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sirgabrial

New iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux - Boing Boing - 0 views

  • The latest iPods have a cryptographic "checksum" in their song databases that prevents third-party applications from synching with the portable music players.
  • This means that iPods can no longer be used with operating systems where iTunes doesn't exist -- like Linux, where gtkpod and Amarok are common free tools used by iPod owners to load their players.
  • Apple limiting the choices available to people who buy their iPod hardware.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • nothing to do with piracy
  • this has nothing to do with preventing piracy -- this is about preventing competition with the iTunes Store
  • Rhapsody or Amazon player that automatically loaded the non-DRM tracks they sold you on your iPod
  • considered buying another iPod
    • sirgabrial
       
      -I agree -I have always said iPod = fine player -problem with: a) iTunes = shit b) iPod video playback = shit
  • iTunes Store
    • sirgabrial
       
      -iTunes store is for dumbasses
  • New iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux
sirgabrial

Retailers push reusable bags to save money, environment - USATODAY.com - 0 views

  • The goal was to reduce plastic bag usage by 50%,
  • began charging a nickel for a plastic shopping bag. A reusable bag costs 59 cents.
  • Ikea has
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • if every person in New York City used one less grocery bag per year, it would reduce waste by 5 million pounds and save $250,000 on disposal.
  • paper is not much better than plastic because trees have to be cut down and energy expended to make them.
  • The Sierra Club's Sierra magazine estimates that Americans throw away almost 100 billion plastic bags each year and only 1% to 3% are recycled.
  • Whole Foods created a frenzy in New York recently when it offered a limited number of designer shopping bags for $15.
  • Giving out fewer bags means the store saves money.
  • independent stores and natural foods chain Whole Foods, go a step further, offering credits of a few cents for each bag that's reused.
  • Retailers push reusable bags to save money, environment
  • Several large retailers, including Stop & Shop, New England's largest food retailer, and housewares store Ikea, now sell reusable shopping bags.
sirgabrial

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google calls for web privacy laws - 0 views

  • Google calls for web privacy laws
  • Search site Google has called on governments and business to agree a basic set of global privacy rules.
  • the rise of the net meant vast amounts of personal data was now regularly shipped around the globe.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • information often passed through countries with insufficient or no data protection laws
  • "Every time a person uses a credit card their information may cross six or seven national boundaries,"
  • Three quarters of countries have no privacy rules
  • the United States has no country-wide privacy laws, instead leaving them to individual states or even industries to set up.
  • In June, rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data.
  • nine principles that aim to protect the individual
chasejw

BBC NEWS | Technology | State of Play: Man versus machine - 0 views

  • State of Play: Man versus machine
chasejw

BBC NEWS | Health | MP3 users 'risking hearing loss' - 0 views

  • MP3 users 'risking hearing loss'
sirgabrial

APEC leaders forge climate change pact - 0 views

shared by sirgabrial on 09 Sep 07 - Cached
  • APEC leaders forge climate change pact
  • Pacific Rim leaders on Saturday said the world needs to "slow, stop and then reverse" greenhouse gas emissions, and adopted modest goals to curb global warming. Thousands of demonstrators rallied to demand stronger action.
  • The program's centerpiece is a goal to reduce "energy intensity" - the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product - 25 percent by 2030.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • he only other concrete goal was to increase forest cover in the region by at least 50 million acres by 2020 - enough to absorb about 11 percent of the greenhouse gases the world emitted in 2004
    • sirgabrial
       
      -green washing? -what do you think need to be done?
  • "It is very unambitious."
sirgabrial

Sexual Orientation Revealed by Body Type and Motion, Study Suggests - 0 views

  • Sexual Orientation Revealed by Body Type and Motion, Study Suggests
    • sirgabrial
       
      at first this article seemed like it was just o.k. till the end with the military shit.
  • An individual's body motion and body type can offer subtle cues about their sexual orientation, but casual observers seem better able to read those cues in gay men than in lesbians, according to a new study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • we've found that casual observers can use gait and body shape to judge whether a stranger is gay or straight with a small but perceptible amount of accuracy."
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • New York University and Texas A&M measured the hips, waists and shoulders of eight male and eight female volunteers, half of whom were gay and half straight.
  • walked on a treadmill for two minutes as a three-dimensional motion-capture system similar to those used by the movie industry to create animated figures from living models made measurements of the their motions, allowing researchers to track the precise amount of shoulder swagger and hip sway in their gaits.
  • the researchers determined that the gay subjects tended to have more gender-incongruent body types than their straight counterparts (hourglass figures for men, tubular bodies for women) and body motions (hip-swaying for men, shoulder-swaggering for women) than their straight counterparts.
  • were able to judge sexual orientation accurately 55 percent of the time.
  • "Studies like ours are raising questions about the value of the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy,"
    • sirgabrial
       
      do you guys think that gay should be allowed in the military?
sirgabrial

Engineers perfecting hydrogen-generating technology - 0 views

  • Engineers perfecting hydrogen-generating technology
  • Researchers at Purdue University have further developed a technology that could represent a pollution-free energy source for a range of potential applications, from golf carts to submarines and cars to emergency portable generators.
  • produces hydrogen by adding water to an alloy of aluminum and gallium.
    • sirgabrial
       
      -availibility aluminum and gallium is a major issue -there is enough for a little while but much recycling would need to be done.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • When water is added to the alloy, the aluminum splits water by attracting oxygen, liberating hydrogen in the process.
  • Because the technology could be used to generate hydrogen on demand, the method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen - two major obstacles in creating a hydrogen economy
  • Combusting hydrogen in an engine or using hydrogen to drive a fuel cell produces only water as waste.
    • sirgabrial
       
      -aluminum and gallinium is made into a "skin" that coats the inside the fuel cell
  • being developed is for emergency portable generators
  • non-polluting way to idle diesel trucks.
    • sirgabrial
       
      -disliked: they did not mention anything about what kind of impact this would have on the water supply -can you use salt water? or fresh water? or even purfied water?
barnaby

Portions Of Patriot Act Rejected -- Courant.com - Mozilla Firefox - 0 views

  • A federal judge struck down controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act Thursday, ordering the FBI to stop its wide use of a warrantless tactic
  • U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero
  • violates the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • rebuke of both the administration and Congress
  • decision could eliminate or sharply curtail the FBI's issuance of tens of thousands of national security letters
  • FBI potentially violated privacy laws or bureau rules more than a thousand times
  • would bar the use of national security letters to demand data
  • untouched the FBI's ability to demand bank records, credit reports and other financial data related to counterterror and other probes because those authorities are covered by other statutes
  • government appeal was pending
barnaby

TheStar.com - Business - Taming tornadoes to power cities - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 07 Sep 07 - Cached
  • is convinced it's possible to engineer and control powerful, full-scale whirlwinds and harness their energy to produce emission-free electricity.
  • vortex engine
  • attracted some research funding from the Ontario Centres of Excellence.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • next step is to build and study the performance of a four-metre model,
  • Waste heat, a byproduct of any fossil fuel or nuclear plant operation that is typically vented into the air through cooling towers, is carried by water pipe to a vortex engine facility nearby. The hot water enters a number of cooling cells stationed around the facility where fans push dry air across hot pipes.
  • air picks up the heat and enters the vortex through 10 or more angled ducts, causing the air to swirl inside. The heated air begins to rise in a spinning motion, gathering energy the higher it gets and creating a vortex. As the vortex gathers momentum it begins to suck air through the cooling cells, at which point the fans that initially pushed in the air now function as turbines that generate electricity.
  • $60 million
  • o longer need a separate cooling tower.
  • cost less than one quarter the cost of a coal plant,
  • excluding the cooling tower benefits and the fact that no ongoing fuel expenses
  • Once it gets going, it may be too hard to stop
  • could be turned down, or shut off completely, by limiting the amount of air flow into the base of the funnel
  • as the vortex grows it would likely be able to pull in warm ambient air from many kilometres away, creating the possibility for debris accumulation and making it more difficult to manage.
  • series of controlled tornados along the equator would carry that heat to the outer edges of the atmosphere, where it could more easily escape.
barnaby

People's Weekly World - Iraq Inc.: Corporate hogs feed at war trough - 0 views

shared by barnaby on 07 Sep 07 - Cached
  • privatization has become the preferred method
  • U.S.-paid private contractors now far exceeds the number of American combat troops in Iraq
  • occupy whole countries
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • 180,000 U.S. civilians working in Iraq under U.S. contracts
  • does not include tens of thousands who have been hired by many of these as “sub-contractors” or tens of thousands who have been hired as “private security.”
  • exceeds by at least 20,000 the number of combat troops,
  • union-busting activities and mercenary operations to control whole towns
  • 43,000 “foreign” (non-American, non-Iraqi) contractors on the U.S. payroll
  • President Bush earns the distinction of being the first president in U.S. history to rely on private corporations to carry out the occupation of a country.
  • coalition is billing the American taxpayer.”
  • our young men and women dying to support corporate contractors
  • Interviews granted to the People’s Weekly World by Iraqi trade unionists
  • laying the groundwork for a permanent economic occupation of that country
  • We never had problems providing electricity to the people until they started this privatization with U.S.-paid operators
barnaby

Kerry Trueman: Faux Holy Roller Gets Arrested for Preaching The First Amendment at Crit... - 0 views

  • mock missionary
  • "Reverend Billy has a First Amendment right to recite the First Amendment," Norman Siegel
  • second-degree harassment
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • because he wouldn't stop reciting the First Amendment to a bunch of stone-faced cops.
  • routinely rub the NYPD the wrong way
  • City Hall claims the cyclists don't have the right to assemble and pedal
  • Transportation Alternatives advocate a "green hierarchy" which gives priority to pedestrians, cyclists, mass transit, and commercial vehicles over the single occupancy cars
  • the NYPD hauled the Reverend Billy off to jail for reciting the First Amendment at the monthly bicycle rally known as Critical Mass
barnaby

Back to the Tap - TIME - Mozilla Firefox - 0 views

  • 1.1 billion people around the world lack safe drinking water
  • Turn on a tap almost anywhere in America, and you'll get clean, safe water
  • giant plastic bottles of water that many of us haul around
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Americans drank more than 8.25 billion gal
  • Water sales topped $10.8 billion last year
  • fosters a perception that tap water isn't safe or necessary
  • It takes oil
  • Fewer than a quarter of plastic bottles are recycled
  • 2 billion lbs. (900 million kg) a year to clog landfills.
  • putting stress on the environment
  • aging public-water systems need investment
  • Gigi Kellett
  • "An entire generation is growing up thinking they have to get their water out of a bottle."
  • San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom last month barred officials from using municipal funds to buy bottled water
  • New York City launched a $1 million campaign this summer to encourage citizens to stick to the city's famously clean public water
  • top-flight restaurants that once would never have dreamed of serving tap are ditching the bottles
  • "I think the industry is being targeted unfairly," says Patrick Racz, CEO of Icelandic Water
  • bottled water weans consumers off soda
barnaby

Just say no to sprawl | Business | Rhode Island news | projo.com | The Providence Journ... - 0 views

  • state housing officials yesterday pledged up to $10 million to support the development of more integrated communities
  • aims to prevent further loss of the state’s dwindling forests, and conserve land, energy, water and other natural resources
  • recast the negative associations with “density” by creating attractive yet more compact communities that offer easy access to shopping, jobs and public transportation
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • one of the biggest challenges to such developments will be zoning laws.
  • at least 25 percent of the homes in the proposed development must be affordable
  • $10 million will include a mix of maybe $8 million in bonds and another $2 million in grants and other subsidies,
barnaby

SN&R > Local Stories > Rx wars > 08.23.07 - Mozilla Firefox - 0 views

  • 100 federal charges against medicinal-marijuana patients have been documented since 2001
  • The problem, according to Sands, is that state governments receive funding from the Drug Enforcement Administration, earmarked for the War on Drugs
  • had to go to court to defend himself. “The head of a major narcotics office actually had already sent a letter [dismissing my case] to my attorney,”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • research was only possible because of legal loopholes that have since been blocked
  • DEA has turned down his requests to import marijuana from the Netherlands
  • no such thing as freedom of research
  • fear that cannabis dispensaries serve as an additional source for recreational marijuana.
  • use among teenagers actually has dropped
  • teenage marijuana use had gone down by as much as 50 percent in states that had legalized medicinal marijuana.
  • “Kids don’t want to smoke their grandma’s medicine,” Landers offered.
barnaby

The Highwaymen - 0 views

  • 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which called for the federal and state governments to build 41,000 miles of high-quality roads
  • June 29, 2006, Mitch Daniels, the former Bush administration official turned governor of Indiana
  • Indiana had received $3.8 billion from a foreign consortium
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Cintra and the Macquarie Infrastructure Group (mig) of Australia
  • state would hand over operation of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years
  • tax breaks
  • immunity from most local and state taxes
  • generate more than $11 billion over the 75-year
  • prelude to a host of such efforts to come.
  • privatizing everything from the New York Thruway to the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey turnpikes,
  • $25 billion in public-private highway deals are in the works
  • Transurban, paid more than half a billion dollars for a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway
  • $1.3 billion bid by Cintra and construction behemoth Zachry Construction to build and operate a 40-mile toll road out of Austin.
barnaby

Bush Aide Blocked Report - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

  • A few of the issues it focuses on, such as AIDS treatment and research, have been public health priorities for the Bush administration.
  • more politically sensitive.
  • Richard Walling
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • "I don't think public health was what his vision was. As far as the international office was concerned, it was a political office of the secretary. . . . What he was looking for, and in general what he was always looking for, was, 'How do we promote the policies and the programs of the administration?' This report didn't focus on that."
  • Mark A. Abdoo
  • "We believe this document should be focused tightly on the Administration's major priorities in global health so the American public can understand better why these issues should be important to them. As such, the draft should be a policy statement, albeit one that is evidence based and draws on the best available science."
  • Steiger, 37, is a godson of former president George H.W. Bush and the son of a moderate Republican who represented Wisconsin in the House and hired a young Dick Cheney as an intern
  • Steiger's parents, now deceased, were "lifelong friends" of many members of the same congressional class, including the Rumsfelds and the Bushes.
  • Steiger promoted interest in global health
  • doubling the number of expert staff members overseas
  • "You have to look at his skills as an executive leader in spite of the fact that he doesn't have a medical degree or a public health degree," Hall said.
  • Public health advocates have accused Steiger of political meddling before
  • demanding changes in the language of an international report on obesity
  • U.S. food manufacturers and the sugar industry.
  • Carmona at one point suggested that Steiger release the global health report in tandem with a separate report of the sort Steiger wanted,
  • Carmona testified
  • tarnish the office of the surgeon general when our colleagues saw us taking a political stand."
  • U.S. used to be a leader in this field," Novotny said.
  • global health document was one of several reports
  • suppressed because they disliked the reports' conclusions
  • Bush administration has always believed that public health policy should be rooted in science. "While we appreciate and respect Dr. Carmona's service as surgeon general, we disagree with his statements," Hall said.
barnaby

Latin American Banana Farmers Sue U.S. Companies Over Pesticides - 0 views

  • at least 5,000 agricultural workers from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama
  • left sterile after being exposed in the 1970s to the pesticide known as DBCP
  • issue of whether multinational companies should be held accountable in the country where they are based or the countries where they employ workers
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • negligence and fraudulent concealment while using the pesticide.
  • generally accepted studies in the scientific community of which we are aware which establishes an effect on sterility in banana farm workers
  • placed under the jurisdiction of Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney.
barnaby

Alabama farmers want to export more to Cuba - USATODAY.com - 0 views

  • able to do business with Cuba under a law passed by Congress in 2000 allowing the sale of humanitarian and agricultural products to the island nation
  • imported about $1.55 billion in goods from the United States
  • The Cuban market is large: The nation imports half to two-thirds of its staples
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Cuba will import $300 million to $350 million in goods from the USA
  • Granma daily newspaper, which on its website proclaims it the "Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba," is printed on newsprint made at three south Alabama paper mills
  • Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said earlier this year that it would be "naive" to think that easing trade restrictions would improve conditions in Cuba
sirgabrial

The Weather Channel Adopts Sustainable Practices (TreeHugger) - 0 views

  • This studio is expected to earn the LEED certification with on-air production by April 2008
  • n addition, the network has a few other environmental plans, such as sorting more than half (why not all?) of all disposables and taking them to recycling centers, replacing Styrofoam cups in break rooms and switching to CFL’s.
  • CFL’s
    • sirgabrial
       
      *compact fluorcent lamps *use less energy *lasts longer *initial cost is more but over the lifetime of the bulb you save money
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Weather Channel Executive Vice President and General Manager Wonya Lucas said, "Green is really the new black. We look at the world through the lens of weather, and now we're also looking at it through a lens of green."
  • CFL’s
    • sirgabrial
       
      *stand for "Compact fluoresent lamp" *uses less energy *lasts longer *initial purchase price of a CFL is higher than an incandescent lamp of the same output
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