PC game developer has radical message: ignore the pirates

Seeded on Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:23 PM EDT (Ars Technica)

One of the popular reasons given for sometimes-sluggish game sales on the PC is piracy. If people can get the game for free, why would they pay for it? Go to any popular torrent site and it will likely have many more games than your local gaming store.

technology, games, gaming, copy-protection, piracy, duh

Getting the public to pay attention to good science

Seeded on Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:03 AM EST (Ars Technica)

The importance of quality information was driven home by a recent study that revealed a tendency for false or misleading information regarding breast cancer to appear on web sites devoted to alternative medicine.

science, hard-numbers, research, advertisements, congress

MetaRAM launches 8GB DIMMs

Seeded on Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:58 AM EST (Ars Technica)

Since its launch in January 2006, the only thing that has been publicly known about former AMD CTO Fred Weber's new venture is its name: MetaRAM.

technology, ram, goodness

Pakistan Slides Into Chaos: War in Waziristan

Seeded on Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:40 PM EST (The Seminal)

In the last two days war has broken out in South Waziristan, Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Yesterday a group of about 200 fighters stormed a military fort, achieving a decisive victory.

world-news, pakistan, chaos, war, open-conflict, taliban, al-queda

Grand Old Party has blocked the bill that would have banned torture.

Seeded on Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:07 PM EST (The Huffington Post)

Senate Republicans blocked a bill Friday that would restrict the interrogation methods the CIA can use against terrorism suspects.

politics, torture, waterboarding, cruelty, security

Marine's Father sues church for cheering son's death

Seeded on Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:50 PM EDT (eveningsun.com)

"They turned this funeral into a media circus and they wanted to hurt my family," Snyder testified. "They wanted their message heard and they didn't care who they stepped over. My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside."

us-news, first-amendment, westboro-baptist

YES! Judge Stands Firm: White House Emails Fair Game

Seeded on Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:36 PM EDT (Daily Kos)

A U.S. magistrate on Friday rejected arguments by the Bush administration and urged a federal judge to order the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails.

politics, white-house, executive-office, e-mail, boom-head-shot

Pirates take over anti-piracy website

Seeded on Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:21 PM EDT (tech.co.uk)

Software pirates have launched an astonishing smash 'n' grab raid on the music biz, stealing the domain name of one of its foremost anti-piracy bodies.

business, piracy, pirate-bay, domain-name, egg-on-face

Cyber-crime now surpasses value of world wide drug trade

Seeded on Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:45 AM EDT (itnews.com.au)

McAfee CEO David DeWalt says cyber-crime has become a US$105 billion business that now surpasses the value of the illegal drug trade worldwide.

technology, cyber-crime, crime, drug-trade, security, money

MPAA says Pirate Party Politicians Are Illegitimate Thieves

Seeded on Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:34 AM EDT (torrentfreak.com)

"This can only be seen as MPAA calling democracy illegitimate. We are a registered political party finishing in the top ten in a parliamentary democracy," says Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party in a response to TorrentFreak.

politics, mpaa, pirate-party, pirate-bay, copyright

Salt water as fuel?

Seeded on Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:19 PM EDT (post-gazette.com)

For obvious reasons, scientists long have thought that salt water couldn't be burned. So when an Erie man announced he'd ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he'd invented, some thought it a was a hoax.

science, water, hydrogen, fuel, combustion, penn-state-university, materials-research-laboratory

Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act

Seeded on Thu Sep 6, 2007 4:01 PM EDT (Yahoo! News)

A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court's approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

politics, isp, seperation-of-powers, aclu, patriot-act

County to Young: You Can Take Your Shady Earmark and Shove It

Seeded on Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:11 AM EDT (tpmmuckraker.com)

A county body in Florida voted today to send back Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) $10 million earmark. Young rewrote the language in the bill while it was on its way to the President's desk -- after passing both Houses of Congress.

politics, pork, earmark, shady, republican, ethics, busted

Rep. Don Young altered a bill's language AFTER it passed Congress, but before Bush signed it

Seeded on Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:12 PM EDT (tpmmuckraker.com)

There are earmarks, and then there are earmarks.

politics, republican, bill, earmark, rewrite, law, bush, moral-compass-is-screwed, obscene-gesture

Requiem for a legal disaster: a retrospective analysis of SCO v. Novell: Page 1

Seeded on Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:49 AM EDT (Ars Technica)

In 2003, proprietary UNIX vendor SCO filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM. SCO accused IBM of surreptitiously incorporating proprietary UNIX source code into the open-source Linux kernel, thus infringing upon UNIX copyrights allegedly held by SCO.

business, sco, linux, novell, unixware, unix, copyrights, microsoft, sun, ownership

Westboro Baptist Church Attacked by Angry Mob

Seeded on Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:24 PM EDT (atheistnation.net)

Finally, some justice. My moral compass dictates that if there is a supreme being that he should help us all out be sending something heavy to fall on Westboro Baptists. Pity I'm agnostic, so chances of that happening are near nil.

us-news, crazy-christians, atheist-nation, most-hated-family, god-hates-fags, god-hates-america, free-speech

Microsoft critizes "War on Terror" and it's fear mongering.

Seeded on Thu Aug 9, 2007 12:56 PM EDT (apcmag.com)

When does too much security become, well, too much? According to Steve Riley, senior security strategist at Microsoft, it becomes too much when the cost of mitigating the risk outweighs the cost of that which you are trying to protect.

us-news, war-on-terror, security, fear

Ancient human mtDNA genotypes from England reveal lost variation over the last millennium

Seeded on Thu Aug 9, 2007 12:47 PM EDT (journals.royalsoc.ac.uk)

We analysed the historical genetic diversity of human populations in Europe at the mtDNA control region for 48 ancient Britons who lived between ca AD 300 and 1000, and compared these with 6320 modern mtDNA genotypes from England and across Europe and the Middle East.

science, genetic-diveristy, humans, genetics, mitochondrial-dna

Linux to power Google GPhone?

Seeded on Mon Aug 6, 2007 10:23 AM EDT (linuxdevices.com)

Google's first mobile phone will run a Linux operating system on a Texas Instruments "Edge" chipset, and will likely ship to T-Mobile and Orange customers in the Spring of 2008, according to unconfirmed reports.

world-news, google, gphone, cell-phone, linux

University won't release names to recording industry

Seeded on Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:53 PM EDT (kansan.com)

The University is refusing to forward pre-litigation letters from the recording industry to it's students on the grounds that doing so could be an invasion of student privacy.

us-news, riaa, confidential, university-of-kansas, file-sharing, music

Atheist doctors more likely to care for the poor than religious ones

Seeded on Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:39 PM EDT (Press Esc)

Atheist doctors are likely to practice medicine among the underprivileged than religious physicians, even though most religions call on the faithful to serve the poor, according to the results of large cross-sectional survey of US medical practitioners published in Annals of Fami …

world-news, atheism, agnostic, doctors, health-care, poor

FBI, Congress: Sibel Edmonds case 'unclassified'

Seeded on Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:57 AM EDT (Daily Kos)

Former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged woman in US history. Attorney General John Ashcroft twice invoked the rarely used States Secrets Privilege in her case under the guise of classified secrets and protecting national security.

travel, coverup, censorship, gag-order, national-security, wistle-blower, sibel-edmonds, translator, fbi, treason

RIAA backtracks after embarrassing P2P defendant

Seeded on Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:33 AM EDT (Ars Technica)

When the RIAA filed a file-sharing lawsuit against a sergeant in the US Army earlier this year, it included the customary exhibits with screenshots of what it alleges are the defendant's Kazaa library. Along with the 367 sound recordings that Sgt.

us-news, riaa, file-sharing, us-army, kazaa

Top Fall Pilots Leaked Online

Seeded on Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:23 AM EDT (tvweek.com)

At least half a dozen highly anticipated broadcast network fall pilots have been leaked online.

us-news, bit-torrent, pirate-bay, mininova, pirate, tv, episodes, bionic-woman, pushing-daisies, reaper

Bush's Turkish Gamble

Seeded on Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:03 PM EDT (The Washington Post)

The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation. High-level U.S.

world-news, robert-novak, turkey, iraq, kurd, pkk, turkish-invasion, terrorism

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