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How big are we?

Not very as it were…
Hattip: Bad Astronomy Blog

“Going Galt” On Tobacco Taxes With E-Cigarettes

I’m not the only one, Ace of Spades HQ says:

“Going Galt” On S-CHIP [Komrad Vinnieovich]?
Thanks to President Barack Hussein Oteleprompter’s promise to not raise taxes on any family making under $250,000 a year (or $200,000 as an individual), some friends and I have decided that it’s a good time to quit using tobacco products. [...]

Great Cartoon …

EA “Spore” forum mod confirms Spore kill switch?

An Electronic Arts “Spore” forum moderator threatens to disable the entire game for a user’s simply having asked about SecuROM in EA’s forums. This would seem to confirm that Spore does in fact have a kill switch built in, which is something that the EA apologists have continually dismissed.
“SecuROM as [sic] been discussed and discussed [...]

MS Blog Announces Windows 7 Plans for New and Improved Bloat

Talk about not learning from one’s mistakes…

The Windows 7 Team
There’s a lot to building an org structure for a large team, but the most important part is planning the work of the team. This planning is integral to realizing our goal of improving the overall consistency and “togetherness” for Windows 7. So rather than think [...]

Yahoo! Taking DRM Servers Offline … No Music For You!

You know, somehow, “We told you so” just doesn’t quite say it…
Yahoo! Music Store taking DRM servers offline, freezing out customers
In a move which at best could be described as unsurprising, Yahoo! has announced that it’s taking its Music Store DRM license key servers offline come September 30th… and freezing customers from ever registering [...]

Next Generation SSDs Delayed Due to Vista

Vista is the gift that just keeps on giving …
Speaking during SanDisk’s second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid state drive makers. “As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding [...]

Blu-ray BD+ Cracked as Expected

In July 2007, Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group (BD+ Standards Board) claimed that ‘BD+, won’t likely be breached for 10 years.

BD+ Unbreakable for 10 Years says Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group
Richard Doherty a Media analyist with Envisioneering Group says ” BD +, Unlike AACS, Which suffered a partial Hack Last Year, Won’t likely be [...]

Travel Inside the Nucleus to See How DNA Replicates

Via the Biosingularity Blog: In this video see an animation of DNA Wrapping and also a neat visualization of how DNA is actually copied in living cells.

Hattip Snowcrash
Also look for more Free Science Videos and Lectures Online at YouTube. Take a look at theFree Science Videos and Lectures website. [...]

Thousands of Library of Congress Photos Now Available on Flickr

Photoshoppers rejoice!
Offering historical photograph collections through Flickr gives the Library of Congress a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images with a new visual community.
We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!
To view the [...]

Wall-Mart Puts the Muscle on Warner and BMG to Ditch DRM

You all know those stories we hear about the E-v-i-l Wal-Mart muscling the poor manufacturers and distributors to lower prices. Well this time Wally World is using its power for the forces of Good!

A Tipping Point For MP3s
(waaaay down the article we find this little nugget of good news)
… mass merchant Wal-Mart [is] alerting [...]

Safe Portable Nuclear Battery on the Horizon

Like DDT, and anthropomorphic global warming, the exaggeration about the dangers of nuclear energy have been driven by the media and extremist political groups to the point of the ridiculous.
One would think that in a free society you would find at least some factual reporting regarding science. Unfortunately it seems to ever be the case [...]

Amusing: Windows XP Outshines Vista in Benchmarking Test

This made me chuckle, (I may have even chortled)

Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test
New tests have revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1.
Vista’s first service pack, to be released early next year, is intended to boost the operating [...]

Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Hacked to Run on PCs

PC World tell us …
Leopard Hacked to Run on PCs
The OSx86 Scene forum is offering full instructions on how to install the newest Mac OS on Windows PCs.
The cat and mouse game between hackers and Apple takes another move, with news that Apple’s new Leopard operating system has already been successfully installed on Windows PCs.
The [...]

Zhelatin Worm; Botnet Spread to 10 Million PCs, Now Via Automated Blog Postings

ARS Technica tells us that the Zhelatin gang’s “Storm Worm” has now evolved way beyond spam and infected e-card greetings.
The “Zhelatin gang”—named after the trojan it installed—was responsible for what started out as the “storm worm.” First spotted earlier this year, the spread of the “storm worm” started via e-mails purporting to provide [...]

One Horsepower Car … Literally One Horse!

By way of idiocracy and AutoBlog: Politech Presents The … Fleethorse!

One Horsepower Car … Literally One Horse!

idiocracy is asking if this idea is serious or satire. PoliTech says it’s seriously stupid!
But funny!
Here is the site: FleetHorse.com

Vista Beta Service Pack 1 “Upgradeable Version” Now Leaked

According to eWeek a new Vista beta service pack is now available. One which can be used as an “Upgradeable Version” for existing Vista installations. eWeek article here:
(yea I know there is one of those “Flash Annoyance” things, just click passed it)

Vista Beta SP1 Leaked

Over the Aug. 24 weekend, a new Vista beta [...]

LG DVD Drive: 8X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 8X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-ROM 16X CD-R 16X CD-RW 32X CD-ROM CD, DVD: 2MB BD, HD: 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi Blue BD Burner and HD DVD Reader

Really! Thats the name of the LG Model GGW-H10NI DVD Burner.

What an absolute joke. Not the LG Product, (it’s a nice drive although a little pricey) but this whole Optical Media standards war that has been ongoing for the last ten years or so.
Which technology can use this alphabet soup idiocy to actually win [...]

Reviving Old PC800 RDRAM PCs

I recently came across an old Gateway Performance 1400 that needed fixing. Generally a PC this old is to be considered “Scrap” and usually I advise the client that it’s time for the dreaded replacement. Then comes the painful process of moving of data, apps, and all of the other nightmarish stuff that comes to [...]

The iZune!

Thanks Charles

Heritical Thoughts About Science and Society

This article makes for some good food for thought. Caution! If you are a Anthro-Global Warming zealot you may not like it.
HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
By Freeman Dyson
My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the [...]

DHS Hopes to Equip Police With “The Barf-Beam”

Via FOX:

Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up

The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it’s pointed at.

“There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says IOS President Bob Lieberman. “Vlad [IOS top scientist Vladimir Rubtsov] calls it ‘the evil color.’”

A Nanomechanical Computer

In an article from The Institute of Psysics:

A nanomechanical computer—exploring new avenues of computing

Here is the abstract:
We propose a fully mechanical computer based on nano-electromechanical elements. Our aim is to combine this classical approach with modern nanotechnology to build a nanomechanical computer (NMC) based on nanomechanical transistors. The main motivation behind constructing such a computer [...]

iPhone Magic

Via: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

iPhone Dissected: They did it, so you don’t have to

From anandtech:
We have only had the phone for a few hours but we needed to get inside its casing, what follows is our dissection of the Apple iPhone. Please note that we’re doing this so you are not tempted to on your recent $500/$600 expenditure, while it is quite possible to take apart using easy [...]

DesktopStandard Software Mismanaged by Microsoft

There is an email floating around from Microsoft asking DesktopStandard Software Customers to participate in a survey regarding Desktop Standard products, such as PolicyMaker, ProfileMaker, and GPO Vault. They want to know what the current Desktop Standard customers think of the Microsoft aquisition. Someone I know had this to say:
Yes PoliTech, I took the survey, [...]

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”

Via Oikeuden edessä and slashdot:

Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”
In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of “effective technological measures”. [...]

09 f9: A Legal Primer … or … What is the AACS-LA’s Legal argument?

The AACS-LA made some news yesterday. Read about some of it here, here, and here, as well as the following from the EFF Deep Links section:
What is the AACS-LA’s argument? In its takedown letters, the AACS-LA claims that hosting the key violates the DMCA’s ban on trafficking in circumvention devices. The DMCA provides that:
No person [...]

FTC official: Let’s imprison spyware distributors

FTC official (William Kovacic) says “Let’s imprison spyware distributors”
Steep fines are nice, but one of the best weapons against spyware purveyors is locking them up, a federal regulator told senators on Tuesday.
At a morning Senate Commerce Committee hearing here, Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers [...]