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Businesses

Could CA Violent Game Law Lead To an Industry Exodus? 142

Posted by Soulskill from the or-a-well-armed-uprising dept.
donniebaseball23 writes "Oral arguments for the California games law are set to begin on November 2. It's a hugely important court case for the industry, and if the Supreme Court sides with the legislators it could lead to an exodus of talent from the games business, says one attorney. 'Certainly less games would be produced and there would be a corresponding job loss,' said Patrick Sweeney, who leads the Video Game practice at Reed Smith LLP. 'But I expect the impact will likely be significantly deeper. I believe the independent development community would be severely impacted. Innovation, both from a creative and technological aspect, would also be stifled. The companies, brands and individuals that we should be embracing as the visionaries of this creative and collaborative industry will migrate their talents to a more expressive medium.' Meanwhile, Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, author of Grand Theft Childhood, notes that even if California gets its way, it could backfire."
Cellphones

Workers Poisoned Making Touchscreen Hardware 260

Posted by Soulskill from the welcome-to-the-jungle dept.
SocResp writes "A chemical called n-hexane has been poisoning the nervous systems of Chinese workers who assemble touchscreen devices for Apple and other companies, an investigative journalist from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. It's scary to think that people are being damaged to pursue high production rates. For companies with soaring profits and share prices, and elaborate product development and marketing, it seems they should be all the more culpable if they fail to take care of the production workers."
Music

Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neanderthal Lineage 151

Posted by samzenpus from the born-to-rock dept.
ByOhTek writes "CNN reports that in July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed. The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage. What does Ozzie have to say about it? 'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why,' he wrote."
Businesses

Submission + - Tech's Dark Secret: It’s All About Age 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Universities really should tell engineering students what to expect in the long term and how to manage their technical careers. But since they're not, Vivek Wadwha uses his TechCrunch bully pulpit to give students a heads-up about the road ahead. Citing ex-Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch's belief that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative, Wadwha warns that reports of ageism's death have been greatly exaggerated. While encouraging managers to consider the value of the experience older techies bring, Wadwha also offers some get-real advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey: 1) Move up the ladder into management, architecture, or design; switch to sales or product management; jump ship and become an entrepreneur. 2) If you're going to stay in programming, realize that the deck is stacked against you, so be prepared to earn less as you gain experience. 3) Keep your skills current — to be coding for a living when you're 50, you'll need to be able to out-code the new kids on the block. Wadwha's piece strikes a chord with 50-something Dave Winer, who calls the rampant ageism 'really f***ed up,' adding that, 'It's probably the reason why we keep going around in the same loops over and over, because we chuck our experience, wholesale, every ten years or so.' Well, Microsoft did struggle with problems that IBM solved in the '60s.
Republicans

Submission + - SOP for GOP to Pay Friendly Bloggers (dailycaller.com) 1

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "According to the conservative political journalism site Daily Caller: "'It's standard operating procedure' to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that 'at least half the bloggers that are out there' on the Republican side 'are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.'" Or in some cases, it's the ads themselves: ads at ten times the going rate are one of the ways conservative bloggers apparently get paid by the politicians they write about. In usual he-said she-said fashion, Daily Caller finds a couple of obscure liberal bloggers to mention too, but they fully disclosed payment and one of them even shut down his blog while doing consulting work, unlike Robert Stacy McCain and Dan Riehl."
Science

Submission + - The strange case of solar flares and radioactive e (physorg.com)

Submitted by
DarkKnightRadick
DarkKnightRadick writes: "The case for radioactive decay has been challenged, by of all sources, the sun itself. According to the article:
"On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare."
This is important because the rate of decay is very important not just for antique dating, but also for cancer treatment, time keeping, and the generation of random numbers. This isn't a one time measurement, either.
"Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.""
Space

Submission + - Non-profit manned space rocket launching in a week (copenhagensuborbitals.com) 2

Submitted by Plammox
Plammox writes: Well not really manned in the first go, as this is the first test of the boosters and space craft in combination with the sea launch platform they built. The catch? All of this is a non-profit project based on voluntary labour and sponsors. How will they get the launch platform out in the middle of the Baltic sea to perform the test? With the founder's home built submarine pushing it, of course. Enjoy the pictures.
NASA

The Sun Unleashes Coronal Mass Ejection At Earth 220

Posted by Soulskill from the return-fire dept.
astroengine writes "Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."

Submission + - Wikileaks "a clear and present danger"

Submitted by
bedmison
bedmison writes: "In an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "WikiLeaks must be stopped", Marc A. Thiessen writes that "WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.", and that the United States has the authority to arrest its founder, Julian Assange, even if it has to contravene international law to do so. Thiessen also suggests that the new USCYBERCOM be unleashed to destroy WikiLeaks as an internet presense. From the article:

"With appropriate diplomatic pressure, these governments may cooperate in bringing Assange to justice. But if they refuse, the United States can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval. In 1989, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum entitled "Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities."

This memorandum declares that "the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI's actions contravene customary international law" and that an "arrest that is inconsistent with international or foreign law does not violate the Fourth Amendment." In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world.

Arresting Assange would be a major blow to his organization. But taking him off the streets is not enough; we must also recover the documents he unlawfully possesses and disable the system he has built to illegally disseminate classified information.

This should be done, ideally, through international law enforcement cooperation. But if such cooperation is not forthcoming, the United States can and should act alone. Assange recently boasted that he has created "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." I am sure this elicited guffaws at the National Security Agency. The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations.""

Submission + - Astrophotography Equatorial Mounts

Submitted by Timoris
Timoris writes: With the Perseids approaching rapidly, I am looking for a good beginner's motorized Equatorial mount for astrophotography. I have seen a few for $150 to $200, but apperently the motor vibrations makes for poor photographs. Orion makes good mounts, but are out of my price range ($350) and the motor is sold separately, adding to the price half over again. Does anyone have any good experiance with any low mid priced mounts?
The Internet

Submission + - BIND to remove DNS Neutrality (circleid.com)

Submitted by alphatel
alphatel writes: In a recent post, Paul Vixie, founder of ISC and author of MAPS (the original email RBL), has proposed a new method for BIND which "rates" domains. Opening with "Most new domain names are malicious", DNS queries would be sent to 'cooperating good guys' which can be used to filter out entire blocks of TLDs or country codes. In this new "Response Policy Zone" (DNS RPZ) method, all queries which fail to meet an unknown standard are redirected. As most people are familiar, elsewhere almost always winds up being the DNS host's advertising channel rather than the trash heap. Those fighting for net neutrality have denounced the change but ISC is already publishing a patch and would "like to hear from content providers who want to be listed by ISC as having reputation content available in this format, and also recursive DNS vendors whose platforms can subscribe to reputation feeds in this format. An online registry will follow."
Transportation

Submission + - If You Don't Want Your Car Stolen, Make It Pink (familyhomesecurity.com) 1

Submitted by pickens
pickens writes: A study in the Netherlands illustrates car thieves’ preferences. From 2004-2008, the most commonly colored vehicle stolen was black. This may be because black vehicles look more luxurious. Following close behind black were gray/silver automobiles. Of the 109 pink cars in the study, not one was stolen. A bright and uncommon color, like pink, may be as effective deterrent as an expensive security system. Ben Vollaard, who conducted the research, wrote, “If the aversion to driving a car in an offbeat color is not too high – or if someone actually enjoys it – then buying deterrence through an uncommon car color may be at least as good a deal as buying deterrence through an expensive car security device.”
Advertising

Submission + - CA wants to put electronic ads on license plates 1

Submitted by techmuse
techmuse writes: The San Jose Mercury News reports that the California state legislature wants to put electronic advertising on your license plate. The plate would display standard plate information when the car is moving, but would also display ads when the car is stopped. Not distracting or annoying at all!

Submission + - New Air Conditioner Process cuts energy use 50-90% (nrel.gov) 2

Submitted by necro81
necro81 writes: The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has announced that it has developed a new method for air conditioning that reduces energy use by 50-90%. The DEVap system cools air using evaporative cooling, which is not new, but combines the process with a liquid dessicant for pulling the water vapor out of the cooled air stream. The liquid dessicant, a very strong aqueous solution of lithium chloride or sodium chloride, is separated from the air stream by a permeable hydrophobic membrane. Heat is later used to evaporate water vapor back out — heat that can come from a variety of sources such as solar or natural gas. The dessicants are, compared to typical refrigerants like HCFCs, relatively safe for the environment.
Google

Submission + - Britain's BPI goes after Google -- with US DMCA ! (p2pnet.net) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BPI, the RIAA's UK counterpart, has gone up against the Holiest of Holies, American online advertising conglomerate Google, says Chilling Effects. The BPI contributed to the British government's Digital Ecomy bill, complete with its ACTA Three Strikes and you're Off The Net element, with hardly a murmur from the UK lamescream media. Now Chilling Effects quotes a missive directed at Gargle by the BPI. It states, in part, "We have identified the following links that are available via Google's search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members ... " And what's even more interesting is: this British 'trade' outfity is using the American DMCA to attack Google. Can it do that?

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