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Submission + - 2600 Distributor Withholds Money, Magazine Future in Limbo (2600.com) 1

Submitted by themusicgod1
themusicgod1 writes: According to 2600, their distributor (Previously known as "Source Interlink", now recently renamed to "TEN: The Enthusiast Network") has decided to consolidate its resources and is keeping the money retailers paid for the last two issues of the quarterly magazine. 2600, in the meanwhile, is still busy trying to organize the upcoming HOPE X conference. However, according to the link: In the worst case scenario, being ripped off at this level would make it almost impossible for us to continue publishing. We would have to make a lot of painful choices and cut back on things for no reason other than some outside company's mismanagement. Our readers have supported both our print and digital publications and we've been doing quite well overall.

Submission + - HDMI 2.0 reaches the stores, delivers 4K UHD but not totally nor anything else. (technedigitale.com)

Submitted by tafinho
tafinho writes: Although HDMI 2.0 was released in September last year, first TVs with HDMI 2.0 have only reached the market over the last few weeks. This meant finally people can enjoy their 4K Ultra Super Hyper High Def content from something into a TV. Unfortunately, there aren't as many devices outputting 4K content. This article compares what HDMI 2.0 promised, what it really delivers, and what about that HDMI 1.4 cable compatibility, or not...

Submission + - Germany's glut of electricity causing prices to plummet

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Germany is headed for its biggest electricity glut since 2011 as new coal-fired plants start and generation of wind and solar energy increases, weighing on power prices that have already dropped for three years. From December capacity will be at 117% of peak demand. The benchmark German electricity contract has slumped 36% since the end of 2010.

“The new plants will run at current prices, but they won’t cover their costs” said Ricardo Klimaschka, a power trader at Energieunion GmbH. Lower prices “leave a trail of blood in our balance sheet” according to Bernhard Guenther, CFO at RWE, Germany’s biggest power producer. Wind and solar’s share of installed German power capacity will rise to 42% by next year from 30% in 2010. The share of hard coal and lignite plant capacity will drop to 28% from 32%.

Submission + - Microsoft Suspending "Patch Tuesday" emails?

Submitted by outofluck70
outofluck70 writes: Got an email today from Microsoft, text is below. They are no longer going to send out emails regarding patches, you have to use RSS or keep visiting their security sites. They blame "governmental policies" as the reason. What could the real reason be? Anybody in the know?

From the email:

********************************************************************
Title: Microsoft Security Notifications
Issued: June 27, 2014
********************************************************************

Notice to IT professionals:

As of July 1, 2014, due to changing governmental policies concerning the issuance of automated electronic messaging, Microsoft is suspending the use of email notifications that announce the
following:

* Security bulletin advance notifications
* Security bulletin summaries
* New security advisories and bulletins
* Major and minor revisions to security advisories and bulletins

In lieu of email notifications, you can subscribe to one or more of the RSS feeds described on the Security TechCenter website.

For more information, or to sign up for an RSS feed, visit the Microsoft Technical Security Notifications webpage at http://technet.microsoft.com/s....

Submission + - FBI Issued 19,000 National Security Letters in 2013

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The United States federal government issued more than 19,000 National Security Letters–perhaps its most powerful tool for domestic intelligence collection–in 2013, and those NSLs contained more than 38,000 individual requests for information.

The new data was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday as part of its effort to comply with a directive from President Obama to declassify and release as much information as possible about a variety of tools that the government uses to collect intelligence. The directive came in the immediate aftermath of the first revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the agency’s capabilities, methods and use of legal authorities.

The use of NSLs is far from new, dating back several decades. But their use was expanded greatly after 9/11 and NSLs are different from other tools in a number of ways, perhaps most importantly in the fact that recipients typically are prohibited from even disclosing the fact that they received an NSL. Successfully fighting an NSL is a rare thing, and privacy advocates have been after the government for years to release data on their use of the letters and the number of NSLs issued. Now, the ODNI is putting some of that information into the public record.

Submission + - The Next Big Thing in FOSS, according to the author of Linux Cookbook (linux.com)

Submitted by trogdoro
trogdoro writes: Command-line lovers, allow me to introduce you to Xiki, the incredibly interactive, flexible, and revolutionary command shell. I do not use the word "revolutionary" lightly. The command shell has not advanced all that much since the ancient days of Unix. Xiki is a giant leap forward. If you're looking for the Next Big Thing in FOSS, Xiki is it.

Submission + - Saudi Government Targeting Dissidents with Mobile Malware (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Human Rights Watch on Friday demanded a clarification from Saudi Arabia over allegations from security researchers that the kingdom is infecting and monitoring dissidents' mobile phones with surveillance malware. The New York-based rights watchdog said surveillance software allegedly made by Italian firm Hacking Team mostly targeted individuals in Qatif district in Eastern Province, which has been the site of sporadic Shiite-led protests since February 2011.

"We have documented how Saudi authorities routinely crack down on online activists who have embraced social media to call out human rights abuses," said Cynthia Wong, HRW's senior Internet researcher. "It seems that authorities may now be hacking into mobile phones, turning digital tools into just another way for the government to intimidate and silence independent voices."

The accusations against the Saudi Government come days after researchers from Kaspersky Lab and Citizen Lab uncovered new details on advanced surveillance tools offered by HackingTeam, including never before seen implants for smartphones running on iOS and Android.

Submission + - Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Women And Minorities (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: In a blog post from Gregg Pollack, CEO of the Code School, Google is paying for three free months for any women and minorities interested in tech to expand their skills. The offer is part of Google’s $50 million 'Made With Code' initiative, which aims to help close the gender gap in tech. While Google is also offering the same vouchers to the women in attendance at its annual I/O developers conference this week, the search giant has released an online application that’s available to women everywhere. Google says its available vouchers for women number in the 'thousands.'
NASA

NASA Funds Projects For Asteroid-Capture Plan 65

Posted by Soulskill from the nasa-in-the-sky-with-diamonds dept.
An anonymous reader writes: NASA has announced funding for 18 different projects aimed at developing an asteroid retrieval mission. "The agency is working on two concepts for the mission. The first concept would fully capture a very small asteroid in free space and the other would retrieve a boulder off of a much larger asteroid. Both concepts would redirect an asteroid mass less than 10 meters in size to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft launched on the Space Launch System (SLS) would rendezvous with the captured asteroid mass in lunar orbit and collect samples for return to Earth." Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have also identified and measured the size of a candidate near-earth asteroid. It measures roughly six meters in diameter, and seems to be held together lightly, possible as a "pile of rubble."

Comment Re:Total misrepresentation of Evolution (Score 4, Interesting) 161

by ItsJustAPseudonym (#47196121) Attached to: Interviews: Forrest Mims Answers Your Questions
I agree with your general inputs and conclusions. However, I think that Mims is correct, in a sense.

"The evolution of these complex molecules, which had to exist in the earliest cells, is so improbable..." --Mims

Yes, it is improbable, on a small-scale, and that seems to be where Mims' analysis has stopped.

"If enough random things happen and the beneficial things survive, then not only is the evolution not improbable, it's almost inevitable given enough time." --parent

Yes indeed.

I found Mims' statement that he has "built thousands of circuits, none of which were made by randomly wiring together components" very telling. If he were to wire billions of circuits by randomly wiring together components, then he might end up with a few that were useful.

I'm having a hard time reconciling his beliefs with his electronic achievements. This is not meant as a slam.

Submission + - Bill Watterson (briefly) returns to comics 1

Submitted by amosh
amosh writes: Bill Watterson was the author of the immensely popular "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip in the 80s and 90s, until he retired and removed himself entirely from the public eye. Since his retirement in 1995, he has become a recluse, and has not drawn a published daily comic strip — until now. This week, Watterson came out of exile to draw the 2nd panel of three of Stephan Pastis' "Pearls Before Swine" strips. Watterson has lost none of his style or talent, and a fourth strip — drawn by Pastis alone and published today, June 7 — is a lovely homage to Watterson's ending of Calvin and Hobbes. The Washington Post has the story of how it all happened.

Submission + - Wikipedia Mining Algorithm Reveals The Most Influential People In History 1

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: In 1978, the American researcher Michael Hart published "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History", a book that became an international best seller. Since then, various others have published similar lists. But all suffer the same drawback: they are subjective list ultimately influenced by numerous cultural factors. Now data scientists have come up with a way to extract an objective list of the 100 most influential people in history using the network of links between biographical articles on Wikipedia and how they vary between 24 different language editions, including English, Chinese, Russian Arabic and so on. The researchers assume that people who are highly ranked in different language editions are influential across both language cultures and that the more appearances they make in different language editions, the more influential they are. But the actual ranking is done by PageRank-like algorithms that consider a biographical article important if it is pointed to by other important articles. The resulting lists of the most influential men and women might surprise. The top PageRanked individual is Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist who developed the modern naming scheme for plants and animals, followed by Jesus. The top PageRanked women are: Elizabeth II followed by Mary (mother of Jesus). For comparison, just under half of the top 100 most influential also appear in Hart's 1978 book. But this is just the beginning. By counting the individuals from one culture that influence other cultures, the team is able to work out which cultures have dominated others. And by looking only at people born before certain dates, they can see how the influence of different cultures has waxed and waned throughout 35 centuries of recorded history.

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