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Comment Re:Uh, yeah! (Score 1) 426

i won't argue - i never stated that they are allowed to do ANYthing. But still they are seeking whays to maximize profit - as long as this doesn't collide with local laws. This is a more specific case of what i wrote not a falsification.

I'm almost too sure that facebook has a set of lawyers who evaluated if the ToS do collide with any laws in the US - and obviously they came to the conclusion that they are allowed to do what they are doing.

Comment Re:Naive thinking... (Score 1) 426

Really? I don't think so - i don't know the table-structure of facebook but i worked with a few CRMs. And all of them stored everything forever. "Deleted"-tags were applied to every comment, picture, etc - but nothing got really purged. In the database structure everything was still available.

Comment Re:Uh, yeah! (Score 2, Insightful) 426

Yeah - and if you paint your car green it'll get recepted as a tree. Your logic's somehow screwed up.

Seriously - what i wanted to say is this: You're using a free service which is provied by a commercial company. You really don't have to be surprised if they somehow seek ways to be profitable.

Comment Re:FOXP2 (Score 2, Informative) 229

Nah.

FOXP2 is responsible for "language development" with songbirds and other animals(*), too. If your logic would be correct, birds would talk like humans - which they obviously don't. (*)

The FOXP2 protein sequence is highly conserved. Similar FOXP2 proteins can be found in songbirds, fish, and reptiles such as alligators.

see here

Microsoft

Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7 772

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's Mike Nash came forward today in a blog post on the Windows Vista Blog and revealed the official name for Windows Code Name '7' as simply 'Windows 7.' The reasoning, by Mr. Nash, is that Windows 7 is 'the seventh release of Windows.' As much wonderful sense as this makes on first glance, it seems as if Microsoft's marketing teams pulled this number out of thin air: the Windows 7 kernel is version 6.1, and there's no way Windows 7 adds up as the seventh release of Windows anyway."
Space

The Quietest Sun 227

Orbity sends in a Boston Globe report on the unusual calm on the surface of the sun. The photos, many taken in more active solar times, are excellent — see the sequence from last year of a coronal mass ejection carrying away the tail of a comet. "The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum — in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year — with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm..." As if to be contrary, New Scientist mentions that the number of sunspots seem to be increasing.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Is Linux out of touch with the average user?

MrSmith writes: Is Linux's less than impressive market share an indication that the movement is out of touch with the average computer user? ZDNet examines five reasons that could explain why people are still winning to pay (or pirate) an operating system when free alternatives exist. One of the reasons seems to be that despite what many Linux advocates claim, Windows users aren't on the whole dissatisfied with their OS:
'Despite what you read on websites and blogs, newspapers and magazines, people on the whole aren't all that dissatisfied with Windows. There are millions of users out there who just get on and use their PCs without any real difficulty.'
Bug

Journal Journal: OpenBSD's second remote hole in the default installation

The OpenBSD project has just issued an advisory (and updated its website to reflect the change) that it now has its second remote root vulnerability in more than ten years. The exploit itself is performed with a specially crafted IPv6 ICMP packet, and is caused by a bug in the mbuf chains in the operating system kernel. The OpenBSD team have released a patch. The bug affects all versions of OpenBSD. Since

Power

New Hydrogen Storage Technique 255

pwp writes to mention that researchers at the University of New Brunswick are reporting they have found a new method of storing hydrogen gas. The new method is able to condense hydrogen gas into a usable solid under mild conditions. "Hydrogen gas is typically stored under pressure in large metal cylinders, approximately four feet high. These cylinders are heavy and expensive to transport. Since they are under pressure, they also pose a safety hazard. 'We've reached a milestone with our ability to condense hydrogen into a usable solid,' said Dr. McGrady. 'The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.' The research is expected to produce reversible hydrogen storage materials that can be processed into a powder for use in limitless commercial applications."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Researchers building computers that run on light

Anonymous Coward writes: "Researchers in England are attempting to build a desktop computer that runs on light rather than electronics. A $1.6 million research project starting in June at the University of Bath is focused on developing attosecond technology, which refers to continuously emitting light pulses that last just a billion-billionth of a second. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1245 1"

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