Comment Re:Good Point. (Score 0, Offtopic) 393
I wonder why the powers that be don't make some way for those comments to be automatically deleted?
Joss Whedon Back on TV 289
tokenhillbilly writes "Joss Whedon of 'Buffy' and 'Firefly' fame has signed on to do another TV series on Fox starring Eliza Dushku (Faith from 'Buffy'). The series is going to be called Dollhouse, and the story surrounds a group of people 'programmed' to do missions out of a sort of high-tech dorm. '[The series] follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission. After each assignment -- which can be physical, romantic or even illegal -- the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the "Dollhouse"). [The] show centers on Dushku's character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions.'"
Volcanoes May Have Caused Mass Extinctions? 210
Hugh Pickens writes "According to recent research, huge amounts of sulphur dioxide released by volcanic eruptions may have had more to do with wiping out dinosaurs than the meteorite strike at Chicxulub on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Marine sediments drilled from the Chicxulub crater have revealed that that the mass extinctions occurred 300,000 years after Chicxulub hit Earth. The Deccan volcanism was a long cumulative process that released vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. '"On land it must have been 7-8 degrees warmer," says Princeton University paleontologist Gerta Keller. "The Chicxulub impact alone could not have caused the mass extinction, because this impact predates the mass extinction."' Keller also postulates a second larger and still unidentified meteor strike after Chicxulub, that left the famous extraterrestrial layer of iridium found in rocks worldwide and pushed earth's ecosystem over the brink. But where's the crater? "I wish I knew," says Keller."
Submission + - Netflix confirms it, Blockbuster is dying (cnet.com)
Mattintosh writes: So maybe it's not Netflix, just some blogger from C|Net, but it's still an external pundit's assessment that Blockbuster is failing as a company. Some notable highlights include heavy losses ($35 million), job cuts ($45 million worth), store closings (526 of them), a stock price in freefall ($5.06 at the end of Thursday), and an executive with his head in the sand.
MS, Mozilla Clashing Over JavaScript Update 521
jfruhlinger writes "JavaScript has become a crucial part of Websites built on AJAX underpinnings, which makes the upcoming revision to the ECMAScript standard crucial for the future of the Web. But in today's browser environment, no one vendor can impose an update path — which may set things up for a nasty conflict. A fight is being fought on blogs between Mozilla Chief Technology Officer (and creator of JavaScript) Brendan Eich, who wants to the new ECMAScript standard to be a radical upgrade, and Chris Wilson, architect of MS's IE team, who would rather keep JavaScript as is and put new functionality into a brand-new language."
Submission + - First RIAA case victim finally speaks out. (p2pnet.net)
An anonymous reader writes: It’s, “no secret
that
the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has responded to
the growth of online file sharing with a wave of copyright infringement
litigation,” wrote James Alonso, Marc Friedenberg, Michael
Nguyen,
Shawn Oakley and Sarah Calvert from The Columbia Science &
Technology Law Review.
“Often, the individuals targeted by the RIAA fear the overwhelming costs of defending themselves in court, and many have agreed to pay large settlements.”
Often, but not always.
Now, inspired by the examples of people such as the five very reluctant heroines mentioned below, increasing numbers of victims are deciding not to let themselves be terrorised into settling.
The five, courageous in every sense of the word, are:
But it’s Thomas, the first of the American RIAA victims to actually appear in court, who’s caught the attention of the international mainstream media for more than just a day or two.
Horrified by the negative (for them) PR the case has been generating, using their connections, political power and influence, the labels are doing their best to distort facts and spin Thomas as a cold schemer whose depredations forced the RIAA to take her to court.
Cary Sherman, the organisation’s chief spin doctor, said he was “surprised it took this long for one of the industry lawsuits to go to trial” when in fact, the organisation has done everything it can to stop any of these cases actually reaching a judge and jury.
Thomas has also achieved two other firsts:
As far as I know, she’s the first to launch her own forum, and for the first time since she was forced into the limelight, she’s telling her own story, in her own words.
One of the subjects she touches on was that it wasn't her decision to replace the harddrive. This fact was a major decision in her persecution.
also never dreamt how large of a story my case would become. Before I went to court, no one except those close to me knew of this situation I was dealing with. Now, I can Google my name and read articles about me. A very odd and surreal feeling for me as I never wanted this much notoriety, ever. Unfortunately, a lot of the articles I’ve read are full of half-truths, conjectures, and right out lies. I can understand media outlets having a deadline to meet, but I cannot understand media outlets filling the holes in their stories with incorrect information.
‘Best Buy made the decision to replace the hard drive’
I would like to now talk about some of that incorrect information which has plagued news articles and comments. First, I will finally set straight the issue with my computer hard drive, when it was replaced, why it was replaced, who replaced it and what might have happened to the old drive. I have read many comments and articles that I had my hard drive replaced after I learned of my suit. This could not be further from the truth. What most people don’t know, if I did have my hard drive replaced after I was served the initial complaint to this suit, that would be considered spoliation of evidence, which is a criminally prosecutable offense. All the following dates, keep in mind so you can see the timeline yourself.
“Often, the individuals targeted by the RIAA fear the overwhelming costs of defending themselves in court, and many have agreed to pay large settlements.”
Often, but not always.
Now, inspired by the examples of people such as the five very reluctant heroines mentioned below, increasing numbers of victims are deciding not to let themselves be terrorised into settling.
The five, courageous in every sense of the word, are:
- Patti Santangelo, a New York mother of five children, two of whom have now become RIAA targets
- Rae-Jay Schwartz, another mother, bound to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis, the terrible central nervous system disease
- Marie Lindor, a 57-year-old home health aid whose knowledge of computers and computer systems is zero
- Tanya Andersen, a disabled mother living off a disability pension
- Jammie Thomas, a young mother of two from Minnesota
But it’s Thomas, the first of the American RIAA victims to actually appear in court, who’s caught the attention of the international mainstream media for more than just a day or two.
Horrified by the negative (for them) PR the case has been generating, using their connections, political power and influence, the labels are doing their best to distort facts and spin Thomas as a cold schemer whose depredations forced the RIAA to take her to court.
Cary Sherman, the organisation’s chief spin doctor, said he was “surprised it took this long for one of the industry lawsuits to go to trial” when in fact, the organisation has done everything it can to stop any of these cases actually reaching a judge and jury.
Thomas has also achieved two other firsts:
As far as I know, she’s the first to launch her own forum, and for the first time since she was forced into the limelight, she’s telling her own story, in her own words.
One of the subjects she touches on was that it wasn't her decision to replace the harddrive. This fact was a major decision in her persecution.
also never dreamt how large of a story my case would become. Before I went to court, no one except those close to me knew of this situation I was dealing with. Now, I can Google my name and read articles about me. A very odd and surreal feeling for me as I never wanted this much notoriety, ever. Unfortunately, a lot of the articles I’ve read are full of half-truths, conjectures, and right out lies. I can understand media outlets having a deadline to meet, but I cannot understand media outlets filling the holes in their stories with incorrect information.
‘Best Buy made the decision to replace the hard drive’
I would like to now talk about some of that incorrect information which has plagued news articles and comments. First, I will finally set straight the issue with my computer hard drive, when it was replaced, why it was replaced, who replaced it and what might have happened to the old drive. I have read many comments and articles that I had my hard drive replaced after I learned of my suit. This could not be further from the truth. What most people don’t know, if I did have my hard drive replaced after I was served the initial complaint to this suit, that would be considered spoliation of evidence, which is a criminally prosecutable offense. All the following dates, keep in mind so you can see the timeline yourself.
Submission + - Email Threats Less Crazy than Snail Mail (wired.com) 2
SoyChemist writes: Psychologists at the University of Nebraska have read 300 threatening letters and 99 angry emails to members of congress. They concluded that the authors of the electronic messages show less signs of serious mental illness, but they are more profane and disorganized. The report was published in the September issue [subscription] of the Journal of Forensic Sciences.
Submission + - Stix Scientific Fonts Reach Beta Release
starseeker writes: At long last, the STIX project has posted a Beta release of their scientific fonts. The mission of the STIX project has been the "preparation of a comprehensive set of fonts that serve the scientific and engineering community in the process from manuscript creation through final publication, both in electronic and print formats." The result is a font set containing thousands of characters, and hopefully a font set that will become a staple for scientific publishing. Among other uses, it has long been hoped that this would make the wide scale use of MathML in browsers possible. Despite rather long delays the project has persisted and is now showing concrete results. For those interested in the license, it can be found here. (Note to those downloading — TeX support is not yet ready. Also, the zip file will put all the files in the same directory as the zip file itself, so you might want to open it in its own directory.)
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