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Germany Plans To Dim Lights At Night To Save Insects 117

Posted by BeauHD from the insect-populations dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MSN: In a draft law seen by AFP, the country's environment ministry has drawn up a number of new measures to protect insects, ranging from partially outlawing spotlights to increased protection of natural habitats. "Insects play an important role in the ecosystem...but in Germany, their numbers and their diversity has severely declined in recent years," reads the draft law, for which the ministry hopes to get cabinet approval by October. The changes put forward in the law include stricter controls on both lighting and the use of insecticides.

Light traps for insects are to be banned outdoors, while searchlights and sky spotlights would be outlawed from dusk to dawn for ten months of the year. The draft also demands that any new streetlights and other outdoor lights be installed in such a way as to minimize the effect on plants, insects and other animals. The use of weed-killers and insecticides would also be banned in national parks and within five to ten meters of major bodies of water, while orchards and dry-stone walls are to be protected as natural habitats for insects. The proposed reforms are part of the German government's more general "insect protection action plan," which was announced last September under growing pressure from environmental and conservation activists.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Humble Bundle Announces 'Hacker' Pay-What-You-Want Sale (humblebundle.com) 52

Posted by EditorDavid from the supporting-the-EFF dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Humble Bundle announced a special "pay what you want" sale for four ebooks from No Starch Press, with proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (or to the charity of your choice). This "hacker edition" sale includes two relatively new titles from 2015 -- "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" and Violet Blue's "Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy," as well as "Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering" by Andrew "bunnie" Huang, and "The Linux Command Line".

Hackers who are willing to pay "more than the average" -- currently $14.87 -- can also unlock a set of five more books, which includes "The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi". (This level also includes "Bitcoin for the Befuddled" and "Designing BSD Rootkits: An Introduction to Kernel Hacking".) And at the $15 level -- just 13 cents more -- four additional books are unlocked. "Practical Malware Analysis: The Hands-On Guide to Dissecting Malicious Software" is available at this level, as well as "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation" and "Black Hat Python."
Nice to see they've already sold 28,506 bundles, which are DRM-free and available in PDF, EPUB, and MOBI format. (I still remember Slashdot's 2012 interview with Make magazine's Andrew "bunnie" Huang, who Samzenpus described as "one of the most famous hardware and software hackers in the world.")

Submission + - Austrian photographer sues hotel chain for â2m for copyright breach (derstandard.at) 2

Submitted by Unhappy Windows User
Unhappy Windows User writes: An Austrian photographer was contracted by the luxury Sofitel in Vienna to photograph the bar with an amazing view over the skyline. He was paid for his time (â4200) and arranged a three year internal usage contract for the photos. After the contract expired, he still found his photos being used — on external sites too. He is now suing for â2million, based on each individual usage.

My question is: Is this the real market value of his work? There is nothing particularly creative or spectacular about his contribution — any competent photographer could have done the same. I know art galleries often charge high amounts for reprints of their work by controlling access to who gets to photograph it under which conditions. It seems like the largest economic contribution to the work was from Sofitel, who allowed access to the property and closed it to customers.

I don't have any issue in a photographer wanting to be paid fairly for his work, and asking for perhaps double or treble the original price for the breach of contract to match what an unlimited license would have costed. After all, with this money they could have employed a professional for a month and automatically obtained full rights to the work.

Any other competent photographer could have done the job just as well (and perhaps have done a better job on correcting the pincushion distortion!), but it seems like this guy is trying to take advantage of an oversight by a large corporation, never to have to work again.

What do you think?

Submission + - Language Creation Society says Klingon language isn't covered by copyright

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement. In their amicus brief, which actually uses Klingon language, the Language Creation Society lists many examples of how Klingon has evolved, and it specifically disputes Paramount’s earlier claims that there are no human beings who communicate using the Klingon language. “In fact, there are groups of people for whom Klingon is their only common language. There are friends who only speak Klingon to each other. In fact, at least one child was initially raised as a native speaker of Klingon." As such, Paramount should not be allowed to claim copyright over the entire Klingon language, both in written and spoken form. The language is a tool for people to communicate and express ideas, something people should be allowed to do freely under U.S. law, LCS argues.

Paramount's copyright claims have already started to having a chilling effect on Star Trek fan series. Star Trek Continues is currently running a fundraiser campaign to produce more episodes, and in a video message Vic Mignogna, who plays Kirk, mentions that fans have been unwilling to support them due to fears over legal action. The campaign has 5 days to left to go, and the team is trying to reach a reduced goal of $200k, down from the original $300k they were hoping for.

Comment Re:Farewell, appointment slots, we hardly knew ye (Score 1) 235

by hobbes vs boyle (#42301413) Attached to: Google Nixes Some Calendar Features and Other Software Offerings
Yeah, I'm sad, too. I just had recommended the feature to my significant other for letting people schedule their use of a joint workspace, and I was considering using the system for scheduling volunteers at co-op. Anybody know of a good alternative for scheduling appointments?

Comment Re:It was never added to OpenStreetMap (Score 4, Insightful) 182

by hobbes vs boyle (#42066907) Attached to: Sandy Island, the Undiscovered Country
Oh please. There are plenty of good reasons to prefer OSM over Google Maps and other non-free maps and I am an active contributor myself. But using this case as an argument? No. I've seen plenty of phantom cities added to OSM, either by mistake or intentionally. My favorite was a road shaped like the Batman symbol somewhere in the mountains of Washington. In addition, OSM does import a whole bunch of data (from government sources etc.) and thus it's quite possible that they could replicate someone else's mistakes.
Censorship

Twitter Censors German Neo-Nazi Group, Within Germany 227

Posted by timothy from the they-must-hate-speech dept.
judgecorp writes "Twitter has censored a neo-Nazi group, blocking Besseres Hannover (Better Hannover), a group accused of promoting race hate. This is the first time Twitter has used its power of blocking users in specific countries, announced back in January. Although blocked in Germany, the group is visible to the rest of the world." Update: 10/18 14:46 GMT by T : Note, that's Twitter doing the blocking, not Google, as it appeared originally. HT to reader eldavojohn.
Science

Submission + - Misconduct, not error, is the main cause of retractions (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "One of the largest-ever studies of retractions has found that two-thirds of retracted life-sciences papers were stricken from the scientific record because of misconduct such as fraud or suspected fraud — and that journals sometimes soft-pedal the reason. The study contradicts the conventional view that most retractions of papers in scientific journals are triggered by unintentional errors.
The survey examined all 2,047 articles in the PubMed database that had been marked as retracted by 3 May this year. But rather than taking journals’ retraction notices at face value, as previous analyses have done, the study used secondary sources to pin down the reasons for retraction if the notices were incomplete or vague. he analysis revealed that fraud or suspected fraud was responsible for 43% of the retractions. Other types of misconduct — duplicate publication and plagiarism — accounted for 14% and 10% of retractions, respectively. Only 21% of the papers were retracted because of error (abstract)."
Earth

'Frothy Gunk' From Deepwater Horizon Spill Harming Coral 149

Posted by timothy from the rick-someone-I-think-he-said dept.
sciencehabit writes "The massive oil spill that inundated the Gulf of Mexico in the spring and summer of 2010 severely damaged deep-sea corals more than 11 kilometers from the well site, a sea-floor survey conducted within weeks of the spill reveals. At one site, which hadn't been visited before but had been right in the path of a submerged 100-meter-thick oil plume from the spill, researchers found a variety of corals — most of them belonging to a type of colonial coral commonly known as sea fans — on a 10-meter-by-12-meter outcrop of rock. Many of the corals were partially or completely covered with a brown, fluffy substance that one team member variously calls 'frothy gunk,' 'goop,' and 'snot.'"
Earth

Severe Arctic Ozone Loss 259

Posted by Soulskill from the santa-needs-sunblock dept.
iONiUM writes "The BBC reports that 'Ozone loss over the Arctic this year was so severe that for the first time it could be called an "ozone hole" like the Antarctic one, scientists report. About 20km (13 miles) above the ground, 80% of the ozone was lost, they say. The cause was an unusually long spell of cold weather at altitude. In cold conditions, the chlorine chemicals that destroy ozone are at their most active.' This is the first time in observational history that the Arctic ozone has been depleted to such extensive levels (abstract). This will mean high UV problems for Russia, Greenland and Norway."

Comment Re:Sorry, but glossy screen == no buy (Score 1) 627

by hobbes vs boyle (#35329988) Attached to: New Apple MacBook Pro Reviewed
From TFA:

The MacBook Pro15-inch (Thunderbolt) has several screen options, all of which require that you pay a significant premium, although I can't think of many consumer laptops that have an anti-glare screen (a $150 option).

So yes, there is a non-glossy option. I find it somewhat odd that the reviewers compares the MBP to "many consumer laptop." Most of the business line models od Dell, HP, Lenovo have non-glossy displays or at least offer the option, too.
United States

Submission + - Consumers Buy Less Tech Stuff, Keep it Longer 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The NY Times reports that there are indications that a sea change is taking place in consumer behavior as a result of the great recession: Americans are buying less tech stuff and making it last longer (reg. may be required). Although in many cases the difference is mere months, economists and consumers say the approach may outlast a full recovery and the return of easy credit, because of the strong impression the downturn has made on consumers. For example Patti Hauseman stuck with her five-year-old Apple computer until it started making odd whirring noises and occasionally malfunctioning before she bought a new computer for Christmas — actually, a refurbished one. "A week later, the old one died. We timed it pretty well,” says Hauseman adding that it was not so much that she could not afford new things, but that the last few years of economic turmoil had left her feeling that she could be stealing from her future by throwing away goods that still had value. Consumers are holding onto new cars for a record 63.9 months, up 4.5 months from a year ago and 14 percent since the end of 2008, according one research firm and industry analysts also report that people on average are waiting 18 months to upgrade their cellphones, up from every 16 months just a few years ago. “We’re not going back to a time of our grandmothers’ tales of what they kept and how they used things so carefully,” says Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at the Harvard Business School and a historian of consumer behavior. ". But we’ll see a consistent inching or trudging towards that.""

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