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The Media

Confessions of an Internet "Shock Jock" 194

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hey-wait-i-use-a-pseudonym dept.
An anonymous reader followed up on the Windows memory-leak fraud scandal, which is worth reading before you read the perpetrator's justification. "Randall C. Kennedy comes clean about his past, his relationship to Craig Barth and how it all came tumbling down. Includes an inside look at the politics of IDG and why you can never trust an IT publication that's as obsessed with page views as InfoWorld."

Comment This is less about censorship than who is censored (Score 1) 352

by cwolfsheep (#30995948) Attached to: South Australia Outlaws Anonymous Political Speech
I'll say what I said on Reddit...

Consider the source people: the article is hosted by News Corp in Australia, referring to an attack on its paper in South Australia, and is pimping the anti-corruption lobby it started as a source of outrage. "The Right to Know Coalition, made up of Australia's major media outlets including News Limited, publisher of The Advertiser and parent company of news.com.au, has called the new laws "draconian"." The same thing is done by having the Wall Street Journal or Times of London report something, and have Fox News run with it as a lead.

And based on what the AC added earlier, they're crowing about their victory too.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/victory-atkinson-loosens-gag/story-e6frea6u-1225826104175
Math

7 of the Best Free Linux Calculators 289

Posted by timothy from the open-in-tabs dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."
Government

Submission + - US bans truckers, bus drivers from texting (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The government Tuesday formally barred truckers and bus drivers from sending text messages while behind the wheel, putting the federal imprimatur on a prohibition embraced by many large trucking and transportation companies.

"We want the drivers of big rigs and buses and those who share the roads with them to be safe," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This is an important safety step, and we will be taking more to eliminate the threat of distracted driving ( http://www.distraction.gov/ )."

LaHood has made the effort to curtail driver distractions a centerpiece of his tenure as the nation's top transportation official. Some saw his announcement as a step that might ultimately fuel a push to ban cellphone use by all drivers.

LaHood's announcement followed a study released in July ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR2009072802101.html ) by Virginia Tech's Transportation Institute that found that when truckers text, they are 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or near miss.

Washington Post : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012602031.html

Distracted Driving : http://www.distraction.gov/
The Internet

Submission + - Wikileaks Goes Dark, Needs Money (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A Web site that for years has let anonymous whistleblowers break stories of corruption and government malfeasance has gone dark and is expected to remain offline until it finds funds to support its operations and fend off lawsuits.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Princeton University Blocks IPv6 on Wireless (dailyprincetonian.com) 1

Submitted by cwolfsheep
cwolfsheep writes: In a move meant to provide "faster, more reliable wireless service," network administrators at Princeton University have begun filtering out IPv6 traffic on their wireless access points. OIT Support Services Director Steven Sather stated that since IPv6 is not in use at the university, the network traffic (generated largely by an influx of Apple hardware) is considered "wasted." It should be noted that recent Linux & BSD-based distributions, as well as Windows Vista and 7, all enable IPv6 support and/or use it to some degree.
Earth

Minnesota Introduces World's First Carbon Tariff 303

Posted by timothy from the hey-cut-that-crap-out dept.
hollywoodb writes "The first carbon tax to reduce the greenhouse gases from imports comes not between two nations, but between two states. Minnesota has passed a measure to stop carbon at its border with North Dakota. To encourage the switch to clean, renewable energy, Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012 ... Minnesota has been generally pushing for cleaner power within its borders, but the utility companies that operate in MN have, over the past decades, sited a lot of coal power plants on the relatively cheap and open land of North Dakota, which is preparing a legal battle against Minnesota over the tariff."

Submission + - x86-64 Market Share Hits 10% in December

Submitted by caffeinejolt
caffeinejolt writes: In the last 6 months, end-users (i.e. not servers) have been making the switch to x86-64 OSes in large numbers. Growth was strongest in Mac (release of Snow Leopard), but also strong for Linux and Windows. So basically, the number of users who need 4GB or more of RAM has more than doubled in the past 6 months — an interesting trend considering all the recent talk of moving to the cloud, thin clients (i.e. chrome os), netbooks, etc.
Power

Submission + - Massive Solar Updraft Towers Planned for Arizona (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by MikeChino
MikeChino writes: Australia-based EnviroMission Ltd recently announced plans to build two solar updraft towers that span hundreds of acres in La Paz County, Arizona. Solar updraft technology sounds promising enough: generate hot air with a giant greenhouse, channel the air into a chimney-like device, and let the warm wind turn a wind turbine to produce energy. The scale of the devices would be staggering — each plant would consist of a 2,400 foot chimney over a greenhouse measuring four square miles. The Southern California Public Power Authority has approved EnviroMission as a provider, although there’s still plenty of work to be done before the $750 million, 200 megawatt project can begin.
Politics

Submission + - Minnesota introduces world's first carbon tariff (boingboing.net)

Submitted by hollywoodb
hollywoodb writes: The first carbon tax to reduce the greenhouse gases from imports comes not between two nations, but between two states. Minnesota has passed a measure to stop carbon at its border with North Dakota. To encourage the switch to clean renewable energy Minnesota plans to add a carbon fee of between $4 and $34 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions to the cost of coal-fired electricity, to begin in 2012... Minnesota has been generally pushing for cleaner power within its borders, but the utility companies that operate in MN have, over the past decades, sited a lot of coal power plants on the relatively cheap and open land of North Dakota, which is preparing a legal battle against Minnesota over the tariff.
Sources: BoingBoing, Scientific American, TreeHugger

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