Topic: COMPUTER - on June 20, 2008 at 2:09:48 PM CEST
One tonne 'Baby' marks its birth
Sixty years ago the "modern computer" was born in a lab in Manchester.
The Small Scale Experimental Machine, or "Baby", was the first to contain memory which could store a program.
The room-sized computer's ability to carry out different tasks - without having to be rebuilt - has led some to describe it as the "first modern PC".
Using just 128 bytes of memory, it successfully ran its first set of instructions - to determine the highest factor of a number - on 21 June 1948.
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Topic: Online-Fahndung - on June 20, 2008 at 12:07:56 PM CEST
France to ban illegal downloaders from using the internet under three-strikes rule
Anyone who persists in illicit downloading of music or films will be barred from broadband access under a controversial new law that makes France a pioneer in combating internet piracy.
“There is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone,” President Sarkozy told his Cabinet yesterday as it endorsed the “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” scheme that from next January will hit illegal downloaders where it hurts.
Under a cross-industry agreement, internet service providers (ISPs) must cut off access for up to a year for third-time offenders.
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Topic: STRANGE - on June 20, 2008 at 12:05:39 PM CEST
Betrug, Schwindel, fiese Tricks
Verdacht auf Immobilienbetrug und Insiderhandel: Die Hypothekenkrise hat in den USA eine beispiellose Verhaftungswelle ausgelöst. Unter den 406 Beschuldigten sind zwei prominente Ex-Fondsmanager - und ein Selbsthilfeguru aus Texas, der schnellen Reichtum predigt.
Eric Farrington kennt die Tricks, reich zu werden. Das zumindest schwört der Texaner in seinen "Motivationsseminaren": Für 299 Dollar lehrt er einem da "die Macht, Wohlstand zu erzeugen", das "wahre Geheimnis lebenslangen Erfolgs".
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Topic: War and Peace - on June 20, 2008 at 12:03:43 PM CEST
CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon
A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators.
Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."
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Topic: DRUGS - on June 20, 2008 at 10:21:37 AM CEST
Legalize All Drugs
The other day, reading the New York Post's popular Page Six gossip page, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: "ABC'S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs".
I had attended a Marijuana Policy Project event celebrating the New York State Assembly's passage of a medical-marijuana bill. (The bill hasn't passed the Senate.) I told the audience I thought it pathetic that the mere half passage of a bill to allow sick people to try a possible remedy would merit such a celebration. Of course medical marijuana should be legal. For adults, everything should be legal. I'm amazed that the health police are so smug in their opposition.
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Topic: DRUGS - on June 20, 2008 at 10:18:38 AM CEST
Spending of Drug Money Questioned
Federal rules allow local law enforcement agencies to seize drug money headed south to Mexico. Millions of dollars are at stake. The system has strengths but critics say there's too little oversight of how the money is spent.
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Topic: DRUGS - on June 20, 2008 at 10:16:52 AM CEST
UN shock at Colombia coca rise
Colombia's cultivation of coca, the raw material for cocaine, jumped last year by 27%, a United Nations report says.
The UN's office on drugs and crime (UNODC) says the increase is "a surprise and a shock" given Colombia's efforts to destroy coca crops.
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