Comment Fiat Currency (Score 5, Insightful) 692
What what exactly is the value of the US dollar?
Comment Re:HAHA Ha ha ha haha. (Score 1) 274
An 18 year old in a 30 year old body. Grow up.
Comment But why? (Score 1) 786
Assuming that the data is actually accurate, the question that interests me is why was it higher? Does it disprove Global Warming? Probably not because of the fact that it doesn't mention the upturn since the industrial revolution. But if humans spewing CO2 wasn't the reason temperatures were high in the time of the romans, what was the reason and why do we think that it isn't the cause now?
Value of Bitcoin "Crashes" 709
souravzzz writes with an update on the state of Bitcoin. Quoting the Ars Technica article: "Bitcoin, the world's first peer-to-peer digital currency, fell below $3 on Monday. That represents a 90 percent fall since the currency hit its peak in early June."
That's still three times its value in April 2011.
Comment Re:Great! (Score 1) 86
Next they should invent a sarcasm detector, that would be really useful.
Yeah... that would be reallllllly useful...
Comment Re:Oh no! (Score 1) 156
It means that changed something.
Spam Levels Lowest Since 2009 104
wiredmikey writes "Following a two-week dramatic decline in spam levels, spam now accounts for 78.6 percent of all email traffic, the lowest rate since March 2009, when the global spam rate was 75.7 percent of all email traffic, according to Symantec's January 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report, released today. The volume of spam in circulation this month was 65.9% lower than for the same period one year ago, in January 2010, when the spam rate was 83.9% of all email traffic."
Fedora Infrastructure Compromised 115
Trailrunner7 writes "The infrastructure of the Fedora Project was compromised over the weekend and an account belonging to a Fedora contributor was taken over by an attacker. However, Fedora officials said they don't believe that the attacker was able to push any changes to the Fedora package system or make any actual changes to the infrastructure. The attack appears to have targeted one specific user account, which had some high-value privileges. The attacker was able to compromise the account externally, and then had the ability to connect remotely to some Fedora systems. The attacker also changed the account's SSH key, Fedora officials said."
Third of Content On Popular BT Portals Are Fake 255
siliconbits writes "A study published by a group of researchers, most of them based in Europe, analysed the publishers of content on two major BitTorrent portals, Pirate Bay and MiniNova, and found out that almost a third of all files on the two sites were fake."
Italian Scientists Demonstrate Cold Fusion? 815
Haffner quotes physorg which says "Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W....when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy. The reactor uses less than 1 gram of hydrogen and starts with about 1,000 W of electricity, which is reduced to 400 W after a few minutes. Every minute, the reaction can convert 292 grams of 20C water into dry steam at about 101C. Since raising the temperature of water by 80C and converting it to steam requires about 12,400 W of power, the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31."
Starbucks Gets Mobile Payment System 149
Ron writes "Starbucks has started accepting mobile payments. Customers can now use the Starbucks Card Mobile app on their iPhone, iPod touch, or BlackBerry at nearly 6,800 company-operated Starbucks stores in the US plus more than 1,000 outlets inside Target stores. To pay with their phone, app users simply select 'touch to pay' and hold up the barcode on the screen to the 2D scanner at the register. The app also lets users manage Starbucks accounts and find nearby stores. To start using your device as tender, you can download the app now for iOS and BlackBerry. An Android application is also said to be in the works, but the company has not yet given a release date, and there's no word yet on plans for a Windows Phone version."
Ars Thinks Google Takes a Step Backwards For Openness 663
An anonymous reader writes "Over at Ars Technica, Peter (not so) Bright gives a long-winded four pages of FUD about how Chrome dropping support for H.264 is a slight against openness. 'The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins. With the decision to remove support for the widespread H.264 codec from future versions of Chrome, Google has undermined this widely-anticipated feature. The company is claiming that it wants to support "open codecs" instead, and so from now on will support only two formats: its own WebM codec, and Theora. ... The reason Google has given for this change is that WebM (which pairs VP8 video with Vorbis audio) and Theora are "open codecs" and H.264 apparently isn't. ... H.264 is unambiguously open.'"
Apple May Remove the Home Button On the Next IPad 329
An anonymous reader writes "Steve Jobs is notoriously frugal when it comes to buttons so the latest rumor emanating out of Cupertino might not come as a huge surprise. Apple is reportedly planning to do away with the home button on the next-gen iPad and iPhone and replace its functionality with multitouch gestures. And as luck would have it, the newly seeded iOS 4.3 includes support for new multitouch gestures, one of which is the ability to use a four or five finger pinch to go back to the homescreen" The attached video demonstrates the new gestures for switching applications and demonstrates how you could function without the home button.
Comment FCC ? Court System (Score 1) 90
What I don't like is that a Federal Court said that the FCC couldn't regulate the Internet and the FCC is going to do it anyways. The FCC is subverting the checks and balances system.
If you want to regulate the Internet, fine, but do it legally.
Comment Re:who's freedom? (Score 1, Insightful) 944
That's because most libertarians are selfish bastards at heart. They are not concerned with such collectivist notions as creating a sustainable free society.
No. Libertarians believe that if the people really want to create a sustainable free society it can be done without the government stepping in to do it. Give the society to the people to do whatever they want with it. Don't give it to the government to let them do whatever they claim to be the will of the people.
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