An AP story suggests students might suddenly change their mind about using peer-to-peer (P2P) software themselves if faced with a simple test:
Missouri University of Science and Technology now requires students to ace a six-question quiz on digital copyright law to get six hours of access to peer-to-peer software they can use to share music and movies online.
The quiz has cut copyright complaints on campus from recording industry to eight this academic year, down from 200 in 2006-07, said Tim Doty, a campus systems security analyst.
I wonder whether they a) simply can’t pass the test b) suddenly become disenchanted with P2P after reading about restrictions c) have no need to bother anymore after using a “mule” to take requests and perform primary downloads from outside the campus network and then distribute files internally without detection.
Faced with soaring prices at the petrol pumps, ecologically-minded Britons are turning to fish and chips to run their cars — transforming the leftover frying oil into “green” fuel.
Deep in the southern English countryside, an environmental group spent last weekend teaching 12 men how to transform the abundant vegetable oil from fish and chip shops, but also pubs and restaurants, into biodiesel.
There is really no need to worry about food crop disruption if people would instead focus on recycling their waste oils. Even if just 10% of current consumption is replaced with oil that would otherwise be used for tallow or sent to landfill, there would be a significant impact to the market (lower emissions from bio-diesel blends and reduced demand for petroleum).
In an added incentive, the government does not tax the production of biodiesel, providing it does not exceed 2,500 litres per person a year.
[…]
“The risks are, you use some dangerous chemicals, you also use electricity so you could have potentially dangerous scenarios but you just have to take care.
“It’s not rocket science, it’s like cookery but on a big scale.”
Beginning in February, UC Irvine graduate students who attempted to submit income tax returns electronically were informed by the IRS that their had already been filed, provoking complaints to the UCI Police Department to solve the identity thefts. To date, all 155 reported victims were participants in UCI’s Graduate Student Health Insurance Program.
The investigation is underway. It seems to touch on HIPAA, but the article makes no mention of health records.
After commenting on one of Bruce’s blog entries, I was reminded of a poem called “The Flyting betwixt Montgomery and Polwart”. I tried to find a handy copy to refresh my memory, but instead I ran into an odd article in Folklore:
At all events the British Association has more than once taken note of them, and has not gone so far as the Russian Commissary of Education, who has announced that all mention of fairies, angels, or devils in fairy tales is to be supplanted by the words “scientists and technicians who have served humanity.” Whether these partake the nature of angels or of devils, or incline more to that of fairies, I leave you to judge.