*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info

i hope this shows


http://www.huumor.com/pix/Signs/blondine_joke_from_real_life_001.jpg

 

Firefox 2.0 To Debut Tuesday

Posted by Zonk on Sunday October 22, @05:19PM
from the two-for-tuesday dept.
The Internet Mozilla
An anonymous reader writes "Firefox 2.0 for Tuesday, says the Seattle PI. They give a quick recap of some of the new features, and discuss the ongoing IE vs. Fox debate." From the article: "Version 2.0 also improves on the tabbed-windows interface that Mozilla innovated and that Microsoft introduced for the first time last week with IE7, its biggest upgrade since 2001. Analysts said IE7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, but the big question is whether it will stem Firefox's growth at Microsoft's expense. Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month, from 2.9 percent in October 2004."

Firefox 2.0 debuts Tuesday

By DAN RICHMAN
P-I REPORTER

Firefox 2.0, the foremost rival to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, is set for release Tuesday afternoon, said its producer, the not-for-profit Mozilla Corp.

The free 5-megabyte browser, available in 39 languages for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, will be downloadable from getfirefox.com, the Mountain View, Calif., company said.

The new release of the two-year-old product includes new features but strives to retain its simplicity of design and operation, Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, said earlier this week.

It incorporates anti-phishing technology to prevent the deceptive disclosure of personal information. It restores windows, tabs, in-progress downloads and text typed into online forms if any of those are interrupted by a system crash. And it corrects the spelling of words entered on Web pages.

Version 2.0 also improves on the tabbed-windows interface that Mozilla innovated and that Microsoft introduced for the first time last week with IE7, its biggest upgrade since 2001.

Analysts said IE7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, but the big question is whether it will stem Firefox's growth at Microsoft's expense. Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month, from 2.9 percent in October 2004.

Mozilla oversees the creation and maintenance of computer programs by volunteer developers, known as open-source software.

In contrast, most software companies, including Microsoft, rely exclusively on in-house programmers. Microsoft long opposed the open-source movement, an attitude that has attracted the company's detractors to Firefox.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/22/1823246&from=rss

 

MPAA corrupts US Scouts,


p2pnet.net News Special:- "Funny thing," said Rafael Venegas in a comment post to a p2pnet.net story highlighting the fact Hollywood has conned its way into the Boy Scout movement.

"You put two USA lawyers in opposing sides of any infringement lawsuit and they can't agree on how to interpret the law and its frequently contradictory jurisprudence. They can't even agree on what infringement is.

"And someone expects some kids in China to have knowledge of IP law'?"

Under discussion was the fact that in Hong Kong, Boy Scouts now have to toe the Hollywood line by 'earning' Intellectual Property merit badges.

Reads like a spoof, doesn't it? But sadly, it isn't because a new crime has come into being, and it's sweeping the world.

It's mind-rape, corporate child molestation of the worst kind, and perpetrating it with not only impunity, but implicit encouragement from parents, are the entertainment and software cartels who are invading schools and other institutions to teach our children right from wrong, good from bad and what's fair and what isn't.

Hollywood, traditionally one of the most corrupt places on earth, and the equally tainted music and software companies prating to our kids about right and wrong? It's like Jack the Ripper branching into cosmetic surgery.

In Hong Kong, kids are also copyright spies, and behind this terrible reality is Hollywood's MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) in its MPA guise.

And now it's come to America.

The MPAA proudly announces it's scammed the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts of America into a, "new education program".

The Big Six studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, want to, "help raise awareness about the value of copyrights among the over 52,000 young people involved in Boy Scout programs in the greater Los Angeles area," they say.

"The curriculum is part of an ongoing effort to educate kids about copyright protection and change attitudes towards intellectual property theft.

Troops will, "choose from a number of activities" to qualify for a "Respect Copyrights" patch.

"Activities include creating a public service announcement that demonstrates the importance of copyright protection or visiting a movie studio to learn about the people, time and costs required to make a movie and others," says the MPAA.

And the studios actually managed to get Victor Zuniga, Los Angeles Area Council Public Relations Director for the Boy Scouts of America, to issue a statement endorsing the debacle without the slightest trace of shame.

"We are excited to work with the MPAA to provide this new educational opportunity to our more than 52,000 young people who participate in our programs including: Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Venturing and Learning for Life, and are working to expand the program to include all Boy Scout councils within the Southern California area," the MPAA hacksters have him saying.

There are all kinds of examples of cartel invasions of our classrooms as they pollute the minds of our children with their disgusting, self-serving corporate junk, imposing standards designed to do only one thing: turn them into mindless consumers.

"The Respect Copyrights patch is a fun way for young kids to learn more about the what goes into making movies while garnering a deep appreciation."

There's no reason whatsoever for a child to know the slightest thing about intellectual property law, and to claim they need IP instruction is not merely farcical, it's obscene.

The right and proper action for LA parents who love their kids to take is to make a huge fuss. Write to their local newspaper, call the local radio and TV stations, organize a concerned parents' group.

Want to go camping? Camp on Victor Zuniga's front lawn.

And they'd be doing it not ony for their own child, but for every child in America and everywhere else in the world because one thing is for sure: the people who run the Hollywood and other cartels won't stop with LA, and nor will they stop with the Scouts.

"I can't help but think back (way too long ago) to the alternate version of the Boy Scout Oath we sometimes joked around with," says Bill Evans dryly:

On my honor I will do my best,
To take what they give me,
And steal the rest.

Next it'll be the Girl Guides and Sparks. Then the Sea cadets, Navy cadets, Air cadets, and ..........

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

~ George Orwell, 1984

===============

UPDATE:

I'm a former girl scout who enjoyed learning archery, survival skills, and self-defense, while my male peers mastered cooking and sewing, and I well remember the mania I had for collecting merit badges," says a post on sivacracy.net, from whence the pic came. "According to the article, there are no plans to develop a similar program in the United States, but I designed some nifty badges just in case the American scouting leadership has a change of heart.

(Thanks for the above, Masha)

Jon Newton

[FROM: p2pnet.ca]

Also See:
p2pnet.net - MPAA Boy Scout spies, July 18, 2006
terrible reality - Hong Kong's kiddie Net spies, May 31, 2006
sivacracy.net - Scout's Honor, July 23, 2006

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

Jon Newton

[FROM: p2pnet.ca]

Also See:
p2pnet.net - MPAA Boy Scout spies, July 18, 2006
terrible reality - Hong Kong's kiddie Net spies, May 31, 2006

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Saturday 21st October 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10183?PHPSESSID=7e2c9baa9ada6d349e06b9352023e703

 

If it was central europe in the '30s; i bet these scouts would be renamed as "MPAA's youth".

 

Give me a nice mug of Tetley anyday!

 

hey id sure like one of these badges
i could replace my school badge wih it im sure my scool wouldnt mind (there logo sucks enough).
if anyone wants to send me the weird boy scouts thingy that i forgot the name of in 2 seconds whilst writing this post. (you can breeave now )
send it to

glitchzoo,
United kingdom,
the world,
the universe.

im sure royal mail will know me

is there anyway to join a thread without having to post first then i wouldnt have to do random silly posts like this.

 

America in 2043

By Erin Texeira
Associated Press
posted: 21 October 2006
06:50 pm ET

Now that the United States officially numbers more than 300 million, what next?

What will 400 million look like?

If demographers are right, we'll hit that mark by 2043. They and other futurists envision a typical American neighborhood that year will be something like this:

More than likely it will be located in the South or West, despite scarce water resources and gas prices that make $3 a gallon (euro2.38 per 3.8 liters) look like a bargain. Barely half of the community's residents will be white, and one in four whites will be senior citizens. Nearly one in four people will be Latino and multiracial Americans will be commonplace.

"We're going to be growing for the next 50 or 100 years, but it's not because of the birthrate,'' said John Bongaarts, vice president of the Population Council, a nonprofit in New York. "If the birthrate were to drop we'd have a very different future ahead. If we were not living longer and had no migrants we wouldn't be growing at all.''

The U.S. will keep getting more racially and ethnically diverse—by 2043, it will be about 15 percent non-Hispanic black, 8 percent Asian and 24 percent Hispanic.

Ideas about race that hold sway now, simply won't then, just as the attitudes of 30 years ago have changed.

For example, in the 1970s one in three whites favored laws that barred marriage between blacks and whites; in recent years it's barely one in 10.

More than 7 million Americans reported in Census 2000 that they were multiracial—42 percent of them were under age 18.

"The racial lines will basically be blurred,'' said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. "It's hard to say what the different classifications will be. ... The stark racial categories now won't hold.''

Mixing and melding will be the norm for today's children, who by 2043 will be moving into positions of power across society as the last baby boomers close in on 80.

"Think of the electoral base,'' said C. Matthew Snipp, a sociologist and demographer at Stanford University. "It seems likely that the power structures will change.''

Demographers say some of today's trends will continue: Rust Belt cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland will probably keep losing population, though some argue that lower costs of living may attract people who can telecommute to jobs elsewhere.

The fastest growing states will continue to be Nevada, Arizona and Florida. Census projections through 2030 show the Sun Belt continuing to gain population.

With some cities and suburbs becoming more densely populated, far-out exurban areas will keep growing—which will probably mean longer commutes and more demand for gasoline. Demographers predict costs for gas and water, now relatively inexpensive, will mushroom.

Lifesaving drugs and technologies will help Americans stay alive longer than ever—and the nation overall will age.

In 2000, 12.4 percent of Americans were aged 65 and older—but that percentage is projected to jump to 20 percent by 2043. More than one in four residents of Florida, New Mexico, North Dakota, Maine, Montana and Wyoming will be over age 65.

Here's another way to think of the senior boom: Between 2000 and 2050, the group of Americans who are 85 and older will nearly quadruple to almost 21 million.

The good news is this will help revitalize rural, retirement-friendly places with lots of natural amenities like the nation's Western mountains and some Great Lakes areas, said Kenneth Johnson of Loyola University-Chicago. "These tourist and retirement destinations are the fastest-growing rural areas,'' he said, adding that this is attracting workers—many new immigrants—to build houses and tend hotels.

But a big bubble of elderly Americans also will strain Social Security and Medicare, and there will be "big battles'' over how to pay for them, Bongaarts said.

Demographers repeatedly warned that projections are iffy—things change.

Expected medical breakthroughs may not happen. World events—wars, diseases, economic ups and down—can stop or speed up immigration. Americans could stop having enough children to replace themselves, which they're just barely managing now. Things that seemed a lock just a short time ago can be thwarted.

Two years ago, for example, California officials downgraded by 15 percent their predictions for state growth, mainly because Latino families were having far fewer babies than expected. When the U.S. hit 200 million people in 1967, the nation was supposed to reach 300 million before the end of the century.

"Nobody really knows for certain where this will go,'' Snipp said. "All this is premised on many, many assumptions.''
http://www.livescience.com/history/061021_ap_population_400.html

 

Coming Soon: Fried Purple Tomatoes


By The Associated Press

posted: 21 October 2006
09:19 am ET

SALEM, Ore. (AP)—Oregon State University researchers are fine-tuning a purple tomato, a new blend of colors and nutrients. The skin is as dark as an eggplant. But it doesn't just look cool, it could be better for you.

The novel pigment contains the same phytochemical found in blueberries that is thought to reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

Six years in the making, the purple hybrid could hit salad plates in two years.

Genetic origins are not at issue. The purple tomato traces its roots to a wild species in South America, not a petri dish.

Jim Myers, the Oregon State professor overseeing the project, said he doesn't see it changing the world, but it may entice gardeners and commercial growers to try it.

Although locals can't buy the hybrids yet, several got to sample them at farmers markets around the Mid Valley this summer, and a handful got a sneak peek at a local nursery. Barbara Taylor of Monmouth marveled at its color when she saw the tomato last month.

"Wow,'' she said. "It's definitely different.''

It will be the first true purple tomato, Myers said, although a few heirlooms offer whispers of a muddy purple caused when pink fruit meets green skin.

Local tasters give mixed reviews, but researchers are working on a cross with the popular Sungold cherry tomatoes to boost the flavor.

That hybrid won't be ready for several years.

Hundreds of years ago, explorers discovered purple tomatoes in the wild, but the species never made it to the table because the fruit was small and some were poisonous, as all tomatoes once were thought to be.

In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists collected seeds from purple tomatoes and bred them with modern hybrids, making them safe to eat.

The research lagged until Oregon State graduate student Carl Jones resumed the work in 2000 on a hunch about the tomatoes' nutritional value.

Jones discovered that the purple tomato, unlike its red cousins, contained high levels of anthocyanins, a chemical found in dark fruit pigments such as blueberries and grapes that can act as an antioxidant.

The purple tomato also has red skin at the base, so it still contains lycopene, another antioxidant.

Despite six years of research and three generations of purple tomatoes, Oregon State's hybrid might not be first.

Professional seed producers have started developing their own purple tomato after hearing news of Oregon State's project.

Among them is former Oregon State graduate student Peter Mes, who worked on the school's project through 2004. Now he's a tomato breeder at Sakata Seed America and the school's closest competitor for the great grape-colored tomato.

Oregon State needs at least two more years to inbreed the tomato line in the field and stabilize its characteristics before releasing a variety. Mes says so does he.

Oregon State developed the purple tomato to promote health, but it's the color that will draw the most fame, said Rose Marie Nichols McGee, the owner of Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany.

Gardeners and consumers seek out unusual produce colors such as orange cauliflower and purple carrots, she said.

"I think we respond to something that looks a little bit different,'' she said. "It just catches our curiosity.''
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/061021_ap_purple_tomatoes.html

 

A Brief History of Human Sex

By Heather Whipps
Special to LiveScience
posted: 27 July 2006
10:03 am ET


Birds do it, bees do it, humans since the dawn of time have done it.

But just how much has the act really changed through the millennia and even in past decades? Are humans doing it more? Are we doing it better? Sort of, say scientists. But it's how people fess up to the truth about their sex lives that has changed the most over the years.

Humans have basically been the same anatomically for about 100,000 years—so what is safe to say is that if we enjoy it now, then so did our cave-dwelling ancestors and everyone else since, experts say.

"Just as our bodies tell us what we might like to eat, or when we should go to sleep, they lay down for us our pattern of lust," says University of Toronto psychologist Edward Shorter. "Sex has always offered pleasure."

Hard wired

Sexuality has a lot to do with our biological framework, agreed Joann Rodgers, director of media relations and lecturer at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
"People and indeed all animals are hard wired to seek out sex and to continue to do so," Rodgers said in a recent interview. "I imagine that is evidence that people at least like sex and even if they don't they engage in it as a biological imperative."

It is nearly impossible to tell, however, whether people enjoyed sex more 50 years ago or 50,000 years ago, said David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas and author of "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating" (Basic Books, 2003).

There is "no reason to think that we do more now than in the past, although we are certainly more frank about it," Buss told LiveScience.

Indeed, cultural restraints—rather than anything anatomical—have had the biggest effect on our sexual history, Shorter says.

"To be sure, what people actually experience is always a mixture of biological and social conditioning: Desire surges from the body, the mind interprets what society will accept and what not, and the rest of the signals are edited out by culture," he writes in his book, "Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire" (University of Toronto Press, 2005).

That's not to say that cultural norms keep people from exploring the taboo, but only what is admitted to openly, according to archaeologist Timothy Taylor of Great Britain's University of Bradford.

"The idea that there is a sexual line that must not be crossed but in practice often is, is far older than the story of Eve's temptation by the serpent," he writes in "The History of Sex: Four Million Years of Human Sexual Culture" (Bantam Books, 1996).

Modern advances

Religion especially has held powerful sway over the mind's attitude towards the body's carnal desires, most sexual psychologists agree. Men and women who lived during the pious Middle Ages were certainly affected by the fear of sin, Shorter said, though he notes there were other inhibiting factors to consider, too.

"The low priority attached to sexual pleasure by people who lived in distant times is inexplicable unless one considers the hindrances that existed in those days," Shorter writes. He points especially to the 1,000 years of misery and disease—often accompanied by some very un-sexy smells and itching—that led up to the Industrial Revolution. "After the mid-nineteenth century, these hindrances start to be removed, and the great surge towards pleasure begins."

Many historians and psychologists see the late 1800s as a kind of watershed period for sexuality in the Western world. With the industrial revolution pushing more and more people together—literally—in dense, culturally-mixed neighborhoods, attitudes towards sex became more liberal.

The liberalization of sexuality kicked into high gear by the 1960s with the advent of the birth control pill, letting women get in on the fun and act on the basis of desire as men always had, according to Shorter.

"The 1960s vastly accelerated this unhesitant willingness to grab sex for the sheer sake of physical pleasure," he said, noting that the trend of openly seeking out sex just because it feels good, rather than for procreation alone, has continued on unabated into the new millennium.

Global variations

But despite the modern tendency towards sexual freedom, even today there are vast differences in attitudes across the world, experts say.

"Cultures vary tremendously in how early they start having sex, how open they are about it, and how many sexual partners they have," said Buss, noting that Swedes generally have many partners in their lifetime and the Chinese typically have few.

An informal 2005 global sex survey sponsored by the condom company Durex confirmed Buss' views. Just 3 percent of Americans polled called their sex lives "monotonous," compared to a sizable 26 percent of Indian respondents. While 53 percent of Norwegians wanted more sex than they were having (a respectable 98 times per year, on average), 81 percent of the Portuguese were quite happy with their national quota of 108 times per year.

Though poll numbers and surveys offer an interesting window into the sex lives of strangers, they're still constrained by the unwillingness of people to open up about a part of their lives that's usually kept behind closed doors.

And what if we weren't bound by such social limitations? Taylor offers the promiscuous—and very laid-back—bonobo chimpanzee as a utopian example.

"Bonobos have sex most of the time ... a fairly quick, perfunctory, and relaxed activity that functions as a social cement," he writes. "But for cultural constraints, we would all behave more like bonobos. In physical terms, there is actually nothing that bonobos do that some humans do not sometimes do."
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060727_sex_history.html

 

The Origin of Sex: Cosmic Solution to Ancient Mystery


By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
10 July 2001

Comets and asteroids have been blamed for a lot of things before. Shaping Earth. Jumpstarting life. Wiping out dinosaurs. Even possibly altering human evolution.

But never sex.

Roughly 1 billion years after the first organisms romped in the hay, the origin of sex remains one of biology's greatest mysteries. Scientists can't say exactly why we do it, or what triggered those initial terrestrial flirtations. Before sex, life seemed to manage fine by employing asexual reproduction -- the cloning of offspring without the help of a partner.

Now a new study out of Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has used digital organisms to simulate life before sex and yielded a possible mechanism for instigating Earth's first courtship.

Intimacy never sounded so stressful.

Comet or asteroid impacts could have stressed asexual organisms enough to send them down the path of sexual reproduction after forcing a flurry of genetic mutations, the study shows. Heavy doses of radiation might also have done the trick.

While these potential catalysts for mutations are highly speculative, researchers Claus Wilke and Chris Adami announced Monday night that they have determined with certainty one possible way that organisms could have managed such a chaotic environment to their advantage in opening the original door to sexual liberation.

The key to this mutation management, Adami told SPACE.com, is the discovery that when things get rough, a population of organisms adapts to handling a few mutations, while also ensuring that many mutations will be self-destructive.

"Mutations can and do still occur," he said, "but they lead to dead organisms and therefore do not affect the future."

Before sex

Sex never should have happened, biologists often say.

Though the ultimate act of affection has been around longer than anyone can remember, it wasn't always so. On the early Earth, all organisms reproduced asexually.

Any gardener is familiar with how asexual production works. Underground runners can create multiple clones (not to mention destroy a good lawn). Potatoes give up an eye to create another potato. Bulbs divide. Cacti, exhibiting no creativity in this area but managing to foster progeny nonetheless, simply let pieces of themselves fall to the ground and hope for the best.

Some animals get in on the asexual act, too. Sponges and sea anemones produce little ones via buds. Flatworms, if cut in two, grow a new head on one of their severed ends and a new tail on the other.

These are handy and powerful ways to leave a legacy.

For one thing, there's no need for a partner -- no butting of horns, no beating of the chest, no late nights at the bar. Reproduction is virtually guaranteed. Also, when desirable traits evolve, they are not quickly diluted by evolution. Your offspring are just like you. Exact clones.

Sex, on the other hand, combines myriad mutations with each pairing of genes, and the process "can wash out the good and accumulate the bad," Adami says. Just ask any failed child of successful parents.

The age of sex

Despite all these advantages for asexual reproduction, somewhere along the evolutionary line sex became all the rage.

Thankfully so, for we humans owe our existence to that first melding of the genes. Asexual reproduction provides for a plodding style of evolution, relying solely on accidental mutations to effect change. It's an evolutionary slow train that might never have gotten around to delivering humans. It can also limit a population's ability to survive severe environmental change.

Sex, on the other hand, allows plants and animals to evolve quickly, because the gene pool mixes and the fitter survive.

Yet as any parent knows, sex is a rather inefficient way to make babies. Biologically speaking, the man spends nine months doing absolutely nothing productive while the woman does all the work (in some households, this problem is known to persist far longer).

So in an evolutionary sense, why would sex ever have become so popular? More to the point, why would any asexual organism have bothered to try out sex in the first place?

We're all mutants

Researchers have long known that mutations rewrite portions of an organism's genetic code. Some mutations can be good, in fact helping a species to thrive at the expense of others. But the effect can sometimes be deadly. Since sex involves two parents, there is twice the number of mutations to muck up the genetic scripts.

Wilke and Adami created two different simple, computerized life forms that "share many characteristics with bacteria," then placed them in a stressful environment where the rate of mutations was high. By studying digital creatures, they were able to zip through many generations in a short time.

The scientists found a natural throttle to the number of mutations a population of asexual bacteria can handle. The throttle can be thought of as a conservation law. The law dictates that a population capable of adapting to the harmful effects of a few mutations cannot possibly handle a bunch of mutations. Past a critical limit, the accumulated mutations make gibberish out of the genetic code and the organisms die.

Conversely, the new law also shows that a population which can handle many mutations would be highly vulnerable to the first few. "In fact there are such organisms [today]," Adami said. "Sex could, however, never evolve" in such a population. The offspring would be too vulnerable to the initial flurry of mutations that would be written into its code, combined from two organisms.

The birth of sex

Now imagine simple organisms long ago that just happened to share genetic information in a loose and uncoordinated fashion. Such sharing goes on today without leading to reproduction.

If such a population of organisms were suddenly faced with the stress of high mutation rates, it would over the course of many generations develop a capacity to handle a few mutations. But by the new law, numerous mutations would be intolerable.

The effect of all this, Adami says, is that bad mutations would be weeded out of the population.

When multiple mutations are intolerable, bad mutations cannot accumulate, because each successive bad mutation has an increasingly deadly effect on an already weakened organism. Useful mutations, however, do not harm a population in these conditions, Adami said.

Put another way: "When multiple mutations are intolerable, bad mutations cannot accumulate, while the good ones still can."

This could pave the way for the benefits of sex to be enjoyed.

A theoretical door would be open to sexual freedom, and if a pair of organisms mutated enough to go behind that door, then their newfound ability to share beneficial mutations, via sex, would give them a Darwinian advantage over their asexual cousins in the highly stressful environment.

"You can imagine a path that leads from the uncorrelated exchange of genetic material to the completely orchestrated recombination process," he says, referring to the birth of sex.

Any number of catastrophes might have fueled a changed environment and a rate of high mutations, Adami explains. A cosmic impact could have altered Earth's atmosphere for millions of years, exposing the planet to high doses of radiation. Increased volcanic activity is another possible source.

But Adami stressed that these possibilities, while useful to consider, were not a part of the study and so remain highly speculative.

Not actually living organisms

Clifford W. Zeyl, who studies evolutionary genetics at Wake Forest University, called the work surprising and interesting, but added a further caution:

"Since the idea came from a study of digital organisms and not from any historical evidence that such stresses actually acted on living organisms, or that they would have had the effect of selecting for sex, I think it's highly speculative," Zeyl said.

Adami is confident that the computer experiment renders an accurate picture, and he suspects that if such a test could be carried out on real organisms (it can't, because it would take too long) similar results might be found.

"The digital organisms actually live in the memory of the computer, so all we do is set up the experiment and then observe," he said. He added that some biologists are skeptical of any research carried out using digital organisms, but says there is "no reason whatsoever" to think that the findings would not apply in real-life situations.

The study results are published in the July 22 issue of the Royal Society journal Proceedings: Biological Sciences B.

Click here to learn more about human evolution and the impact of space rocks.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/origin_sex_010710.html

 

New Tool from "DVD Jon" Lets Labels Sell to iPod Owners
Topic: People

Snipshot_1avuu3m5bxFortune Magazine posted a story about DeCSS-originator Jon Lech Johansen's Doubletwist venture, which will soon allow labels and other digital music copyright owners to sell iPod-compatible music without going through the iTunes store.

The system works by emulating the FairPlay protection Apple wraps around songs, so that your iPod would essentially think it's playing a DRM-ed song purchased from iTunes. This would allow labels to experiment with pricing models outside of Apple's 99 cent model, and could potentially help digital stores dedicated to certain genres of music to market to iPod owners who feel underserved by iTunes' one-size-fits-all approach, among other things.

"'Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market,' says Johansen. 'I don't like closed systems.'"

Isn't he worried about Apple suing him for reverse-engineering its unpatented FairPlay technology? Nope:

"'...we'll actually add copy protection,' he says, whereas the DMCA prohibits removing it."

Real's Harmony software has already done something like this for quite some time, allowing Real-purchased songs to play on an iPod by similarly adding FairPlay headers to the AAC files it sells. However, this will be the first time labels will be able to sell music to iPod owners securely without going through Real's or Apple's stores.
http://blog.wired.com/music/2006/10/new_tool_from_d.html

 

The Best of BitTorrent

By Michael Calore| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Oct, 23, 2006

Newcomers to the wondrous joys of the world's greatest peer-to-peer file sharing protocol are always asking one question: "Which BitTorrent client is best?"

It's a question that doesn't have a definitive answer. Some clients are written for specific operating systems, some are cross-platform. At least one runs on Java. There are also clients geared toward more advanced users that would surely make a newbie's head spin.

One thing is for certain: The client defines the BitTorrent experience for the user, so regardless of knowledge or skill level, each user must find a client that suits his or her needs best.

Last week, we reviewed the most popular BitTorrent clients on the Monkey Bites blog. We have concentrated on free clients, and we narrowed our search to clients built exclusively for BitTorrent. Some stellar products have integrated BitTorrent functionality, such as the Opera web browser, but we wanted to review the best stand-alone clients.

The result is our list of the five best choices for sharing.

BitTorrent (official client)
BitTorrent, also known as the "Mainline" client, is developed and distributed by the company of the same name. It was written in python by Bram Cohen, who invented and developed the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. Because it truly is "official," all the optimizations and updates to the original BitTorrent code will be reflected in the official client first.

Good: It's cross-platform, with builds for Windows, Mac OS X, Unix and Linux. Bandwidth management, queuing and network optimization features are all excellent and easy to use. An integrated torrent search field pulls results from the engine hosted at BitTorrent.com.

Bad: The official BitTorrent client stops at the basic feature set. No plug-in support, no advanced file management within torrents, no pretty 3-D visualizations, no remote control through the browser.

Overall: Best bet for new users or power users looking for that Zen approach. Read the full review.

Wired News rating: 9/10

Azureus
If you're looking for a slew of features -- and really, I mean a ton of features -- then Azureus is for you. I often call Azureus the "kitchen sink" of BitTorrent clients. It supports plug-ins, so what it doesn't have can be slapped on after the fact. It's built in Java, which hurts the user experience and brings up some compatibility issues, but it also means that Azureus can run on any platform where Java can be installed.

Good: Java means cross-platform; Azureus runs anywhere. Built-in features include advanced bandwidth management, an embedded tracker, management of files within torrents, support for trackerless torrents and a connection optimizer that can traverse firewalls with ease. Support for plug-ins. In a word, powerful.

Bad: Java. You need to have the latest JRE installed in order for Azureus to operate correctly. The sluggishness problem becomes a nightmare under heavy traffic loads. Also, Azureus is so piled with standard features that new users may not know where to begin.

Overall: Bloat and the Java requirement are downers, but is there anything Azureus can't do? Read the full review.

Wired News rating: 8/10

µTorrent
The µ is for micro, and "microTorrent" is a very, very tiny BitTorrent client. The entire application is 170 KB, and it packs enough features into that small package to compete with beefier applications like Azureus. The memory footprint is also ridiculously small. Even so, the client is responsive, fast and can handle a large workload without choking.

Good: µTorrent has extensive bandwidth-management tools, support for UPnP and trackerless torrents, and users can limit downloads to specific files within torrents. µTorrent also has support for multiple trackers, so you can download the same torrent from two or more trackers at once. Torrents can be launched directly from the built-in RSS reader. And it looks nice, too. The user interface is uncluttered and skinnable.

Bad: Windows only. That's really the only thing µTorrent has working against it.

Overall: The best weight-to-performance ratio in the business ... if you're a Windows user. Read the full review.

Wired News rating: 9/10



BitComet
It may not be the prettiest client that we reviewed -- in fact, BitComet may very well be the ugliest -- but it works exceptionally well, and its automated set-up options make it a great place for new users to start. It has all the standard features one would expect in a BitTorrent client, plus some fresh twists that set it apart.

Good: BitComet has some stand-out innovative features: Videos files can be previewed while they're still being downloaded, and there's a built-in chat tool that lets users chat with other peers in the swarm. Auto-configuration tools for optimizing bandwidth, disk usage and network connections are plusses for new users. An integrated Internet Explorer browser makes searching for torrents very easy. BitComet's memory usage and CPU requirements are incredibly low.

Bad: BitComet only runs in Windows. It's also lacking fancy visualization tools for share traffic and transfer progress. Finally, BitComet has come under fire for favoring other BitComet peers within swarms, not recognizing the "private" flag and ignoring piece requests from other peers. The private flag recognition has reportedly been fixed, but the rest of these problems continue to cause concern among BitTorrent users and other client developers.

Overall: Feature-rich and stable, but not at all elegant. BitComet also loses points for lacking cross-platform support. It's another good choice for new users, though. Read the full review.

Wired News rating: 7/10

Bits on Wheels
It runs on Mac OS X only, and it's still young, so it's not for everyone, but Bits on Wheels exhibits most of the features beloved by Azureus users and it doesn't totally hose your computer's resources once the torrents start to pile up. In fact, Bits on Wheels has been my primary client for a while now, and I routinely use it share a dozen or so torrents without seeing even the slightest hiccup on my machine.

Good: The performance is unmatched on the Mac, even under heavy workloads. Bits on Wheels offers advanced stats for each download in a clean, tabbed interface, but the real eye candy is the ultra-cool 3-D swarm-visualization tool that shows torrent pieces flying between the peers. Trippy.

Bad: It only runs on the Mac. Also, Bits on Wheels is missing some advanced features like auto-stop, network/firewall management, integrated search and management of individual files within torrents. Development of Bits on Wheels appears to have stalled almost a year ago -- there hasn't been a new version since November 2005.

Overall: Bits on Wheels is stable and incredibly efficient, but it still has a way to go before it's an A-list client ... if it ever gets there. Read the full review.

Wired News rating: 6/10
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71979-0.html?tw=rss.index

 

YouTube names names: why is anyone surprised?

10/24/2006 10:59:13 AM, by Nate Anderson

MarketWatch ran a story last week about YouTube that's been making the rounds. In the piece, MarketWatch reveals that YouTube turned over user data to Paramount so that the film studio could file a lawsuit against a young filmmaker who had produced a 12-minute version of Oliver Stone's Twin Towers using his own actors and working from a leaked script. It's an interesting story, but not for the reasons you might think.

The case itself is old news. Paramount filed their complaint against Chris Moukarbel on June 16 of this year, alleging copyright infringement that caused the studio "great and irreparable injury that cannot be fully compensated or measured in money," according to court documents. Moukarbel settled with Paramount, and Judge Royce Lamberth signed off on the settlement on August 1. The case itself was straightforward: shooting a film based on a "bootleg" script currently being used by another director is going to get you in trouble. Surprise!

But it's the YouTube angle that has people talking. For whatever reason, people have convinced themselves that YouTube is different. Posting copyrighted content, though it remains illegal, is widely seen as behavior that cannot get the uploader into trouble. So YouTube takes down the infringing clip when someone complains—big deal, right?

When YouTube also turns Moukarbel's information over to a movie studio, people are shocked, but they shouldn't be. In fact, that this case has aroused comment at all is interesting, because it's the sort of thing that happens every day to companies across the country.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) grants "safe harbor" rights to companies like YouTube that keep YouTube from getting sued for infringement. As long as it's only the users uploading dubious content, and that content is taken down immediately upon receiving a notice, YouTube is in the clear. But part of YouTube's "safe harbor" obligations include responding to subpoenas. Section 512(h) of US copyright law makes clear that companies do not have a choice about this, so long as the subpoena is properly issued and contains the required information. The law says that "the service provider shall expeditiously disclose to the copyright owner or person authorized by the copyright owner the information required by the subpoena, notwithstanding any other provision of law and regardless of whether the service provider responds to the notification."

MarketWatch says that "YouTube's decision to help Paramount track down Moukarbel stands in stark contrast to the philosophy of Google, which has fought the U.S. Justice Department over attempts to access data about consumers who use its search services." The author all but comes out and calls upon YouTube to fight such subpoenas—just like Google did! Unfortunately, the two cases are so dissimilar as to invalidate the comparison.

When Google fought to keep its users' search information private, it was not being served DMCA subpoenas. No copyright violation had taken place. That case, in fact, was about pornography, and people's access to it. The subpoenas were also issued by the US government, not by the copyright holder. In fact, it's difficult to see why the comparison was even made in the first place, except for the fact that Google just bought YouTube; mentioning the two companies in the same sentence is apparently required now, even when it makes no sense.

The news article also says that "YouTube chose to turn over the data, rather than simply remove the offending video from its site," as though this were an option. The DMCA does not say that companies have a choice between responding to the subpoena and taking down the material. If they get a takedown request, the material must be taken down. If they get a subpoena, then information on the user must be turned over. The DMCA is clear; YouTube needed to comply with the subpoena, and it did so.

MarketWatch hypes its own story by saying, "What's less known is that YouTube has been watching the watchers," but if YouTube users didn't suspect that the company kept a record of what user uploaded what file, then they are the single most naive group on the planet. This isn't some kind of crazy, NSA-style, pervasive surveillance we're talking about; it's keeping a record of usernames and filenames. This is not rocket science, and if YouTube had not retained such records, it would be a clear signal to the entertainment industry that the site was not at all serious about cracking down on copyrighted material.

The real surprise here is how much idealism YouTube has inspired in people, people who convinced themselves that ripping off a script to a major Hollywood film and releasing a different version onto the Internet was somehow a legitimate venture, and that YouTube would stand up for the right to do it. They did not. It doesn't mean that they sold out or "went corporate" (all of this happened before Google was interested). It simply means they followed the law.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061024-8060.html

 

Up next: IE 8.0


Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:24 am
Digg This!

While the Microsoft-sanctioned name of the next version of Internet Explorer (IE) is IE "Next," it seems it will likely be christened IE 8.0.

That's according to Chris Wilson, the new platform architect for IE. (IE-team veteran Wilson, until a few days ago, was the group platform manager of IE. In his new role, Wilson will be spending his time focusing on making IE a better Web-development platform.)

Wilson delivered a couple of addresses at the Ajax Experience 2006 conference in Boston this week. In addition to dropping the IE 8.0 name, Wilson shared a few other IE-related tidbits, too:

* In the first four days following the release of the final IE 7.0 bits to the Web, 3 million copies were downloaded. And that's before Microsoft began pushing it to users via Automatic Updates.

"IE 7 does more than fix minor features," Wilson said. "It makes Ajax fun to develop on."

* As of last month, 90 percent of Windows users were running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, according to Wilson. This means Microsoft increasingly will be assuming that developers are — and should be — designing for newer versions of Windows and not worrying so much about older releases.

* Currently, about one-third of the browser-compatibility problems encountered by IE 7 are attributable to applications and Web sites assuming IE 6.0 as the default browser. This has been a big problem for online banking applications, Wilson conceded.

While Wilson didn't share many meaty IE 8.0 details, he noted that security, privacy and compatibility will all be top priorities in the next IE release, which is expected some time in the next 12-18 months.

"Mash-ups will continue to drive innovation. Componentization and semantic tagging of data will be supported," Wilson told the Ajax Experience crowd. Wilson touted the harnessing of microformats, like Microsoft has done with its Live Clipboard effort, as "real world stuff" that will "make the Web much more usable."

"Microformats add meaning to content in HTML," Wilson said.

Wilson sounded a few warning bells, as well, telling the Ajax-friendly crowd that the Ajax programming model has "increased attack vectors on the Web," given that it is easier for hackers to get directly at content and data sources.

And while Web frameworks can help developers, by providing a base for more rapid development and application semantics, they also can create a "Tower of Babel" situation for developers attempting to integrate applications developed with different frameworks, Wilson said.

He also noted that one of the most commonly requested IE features — the ability to run side-by-side versions of IE on the same machine — is not trivial. (Wilson didn't say this, but I'd say don't count on it showing up in IE 8.0.)

"We (IE) are a set of system DLLs that are used by other parts of the system, so this makes it really hard," Wilson said. "We are trying to figure out how to make IE capable of this in the future."

For now, the best solution is virtualization, he conceded. And while "Virtual PC is now free, we are still trying to figure out the story around images and the licensing of images," Wilson said.

It also sounds as if IE support for XHTML is not going to be an IE 8.0 thing.

"We don't want to do a half-formed job" of XHTML support, Wilson said. He did note that Microsoft is testing a parser and experimenting with integrating multiple schema, however.

What about JavaScript support?

"We've started working on JavaScript again at the company," Wilson said. But the question remains: What do developers and users want JavaScript for? The answer to that question "will determine if we make JavaScript 2 part of our priority list," he said.

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 20 years. Don't miss a single post. Subscribe via Email or RSS. Got a tip? Send Mary Jo your rants, rumors, tips and tattles.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=62

 

Administrators concerned that XP SP3 will be axed
Posted by: Digital Dave on October 25, 2006 1:52 PM
They better not! Oh... the fury that would ensue...

"The fear is Service Pack 3 will just get killed off," said Jeff Centimano, an IT consultant with Levi, Ray & Shoup Inc., based in Kansas City, Missouri, who says that he's heard concerns from administrators since late last week, when Microsoft announced "preliminary" plans to ship SP 3 in the first half of 2008, later than previously expected.

That puts the update within months of the early 2009 cut-off date for mainstream support for the XP operating system, and users like Centimano are now concerned that Microsoft may not feel that a Service Pack 3 is worth the effort.

"That's exactly how it worked out for Windows 2000," Centimano said.

- infoworld.com

GO HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/10/24/HNxpsp3delay_1.html

 

FREE,High Def Picture Album 2007
Posted by: Digital Dave on October 25, 2006 7:50 AM
Hmmm... might have to turn the wife and daughter onto this (they love pictures).

Move over Picasa. High Def Picture Album is the #1 choice of users worldwide now. Designed to handle all picture collections of all sizes and all your picture needs without reorganizing or moving your pictures around. Refined, intelligent search, easy edit and enhance picture options. Multiple print options. One click e-mail, archiving, CD and DVD burning, scanning, and slide shows.

- majorgeeks.com


High Def Picture Album 2007
Author: EK Inc.
Date: 2006-10-24
Size: 913 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Move over Picasa. High Def Picture Album is the #1 choice of users worldwide now. Designed to handle all picture collections of all sizes and all your picture needs without reorganizing or moving your pictures around. Refined, intelligent search, easy edit and enhance picture options. Multiple print options. One click e-mail, archiving, CD and DVD burning, scanning, and slide shows. One of a kind picture print area options, post cards and child safety locks to prevent your kids from accidentally editing or deleting your pictures. 2-D high def glass user interface to handle all picture formats including all high def formats.

Update Information:
New intelligent search automatically adjust selected dates. 2-D interface is now fully customizable. In place deleting, new edit tools, install it on your USB drive and take anywhere!


DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4552.html

 

MORE INFO ON THE ABOVE

HD Picture Album 2005 description Download
High Def Picture Album was designed to handle your picture needs without reorganizing your pictures. Refined, intelligent search, easy edit and enhance picture options.

One click e-mail, archiving, CD and DVD burning, scanning, slide shows and much more. One of a kind picture print area options, post cards and child safety locks to prevent your kids from accidentally editing or deleting your pictures. 2-D high def glass user interface to handle all picture formats including all high def formats.

Softpedia guarantees that High Def Picture Album 2007 is 100% CLEAN, which means it does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

This software product was tested thoroughly and was found absolutely clean, therefore it can be installed with no concern by any computer user.However, it should be noted that this product will be retested periodically and the award may be withdrawn, so you should check back on this page from time to time.

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http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Others/HD-Picture-Album-2005.shtml

 

"Sexsomniacs" puzzle medical researchers

October 25, 2006 03:35:14 PM PST

Researchers are struggling to understand a rare medical condition where sufferers unknowingly demand, or actually have, sex while asleep, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

Research into sexsomnia -- making sexual advances toward another person while asleep -- has been hampered as sufferers are so embarrassed by the problem they tend not to own up to it, while doctors do not ask about it.

As yet there is no cure for the condition, which often leads to difficulties in relationships.

"It really bothers me that I can't control it," Lisa Mahoney told the magazine. "It scares me because I don't think it has anything to do with the partner. I don't want this foolish condition to hurt us in the long run."

Most researchers view sexsomnia as a variant of sleepwalking, where sufferers are stuck between sleep and wakefulness, though sexsomniacs tend to stay in bed rather than get up and walk about.

While sleepwalking affects two to four percent of adults, sexsomnia is not thought to be as common a problem, according to Nik Trajanovic, a researcher at the sleep and alertness clinic at Canada's Toronto Western Hospital.

But an Internet survey of sexsomniacs carried out in 2005 that drew 219 reliable respondents concluded it was more prevalent than medical case reports alone might suggest.

"Most of the time sleep sex occurs between people who are already partners," Mark Pressman, a sleep specialist at Lankenan Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, told the New Scientist.

"Sometimes they hate it," added Pressman of the reactions of sexsomniacs' partners. "Sometimes they tolerate it. On rare occasions you have stories of people liking it better than waking sex."

With no cure, addressing triggering factors -- stress or sleep deprivation -- can help, while Michael Mangan, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire in the U.S. has set up a Web site, www.sleepsex.org, to help sufferers.

Meanwhile Trajanovic is devising a procedure for diagnosing sexsomnia in legal cases where sufferers have been accused of sexual assault.

 

Spoofing bug found in IE 7



By Joris Evers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 25, 2006, 4:45 PM PDT
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Security experts have found a weakness in Internet Explorer 7 that could help crooks mask phishing scams, the type of attack Microsoft designed the browser to thwart.

IE 7, released last week, allows a Web site to display a pop-up that can contain a spoofed Web address, security monitoring company Secunia said Wednesday. An attacker could exploit this weakness to trick people into believing they are on a trusted Web site when in fact they are viewing a malicious page, Secunia said in an alert.

go here to read the article


http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6129626.html?part=rss&tag=6129626&subj=news