Author: Serkadis

Now that the cover’s blown (qjnet/xbox-360/new-ip-from-codemasters-is-called-bodycount.html) for Bodycount, more details are starting to trickle in for the Codemasters FPS. Gameplay, story, platforms it’s all here.

Ted Rall is a columnist/cartoonist, who, a couple years ago, wrote one of the most ridiculous opinion pieces we’ve seen in a long time — suggesting that the answer to newspapers’ current economic woes is that they should all take their websites down. That column was so full of economic and legal ignorance I thought there was a good chance that it was actually satire — but people insisted he was serious. Now reader Mandy alerts us to a new column from Rall that again is so devoid of basic logic that I wonder if it’s satire. This time he’s standing way out on a limb arguing that Italy got it right in finding three Google execs criminally liable for a video some kids posted to Google Video.

Rall’s reasoning once again defies logic. He seems unable to comprehend the difference between a publisher and a tool or service provider. Instead, he just insists that Google (and any other online service provider) should be forced to carefully review and fact check every piece of content uploaded before it can be available. Apparently, he doesn’t quite recognize what he’s asking for. On YouTube alone, more than 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute. And that’s just YouTube. Rall also suggests that every blog post, every Tweet and every Facebook message should first be reviewed by an editor before it can be posted.

I think this really goes back to Rall’s previous clueless column. He can’t stand competition, so his solution is to put in place ridiculous free speech destroying rules and regulations to effectively kill off the internet, because someone might misuse it. His argument is based on the scenario that what if he ran a story falsely accusing you of being a drug-addicted child pornographer. He claims — falsely — that if he just published it online, there’s nothing you can do about it. He later admits he’s lying by saying you could sue him, but he brushes that off by saying no one would sue him because he has no money. Of course, people sue for libel all the time — even those with no money.

But the really scary thing is that Rall seems to think that basically destroying the freedom to communicate and to express yourself online makes sense, just because the tool might possibly be used to spread a false statement. Does he not recognize the unintended consequences of this? Does he not realize that his “suggestion” for fixing the internet is effectively how much of China’s internet censorship program works? Does he not think there might be more effective ways of dealing with such situations? For example, if Rall were to falsely accuse you of being a drug-addicted child pornographer, and it’s clearly bogus, then you have an opportunity to fight back, and point out that Rall is wrong, destroy his reputation, and make sure he never gets another job again. Why not let free speech combat free speech?

Instead, Rall seems terrified of free speech, and would prefer that it only come from the “professionals” like himself.

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Watching the iPad’s first television spot on the Oscars Sunday night, I got giddy all over again in anticipation of getting my hands on this hot new product. Though it’s still a few weeks away, I’m even more excited for the applications that will be coming to the platform. Here’s my top 10 list of apps that I want to see developed for the iPad.

Coda

As a graphic designer and web developer, Coda is a staple in my workflow. It features a built-in FTP system, which could be problematic to port to a mobile device, considering there isn’t a traditional file structure to store data. However, perhaps the iPad’s new file storage system will provide an adequate solution. Regardless, as someone who codes, it would be awesome to sit next to a client and modify code and push changes to a site all from my iPad while they load and test the revisions on their own desktop.

Photoshop

Before you laugh, remember that Adobe has already released Photoshop Mobile for the iPhone, and all things considered, it’s not such a bad application. A larger iPad version could allow support for opening and manipulating native Photoshop files as well as working between multiple files. CS4 introduced a new tabbed approach to viewing multiple documents at once. A similar setup could easily be implemented on the iPad.

Katamari Damacy

What’s a fun touchscreen device without a fun game? Katamari already exists as an iPhone app so it’ll scale up decently on the iPad. But given the advanced graphics of the iPad and the larger screen, a native iPad version is a must. If you’ve never played Katamari, check out this clip below.

iMovie

Call me crazy (it doesn’t hurt to be wishful) but the feasibility of an iMovie-like app is certainly within the realm of possibility. I would have never expected Apple to introduce video editing on the iPhone. Nevertheless, along with a video camera, the iPhone 3GS allows for simple video edits. Why couldn’t we have a larger implementation of this on the iPad, provided it gains a video camera at some point? With the larger screen, there’s plenty of room to view a larger timeline, add transitions or effects and with one tap, upload your masterpiece to YouTube.

iChat

I’m actually quite surprised this app still hasn’t made it to the iPhone yet, but as a platform that’s designed to be “the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video,” the iPad seems like the perfect device for iChat, especially if a future model gains a video camera.

Screen Sharing or Remote Desktop

There have been a number of third-party developers that have created similar apps for the iPhone, but I’m honestly shocked to see that Apple hasn’t implemented its own solution yet. With a larger screen and almost full-size keyboard, remotely accessing and interacting with other Macs on my network would be a breeze on the iPad.

Preview

While the iBooks application will open books that are in EPUB format, I’d love to see a more robust implementation of Preview available on the iPad (and iPhone). Specifically, an app that is capable of annotating PDF files and provides support for links within PDFs. Since I’m also an academic, some of the journals I read (as PDFs) contain bookmarks to other articles or chapters and currently, none of the built-in applications on the iPhone support interacting with them.

Hulu

I don’t care how it has to happen or if it involves Flash or not. Who doesn’t want Hulu on the iPad? Even if it required a small subscription, I would love to be able to access my Hulu queue on the go. Better yet, since the iPad is a closed system, the app could download and cache content so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be streamed in real time. This could be a great solution to save AT&T’s crowded bandwidth for 3G models and allow WiFi-only models to still play even if a network isn’t around. I’d pay for that; would you?

Bento/Filemaker

Now that we have iWork, how about a real implementation of Bento (or FileMaker if that’s not too much to ask)? The current iPhone version is pretty pathetic and really hard to use to manipulate larger databases. While FileMaker may be a stretch, I’d put serious money on seeing an iPad version of Bento before the year is out.

An Improved iTunes App

It looks as though the new iTunes app represents a step ahead of the current iPhone version, but there are still some missing features that would make this app a rock star on the iPad. Adding support for Internet radio, browsing my other libraries by Home Sharing or support for iTunes Extras and LPs would be amazing. Honestly, why hasn’t Apple announced support of iTunes Extras and LPs? The specs call for a viewing area of 1280×720 (the 720p high definition standard). They also call for building your iTunes Extras with what’s called a bleed graphic, or a graphic that can “fill in the extra space” if you’re viewing it at a size greater than 1280×720. Now given that as a way to compensate for a difference in aspect ratios, if you were to scale down an iTunes Extra for the 1024×768 display, wouldn’t it just make sense? Come on, if the Apple TV can do it (and we all know how excited Apple gets about that product), shouldn’t the iPad as well?

What are your thoughts on apps you’d like to see? Share your thoughts in the comments below. The great thing about Apple’s developer community is that they keep up with what’s discussed in the blogosphere. You never know; a developer might see your suggestions. So, share what you’d like to see on the iPad!

The last few times we checked on Robert Bowling’s fourzerotwo Twitter account was when we were keeping an eye out for Modern Warfare 2 patch updates. Finally, some problem-free news, at least for Infinity Ward. The developer’s

Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach has been lured into attacking the ‘imminent China collapse’ meme. 

In the German newspaper Handelsblatt, he explains how while Western governments jump to action only after economic crises happen, China’s is far more proactive in diffusing economic problems before they become enormous.

Alphaville:

‘Unlike policy circles in the West, where there is no appetite to pre-empt bubbles and crises, China views these risks very differently. In the depths of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, the Chinese leadership first adopted a “pro-active” policy strategy—a forward-looking approach that relies on the combination of fiscal, monetary, and regulatory tools to lean against bubbles and financial crises.’

Such arguments certainly sound compelling these days, given the economic problems in the U.S. and Europe most recently. But let’s not get too enamored with China’s ability to implement proactive policy. It can cause major disasters as well.

For example, China has already damned itself to an elderly demographic time-bomb due to the One Child Policy it proactively created in order to avert a false population crisis. It’s now stuck with a policy-created demographic crisis which will make the U.S. financial crisis look like a cake walk.

Moving on to Mr. Roach’s conclusion:

One of these days—probably sooner rather than later—China will need to get serious in addressing its macro imbalances. I am hopeful that Beijing will use the occasion of the upcoming 12th Five-Year Plan, to be enacted a year from now, to unveil a new pro-consumption strategy that addresses many of these problems. In the meantime, pro-active Beijing policymakers are about to dispel yet another false alarm over the imminent perils of Chinese credit and asset bubbles.

See, the word ‘imminent’ is the key hedge word slipped in to make the argument stand. From a forecaster’s point of view, the odds are surely in your favor if you say that an ‘imminent’ crisis won’t happen. Simple odds are in your favor that nothing major will happen imminently. 

Yet most China-skeptics aren’t calling for an ‘imminent’ crisis. They are just saying that China has some very serious distortions in its economy, many of which have been caused by ‘proactive’ policies might we add, and that the risk of a major economic shock is large and growing.

Sure, it’s highly unlikely to happen in the near future, but let’s not forget that many people looked smart for many years saying that an imminent U.S. housing crisis wasn’t at hand since the housing bubble kept going for longer than most expected. The same will be the case for China.

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Often I start the commentary off saying something witty, but I couldn’t think of anything clever so I thought I’d suggest you take a look at this video about, of all things, seat belts. It is making the rounds, and with good reason.

The Federal Reserve has a little more than ten business days to complete their well-publicized purchase of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Last week it bought $10 billion, breaking their 3-week streak of $11 billion. Only fixed-rate agency MBS securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are/were eligible assets for the program. Everyone knows that the end of the program is imminent.

I am going to go out on a limb here, which is rare for me, and suggest that the consultants, market gurus, bloggers, paid services, etc., who firmly believe that mortgage rates are going to go up 50 basis points after March 31st are wrong.  If NASA told you that it was certain a meteorite was going to hit the US next Tuesday, would that change your behavior now? You bet it would. Yet dealers are not seeing companies sell their entire pipelines and/or expected production (currently estimated at less than $1 billion a day) for April and May. If speculators are stocking up on puts on MBS’s, they are keeping it well hidden. (Of course, the option market for mortgage securities is practically nil.) Mortgages have been getting tighter and tighter to treasuries, which one wouldn’t expect if mortgage rates were going to skyrocket, and yesterday current coupons were the tightest they’d ever been. And why would any mortgage investor (currently hedge funds and money managers) want to own pools at these price levels if they were going to be two points lower in three weeks? Of course, no one wants to sell something that they don’t own in this market. I don’t think that the supply is there, no one wants to sell what they don’t have (exposing them to some extremely volatile swap and role markets), and with Fannie & Freddie buying back delinquent loans, I think mortgages hang in there with other rates.

Anyone who has tried to refinance a 1^st mortgage while having the 2^nd subordinated knows what a nightmare that can be. Apparently modifications are not much smoother, and last week House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank called on the CEOs of four major investors/banks (WF, BA, C, CH) to work with the Treasury Department and banking regulators to deal with second mortgages that have become an obstacle to modifying troubled first liens. These four have $452 billion of 2nds on their books, and writing them down is supposedly fraught with problems – especially since a lot of them are worthless. Gulp. The issue is that banks have not acknowledged these losses under the accounting rules and will adversely affect their capital ratios.

What is a “repo”, and why should anyone in mortgage banking care about them? Also known as “repurchase agreements”, the procedure allows a borrower to use a financial security as collateral for a cash loan at a fixed rate of interest. The borrower agrees to sell the security to the lender and also agrees to buy the same security back from the lender at a fixed price at a later date; therefore it is a combination of a cash transaction and a forward contract. The difference between the forward price and the current (”spot”) price is the interest on the loan. The Federal Reserve Bank of NY announced the beginning of a program to expand its counterparties for conducting reverse repurchase agreement transactions. This expansion, the first group being for domestic money market mutual funds, is intended to enhance the capacity of such operations to drain reserves beyond what could likely be conducted through the New York Fed’s traditional counterparties, the Primary Dealers. “In terms of operational details, the New York Fed anticipates that any transactions would be offered to primary dealers and the broader set of counterparties, conducted at auction for a fixed (not floating) rate, settled through the tri-party repo system, and held against all major types of collateral in the System Open Market Account (SOMA), including Treasury securities, agency debt securities, and agency MBS securities.

Michael Ashley, a former senior official with LendAmerica, a nationwide lender of U.S.-backed mortgages recently shut off from government programs, was permanently banned from the industry by the FHA. In the March 3 judgment, Ashley was permanently banned from originating, marketing or submitting claims for FHA mortgages. He did not admit or deny liability regarding the allegations. The judgment also prevents Ashley from being employed in any capacity, including as a strategist or consultant, for any company connected to the FHA.

Provident Funding alerted brokers that, “Effective for loans locked on or after Friday, March 12, 2009, Desktop Underwriter will no longer be permitted for Interest Only loans. All Interest Only loans must be submitted to Loan Prospector.”

Union Bank, formerly known as Union Bank of California, changed its guidelines last week for cash-out refinances. Six (6) months of seasoning are now required, and “if the property was purchased in the 6 months preceding the date of the application, the borrower is ineligible for a cash-out refinance.” And the continuity of the loan obligation must be established – at least one of the borrowers obligated on the new loan was also obligated on the loan being refinanced, or the borrower has been on title and residing in the property for at least 12 months and has either paid the mortgage for 12 months or can demonstrate a relationship (relative, domestic partner, etc.) with the current obligor, or the borrower recently inherited the property or was legally awarded the property through divorce or separation (see below for restrictions on inherited properties).  (If you can’t do this, with UB the borrower would only be eligible for a No Cash-Out Refinance with a maximum 50% LTV.) And if the property was recently purchased and the borrower wants some money back, the same rules apply. The actual announcement goes on to list more details regarding inherited properties, short pay-offs, etc.

A story from Bloomberg yesterday pointed to the impact on small banks from the FDIC’s plan to auction more than $1 billion in failed bank assets next month. (Remember, for a bank assets are loans owed them, liabilities are deposits.) Almost half of the loans were originated by Silverton Bank out of Georgia. The article points out that of the loans seized from failed banks currently held by the FDIC, “63% involve participations by other lenders.” The fear among small banks and commercial lenders is that the loans are going to be sold to someone who will flip them and cause them serious losses.

Today we start yet another Treasury auction, with the usual worries about financing our increasing debt. Who will buy the $74 billion? The usual suspects come to mind, and let’s hope that demand is strong because otherwise we could see all rates shoot up in a hurry. Given that there isn’t much data until the end of the week (weekly unemployment claims on Thursday and February retail sales on Friday), these auctions will be important. In spite of there being no data, the 10-yr has rallied back down to a yield of 3.68% and mortgage prices are better by roughly .250 this morning.

(Best read out loud.)
Boudreaux was out in da field talkin’ with his friend Thibodeaux.

Thibodeaux said “Boudreaux, you see dat ole barn out dere? Well man, it is completely infestered wit rats. I tried everything I know an can’t get rid of dem.”
Boudreaux say, “Thibodeaux, I know xactly how to get rid of dem rats. You gotta get you one of dem bull constriptors.”

Thibodeaux say, “What’s a bull constriptor?”

Boudreaux explains, “Man, dats one of dem big ole snakes and he loves to eat rats and swallers dem whole, all at once”.
Well, da nex day Thibodeaux went down to Kliberts reptile farm and bought him da biggest bull constripter dat dey got. He brought dat snake to da barn an let him loose right in da middle and just sat dere and watched.  Well, Thibodeaux was watchin’ for a long time, I mean long, an dere wasn’t nuttin ‘ happening. Dat big ole snake jus curled up hiself in da middle of dat barn and slept all day. He didn’t even move and dem rats jus run all around.

So Thibodeaux got real frustrated and he called up Boudreaux on da phone, “Boudreaux, man dats some bad advice bout dat snake. Dem rats is still runnin’ al around and dat snake jus lays dere sleepin’ all day long.”

Boudreaux says, “Man, Thibodeaux, I know just what to do. Give dat snake some Viagra.”  Thibodeaux say, “What! Viagra! What’s dat gonna do?”

Boudreaux say, “I was just listening to da radio and de man say dat Viagra is da best ting to use for a reptile dysfunction.”

Rob

(Check out http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/channels/pipelinepress/default.aspx. For archived commentaries, check www.robchrisman.com )

USA Today: Bears are beginning to emerge from hibernation in Yellowstone National Park.

Spring doesn’t start for three weeks and wintry weather will linger longer than that in Yellowstone. But grizzly bear tracks already have been seen east of Mammoth Hot Springs in northern Yellowstone.

That’s prompting park officials to issue their annual warnings for visitors.

Stay at least 100 yards away from bears. Travel in groups of three or more. Make noise on the trail. Keep food inside cars or bear-proof containers. And keep an eye out for bears.

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KULR Montana: A new law that will allow firearms into national parks takes effect Monday. But the law’s passage leaves some visitors of nearby Yellowstone National Park wondering what the new law will mean for them. There’s no doubt that gun control laws are a fiery issue in the U.S., and now the heat is on our national parks. Starting Monday licensed gun owners will be allowed to bring loaded guns into parks like Yellowstone, where they had been previously outlawed. Supporters said the new law will make them feel safer in the park.

“A gun-free zone is one of the most dangerous places you could be in America,” Shipton’s Sporting Goods salesman John Hahn said, “because a criminal knows going into it that his chances of encountering an armed citizen are about zero.”

Hahn said dealing with the law afterwards is more appealing to him than risking his safety.

“I would rather have the judicial system sink its teeth into me than a grizzly bear sink its teeth into me.”

Some park officials worry that allowing guns into parks will increase illegal poaching, and that guns are not necessary to ensure safety.

“Yellowstone is a very safe place,” Yellowstone Park Public Affairs Officer Al Nash said. “When it comes to dealing with wildlife, frankly, even our law enforcement commission rangers, who have legally carried guns on duty, carry bear spray to deal with bears.”

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BMW acaba de anunciar un nuevo modelo, se trata del BMW Z4 GT3. Es un deportivo desarrollado integramente por la propia marca y cuyo destino será logicamente la competición. Además, ha sido adaptado para cumplir con la normativa GT3.

En cuanto al diseño, debemos destacar las dos grandes entradas de aire que tiene en la parte delantera lo cuál le otorga una estética muy agresiva. En lo referente a la motorización, hace uso de un motor V8 modificado electrónicamente para que pueda desarrollar 480 CV.

Por otra parte, cuenta con ABS, ruedas de carrera y puede ser equipado con aire acondicionado si asi lo deseamos. Su precio apróximado es de 298.000€.

No related posts.

Environmental News Network: A federal district court ruling in Montana today returned Endangered Species Act protections to the Yellowstone grizzly bear population. In the case, brought by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Judge Donald Molloy ruled that inadequate regulatory mechanisms were put in place to manage the bears after federal protections were dropped in early 2007, and that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) failed to address the loss of an essential food source for the bears, whitebark pine seeds. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and six other groups, represented by Earthjustice, have a similar case pending in Idaho.

For years, NRDC has been vigorously engaged in efforts to protect Yellowstone’s grizzly bears and whitebark pine. Whitebark pine forests are being decimated throughout their range by an array of threats that have emerged in high elevation environments as a result of climate change. Researchers worry that the trees are being driven to functional extinction, radically altering some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes and eliminating a crucial food source for Yellowstone’s grizzly bears. NRDC petitioned to have the tree added to the federal Endangered Species List in December 2008.

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Her husband might have singlehandedly lost the Super Bowl, but I think he’s probably feeling ok coming home to this.

(Holy Taco)

By Claire Ngozo LILONGWE, Mar 9 (IPS) Mercy Gondwe, 51, from Rumphi in northern Malawi, was married for 34 years. When her husband died in 2008, she assumed she would inherit the land they had been cultivating together since they got married. But this was not the case.

Gondwe’s brother-in-law took over the ownership of the land the day of the funeral, because tradition dictates that only a man has the right to own land. Gondwe and her six children, aged between eight and 20 years, have no choice but to keep living among their in-laws. The terms of the bride price Gondwe’s husband paid when they got married stipulate that a woman and her children belong to her husband and his family.

"My children and I still grow crops on the land, including tobacco, but my brother-in-law tells me what to do with the produce," Gondwe says.

Tobacco is Malawi’s main export crop. According to Gondwe, she and her husband have been farming tobacco since they got married. Over the years, the proceeds from their tobacco sales helped them to build a house of burnt bricks with a corrugated iron roof, amass a herd of 22 cattle and keep all their children in school.

The woman says her family used to be considered well off, compared to the 65 percent of Malawi's 13.1 million people who, according to the country’s government, live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day.

"But now everything belongs to my husband’s family. I don’t have any stake at all. My brother-in-law takes the tobacco to the auction floors, and he only gives me a little amount of money when he comes back," Gondwe told IPS.

Women who live in patrilineal communities in the northern parts of the country can only access customary land through their husbands and brothers-in-law, confirms Maggie Kathewera-Banda, executive director of non-governmental organisation Women’s Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC).

"By denying women ownership to land, the traditional practice in northern Malawi is denying them their proper standing in the development of the country," she explained.

Kathewera-Banda notes that land is the main resource for people’s livelihoods and food security in the country, especially in rural areas where communal and customary tenure dominate.

Women make up more than half of Malawi’s total population, and 85 percent of them are primarily involved in subsistence agriculture. Government statistics indicate that agriculture is the largest contributor to the Malawian economy – it accounts for 38 percent of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 80 percent of export earnings. The sector also provides employment for 85 percent of the population.

Yet, almost 75 percent of the land surface in Malawi is customary land, according to the National Statistical Report of 2004, which largely puts women at a disadvantage in terms of tenure.

The country’s Ministry of Lands indicates in its 2009 report that the "new" Malawi National Land Policy shows government's desire to address this issue, because it poses constraints to Malawi's social and economic development. The land policy was approved by cabinet and parliament in 2002 and a Special Law Commission was set up in 2003 to review all land-related laws. The Land Amendment Act will now have to be passed in parliament.

The policy aims to clarify and strengthen customary land rights, among other issues, and is intended to secure land rights for the majority of Malawians living on land formally under customary tenure. It will allow all customary land to be registered and protected by law against abuse.

Within the land policy, all customary landholders, including families, will be encouraged to register their land as private customary estates with land tenure rights. The policy indicates that it will preserve the advantages of customary ownership, but also ensures security of tenure.

"It is hoped that, through the land policy, women in patrilineal communities will be empowered and have the land ownership registered in the family name. The family should be a nuclear family, comprising of a husband, wife and their children," explained Kathewera-Banda.

She says this will ensure that women can own land in spite of customary and statutory laws, which are largely discriminatory and block women’s right to land. Sections 20 and 24 of Malawi’s constitution give women the right to property and the right not to be discriminated on the basis of gender or marital status, which includes the right to acquire and maintain rights in property, independently or in association with others, regardless of their marital status, Kathewera-Banda further explains.

Wanozga Nyasulu, 43, from Mzimba in northern Malawi is in a similar predicament to Gondwe – but Nyasulu’s husband is alive. "He makes unilateral decisions on the land. As tradition demands, I am only expected to assist in cultivating the land," she complained.

Nyasulu says her husband decides when they start working in the field, what to grow, what to eat and what to sell: "It’s tradition, and no one can go against that. You would be deemed crazy if you challenged it."

She confided to IPS that she is looking forward to the day the land policy comes into effect, when patrilineal inheritance of land will be made redundant.

If games weren’t so pricey, we’d be cleaning out store shelves on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, that’s not happening any time soon…or ever. Fact is, games took a lot of money to make, and that’s going to

The National Association of Independent Businesses released their February metrics today and they aren’t looking good.

Small business optimism fell 1.3 points to 88.0 in February, but is up from 81.0 in March of 2009. Says Marketwatch:

The index is far below its average, but has gained from 81.0 in March 2009, the second-lowest reading ever. Small businesses were cutting workers and prices in an effort to increase sales, the survey said. Fewer businesses reported problems getting credit, with 9% of firms saying they couldn’t find the credit they need..

The full report, embedded below:

sbet201003

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See Also:

• Here Are The Facts About Census Hiring, And Why It Will Hurt The Recovery
• Here’s Why The Employment Situation Is Now Way Stronger Than Anyone Realizes
• Here’s What Today’s ISM Number Suggests About Job Creation In February

The DMCA has been in place for a dozen years now, and the harm done by its provisions has become quite clear. The framers of the DMCA did not take into account the unintended consequences of the law — and even one of the main authors of the law, Bruce Lehman, now admits it was a mistake (though, as far as we know, he still hasn’t apologized to James Boyle, who accurately predicted many of unintended consequences of the DMCA, only to have Lehman threaten to “rip his throat out” and to get Boyle denied tenure). So, twelve years in, the EFF has put out a document highlighting all of the dangerous unintended consequences of the DMCA:

• The DMCA Chills Free Expression and Scientific Research.
  Experience with section 1201 demonstrates that it is being used to stifle free speech and scientific research. The lawsuit against 2600 magazine, threats against Princeton Professor Edward Felten’s team of researchers, and prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov have chilled the legitimate activities of journalists, publishers, scientists, students, programmers, and members of the public.
• The DMCA Jeopardizes Fair Use.
  
  By banning all acts of circumvention, and all technologies and tools that can be used for circumvention, the DMCA grants to copyright owners the power to unilaterally eliminate the public’s fair use rights. Already, the movie industry’s use of encryption on DVDs has curtailed consumers’ ability to make legitimate, personal-use copies of movies they have purchased.
• The DMCA Impedes Competition and Innovation.
  Rather than focusing on pirates, some have wielded the DMCA to hinder legitimate competitors. For example, the DMCA has been used to block aftermarket competition in laser printer toner cartridges, garage door openers, and computer maintenance services. Similarly, Apple has used the DMCA to tie its iPhone and iPod devices to Apple’s own software and services.
• The DMCA Interferes with Computer Intrusion Laws.
  Further, the DMCA has been misused as a general-purpose prohibition on computer network access, a task for which it was not designed and to which it is ill-suited. For example, a disgruntled employer used the DMCA against a former contractor for simply connecting to the company’s computer system through a virtual private network (“VPN”).

Clearly, it’s long been time to rethink the entire premise of the DMCA, but it seems like there’s little appetite for Congress to actually do this. Hell, the EFF put out a similar document two years ago, highlighting the unintended consequences and calling for a rethink.

And what’s happening instead? Via ACTA, the US isn’t just doubling down on the worst of the DMCA, it’s trying to spread it around the world and to make sure that the US cannot fix the problems of the DMCA by creating an agreement that will allow DMCA defenders to say that we can’t fix the DMCA or we’ll violate our “international obligations.”

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The majority of hedge fund managers surveyed say their favorite currency right now is the dollar.

The TrimTabs/Barclay Hedge survey in February asked 61 traders and fund managers (they have an average of $113 million in assets under management) what their favorite currencies were.

The dollar won the majority, with 57% voting it as their favorite, the Brazilian real and the Australian dollar are “distant seconds,” and Sterling was the least favorite, with only 3% of respondents.

The Wall Street Journal points out that their favoring the dollar likely means hedge fund managers don’t expect interest rates to rise any time soon.

A survey taken a couple of weeks ago reveals concurring data: most hedge fund managers don’t think rates will rise until after 2011.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Dollar Is The New Dow
• We Are All Dollar Bulls Now
• Commodities Soaring As Equities, US Dollar Fall

Last week, General Motors announced that it will invest 1.9 billion euros ($2.57 billion USD) towards the restructuring of Opel, more than tripling its previous pledge of 600 million euros. Why? Well, because Opel is to GM of Europe what Chevrolet is to GM of Detroit.

According to a report by the Free Press, Opel is GM’s No.1 brand in the European market with 1.2 million sales last year. That makes Opel the second-biggest brand worldwide for GM by a wide margin. Its sales exceed Buick, Cadillac and GMC’s combined U.S. sales by more than 2 1/2 to last year.

While before Opel and Saturn seemed to be counterparts, Opel now seems to influence Chevrolet vehicles and even some other core GM brands. Opel engineering underpins cars like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cruze, and the Volt. It is also setting the pace for Buick with the new LaCrosse sedan that uses an Opel-engineered platform and the upcoming Regal, which is basically a rebadged version of the award-winning Insignia.

The increased investment from GM means Opel will be able to operate through the year. It previously said it had enough liquidity to run in to the second quarter.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Free Press

A união entre a Saab e a Spyker parece ser muito promissora e pode gerar grandes surpresas em um futuro próximo, como é o caso do novo Saab 9+ Spyker Tribute. Com seu design elaborado pelo holandês Edward Gray, do Studio Gray Design, algumas imagens do novo Saab 9+ já apareceram no site AutoMotorSport.se, em sua versão eletrônica.

Sendo um conceito de estilo, o designer holandês misturou características peculiares dos dois fabricantes, sendo que o resultado foi um carro esportivo com motor central, característica da Spyker, e a engenharia da Saab.

O resultado final, como pode ser visto nas imagens, é algo muito agradável. E pode ser até que Victor Muller possa se dedicar ao projeto de um novo super design no futuro. Vejam algumas imagens do modelo a seguir.

Imagens do novo conceito da Saab

Via | Autoblog.it