How iTunes' Digital Rights Management system, Fairplay, works

Not difficult to understand, also explains why it's unlikely that Apple will ever release non-DRM'd music.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/2A351C60-A4E5-4764-A083-FF8610E66A46.html

"Biofuel boom raises tough questions"

A decent Q&A/discussion of the "advantages" of biofuel/ethanol vs gasoline. I particularly liked this quote:

IS ETHANOL BETTER THAN GASOLINE?

For all the environmental and economic troubles it causes, gasoline turns out to be a remarkably efficient automobile fuel. The energy required to pump crude out of the ground, refine it and transport it from oil well to gas tank is about 6 percent of the energy in the gasoline itself.


TFA (The Fine Article) goes on to say that it takes about four gallons of ethanol used in the raising/harvesting/etc. of corn to produce three gallons of ethanol.

Uh-huh.

Doesn't that mean that it is -25% fuel efficient to produce?

It was my understanding that sugar cane was the ideal crop for producing ethanol and that it was more energy efficient than oil production, but TFA doesn't mention it. Heaven forbid that the gub'mint should reduce or eliminate, nay, even discourage!, the production of corn!

The concept of fuel production competing with food production concerns me.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ETHANOL_QA

A VERY compelling reason not to use Windows Live OneCare

Would you like to lose ALL of your email messages if one message contains a virus? Well, now you can! Sign up for Windows Live OneCare and be sure not to ask for *.PST files to be kept in the event of an infection!

http://www.appscout.com/2007/03/dont_let_onecare_eat_your_emai.php

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/10/182242

I think our winter is over (for now)

The roof is almost completely clear of ice, the snow pack on the back deck (north side of the house) is shrinking daily. Our front "yard" (for want of a better term, perhaps grove would be more accurate) is now almost entirely back to normal forest floor colors. The ice/snow lining the driveway is on an almost daily retreat: we have a HUGE block of snow fall off the covered parking and actually block the normal path to the front door, I've carved out a chunk and the warm temperatures (mid 50's during the day) have melted the ice underneath. Still, I make it a practice to stomp on any ice remaining as I walk by in hopes of breaking it and making it more vulnerable to the sun.

The driveway was a bit of a problem. We had a big snowfall (our last snowfall, sadly) about four or five weeks ago. Our next-door neighbor has a snow blower and carved out our driveway, but basically only one car wide. We have two cars. So it took a little navigation to get out of the driveway. Today I carved up the side behind Russet's car so that theoretically, in a couple of days, she'll be able to back straight up onto the street.


The problem with this is that the snow melt is TOO DAMN SOON! We're already at a high fire danger level, I've heard that's because of underbrush growth. But shouldn't winter be continuing past March when you're up at 8600'? We might get another storm or two, in fact we have what might be a rain storm system hovering in the area right now, but I don't know that it will really help significantly.

We got HUGE amounts of snow this winter compared to last, which was nigh unto non-existant. I wonder how this year compares to any norms?

Vote for your favorite fictional deaths!

Movies, TV shows, etc., lots of great deaths in lots of different categories represented here!

http://deborak.livejournal.com/176233.html