Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lashes out at SOPA, PIPA

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, took to his social-networking site yesterday to speak out against SOPA and PIPA, which Zuckerberg called "poorly thought out laws."?

SOPA and PIPA protests reached fever pitch yesterday, as hundreds of thousands of Web users raged against two proposed bills that have been criticized as heavy-handed and intrusive. Among the protesters? Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.

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In a post to his Facebook wall, Zuckerberg called SOPA and PIPA "poorly thought out" and encouraged readers to get in touch with their local representatives.?

"The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development," Zuckerberg wrote. "Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.?The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet."

As of this writing, the post had been "liked" by almost half a million Facebook users, and garnered close to 100,000 shares.?

Of course, as Chris Taylor points out over at Mashable, if Zuckerberg really wanted to protest SOPA, he would do more than post a rant to his Facebook wall. Facebook chose not to follow in Wikipedia's footsteps, which imposed a blackout yesterday. Or, Facebook could have copped a move from Google, and display some sort of protest art on the Facebook homepage.?

"So why hasn?t it??Doubtless the main argument against such a move is financial," Taylor admits. "Facebook made about $4.25 billion last year; by that reckoning, a single day of outage would cost the site nearly $12 million in revenue. Advertisers would be furious; space they bought in good faith would either be blacked out or appear next to blacked-out text."

Money is an issue, sure. But more pressing is what the world would do if they couldn't idly flick through pictures from the birthday party of their third cousin, twice removed...?

For more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut. And don?t forget to sign up for the weekly?BizTech newsletter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ZpZgeD5WvqQ/Facebook-CEO-Mark-Zuckerberg-lashes-out-at-SOPA-PIPA

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Chinese See New Year as Golden

BY RHIANNON HOYLE AND YUE LI

SHANGHAI?The year of the dragon is breathing new life into gold prices.

The Chinese have been loading up like never before on gold ahead of the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 23 this year. It is a time of gift-giving that takes place during family dinners, with the older generation giving money to younger members. And as the Chinese have gotten richer, gold?in the form of jewelry, coins and even bars?is becoming the gift of choice.

In preparation for the festivities, China imported a record amount of gold in November, the most recent month for which data are ...

BY RHIANNON HOYLE AND YUE LI

SHANGHAI?The year of the dragon is breathing new life into gold prices.

The Chinese have been loading up like never before on gold ahead of the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 23 this year. It is a time of gift-giving that takes place during family dinners, with the older generation giving money to younger members. And as the Chinese have gotten richer, gold?in the form of jewelry, coins and even bars?is becoming the gift of choice.

In preparation for the festivities, China imported a record amount of gold in November, the most recent month for which data are ...

Source: http://feeds.wsjonline.com/~r/wsj/xml/rss/3_7013/~3/tAa8TXCDtvM/SB10001424052970203735304577167113516898478.html

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Microcassette Records Messages Without a Recorder [Audio]

When I was in college a microcassette recorder was the state-of-the-art way to record a lecture. But now, this novelty digital recorder that's only made to look like a microcassette makes me feel terribly old and dated. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/J4flZwKmAus/microcassette-records-messages-without-a-recorder

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Burberry hit by slower U.S. sales growth (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? British luxury brand Burberry Group Plc (BRBY.L) reported a sharp slowdown in U.S. sales growth as it chose to cut back supplies for department stores to sell through their discount outlets, knocking its high-flying shares.

The 156-year-old seller of raincoats and leather goods, known for its camel, red and black check pattern, said on Tuesday it wanted to focus on more profitable full-price sales and was seeing no overall moderation in demand.

The group met forecasts with a 22 percent rise in third-quarter revenue. Some analysts said the figures were flattered by a pulling forward of wholesale orders and that the firm's full-year guidance implied little growth in fourth-quarter wholesale sales.

"Nothing wrong with the overall numbers, however the poor performance in the U.S. and the weak 4Q guidance may worry the market," Liberum analysts said in a research note.

At 0915 GMT, Burberry shares were down 1.9 percent at 1,275 pence, the biggest fall at that time by a European blue chip stock.

Luxury goods shares have wobbled in recent months amid signs of a slowdown in economic growth in China, the engine of recent strong demand for high-end goods, and fears the euro zone debt crisis could drag the world back into recession.

Jeweler Tiffany (TIF.N) and watchmaker Swatch (UHR.VX) last week warned of slower growth.

However, Swiss luxury group Richemont (CFR.VX) on Monday said its third-quarter sales held up well.

Burberry's shares, which rocketed around 10 times in value from November 2008 to July 2011, are trading well below their peak of 1,610 pence, but also clear of their October low of 1,034 pence.

ASIANS AND TOURISTS

Burberry said it made 574 million pounds ($880 million) of revenue in the three months to December 31, just above analysts' average forecast of 569 million in a Reuters poll.

Finance chief Stacey Cartwright said the slowdown in growth from 29 percent in the first half was due to tougher comparable figures the year before and demand from Asian shoppers and tourists in particular remained strong.

Sales in the Asia-Pacific region jumped 39 percent to 210 million pounds, accounting for the largest proportion of the total, while strong demand from travelers drove sales in major cities such as London, Paris and Hong Kong.

Sales growth in the Americas, however, slowed to 4 percent from 20 percent in the first half.

Cartwright said this was due to the group's decision to cut back sales to the discount outlets of department stores and focus on more profitable full-price sales. Demand in Burberry's own stores in the Americas remained strong, she added.

Sales at retail outlets open over a year climbed 13 percent for the group as a whole, just ahead of a forecast 12 percent increase, though down from 16 percent in the first half.

Burberry said it was pressing ahead with its expansion plans while remaining mindful of the difficult economic backdrop.

It expects retail selling space to rise 13-14 percent in the second half, down from around 15 percent previously, due in part to the closure of some concessions in Spain.

Cartwright said southern European shoppers were showing more strain from the euro zone debt crisis than those in the north.

Burberry remained comfortable with analysts full-year consensus forecast for underlying profits to grow by about a quarter to 375 million pounds, she added.

The group said wholesale revenues rose 15 percent at constant currencies, helped by a rephasing of deliveries to the third quarter from the fourth. It expects wholesale revenues for the second-half to rise by a mid-single digit percentage.

($1 = 0.6524 pound)

(Editing by Dan Lalor and Hans-Juergen Peters)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120117/bs_nm/us_burberry

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FORGOTTEN FREE MOOMBAH EP: DJ MADD OD IS?POWER DOS

We gotta apologize to our boy Dj Madd Od. We really wanted to fucking post this when it first came out. But we slacked and now it has been around 2 weeks. We?re assholes. But you knew that already. So we?re posting it now. Here it is. Dude was in the moombah game in Chapter 1. Def made some sick tunes. Check this one out. If that is not some powerful shit then we don?t know what is. Big shoutout to this dude and hopefully he keeps sendings us tracks because he has our full fucking support. GRAB THE WHOLE FREE ASS EP AFTER THE FUCKING JUMP!

GRAB IT HERE!

DJ MADD OD ? POWER DOS

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Source: http://walmerconvenience.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/forgotten-free-moombah-ep-dj-madd-od-is-power-dos/

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Why it's hard to predict where failed Russian craft will fall

Phobos-Grunt launched toward Mars on Nov. 8, but it failed to leave low-Earth orbit. Reentry into Earth's atmosphere could happen anywhere from Sunday morning to Monday night, according to current estimates.

Where will the remains of Russia's derelict Phobos-Grunt tumble back to Earth?

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That's this weekend's 5-billion-ruble question as space agencies and other satellite trackers around the world try to gauge when and where the spacecraft is likely to begin its fiery descent into Earth's atmosphere.

Estimates on when reentry starts range from about 11:20 a.m., Eastern time, on Sunday to 8 p.m. Monday. But they can change several times a day, lending forecasting efforts an air of confusion.

The uncertainty highlights the challenge in forecasting a track for an object no one can control, specialists say. And it underscores a need for a freer flow of more accurate information on satellite positions and tracks to avoid collisions that would add to the space junk already on orbit, others add.

For its part, Phobos-Grunt appears highly unlikely to add to the space-junk problem. Nor is it deemed much of a threat to people on the ground.

Phobos-Grunt launched Nov. 8. The mission aimed to return soil samples from Mars' moon Phobos. The spacecraft also carries a small Chinese probe designed to orbit Mars and gather data on its atmosphere. And it is acting as cosmic sherpa for a small experiment sponsored by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. The experiment is designed to test whether microbes could survive a prolonged trip from one planet to another housed, in this case, in an artificial meteoroid. The meteoroid was to have returned to Earth along with soil samples from Phobos.

Phobos-Grunt failed to leave low-Earth orbit as planned, however. Efforts to communicate with the 13.5-metric ton craft failed, leaving ground controllers with no way to guide it on a predictable path to a controlled reentry.

Initially, concerns centered mainly on whether the craft's tanks bearing 11 tons of toxic fuel could survive the plunge and then present a hazard to people on the ground.

But engineers with Russia's space agency Roscosmos and with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have calculated that the aluminum fuel tanks will burst before the craft falls below about 60 miles in altitude, allowing the fuel to dissipate harmlessly.

"This, combined with a relatively low dry mass of just 2.5 tons, means Phobos-Grunt is not considered to be a high-risk entry object," said Heiner Klinkrad, who heads the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office, in a statement released Jan. 12.

Still, tracking the craft is important, notes Joshua Horwood, a research scientist with Numerica Corp., a company based in Loveland, Colo., that develops orbital tracking and forecasting software for the US military, in addition to other forms of specialized computer-based tools for civilian aerospace and biomedical clients.

In addition to the need to know where and when a spacecraft will end up after reentry, information on where an uncontrolled craft may be headed next is vital to other satellite operators, who may need to move their craft out of the way. But forecasting the track of an uncontrollable craft ? especially one in low-Earth orbit, or between 100 and 800 miles up ? is fiendishly difficult, Dr. Horwood says.

Even in low-Earth orbit, he notes, the significantly thinned atmosphere can exert drag on a spacecraft, slowing it and allowing Earth's gravity to tug it out of an intended orbit. The sun's activity can change the atmosphere's density with altitude, increasing or decreasing drag.

In this case, the drag is acting on a very irregularly shaped craft, which makes its effect very hard to calculate, Horwood says.

Working backward from the most recent observation of a derelict's position to reconstruct an orbit from past observations is no problem, he adds. But drag and other issues can throw curves into projections of where in the sky one can next expect to spot the object.

"We're not dealing with cannonballs here," he quips.

Still, one potential benefit from Russia's woes is that the information gained from tracking Phobos-Grunt could help improve track-forecasting models, Horwood says.

Indeed, the international community is doing that now.

The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, made up of representatives from 12 national space agencies, is using Phobos-Grunt's problems as an opportunity to figure out more-accurate ways of estimating the reentry time and place for incoming spacecraft.

Then again, the estimates are only as good as the data that feed them. The best data come from the United States, Russia, and Europe. But while the US cooperates with space agencies in alerting them to possible hazards to their craft, it keeps the most accurate of its tracking information under wraps.

Some data need to be held close to the vest for national-security reasons, acknowledges Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer who was deeply involved in the US military's efforts to track objects in space.

"But we think there is a batter balance" that can be struck in making more accurate information publicly available, says Mr. Weeden, currently the technical advisor to the Secure World Foundation, which advocates the sustainable use of near-Earth space.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/YHVvqM_FEOw/Why-it-s-hard-to-predict-where-failed-Russian-craft-will-fall

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Wahlberg says he wants to meet reputed mob boss (AP)

BOSTON ? Mark Wahlberg says he's considering a jailhouse meeting with James "Whitey" Bulger, but victim's relatives are criticizing the actor's interest in the reputed former mob boss.

Bulger has reached out to Wahlberg, the actor told Boston's WAAF-FM radio Friday, and he speculated Bulger wants to give him rights to his story.

"He wants me to come down and visit him. Maybe he'll give me the exclusive rights to tell his story, `cause he knows, you know, we can do it better than anybody else," Wahlberg said.

Wahlberg grew up in South Boston, also Bulger's home when he ran a local gang in the `70s, `80s and `90s while working as an FBI informant. Bulger, 82, is accused of participating in 19 murders before fleeing in 1995, allegedly after his FBI handler tipped him that an indictment was coming. He was caught in California last year after 16 years on the run.

Wahlberg said his "heart goes out" to loved ones of Bulger's victims, but the story has tremendous potential.

"If there's a story to be told there, and, you know, we can do it in the way we want in the way that we best see fit, then, you know, then it's certainly something that we would explore," he said.

Patricia Donahue, whose husband, Michael Donahue, was allegedly killed by Bulger during a hit on another man, said Saturday that's there nothing she can do to stop someone from making a movie. But, she said, she prays the filmmakers don't make Bulger a hero and "will portray him as he really is, the murderer that he is."

Donahue said she doubted Bulger would be honest with Wahlberg.

"The government can't get the truth out of him, nobody seems to be able to get the truth out of him, so why is he gonna to pour his heart out to Markie Wahlberg?" Donahue said.

But Wahlberg's local roots could help him sort through the lies, she added.

"He has a pretty good idea of who's who in this whole episode," she said.

Steven Davis, whose sister, Deborah Davis, was allegedly strangled by Bulger, told the Boston Herald that Bulger ruined "my whole family" and shouldn't be glamorized.

"I have a lot of respect for Mark (Wahlberg). I would hope that he would reach out to us, too," he said.

Phone messages left with Wahlberg's representatives at Leverage Management were not immediately returned Saturday.

A Massachusetts legislator, Sen. Stephen Brewer, has proposed a bill that allows only Bulger's victims to profit from his story.

Bulger is awaiting trial. A federal prosecutor said Wednesday at a status conference that he believes Bulger is trying to "manipulate the system" so he's never brought to trial for his role in the murders.

Bulger's lawyer said the volume of evidence he has received from prosecutors is "enormous" and he and other lawyers need more time to go through it, and noted that it generally takes 18-30 months for a murder case to go to trial in Massachusetts.

Another status conference in the case is scheduled for next month.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120115/ap_en_mo/us_whitey_bulger_arrested

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