Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - SPAM: Congressman: What's Good for Microsoft is Good for America's Schoolchildren 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: On Friday, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann joined Microsoft lobbyists to view the implementation of computer science literacy programs at the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy and Redbank High School. This week's visit was the second by Fleischmann and representatives from Microsoft's philanthropic arm to promote computer science education, as leaders seek resources and ideas for how to expand such efforts locally. In a post-inspection statement, Fleischmann vowed to make the rest of American's school children CS-savvy: "It was incredible to see the tangible results of the robust investment of Microsoft in Hamilton County Schools that support and develop the next generation of STEM education. I hope the rest of the nation takes note of this investment as East Tennessee paves the way to equip students with the computational skills they need to compete in a 21st-century economy. In Congress, I will continue to advocate for increased funding for computer science literacy programs to ensure that our work here is only the beginning." As noted earlier, Amazon execs are also making school visits to check in on the progress kids are making in computer science.

Submission + - Report outlines SpaceX's plans for Starship launches from KSC (spacenews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: SpaceX plans to build facilities at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A for launches and, eventually, landings of its next-generation launch vehicle, according to a newly released report.

An environment assessment prepared by SpaceX, and released by NASA Aug. 1, discusses plans to develop additional facilities at LC-39A, which currently hosts Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for use by the company’s Starship vehicle and its Super Heavy booster.

The plans outlined in the document call for the construction of a new launch mount at the complex near the existing one used by the Falcon 9 and Heavy. The modifications to the pad would also include a tank farm for the methane fuel used by the Raptor engines that power Starship and Super Heavy.

The Super Heavy booster would land at a ship in the ocean downrange from the launch site, although the report noted that SpaceX may later have the booster return to land. The Starship upper stage would initially land at the company’s existing Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the company plans to build a pad near the new launch mount at LC-39A for to support Starship landings at a future date.

The facilities will be able to support up to 24 Starship/Super Heavy launches a year.

Submission + - Georgia Department of Public Safety hit by ransomware attack.

Submitted by McFortner
McFortner writes: On July 27th the Georgia Department of Public Safety announced that they got hit by a ransomware attack. When I went in to get a copy of an accident report this Friday, the officer at the Henry County, GA, police department told me that at least 7 counties in the Atlanta area were hit at the same time and they had no way of knowing when their computers would be back up. They suggest to anybody needing a report to call them first to see if by any chance the system is back up and the report is finished and can be picked up.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Are Technology Companies Trying To Become Nation States?

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: It is no big secret that nation states have always gathered copious amounts of information about persons who are "smart", who could one day "affect broad societal or economic change", who might "compete against strategic, protected national industries and companies", who might "invent something of signficance" or might "influence significant numbers of people intellectually, philosophically or ideologically". For example, if you go to just about any foreign country to study International Relations, Politics, Economics or similar, the Security Service of that country will typically not only keep your Passport, address, telephone number, email address, social media details and such on file, but also ask the university you study at to report your grades at set intervals, and to provide a copy of your Masters or Doctoral thesis at the end of your degree. The smarter you are, and the more likely you are to become "somebody politically or economically influential in the future", the more information will be gathered about you, including information about your private, personal life. Nation states have always done this because it is easy to deny that they are doing it and because there really isn't any person or mechanism in place that can stop them from actually doing so. Now the large data-collecting tech companies are essentially doing what used to be the domain of nation states — gathering copious amounts of information about just about anybody who is of interest for any reason, including potential activists, innovators, influencers and future business competitors. These tech companies — just like nation states — also scoff at the notion that gathering information about persons, including sensitive personal information, should in any way be constrained by laws or regulations. So the question is — are tech companies trying to become mini nation-states of sorts? Making their own arbitrary rules about when, how and how aggressively they reach into the personal, academic, intellectual and professional lives of other people?

Submission + - SPAM: Australian NBN Proposes Introducing Non Net-Neutrality

Submitted by betsuin
betsuin writes: The NBN powers that be seem to want to introduce a "tax" on streaming video, Netflix for example.

[spam URL stripped]...

The proposal is reportedly before NBN Co’s top 50 retail service providers (RSPs) and asks if they would “support the development of a price response whereby charging of streaming video could be differentiated from the charging of other traffic/services?”.

I would call that throwing out net-neutrality.

Submission + - Carl Sagan's Solar Sail Is Finally Ready To Fly (popularmechanics.com) 1

Submitted by pgmrdlm
pgmrdlm writes: "Forty years ago, my professor Carl Sagan shared his dream of using solar sail spacecraft to explore the cosmos. The Planetary Society is realizing the dream," says Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye in a press statement. "Thousands of people from all over the world came together and supported this mission. We couldn't have done it without them. Carl Sagan, and his colleagues Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman, created our organization to empower people everywhere to advance space science and exploration. We are go for launch!"

If the CubeSat's mission is successful, it will have been the first spacecraft "to raise its orbit around the Earth using sunlight," the organization says. Harnessing the momentum of light for propulsion, the organization hopes to "demonstrate the application of solar sailing for CubeSats, small, standardized spacecraft that have made spaceflight more affordable for academics, government organizations, and private institutions."

LightSail 2 will be flying aboard the Department of Defense's Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission scheduled for launch on June 22, 2019. Carrying 24 payloads, STP-2 will be using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle for liftoff.

The LightSail 2 will be held inside a carrying device known as Prox-1, designed by a team from Georgia Tech to demonstrate close-encounter operations with other spacecraft. The two projects have been linked for years, finally integrated earlier this year in May.

After a few days in orbit, LightSail 2's 4 dual-sided solar panels will open, and a day after that 4 metallic booms will unfurl 4 triangular Mylar sails from storage. These sails will have a combined area of 32 square meters. Once open, they will move towards the sun, for half of each orbit. Situated in position, the craft will be receiving soft pushes from the sun's rays, which the Planetary Society estimates will be no stronger than the weight of a paperclip.

But being in zero gravity has its benefits. Around 30 days after sail deployment, the paperclip pushes will accumulate into a continual thrust that, if the experience of LightSail 1 holds true, will raise LightSail 2's orbit by a considerable amount.

Submission + - The ENIAC Programmers (boingboing.net)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: The programmers of the ENIAC — the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first modern computer — whose first programmers were six women: Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Betty Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum and Frances Bilas Spence.

The ENIAC programmers had to invent programming as we know it, working without programming codes (these were invented a few years later for UNIVAC by Betty Holberton): they "broke down the differential calculus ballistics trajectory program" into small steps the computer could handle, then literally wired together the program by affixing cables and flicking the machine's 3,000 switches in the correct sequences. To capture it all, they created meticulous flowcharts that described the program's workings.

Submission + - Trump orders advisory panels slashed by one third (cnn.com)

Submitted by ClickOnThis
ClickOnThis writes: It is well-known that President Trump is not fond of receiving advice, particularly advice he doesn't like. Now it appears he wants to gut the agencies that provide such advice to his administration and to lawmakers. From the article:

President Donald Trump on Friday announced plans to slash the formal system for advising regulators on nearly every area of federal policy.

The President signed an executive order directing each agency to "terminate at least one-third of its current" advisory committees by the end of September.

The order comes as the administration seeks to overhaul the way federal decisions are made and to overturn many decisions of its predecessors, particularly Obama-era environmental rules.

Early in his administration, Trump directed agencies to repeal two regulations for every new one created, and his Office of Management and Budget has asserted new authority over traditionally independent agencies. Most recently, the Forest Service proposed a system to streamline its environmental review process that would eliminate from many decisions the current avenues for public input.

Submission + - SPAM: These are the Internet of Things devices that are most targeted by hackers 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes:

Internet-connected security cameras account for almost half of the Internet of Things devices that are compromised by hackers even as homes and businesses continue to add these and other connected devices to their networks.

Research from cybersecurity company SAM Seamless Network found that security cameras represent 47 percent of vulnerable devices installed on home networks.

Figures from the security firm suggest that the average device is the target of an average of five attacks per day, with midnight the most common time for attacks to be executed – it's likely that at this time of the night, the users will be asleep and not paying attention to devices, so won't be witness to a burst of strange behavior.

The US Govt needs to block all imports of internet devices using the same methods used for importing fruit from central america: periodic inspections. Device gets rejected if it has non-essential ports open, hard coded or generic passwords, no automated patching for at least 4 years, etc
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Tacoma-based Snopes is locked in a nasty legal dispute (seattletimes.com)

Submitted by jader3rd
jader3rd writes: After more than two decades battling internet hoaxes, retouched photos, and other fake news, David Mikkelson, co-founder of Snopes, faces a much larger and more existential adversary.

Since 2017, Mikkelson has been locked in a nasty legal dispute with former business associates over control of Snopes, the pioneering fact-checking website that Mikkelson launched with a former wife in 1994 and which he now runs with his current wife from their house in Tacoma.

The dispute, which is playing out in the California courts, has generated claims and counterclaims of financial mismanagement, conspiracy and embezzlement. Mikkelson stands accused of, among other things, using company funds for “lavish” vacations, while he in turn levels accusations of fraud.

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft-Proposed Tax Increase to Boost Number of WA CS Grads Becomes Law

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: A shooting script for a Washington State take on I'm Just a Bill, Schoolhouse Rock!'s explanation of How a Bill Becomes a Law (video), might go something like this: 1. Microsoft President Brad Smith shares the company's Washington State Legislature Priorities for 2019, "including expanding computer science education." 2. Smith pens a Seattle Times Op-Ed calling for a tax boost to create "a dedicated workforce education investment fund", with some of the funds directed "toward increasing capacity for high-demand fields...like nursing, engineering and computer science." 3. Citing Smith's Op-Ed, WA State Rep. Drew Hansen introduces House Bill 2158 to make it so; from the video transcript: "The ideas in this op ed are reflected in the bill that is before you. We do indeed follow this targeted B&O surcharge assessment and we do indeed invest the money exactly as is proposed in the op ed." 4. The Seattle Times praises Microsoft for accepting "a whopping 67 percent [Business & Occupation] tax increase" (from 1.5% to 2.5%) as one of two "advanced computing businesses" with more than $100 billion in worldwide revenue (the other being Amazon). 5. WA State Governor Jay Inslee, whose transition team was coincidentally co-chaired by Smith back in the day, signs HB 2158 into law with great fanfare. 6. Post-passage, a Grant Thornton state and local tax alert notes that "a $7 million ceiling [on the B&O tax] may shield some advanced computing businesses [like Microsoft and Amazon] from drastic tax increases."

Submission + - Toilet paper marketing failure (businessinsider.com) 1

Submitted by stevent1965
stevent1965 writes: Charmin has created a line of toilet paper products aimed at Millennials and older folks who just don't have the storage space for the Costco/Sam's Club 45-count package of single rolls. The new product is estimated to last up to three months for a single-occupant dwelling.

Except, one large roll that lasts for three months takes up about the same amount of storage space as multiple, smaller rolls that last the same amount of time (allowing for negative volume involved in stacking smaller rolls).

The real problem? Imagine your friends and family members using your bathroom, only to be challenged by the Gargantua of toilet paper rolls. What will they be thinking? Oh, you know what they'll be thinking...it's what we're all thinking.

Besides, three or four rolls last a month or more. Who doesn't have enough storage space for that and also doesn't go shopping at least once a month?

Slashdot Top Deals

We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a clever but highly unmotivated trick. -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra"

Close