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Submission + - Boeing Dreamliner Concerns are Specious (wired.com)

Submitted by SoyChemist
SoyChemist writes: On the most recent edition of his new show, Dan Rather reported that the new 787 Dreamliner aircraft may be unsafe. Since then, dozens of news agencies have jumped on the bandwagon. Most of them are reporting that the carbon fiber frame may not be as sturdy as aluminum. Few have bothered to question Rather's claims that the composite materials are brittle, more likely to shatter on impact, and prone to emit poisonous chemicals when ignited. While there is a lot of weight behind the argument that composite materials are not as well-studied as aircraft aluminum, the reasoning behind the flurry of recent articles may be faulty. The very title of Rather's story, Plastic Planes, indicates a lack of grounding in science. Perhaps the greatest concern should be how well the plane will hold up to water. Because they are vulnerable to slow and steady degradation by moisture, the new materials may not last as long as aluminum. Testing them for wear and tear will be more difficult too.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "The New York Times has finally admitted that making people pay for its content is a losing proposition. The paper has announced that it will end its paid Internet service in favor of making most of its Web site available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. This had been predicted countless times and is now coming to pass. How long before other online papers and similar information services come to the same realization and open up their sites?"
Security

Submission + - Which Lost/Stolen Laptop Trackers Do You Like? 2

Submitted by
saudadelinux
saudadelinux writes: "I got held up at gunpoint in July, and my laptop was stolen. Fortunately, I was able to get a new one, and I'm typing this post on it.
There companies out which for a fee, install tracker software on your laptop. If it's stolen or lost, they track its whereabouts whenever it gets on the 'Net and work with local law enforcement and ISPs to find the machine. I'm wondering: does anyone use one of those services? Does anyone have a recommendation for which company to go with? I'm using a dual-boot Ubuntu/XP machine, and the couple of companies I've looked at do Windows-only. Are there Linux options? TIA, saudadelinux"
The Courts

Submission + - SCO blames Linux for bankruptcy filing 4

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: SCO Group CEO Darl McBride says competition from the open source Linux operating system was a major reason why the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

In a court filing in support of SCO's bankruptcy petition, McBride noted that SCO's sales of Unix-based products "have been declining over the past several years." The slump, McBride said, "has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux."

McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is "aggressively taking market share away from Unix."

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