welcomed by almost half of Chinese gamers, a core of around 14% of players admitted to registering multiple accounts to get around the restrictions. Meanwhile, the government seems to be taking a different approach to the problem of gaming addiction, planning a campaign over the upcoming summer vacation to increase enforcement of laws banning minors from internet cafes."

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