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Medicine

Submission + - Black Death Discovered In Oregon (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "The Black Death, a strain of bubonic plague that destroyed nearly a third of Europe's entire population between 1347 and 1369, has been found in Oregon. Health officials in Portland have confirmed that a man contracted the plague after getting bitten by a cat. The unidentified man, who is currently in his 50s, had tried to pry a dead mouse from a stray cat's mouth on June 2 when the cat attacked him. Days later, fever and sickness drove the man to check himself into Oregon's St. Charles Medical Center, where he is currently in "critical condition.""
Government

Submission + - Zero-Day exploit market sells mostly to US government (forbes.com)

Submitted by
mpol
mpol writes: "Forbes magazine published a profile of French exploit-selling firm Vupen last April. Now there's a blog article about a broker from South Africa, complete with a price-list of zero-day exploits and their platform. iOS is the highest valued here.
The article also claims most exploits are being sold to agencies of the US government.
It does raise a concern though. What if black-hats got more serious, and the US government would become a victim. When shit hits the fan, how will they react."
Space

Submission + - It's Baaack! XB-37B finally lands. (af.mil)

Submitted by ColdWetDog
ColdWetDog writes: The US Air Force / DARPA 'baby shuttle', the Boeing built XB-37B has just landed after 469 days in orbit. No official explanation of why controllers kept the mission going past the original duration of 270 days other than 'because we could'.

I, for one, welcome our long duration, unmanned orbital overlords.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Microsoft is doing its own glasses like Google - Kinect Glasses (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A 56-page leaked document details Microsoft's plans to build a Project Glass competitor. Kinect Glasses is marked as a 2014 project designed to connect to a future Xbox 720 console. The document also includes potential pricing for the next Xbox — $299 with a Kinect 2.
Intel

Submission + - US-CERT discloses security flaw in Intel chips (csoonline.com)

Submitted by Fnord666
Fnord666 writes: The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has disclosed a flaw in Intel chips that could allow hackers to gain control of Windows and other operating systems, security experts say.

The flaw was disclosed the vulnerability in a security advisory released this week. Hackers could exploit the flaw to execute malicious code with kernel privileges, said a report in the Bitdefender blog.

"Some 64-bit operating systems and virtualization software running on Intel CPU hardware are vulnerable to a local privilege escalation attack," the US-CERT advisory says. "The vulnerability may be exploited for local privilege escalation or a guest-to-host virtual machine escape."
Businesses

Submission + - Why VCs Really Reject Startups (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Instead of simply not following up with startup proposals that he doesn't intend to pursue, venture capitalist Josh Breinlinger decided to change things up and not only hear every pitch request but respond with honest feedback. For those on the receiving end of that honest feedback, Breinlinger's silence may have been golden. It turns out that Breinlinger, and perhaps most VCs, reject your proposals because you lack experience and leadership skills and your team is weak. Would you rather hear the hard truth about why your startup didn't get funded or some vague dismissal?"

Comment evidence (Score 1) 1226

by Jazari (#40142801) Attached to: Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey
There's already enough evidence that earth is >6,000 years and yet some people don't believe it. There's also enough evidence for evolution today, so I doubt the situation will change in 30 years. Perhaps things will change when we're able to create life from scratch (go Venter!) or simulate consciousness in a computer.

Comment Re:No Question At All (Score 1) 342

by Jazari (#39972561) Attached to: Wear a Mask During a Protest In Canada: 10 Years In Jail
I would have thought that the answer is pretty obvious: A riot will be considered illegal if three things are true:
1- The police (usually provincial -- nothing to do with the Federal Conservatives) consider it a riot, and arrest you;
2- The Crown attorney (usually provincial -- nothing to do with the Federal Conservatives) agrees with the police and presses charges; and
3- The judge or jury agree with the Crown attorney and convict you.

In a free country like Canada, if you're reached this stage, it probably means that you did in fact participate in a riot.

Comment Don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion (Score 1) 342

by Jazari (#39971697) Attached to: Wear a Mask During a Protest In Canada: 10 Years In Jail
What a poor summary (shock!)
- It was not the (federal) Conservatives who arrested protestors during the G8/G20, but the (Provincial, Ontario) Liberals.
- You cannot compare a maximum sentence (10 years) with an actual sentence (5 years). In Canada that "10 year" sentence would probably translate into a suspended sentence (0 days) unless aggravating factors were present (violence).
- The bill is redundant anyway, since (according to TFA!) the "Criminal Code ... already criminalizes the wearing of a disguise."

Comment Re:Reed Solomon to the rescue (Score 1) 247

by Jazari (#39918911) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What's a Good Tool To Detect Corrupted Files?
I'll second that. QuickPar ( http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ ) has been exceptionally useful to me over and over again. I can check file integrity, recover minor corruption, and revert to past file states if I accidentally modify old archived files. It's also free. The only unfortunate thing is that it doesn't seem to be under development anymore, but at least it still works with Win7/64.

For archival purposes, I've started using WinRAR ( http://www.rarlabs.com/ ) with the file authenticity and recovery options checked. Unfortunately none of this helps you now, but it will help in the future at least...

Comment History (Score 1) 816

by Jazari (#39584803) Attached to: MIT Institute's Gloomy Prediction: 'Global Economic Collapse' By 2030
"Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate"

That's already a sign that their models are wrong. Did their models, if run on historical data, predict: the 1930's depression? the 1970's stagflation? the babyboom? the current economic situation? the current population growth trends in Africa? ...

Humans (and markets) are adaptable. If resources get scarce, prices rise. People change their behaviors.

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