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Submission + - Graphene creates electricity when struck by light (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Oh graphene! The cheap, easy-to-manufacture one-atom-thick sheet of carbon can add yet another weird, fantastical, and possibly life-changing ability to its list of characteristics: it has an incredibly sensitive thermoelectric response to light. In layman’s terms: graphene, when struck by light of almost any wavelength, can produce an electric current. Discovered by MIT and Japanese researchers, this effect (hot carrier response) works at room temperature, with a wide range of light spectra, and at low intensities, which means it could replace photovoltaic solar panels, photodetectors in astronomy and photography, and even some medical applications (searching for disease and toxin)."

Comment Re:The cause is fear and.. (Score 1) 495

by mustard5 (#36320066) Attached to: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

I can see why this is happening. America used to have quite a bit of manufacturing, shops that employed people on living wages etc. Technical workers that worked in country, and spent their money locally. That money flowed round and encouraged other shops and enterprise. Shops that sold stuff made in the US. It also did fair trade in export and import.

That's all gone now. All the US has is "IP" and "Media" aka ideas, films and music, nothing you can touch. There is now really no manufacturing to employee people - Gone abroad. IT Jobs = Cheaper in India. Local workers? almost slave wages in Wallyworld or Starbucks. Exports of any physical goods is nowhere near what it used to be. Just about everything manufactured comes from China.

Now all shops sell crap mostly made abroad, competing in a race to the bottom to try and squeeze the ever reducing money in pocket from shoppers. Those same shoppers that used to have a job, and pay taxes, but since their job was shipped abroad as it was $8,000 a year cheaper.

If they loose this revenue stream, its over. They have to protect this last thing they have that other people and countries will buy. There is nothing left to make in the US.......

I like what your saying. It seems almost prophetic in it's insightfulness. Quite scary, in fact. What I find hard to believe though is that the U.S. won't survive. I think its more dynamic and creative than that. It's still a cultural centre. too, which has lasting value. What does England do? They sell the Queen. There will always be an American cultural product to sell. Nobody else can do "Forrest Gump". Who controls it will be the big difference.

Comment Re:Was it legal? (Score 1) 495

by mustard5 (#36319722) Attached to: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

So it was legal before...

was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing

...?

Well the Tennessee legislature didn't just come up with the story on their own, did they? Who put the idea in their heads? Connect the dots 1..2..3. How many players are there in this game?

Comment Re:What? Licenses and TOS agreements not enough? (Score 1) 495

by mustard5 (#36319440) Attached to: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

If they can criminalize it suddenly state enforcement agencies are burdened with detecting the crime, and state legal agencies are burdened with prosecuting it.

...And it will be a burden they cannot ignore. Once it's law, its their job to pursue it, and they will. All for what? A cultural icon? A favourite movie? A borrowed mp3 player? We won't have enough prisons to hold them all. It's cultural brutality, plain and simple.

Comment Re:What? Licenses and TOS agreements not enough? (Score 1) 495

by mustard5 (#36318952) Attached to: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password
This should never be more than a civil issue. That's my first point of agreement. I recall when the music industry had just begun to 'cannabilise' it's market. I used to pass it off as something that would lose steam, but it's march is relentless it seems. I now reflect and think about the money these content holders have used to hoard culture icons, then dish them out at whim. It is huge, I am sure. They want a return on that investment. The issue now is that we all share our content freely amongst each other. We swap photos and videos, animation, stories, movies, letters, Mom singing in the shower, whatever. We share it all. For free. Everyone is their own production house. In this new era, who are these archaic gateways of culture? They are just another producer of content. A dime a dozen, these days. The content they hold only has a relevance for a short time, before this new free culture overwhelms them. They need to learn how to be content sharers, not content sellers. I think they want to screw everyone for what they can get before they become irrelevant. Why not put some in jail? At least they got some money. Heartless! Keep the rest of them scared? Fearmongering. Enough said. Internet neutrality is another issue I would talk about in relation to a free internet, we can't have these new corporations controlling and even stifling our internet creativity. It's important that we control the medium, not merchants. We can't have another set of cultural gatekeepers.

Comment Re:I closed my dropbox account. (Score 1) 265

by mustard5 (#36136676) Attached to: Dropbox Accused of Lying About Security
Actually if you get a referral from a current user of Wuala you get an extra 1GB for free. The trading of space is an innovative feature for two reasons. 1. It uses distributed storage 2. You can get more online space for free Do you share bandwidth when you use a torrent? It's the same concept. I can say from personal experience that the bandwidth used is minimal.

Comment Re:I closed my dropbox account. (Score 1) 265

by mustard5 (#36136626) Attached to: Dropbox Accused of Lying About Security

I closed my dropbox account for two reasons, firstly their admission as to who had access to my data and then they made alterations to my /etc/fstab, during an update

How is that even possible when it doesn't run as root?

Please refer to this Dropbox forum thread, regarding alterations made to /etc/fstab http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=29809

Comment I closed my dropbox account. (Score 2) 265

by mustard5 (#36136224) Attached to: Dropbox Accused of Lying About Security
I closed my dropbox account for two reasons, firstly their admission as to who had access to my data and then they made alterations to my /etc/fstab, during an update, without any significant notice to me that they had done so. At the time I considered this extremely rude behaviour on the part of the company. I am glad they are getting some bad press, as there are much better alternatives out there that could do with some business. Wuala, for example, is the alternative I chose. It encrypts everything on the client side before its uploaded. I don't think it's acceptable for dropbox to lie about security of my data, nor is it acceptable for them to make alterations to my configuration files without first asking me.

Comment My own thoughts. (Score 1) 1

by mustard5 (#36114910) Attached to: When Mobiles Phones attack. Luddite Revolt Ensues.
My first reaction was that my flatmate had a pretty valid point, in that we were completely ignoring her. I have been noticing it a lot lately, this phenomenon of people all glued to their electronic devices. I used to experience it when my ex-wife used to spend all her time on the phone and actually interacting with her had become an impossibility as she was forever talking to someone else. Now I find myself more interested in my digital interactions than my physical interactions. I often catch a taxi to work, and I've noticed that I prefer sitting playing with my mobile phone than interacting with the driver. Even though I drive taxis myself. The physical world seems so slow and cumbersome, whereas the digital world seems dynamic and exciting.
Encryption

FBI Alleged To Have Backdoored OpenBSD's IPSEC Stack 536

Posted by kdawson from the all-your-vpn dept.
Aggrajag and Mortimer.CA, among others, wrote to inform us that Theo de Raadt has made public an email sent to him by Gregory Perry, who worked on the OpenBSD crypto framework a decade ago. The claim is that the FBI paid contractors to insert backdoors into OpenBSD's IPSEC stack. Mr. Perry is coming forward now that his NDA with the FBI has expired. The code was originally added ten years ago, and over that time has changed quite a bit, "so it is unclear what the true impact of these allegations are" says Mr. de Raadt. He added: "Since we had the first IPSEC stack available for free, large parts of the code are now found in many other projects/products." (Freeswan and Openswan are not based on this code.)

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