News Stories

[AnimeFan188]

"A federal judge ruled Monday that publishing an entire article without the rights
holder’s authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper
copyright troll Righthaven.

It’s not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use.
Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work
for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is
analyzed on a case-by-case basis."

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...r-use-defense/

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Interesting. Anyone know how Bitcoins works exactly?

There's a distributed protocol ensuring that the total supply of bitcoins is predictable (and slowly rising toward some limit), and that users can securely trade them. IIRC, for a transaction to be considered valid, both parties have to agree to it, and it must be witnessed by several other... bitcoin clients (electronic signatures are involved). And everyone keeps track of where every bitcoin is... (Or at least where every bitcoin they touched goes, for several exchanges)

They're not issued by any government, so I guess they're a bit like WoW money?

[Jeffry2009]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/hac...ry?id=13884856

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Jeffry2009

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/hac...ry?id=13884856

One has to wonder what exactly they're trying to accomplish by intruding themselves into these companies and taking people's personal info. Are they after the corporations, or is it really a conspiracy to convince people that the government needs to have more control over the inet, if not perhaps to simply raise prices for services provided under the pretense that they will provide greater security than before? Either way, I'm not really sure this guerrilla hacking is doing anyone any good.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

There's a distributed protocol ensuring that the total supply of bitcoins is predictable (and slowly rising toward some limit), and that users can securely trade them. IIRC, for a transaction to be considered valid, both parties have to agree to it, and it must be witnessed by several other... bitcoin clients (electronic signatures are involved). And everyone keeps track of where every bitcoin is... (Or at least where every bitcoin they touched goes, for several exchanges)

They're not issued by any government, so I guess they're a bit like WoW money?

I was more wondering how you get a bitcoin (bar buying one). From my (limited) reading it seems that you do so by solving cryptographic problems of some sort. Is this done by donating your computers time, and getting coins in return, or is it something else?

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I was more wondering how you get a bitcoin (bar buying one). From my (limited) reading it seems that you do so by solving cryptographic problems of some sort. Is this done by donating your computers time, and getting coins in return, or is it something else?

I suppose it is part of the transaction handshake to prevent automated brute force password/account hacking attacks.

[ganbaru]

AP IMPACT: Tritium leaks found at many nuke sites
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-21-10-49-46

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Tsuyoshi

One has to wonder what exactly they're trying to accomplish by intruding themselves into these companies and taking people's personal info. Are they after the corporations, or is it really a conspiracy to convince people that the government needs to have more control over the inet, if not perhaps to simply raise prices for services provided under the pretense that they will provide greater security than before? Either way, I'm not really sure this guerrilla hacking is doing anyone any good.

The *intent* I think is to get these moron "giant entities" executives to actually spend some money *on* their infrastructure and security practices and a little less lining their pockets with bonuses and payouts the company needed to run properly.

Frankly, I'm watching SONY to see if they start pulling more control and management *back* to Japan and less to "American grown" (i.e. screw the company, I'm taking the loot) management since the large part of the fiasco happened under years of infrastructure neglect in the US.

The government hits are similar with an added "there's no authority if there's no credibility" angle. The big problem is I'm not sure you want to embarrass these guys - they tend to punish without reflecting on *why* the eggs were thrown.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The *intent* I think is to get these moron "giant entities" executives to actually spend some money *on* their infrastructure and security practices and a little less lining their pockets with bonuses and payouts the company needed to run properly.

Frankly, I'm watching SONY to see if they start pulling more control and management *back* to Japan and less to "American grown" (i.e. screw the company, I'm taking the loot) management.

The government hits are similar with an added "there's no authority if there's no credibility" angle.

And also this :

Why Bill Gross wants U.S. to go back to school

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Neither political party is facing up to America’s real economic challenges, says bond-fund manager and part-time philosopher Bill Gross in his latest missive.

“Neither party has an awareness of the why or the wherefores of how to put America back to work again,” he writes on the Pimco website. Read the full essay by Bill Gross here.

Both parties are enthralled by the deficit reduction, and aren’t even talking about making the investments the country needs to compete over the next 25 or 50 years.

Gross’s take? Temporarily, government needs to take a larger role — not a smaller one — in the economy.

America simply doesn’t have the workforce trained to compete in today’s global economy, he argues. Instead of workers skilled in technology, math and science, we have too many people trained in finance and the liberal arts, or simply not trained at all.

Our human capital is invested in the wrong skills, and our physical capital is deteriorating. The contrast with China couldn’t be sharper.

Investing in public works? As Britain mulls privatizing government agencies to cut costs and reduce deficits, it's worth pondering whether the U.S. might follow suit — and whether there's an investment play today.

“We are left untrained, underinvested and overindebted relative to our global competitors,” Gross says. “The precipitating cause of our structural employment break is both internal neglect and external competition.”

Gross, whose massive Pimco bond fund is now short U.S. Treasurys, says the political emphasis (in both parties) on deficit reduction and tax cuts is misguided. Cutting the deficit won’t magically create 20 million jobs, and neither will cutting taxes for corporations or high-income individuals.

“It’s difficult to believe, however, that an American-based corporation, with profits as its primary focus, can somehow be wooed back to American soil with a feeble and historically unjustified assurance that Social Security will be now secure or that medical care inflation will disinflate,” he says.

“Pushing on the private-sector string is ineffective, especially within the context of a global marketplace that offers alternative investment locations,“ he says.

Gross could be merely talking his book, arguing for more deficit spending as a way to drive down the price of bonds. Or maybe he’s right, that in the current crisis, the government should be the employer and teacher of last resort, providing every unemployed American a job in the morning and trigonometry classes in the afternoon.

In either case, it’s an odd sight to see a billionaire bond trader who’s more liberal than anyone of consequence in the Democratic Party.

I wished the US did. We have shut-ins from US who figured out ways to hack the then new ATM machines and get free bus rides in the 1980s, as well as documenting them on BBSes and the Anarchist Cookbook - it is extremely enjoyable to read such freely circulated knowledge since those tests and formulas couldn't be built out in the open where I live.

Though US might end up looking like what XKCD prescribed.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

And also this :

Why Bill Gross wants U.S. to go back to school



I wished the US did. We have shut-ins from US who figured out ways to hack the then new ATM machines and get free bus rides in the 1980s, as well as documenting them on BBSes and the Anarchist Cookbook - it is extremely enjoyable to read such freely circulated knowledge since those tests and formulas couldn't be built out in the open where I live.

Though US might end up looking like what XKCD prescribed.

The guy's got some points. We shouldn't be worrying about the deficit while we're still in an economic recovery. Get the economy moving and people back to work, and then worry about it. Of course it never seems to work that way. Even if we did that, as soon as the economy recovered everyone would forget about the paying down the debt when times are good part.

[Vexx]

Yeah, I've seen Bill Gross's comments elsewhere and he absolutely nails it on the head. I just don't think we (the US) are going to pull out of this tailspin - mostly because NONE of the major players are using the right words in a sentence. Perhaps we (the peasants) can construct a new plane out of the bits remaining on the ground but it may be a half-century or more.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

The guy's got some points. We shouldn't be worrying about the deficit while we're still in an economic recovery. Get the economy moving and people back to work, and then worry about it. Of course it never seems to work that way. Even if we did that, as soon as the economy recovered everyone would forget about the paying down the debt when times are good part.

Eh, I would't be so sure. In previous times of plenty the USA did pay down it's debts, no reason to think it can't do so again.

It was the recent republican administrations that messed this up.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I was more wondering how you get a bitcoin (bar buying one). From my (limited) reading it seems that you do so by solving cryptographic problems of some sort. Is this done by donating your computers time, and getting coins in return, or is it something else?

Oh. As I said, the protocol generates some bitcoins to increase the supply (less and less as time goes by). Who gets it is, I think, randomly chosen among those supporting the system by, yes, letting their client run (to make and witness transactions). But from what I've heard, it's way too late to hope getting money that way. (Too many users, not enough coins generated.)

So if you want bitcoins, you pretty much have to convince someone to give you some (with money, goods, service, or maybe as part of some promotional operation).

Kinda makes me wonder how people will beg if we ever switch entirely to electronic money. Though I guess before that happens, they'll have to make it easy for money to go from hand to hand.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Oh. As I said, the protocol generates some bitcoins to increase the supply (less and less as time goes by). Who gets it is, I think, randomly chosen among those supporting the system by, yes, letting their client run (to make and witness transactions). But from what I've heard, it's way too late to hope getting money that way. (Too many users, not enough coins generated.)

So if you want bitcoins, you pretty much have to convince someone to give you some (with money, goods, service, or maybe as part of some promotional operation).

Kinda makes me wonder how people will beg if we ever switch entirely to electronic money. Though I guess before that happens, they'll have to make it easy for money to go from hand to hand.

It isn't random, it's based on the amount of work the user does. It's still possible to make money that way, but at this point you pretty much need several machines optimized for bitcoin farming working in a group.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Yeah, I've seen Bill Gross's comments elsewhere and he absolutely nails it on the head. I just don't think we (the US) are going to pull out of this tailspin - mostly because NONE of the major players are using the right words in a sentence. Perhaps we (the peasants) can construct a new plane out of the bits remaining on the ground but it may be a half-century or more.

Originally Posted by Kamui4356

The guy's got some points. We shouldn't be worrying about the deficit while we're still in an economic recovery. Get the economy moving and people back to work, and then worry about it. Of course it never seems to work that way. Even if we did that, as soon as the economy recovered everyone would forget about the paying down the debt when times are good part.

But there is another problem :

Harvard Professor: I'm Worried About America

Prof. Clayton Christensen from the Harvard Business School says America's inability to attract the best and brightest minds to its shores has him worried about the nation's future.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

But there is another problem :

Harvard Professor: I'm Worried About America

I have to disagree. I did a stint at an american university and American universities get all the best international talent, with the only close contender being the UK. All the international students always said America is the top destination, including those I met in Ireland. I knew a Kazakstani who said he was only in Ireland as his grades weren't good enough for the USA scholarships...

That said the guy is right that anti immigration trends in the US could hamper that, but it hasn't done so yet.

[Urzu 7]

Man robs $1 from a bank to get medical care in jail

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...l-care-in-jail

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Man robs $1 from a bank to get medical care in jail

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...l-care-in-jail

make sense in a way, If you are a few years form social security and medicare and can't find a job.

Just need to make sure it is a federal crime as the federal prison are much better then state prison.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I have to disagree. I did a stint at an american university and American universities get all the best international talent, with the only close contender being the UK. All the international students always said America is the top destination, including those I met in Ireland. I knew a Kazakstani who said he was only in Ireland as his grades weren't good enough for the USA scholarships...

That said the guy is right that anti immigration trends in the US could hamper that, but it hasn't done so yet.

While that's true, you also have to consider the cost of studying in US universities/colleges, which are not too different from UK unis, as you say, particularly when it comes to international students. It's quite normal for them to have to pay 3 times the fee that a home student would have to pay. While the recognition (not neccessarily quality) of the education you receive from the US is greater than what you could get from other places, it's extremely difficult for international students to get something from it unless their family is very rich, or they take out a loan that indentures them for life. It's not neccessarily to do with anti-immigration laws.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Eh, I would't be so sure. In previous times of plenty the USA did pay down it's debts, no reason to think it can't do so again.

It was the recent republican administrations that messed this up.

So the Democrats had absolutely nothing to do with our current state? Interesting...

Both Parties have been steering this ship into the ditch that it currently is residing in, and I don't see either of them getting us out of this mess.