Comment Re:It isn't time for fear mongering yet (Score 1) 158
Updated, after speaking with Kendrick Kay.
MPAA and FBI Help To Train Swedish Police 165
Several readers let us know about a program in which a US FBI agent and employees of the MPAA led a seminar for Swedish police officers in methods of finding and stopping illegal downloading from the Internet. The writer at zeropaid.com says, "I bet the Swedish people are going to love to find out that the US government and a US lobbying group now have a hand in training their police personnel. So much for the notion of national sovereignty." Reader Oxygen provided a bit of translation from an article in Swedish on IDG.se: "According to Bertil Ramsell, responsible for the course, the purpose of the visit was to give the invited speakers a chance to explain to the students what their organization's purpose was. But in a report from the IIPA, the purpose was to educate students in anti-piracy."
Submission + - Australia Outlaws Incandescent Lightbulb
passthecrackpipe writes: "The Australian Government is planning on making the incandescent ligtbulb a thing of the past. In three years time, standard lightbulbs will no longer be available for sale in the shops in Australia (expect a roaring grey market) and everybody will be forced to switch to more energy efficient Fluorescent bulbs. In this move to try and curb emissions, the incandescent bulb — which converts the majority of used energy to heat rather then light — will be phased out. Environmental groups have given this plan a lukewarm reception. They feel Australia should sign on to the Kyoto protocol first. (Article in Dutch). A similar plan was created together with Phillips, one of the worlds largest lighting manufacturers. What do other slashdotters think? Is this a move in the right direction? Will this boost the development of better fluorescent bulbs? Improve the design and lower the costs of LED lightbulbs? Will this plan make a big difference to the environment at all?"
Submission + - UK taps 439,000 phones and emails; wants 645 more
JPMH writes: With the largest density of CCTV cameras in the world, and an increasing network of automatic number-plate recognition cameras on main roads, Britain has long been a pioneer for the surveillance society. Now new official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s. It must be that it is bringing their numbers down: on the law of averages they should be monitoring at least 5 of the MPs.
Submission + - Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use
An anonymous reader writes: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/business/worldbu siness/20privacy.html
February 20, 2007
Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use
PARIS, Feb. 19 — European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.
In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.
Submission + - Gaming skills directly linked to surgical skills
Orinthe writes: "According to Reuters, a new study involving 33 surgeons at a New York hospital shows "a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities". A statement by the senior author of the study even suggests the use of video games as a training tool for surgeons. Another of the study's authors cautions parents to curb excessive gaming, however: "spending that much time playing video games is not going to help their child's chances of getting into medical school"."
Submission + - AMD Athlon 64 6000+ Launched And Tested
Spinnerbait writes: AMD officially launched their next speed bump in the Athlon 64 product line,
in the form of
a new 3GHz part branded the Athlon 64 6000+. This new dual-core Athlon
64 sports 1MB of on-chip cache per core and is designed for AMD's Socket AM2
platform. This chip is still built on AMD's 90nm fab node and is comprised
of some 227 million transistors. It also carries a thermal power profile
of about 125Watts. Unfortunately, in all the
benchmarks seen here, it was still unable to catch Intel's Core 2 Duo E6700
chip at 2.66GHz.
Possible Cure For Autism 431
Henry V .009 writes "Scientists in New Jersey are claiming that children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids that fight brain-damaging inflammations. They have already developed urine/blood tests to identify at-risk children. A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids. Human trials could start later this year."
Regrowing Lost Body Parts Getting Closer All the Time 210
[TheBORG] writes "There are two stories on Yahoo! News about regrowing lost body parts. One is about regrowing lost fingers & limbs and the other one is about regrowing teeth. The story about regrowing lost fingers and limbs talks about the experimental use of powdered pig bladder to regrow fingers and eventually lost limbs for soldiers and others in need from information that Pentagon-funded scientists hopefully learn from studying the salamander. The story about regrowing teeth talks about how Japanese scientists used primitive cells and injected them into a framework of collagen. Once grown to a certain point, scientists implanted the growths into mice where the teeth developed normally."
Fermi Paradox Predicting Humankind's Future? 854
An anonymous reader writes "The Fermi paradox says that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, at least one of them should have colonized the entire galaxy by now. But since there is no evidence of this, humankind must be the only intelligent life in the galaxy. The Space Review has an article on how the Fermi paradox can be applied to human civilization. It says that, like the extraterrestrials, humans have three choices: colonize the galaxy, remain on Earth, or become extinct."
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In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.
