Comment Re:Not as clear cut as you might think. (Score 1) 257
Race is something that you're born with. A religious affiliation is a choice that you should take responsibility for.
Comment Re:PBS (Score 1) 438
I work for PBS. No check will be written. Our money comes from viewers, sponsorships and endowments. And yes, keeping the analog equipment running for several months will cost a lot of money.
Comment Re:Cancel Your Accounts (Score 1) 200
Your data will still be in their databases though.
Comment Re:Mmhmm (Score 1) 537
I work in the public television world, and this is a big deal to us because we get a large percentage of viewers over the air (old, low income, etc).
I can assure you, digital signals are harder to get a picture with than analog. With analog, a little interference means some fuzz. With digital, it means you don't get a picture period.
Indoor antennas are especially affected by the switch which has a lot of stations worried. I can assure you most of our stations are operating at full r near full power and our research is showing it's hard for a lot of viewers to tune in.
Web Videos Show Off the Wonders of Chemistry 93
Timmy writes "Wired Science has picked ten of the best videos from YouTube and their own show on PBS to highlight the wonderful things chemistry can do. Only four of them involve fire or explosions. The rest range from music videos about the polymerase chain reaction to reactions that repeatedly change color. One shows how to pour sodium acetate stalagmites. Another shows Chris Hardwick giving instructions for building a glow stick while making absurd comments."
Akamai Wins Lawsuit to Protect Obvious Patent 173
brandaman writes "Akamai, the largest content delivery network (CDN) with about 70% market share, recently won its lawsuit against the against second largest CDN - Limelight Networks. The suit asserted that Limelight was infringing on Akamai's patent which, upon examination, seems to be somewhat on the obvious side. 'In accordance with the invention, however, a base HTML document portion of a Web page is served from the Content Provider's site while one or more embedded objects for the page are served from the hosting servers, preferably, those hosting servers near the client machine. By serving the base HTML document from the Content Provider's site, the Content Provider maintains control over the content.' Limelight is obviously not pleased, and this is not the first lawsuit Akamai has won regarding its patents."
End Software Patents Project Comes Out Swinging 205
Linux.com is reporting that the End Software Patents project is launching several new initiatives to help drive support for their cause. Among the new methods are a web site, a report on the state of patents in the US, and a scholarship contest promising to award $10,000 "for the best paper on the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under US law." "The project is being launched with initial funding of a quarter million dollars, supplied primarily by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Under the directorship of Ben Klemens, a long-time advocate of software patent abolition best-known for the book Math You Can't Use: Patents, Copyright, and Software, the project is being supported by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). One of ESP's goals is to enlist support from academics, software developers, legal experts, and business executives. Its initial supporters show that the project is already well on its way to building such a coalition."
Bank Julius Baer Issues Statement On WikiLeaks 187
dtwood writes "The bank that got WikiLeaks.org erased from DNS finally hired a PR agency and issued a press release filled with half truths and non-statements. Tynan on Tech has it, along with some brief commentary. Worth a look."
The U.S. Patent Backlog 195
coondoggie writes "Even with its increased hiring estimates of 1,200 patent examiners each year for the next 5 years, the US Patent and Trademark Office patent application backlog is expected to increase to over 1.3 million at the end of fiscal year 2011 the Government Accounting Office reported today. The USPTO has also estimated that if it were able to hire 2,000 patent examiners per year in fiscal year 2007 and each of the next 5 years, the backlog would continue to increase by about 260,000 applications, to 953,643 at the end of fiscal year 2011, the GAO said. Despite its recent increases in hiring, the agency has acknowledged that it cannot hire its way out of the backlog and is now focused on slowing the growth of the backlog instead of reducing it. This too is but one of the goals of the Patent Reform Act currently making the rounds in the US Senate."
