New Improved Management Of Your Digital Rights

[Maximius]

This is starting to remind me of good'ol Czechoslovakia during Hitler. Yes i am Czech. No i am only 18, so i did'nt see anything, only my parents and grandparents did, but they told me the stories.

 

I wonder how many people by now have been affected by Chernobyl. I was around when it happened, so technically i'm affected. Though not enough for anything anyways. It's not like i'm radioactive man or something.

 

I read something really weird about Chernobyl recently. The article claimed that the ecosystems around Chernobyl were actually doing better than they had before the accident. I'm looking for the article to back this up, but I think it had something to do with the huge rate of mutation that took place afterwards. Im sure this applies to smaller lifeforms with higher rates of reproduction. Obscurus have you heard anything about this?

[sparhawk]

I think there was even an article in Scientific American about this. At least in the geman version of it. But it was quite some time ago.

[Dram]

wtf? omfglol, u serious? i oughta check this out

[obscurus]

I read something really weird about Chernobyl recently. The article claimed that the ecosystems around Chernobyl were actually doing better than they had before the accident. I'm looking for the article to back this up, but I think it had something to do with the huge rate of mutation that took place afterwards. Im sure this applies to smaller lifeforms with higher rates of reproduction. Obscurus have you heard anything about this?

 

 

Yes, there are a lot of strange things going on around in the wildlife of the Chernobyl area - there are wide range of mutations, but surprisingly few of them seem to be that harmful. There are hedghogs in the area with massively mutated DNA, but they are mostly pretty normal appearence wise.

 

The high mutation rate as a result of the radiation means that evolution basically runs at an accelerated rate (more variation for natural selection to play with), and Chernobyl has created a very interesting biological experiment. I'd love to go there one day, I think it would be very interesting. There are jars full of various animal and plant specimens collected from around Chernobyl that ehibit all kinds of bizarre mutations, very fascinating stuff for a biologist. A lot has already been learned about vertebrate development from these specimens. There are similar things around a lot of areas that have been extensively mined or used for industrial purposes around the world. Initially, pollution is an ecological disaster, but life always seems to pick itself up and thrive again...

[Domarius]

At least something good came of it

[Dram]

yes. btw, chernobyl was'nt an "accident" it was the idiocy of the people running it. They turned off (on purpose) all of the emergency auto shutdown features so they could do a friggin experiment. They pulled out all the control rods and when the station started saying "fuck you man" they started to put them back in manually. Too late of course. It was'nt a nuclear explosion either just for those who don't know. It was a big explosion caused when the superheated stem burst through the side and ignited the fuel (not the uranium fuel). This made a huge explosion causing all of the radioactive substances to fly into the atmosphere, where they have slowly decayed since. The radioactivity is still spreading, though its too low now, but its there.

[Domarius]

Hah, that is the way a lot of distasters happen it seems. Ignorance. Goes for road accidents too.

[Maximius]

Initially, pollution is an ecological disaster, but life always seems to pick itself up and thrive again...

 

 

Yes, I wonder what are some of the more bizarre examples of life habituating itself to environments filled with pollutants of all kinds. Do you know of any specifics, some bug learning to eat nuclear waste or something? I used to make this point to my more "tree-huggish" friends, that saving the environment was not about saving life itself, which would continue on in different ways, but rather about saving OUR niche in the environment as well as the niches of the life forms around us.

[obscurus]

Yes, there are some very interesting things, including bacteria that live in nuclear reactor cores (eg Deinococcus radiodurans ), bacteria that live in highly radioactive environments, bacteria that have evolve the ability to digest plastic in landfill (all that stuff about polystyrene etc lasting for hundreds of thousands of years isn't true - there are bacteria that will happily devour it in a matter of years if not months in the right conditions). And where there are bacteria, you will inevitably find other more complex organisms as new food webs develop. There are all kinds of plants that have been found growing in incredibly contaminated soils, loaded with heavy metals, toxic chemicals like dioxins etc, that seem to be thriving.

 

This ability of organims to consume things previously thought to be toxic to all life has led to quite a booming business - Bioremediation, where scientists have developed genetically modified organisms to clean up all kinds of toxic and radioactive waste spills.

 

The reason I am bothered by the destruction of ecosystems is not out of some tree-hugging hippie type of sentimentalism, it is because I recognise the fact that human beings depend on complex ecosystems for our long term survival. You might think that some species of obscure amphibian going extinct is nothing to worry about, but it has flow on efffects throughout the ecosystem that can snowball into a complete collapse of multiple ecosystems on a scale far beyond what you might expect, or a plague of disease bearing insects could be unleashed when their primary predator is no longer there to keep them in check.

 

Complex ecosystems are also the most effective way to control the populations of pests - plant a monoculture of wheat or corn or lettuce and you will need a continuous supply of chemicals to keep the ever-adapting insect pests at bay. Mix your crops up with weeds and trees, and other crops, and you will have far less need for pesticides.

[Vadrosaul]

How the fuck did this thread go from digital rights to bacteria and ecosystems?

 

Somehow you guys flipped it entirely from technology to nature

[Domarius]

The cool thing is that it only happened in about 2 posts

[obscurus]

Well, I interpret "off topic" to mean that staying on topic is entirely optional.

 

So anyway, back to DRM....

[Maximius]

The reason I am bothered by the destruction of ecosystems is not out of some tree-hugging hippie type of sentimentalism, it is because I recognise the fact that human beings depend on complex ecosystems for our long term survival. You might think that some species of obscure amphibian going extinct is nothing to worry about, but it has flow on efffects throughout the ecosystem that can snowball into a complete collapse of multiple ecosystems on a scale far beyond what you might expect, or a plague of disease bearing insects could be unleashed when their primary predator is no longer there to keep them in check.

 

 

No, no, I agree completely with your points. I am rather tree huggish myself quite frankly, natural beauty is the closest I come to religious ecstasy. I was addressing those environmentalists who perceive human activity as threatening the processes of life itself, as if we are going to kill off every living thing on the planet. If we set off every nuclear device in our possession, life would find a niche and continue to do its thing. If a two mile comet hit the Earth and annihilated all complex lifeforms, bacteria and microorganisms would find a hidey-hole and drive on. Life is a lot more powerful a process than we are, it will continue on in one form or another. The real threat to the environment is that we could alter it in such a way as to make it harder for humans to live, as you point out.

 

Its irrational but its heartening to hear that these organisms are being found eating the crap we spew out. When I look out the window at the junk in the street, its good to know Mom Nature has it in hand in a sense.

[Maximius]

How the fuck did this thread go from digital rights to bacteria and ecosystems?

 

Somehow you guys flipped it entirely from technology to nature

 

 

It Drams fault, he brought up Chernobyl...he was probably drunk again...

[SneaksieDave]

Damn. Well, originally it was a topic we should all be interested in.

 

Guess we'll just let the steams and starforces of the world plow us under.

[Dram]

It Drams fault, he brought up Chernobyl...he was probably drunk again...

 

I deny all charges *hick*

[Forsaken]

Shame we didn't arrived to Kiev when when BlackPain blew up. The rooms were cheap.

[Dram]

lol

[Darkness_Falls]

Well, bringing it back to the original topic... an update on CNN.com:

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers. Click here for full story.

[Forsaken]

Один большой ЛоЛ.

[sparhawk]

And another one, which was on slashdot said that California is suing Sony over this.

[SneaksieDave]

Yep, here's a couple more relevant links.

 

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/79775/sony-sus...production.html

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/m...decloaking.html

 

It's by no means "over," but you see, fighting back works. Make a big enough stink over something and the power of the paying consumer is revealed.

 

I guess the most ironic thing about all of this is, the more companies like Sony (this crap) or Valve (Steam) or game publishers (Starforce, etc.) or whoever else fight back, the more those among us who steal will be convinced (forced?) that stealing is the way to go. Oh, well.

 

Nothing can be written crack-proof. So guess who wins that fight?

[Darkness_Falls]

That's rediculous. So if you anonymously purchased your stupid Sony CD with cash and you want to uninstall this , then you have to fill out their form and give your personal e-mail address and country of purchase? Just another way they can file your information away and market you in the future if they want to, or sell it to 3rd parties, or someone to hack into their systems for, etc...

 

 

I'd like to see a list of CDs that are affected by this nonsense. I've yet to find a list to know if my or my family/friends are impacted.

[OrbWeaver]

I'd like to see a list of CDs that are affected by this nonsense. I've yet to find a list to know if my or my family/friends are impacted.

 

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php

[Darkness_Falls]

Awesome! Thanks OrbWeaver!!