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Submission + - Wikipedia bans all references to Breitbart

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wikipedia administrator Gamaliel has banned all citation of the conservative news site Breitbart throughout Wikipedia. Gamaliel took this action user his authority as an "uninvolved administrator" under the community sanctions authorized for the article on Gamergate, despite being a defendant in the current ArbCom case. This ruling broadly covers all references to Breitbart sitewide, including references used to show evidence of the existence of a conservative viewpoint. Wikipedia continues to allow sources such as Gawker that the Gamergate movement accuses of bias and fabrication.

This follows a longstanding pattern of the removal of perceived conservative viewpoints. Wikipedia recently redirected its page on "Cultural Marxism", mirrored on archive.today, to a page on "Frankfurt School Conspiracy Theories" that insulted anyone who believed that Cultural Marxism existed. The editor responsible for the move had earlier described himself as a Cultural Marxist. That move resembled Wikipedia's earlier deletion of its page on "Muslim Brotherhood influence operations" and the replacement of that page, mirrored by Prison Planet, with the page "Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy theories". Earlier this year ArbCom topic-banned four editors for citing contemporary sources to show that Nazi Germany had disarmed the Jews in response to a complaint that mentioning the Nazi disarmament of the Jews makes the idea of gun control look bad. Last year there was a concerted effort to deny any mention of the The Knockout Game being conducted primarily by blacks against whites. This was justified on the grounds of the reliable sources for this information being "conservative".

Submission + - Orion spacecraft hits speeds of 20,000mph in NASA's dramatic footage of descent (mirror.co.uk)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: This footage shows the dramatic descent of the Orion spacecraft as it returned to Earth.

NASA released the video to demonstrate just what astronauts will witness as they re-enter the planet from Mars.

It shows the final 10 minutes of the unmanned voyage before it landed in the Pacific ocean following its test flight on 5 December.

The extreme environmental conditions the craft and any future crew must contend with as it re-enters the Earth's orbit are laid bare in the clip.

Plasma on the craft is formed as temperature rapidly increases when the atmosphere rubs against Orion's heat shield, changing from white to yellow to lavender to magenta.

Comment Why are critical systems connected to the internet (Score 3, Insightful) 212

by Bomarc (#48645873) Attached to: Cyberattack On German Steel Factory Causes 'Massive Damage'
I read this type of issue time after time.
Why are such critical systems connected to the internet... and further why are they (these critical systems) allowed to see "foreign" websites?
Start with this story: Why is there critical systems allowed to be in the same network as email? They should be physically separated - and never see the light of the www, Degrade the subject to Target, Home Depot et al, and why do their critical systems see anything (everything) on the www? At BEST the only equipment these computers should be seeing is the ONE system they need to communicate with to transfer their business.
Take it one step further: Why do banks - or email (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail) NOT allow me to block access from other countries (and/or identify which country I'm visiting)?
Yes, I know that they can use 'other systems' to attack (right now: someone from IP 185.14.30.79 has been using such an attack against my web server for a couple weeks: It's getting really annoying) however such attacks can also be viewed and guarded against.
Leaving the barn door open (by connecting critical systems to the www) for such attacks seems very short sighted.

Submission + - N Korea clam hack is 'attempt to frame us'; demand to work with US investigators (cnn.com)

Submitted by Bomarc
Bomarc writes: CNN reports that "N. Korea blasts 'childish attempt to frame us' where N. Korea "Asks U.S. for joint investigation".

[T]he North Korean regime said both countries should work together. "While America has been criticized by its own public and continues to point the finger at us, we suggest mutual investigation with America on this case," KCNA said.
"If America refuses our proposal of mutual investigation, continues to link us to this case, and talk about actions in response, they (America) will be met with serious consequences."

Comment Re:So - an impact of an asteroid.... (Score 1) 78

by Bomarc (#48641607) Attached to: Massive Volcanic Eruptions Accompanied Dinosaur Extinction
Continuing the idea even more: Is it possible that the western India eruptions could have been caused by another asteroid? The size of the eruptions (3 x larger than France) to me seems quite odd ... at the time of 'only' 66 million years ago.

The show that I watched had the theory that the extension event may have been a 'worst of two storms' ... the volcano (I have problem using the term 'volcano' with an event that big) followed by the asteroid impact.

Comment So - an impact of an asteroid.... (Score 1) 78

by Bomarc (#48641453) Attached to: Massive Volcanic Eruptions Accompanied Dinosaur Extinction
I've heard this theory before & is not new news. The asteroid that struck (the Yucatan Peninsula) ~ 65 million years ago - was the size of Mt. Everest. The are proposing that this strike didn't have any secondary effects - such as volcanoes, earthquakes and the like? IMO ... such a LARGE impact would have ramifications for MANY years to come.

Submission + - Voyager 1 on the edge of the solar system ... and this time we mean it

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Scientists using instruments on Voyager 1 have detected three shock waves pass over the spacecraft as it moves steadily away and outside of the solar system.

The waves were sent outward when the Sun emitted a coronal mass ejection. The spacecraft has been inside the third wave now for months, something that scientists at the moment cannot explain.

http://science.slashdot.org/st...
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
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http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Submission + - Spacecraft spots probable waves on Titan's seas (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: It’s springtime on Titan, Saturn’s giant and frigid moon, and the action on its hydrocarbon seas seems to be heating up. Near the moon’s north pole, there is growing evidence for waves on three different seas, scientists reported here today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Researchers are also coming up with the first estimates for the volume and composition of the seas. The bodies of water appear to be made mostly of methane, and not mostly ethane as previously thought. And they are deep: Ligeia Mare, the second biggest sea with an area larger than Lake Superior, could contain 55 times Earth’s oil reserves.

Submission + - Verizon Offers Encrypted Calling With NSA Backdoor At No Additional Charge (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As a string of whistle blowers like former AT&T employee Mark Klein have made clear abundantly clear, the line purportedly separating intelligence operations from the nation's incumbent phone companies was all-but obliterated long ago. As such, it's relatively amusing to see Verizon announce this week that the company is offering up a new encrypted wireless voice service named Voice Cypher. Voice Cypher, Verizon states, offers "end-to-end" encryption for voice calls on iOS, Android, or BlackBerry devices equipped with a special app made by Cellcrypt.

Verizon says it's initially pitching the $45 per phone service to government agencies and corporations, but would ultimately love to offer it to consumers as a line item on your bill. Of course by "end-to-end encryption," Verizon means that the new $45 per phone service includes an embedded NSA backdoor free of charge. Apparently, in Verizon-land, "end-to-end encryption" means something entirely different than it does in the real world:

Submission + - SpaceX set to create 300 new US jobs and expand facilities (spaceindustrynews.com)

Submitted by littlesparkvt
littlesparkvt writes: The SpaceX manufacturing plant in McGregor , TX is set to spend $46 million on an expansion that would create 300 full-time jobs. SpaceX is proposing to invest $46.3 million in the site during the next five years. They will spend $32.4 million in real property improvements and $13.9 million in personal property improvements.

Submission + - Reverse Engineering CAPCOM'S Crypto CPU (blogspot.com.es)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There are a few old Capcom arcade titles – Pang, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and Block Block – that are unlike anything else ever seen in the world of coin-ops. They’re old, yes, but what makes these titles exceptional is the CPU they run on. The brains in the hardware of these games is a Kabuki, a Z80 CPU that had a few extra security features. why would Capcom produce such a thing? To combat bootleggers that would copy and reproduce arcade games without royalties going to the original publisher. It’s an interesting part of arcade history, but also a problem. Read more about the efforts to reverse engineer this security cpu on Arcade Hacker.

Submission + - Vinyl Record Pressing Plants Struggle to Keep Up With Demand

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The WSJ reports that the revival of vinyl records, a several-year trend that many figured was a passing fad, has accelerated during 2014 with an astounding 49 percent sales increase over 2013 (line chart here). Some listeners think that vinyl reproduces sound better than digital, and some youngsters like the social experience of gathering around a turntable. The records are pressed at a handful of decades-old, labor-intensive factories that can't keep up with the demand; but since the increased sales still represent only about 2 percent of US music sales, there hasn't been a rush of capital investment to open new plants. Raw vinyl must now be imported to America from countries such as Thailand, since the last US supplier closed shop years ago. Meanwhile, an industry pro offers his take on the endless debate of audio differences between analog records and digital formats; it turns out there were reasons for limiting playing time on each side back in the day, apart from bands not having enough decent material.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best software for image organization? 1

Submitted by Wycliffe
Wycliffe writes: Like many people, I am starting to get a huge collection of digital photos from family vacations, etc... I am looking for some software that allows me to rate/tag my own photos in a quick way. I really don't want to spend the time tagging a bunch of photos and then be locked into a single piece of software so what is the best software to help organize and tag photos so that I can quickly find highlights without being locked into that software for life. I would prefer open source to prevent lock-in and also prefer linux but could do windows if necessary.

Submission + - Judge Rules Drug Maker Cannot Halt Sales of Alzheimer's Medicine

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Andrew Pollack reports at the NYT that a federal judge has blocked an attempt by the drug company Actavis to halt sales of an older form of its Alzheimer’s disease drug Namenda in favor of a newer version with a longer patent life after New York’s attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing the drug company of forcing patients to switch to the newer version of the widely used medicine to hinder competition from generic manufacturers. “Today’s decision prevents Actavis from pursuing its scheme to block competition and maintain its high drug prices,” says Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. “Our lawsuit against Actavis sends a clear message: Drug companies cannot illegally prioritize profits over patients.”

The case involves a practice called product hopping where brand name manufacturers make a slight alteration to their prescription drug (PDF) and engage in marketing efforts to shift consumers from the old version to the new to insulate the drug company from generic competition for several years. For its part Actavis argued that an injunction would be “unprecedented and extraordinary” and would cause the company “great financial harm, including unnecessary manufacturing and marketing costs.” Namenda has been a big seller. In the last fiscal year, the drug generated $1.5 billion in sales. The drug costs about $300 a month.

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