Dvorak News Blog

Video – Neil Gaiman on Copyright Piracy

By Gasparrini Saturday June 18, 2011

You can hear his thoughts in regards to online piracy of his work. Back in October 2006 John interviewed Gaiman on his Cranky Geeks show.

An Hour of Homework? A Night?? Are You Insane???

By Uncle Dave Friday June 17, 2011

73 Comments

After Donna Cushlanis’s son kept bursting into tears midway through his second-grade math problems, which one night took over an hour, she told him not to do all of his homework.

“How many times do you have to add seven plus two?” Ms. Cushlanis, 46, said. “I have no problem with doing homework, but that put us both over the edge. I got to the point that this is enough.”

Ms. Cushlanis, a secretary for the Galloway school district, complained to her boss, Annette C. Giaquinto, the superintendent. It turned out that the district, which serves 3,500 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, was already re-evaluating its homework practices. The school board will vote this summer on a proposal to limit weeknight homework to 10 minutes for each year of school — 20 minutes for second graders, and so forth — and ban assignments on weekends, holidays and school vacations.

Galloway, a mostly middle-class community northwest of Atlantic City, is part of a wave of districts across the nation trying to remake homework amid concerns that high-stakes testing and competition for college have fueled a nightly grind that is stressing out children and depriving them of play and rest, yet doing little to raise achievement, particularly in elementary grades.

“My God, it’s full of stars!”

By Uncle Dave Thursday June 16, 2011

30 Comments

Here’s info on the video and his camera rig.

No Agenda Podcast!
Hide Your Forks

By John C Dvorak Thursday June 16, 2011

3 Comments

Executive Producers: Sir Larence Froncek, Ryan Lackey, Thies Arntzen
Executive Producers and 313 Club members: Ryan Lackey, Thies Arntzen
333 Club Member: Sir Larence Froncek
Associate Executive Producers: Sir Craig Jones, Daniel Collins
Art By: Thoren

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Show Notes here.
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NSA Teaming With ISPs To Make Your Interwebitubes Safer

By Uncle Dave Thursday June 16, 2011

9 Comments

The National Security Agency is working with Internet providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say.

The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation’s largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets.

We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.”

The prospect of a role for the NSA, the nation’s largest spy agency and a part of the Defense Department, in helping Internet providers filter domestic Internet traffic already had raised concerns among privacy activists. Lynn’s suggestion that the program might be extended beyond the work of defense contractors threatened to raise the stakes further.

Despite protestations to the contrary, don’t you think this means it will be easier to spy on you, to hunt you down at the behest of content providers to toss your sorry ass in jail for illegally streaming video, and, well, just because?

Hockey Game Doesn’t Go Your Way, Don’t Cry, Just Burn Your City to The Ground!

By McCullough Thursday June 16, 2011

52 Comments

VANCOUVER — Angry Canucks fans are on a rampage, smashing windows, looting and torching cars and dumpsters on the streets of downtown Vancouver. More than three hours after the Stanley Cup final loss, police are moving up Howe St. toward the crowd massed at the Chapters book store on Howe and Robson. They are very gradually pushing the crowd North up Howe. Police spokeswoman Jana McGuiness warned earlier that police are about to escalate their response.

She said they will be igniting flash-bangs, which make loud noises and spray. “What we’re doing right now is bringing in hundreds of police officers.” The message is, you need to leave.” Officers armed with canisters massed on the corner of Granville and Robson. It is not clear whether it is tear gas or pepper spray. They are protected by shields, batons and masks.

McGuiness said the epicentre of the trouble is Granville and Georgia, she said. And even if transit isn’t operating, people need to walk away from the area, she said. When asked if police had lost control of the crowd, McGuiness would only say police have a plan to deal with the unruly crowds. Vancouver police are closing lanes on Granville and Burrard and Cambie Street bridges to prevent more people from coming Downtown. Bus service has been halted in the downtown core.

I can think of several good reasons for doing this…… sports isn’t one of them.

Make-o Lego

By Uncle Dave Wednesday June 15, 2011

14 Comments

DNC’s Powerhouse Response to GOP debate

By McCullough Wednesday June 15, 2011

106 Comments

\snooze alarm

Nazi Germany’s Secret Army of Flying Beetles: The Volkswaffe!

By McCullough Wednesday June 15, 2011

16 Comments

Ha!

Scott’s Miracle-Gro Turns from Weed Killer — to Growing Killer Weed

By Eideard Wednesday June 15, 2011

19 Comments

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company.

“I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

Sales at Scotts rose 5% last year to $2.9 billion. But the Marysville, Ohio, company relies on sales at three key retailers—Home Depot Inc., Lowe’s Cos. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.—for nearly two-thirds of its revenue. With consumers still cautious about spending, the retailers aren’t building new stores as quickly as they used to, making growth for suppliers like Scotts harder to come by. Against that backdrop, Mr. Hagedorn has pushed his regional sales presidents to look for smaller pockets of growth, such as the marijuana market, that together could produce a noticeable bump in sales.

NPR is reporting:

The medical marijuana market will reach $1.7 billion in sales this year, the story says. Scotts-Miracle Gro’s annual sales are $2.9 billion.

So on the face of it, marijuana growers can’t add much to the company’s revenues. Of course, there’s clearly a very large non-medical-marijuana industry in this country that the company could also sell into.

Get the fracking politicians out of the simplest of homegrown relaxation therapies.

Tax it. Regulate it – as little as possible. Let’s get on with the real world, please.

IP Patent Insanity — 20% of Human Genes Are Patented

By Uncle Dave Wednesday June 15, 2011

19 Comments

When all genes are patented, will we technically be owed by the companies holding the patents?

The idea of ownership is ubiquitous. Title deeds establish and protect ownership of our houses, while security of property is as important to the proprietors of Tesco and Sainsbury’s as it is to their customers. However, there is a profound problem when it comes to so-called intellectual property (IP) – which requires a strong lead from government, and for which independent advice has never been more urgently required. The David Nutt affair has illustrated very well the importance of objective analysis of complex social issues.

The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to the clinic and marketplace. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it: drugs are “evergreened” when patents are on the verge of running out – companies buy up the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products. Moreover, the prices charged, especially for pharmaceuticals, are often grossly in excess of those required to cover costs and make reasonable profits.

IP rights are beginning to permeate every area of scientific endeavour. Even in universities, science and innovation, which have already been paid for out of the public purse, are privatised and resold to the public via patents acquired by commercial interests. The drive to commercialise science has overtaken not only applied research but also “blue-skies” research, such that even the pure quest for knowledge is subverted by the need for profit.

For example, it is estimated that some 20% of individual human genes have been patented already or have been filed for patenting. As a result, research on certain genes is largely restricted to the companies that hold the patents, and tests involving them are marketed at prohibitive prices. We believe that this poses a very real danger to the development of science for the public good.

After bin Laden, Pakistan Is Now Helping Us Fight The Terrorists — Riiiiight

By Uncle Dave Wednesday June 15, 2011

21 Comments

If this is helping, they can stop now. Or, I suppose, given how few people in the US support it, we could stop the war.

Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.

Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
[…]
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.

DH Unplugged
Nothing to See Here

By John C Dvorak Tuesday June 14, 2011

4 Comments

Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. This week we look closely at what appears to be a classic mixed market.
Click here for non-Flash version.

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DU Poll: Who Won Last Night’s Republican Debate?

By Uncle Dave Tuesday June 14, 2011

136 Comments

“Let the game show begin! Oh, wait… This isn’t Let’s Make A Deal?”

In New Hampshire the existing field of seven Republicans had different missions going into the 120-minute rhetorical tussle. There was a bothersome hectic air about the show. Being TV, host John King was constantly stressing time, time, time, as if there weren’t 14 months until the convention and 512 days until the 2012 election.
[…]
For Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, it was a chance to introduce themselves to a national TV audience, or at least those Americans choosing to watch a low-rated cable news channel on a summer evening when they’ll have interminable opportunities to watch/read/listen more later, when others like Jon Huntsman may join in.

Bachmann took the opportunity to basically announce her candidacy. […] Pawlenty, who’s new to this league, looked sincere but less comfortable than he will down the road. Ron Paul was, well, Ron Paul. […] Fact is, the entire Republican field has moved in his direction in some areas like the overpowering size of the federal government now.

Newt Gingrich, trying to relaunch his stumbling campaign, was sharp, pointed and surprisingly brief for a former speaker; it served him well. […] Romney’s ridden this circuit before and looked the most poised and presidential, even plopped in center stage.
[…]
One striking sense from this initial encounter is how distinctly more conservative is the tone this time over 2007-08, especially in matters fiscal.

Although a new Gallup Poll reveals that Republicans are more interested this time in picking a winner than in finding an ideal ideological soulmate.

Here’s an article fact-checking the debaters’ statements.