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Submission + - Interview: Ask Ben Starr About the future of food

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Ben Starr is a chef, travel writer, reality TV star, wine and beer brewer, cheesemaker,and ultimate food geek. Ben traveled all 7 continents in his early 20s, staying with local families and learning to cook the cuisines of the world in home kitchens and local markets. FRANK, his underground Dallas restaurant, has a waitlist of 3,000 and reservations are selected by random lottery. He is a passionate local and sustainable food advocate. Ben is a flag waver for the new generation of chefs who embrace modern technology, and his Camp Potluck feeds hundreds of hungry Burning Man attendees every year. Ben has agreed to put down his chef's knife and answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

Submission + - Ask Team Trying To return 36-year-old spacecraft from space about their project

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Last week we told you about a group that was trying to recover the 36-year-old ISEE-3 spacecraft from deep space. Led by CEO and founder of Skycorp, Dennis Wingo, and astrobiologist and editor of NASA Watch, Keith Cowing, the crowdfunded project plans to steer ISEE-3 back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. The team has agreed to take some time from lassoing spacecraft from deep space in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post. Hopefully the plan goes better than xkcd predicts.

Submission + - Reinventing the Axe (geek.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: The axe has been with us for thousands of years, with its design changing very little during that time. After all, how much can you really alter a basic blade-and-handle? Well, Finnish inventor Heikki Karna has tried to change it a whole lot, with a new, oddly-shaped axe that he claims is a whole lot safer because it transfers a percentage of downward force into rotational energy, cutting down on deflections. "The Vipukirves [as the axe is called] still has a sharpened blade at the end, but it has a projection coming off the side that shifts the center of gravity away from the middle. At the point of impact, the edge is driven into the wood and slows down, but the kinetic energy contained in the 1.9 kilogram axe head continues down and to the side (because of the odd center of gravity)," is how Geek.com describes the design. "The rotational energy actually pushes the wood apart like a lever." The question is, will everyone pick up on this new way of doing things?

Submission + - 1Password (Agilebits) was affected by Heartbleed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: They claim on their blog that they were not affected by Heartbleed unlike their competitor (LastPass) but in fact they were.

Going to https://agilebits.com/onepassw... and looking at the certificate issue date (4/10/2014) indicates they reissued it recently.

Additionally their own discussion forum admin admits they had to patch their OpenSSL on their website. http://discussions.agilebits.c...

So a malicious attacker could have stolen their main websites wild-card key and certificate to impersonate their website and trick people into downloading software with malware instead.

They were the same as LastPass in that user password data wasn't compromised, but LastPass was more transparent about it.

http://discussions.agilebits.c...

Hi @Quantumpanda,

Our website (agilebits.com) has been fixed with the patched version of OpenSSL, and is using a newly issued SSL certificate.

The forum (discussions.agilebits.com) does not use SSL (as you can see by looking at the URL, it's http), thus is not affected. With that said, we should be using SSL on the forum as well, and we're looking into it.

http://blog.agilebits.com/2014...

Submission + - The FBI Gamified the Hunt For One of Its Most Wanted (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: The FBI just gamified its latest manhunt. As I was just scanning the bureau's many twitter feeds, I saw a couple of fresh tweets reporting that William Bradford Bishop, Jr. had just been added to the bureau's most wanted list.

When I clicked on the tweet that offered a photo gallery of Bishop, the 'Family Annihilator,' some studio-lit photos of this gallery-quality clay bust were far beyond the everyday mug shots I'd expected.

"Am I'm picking out which glasses my character in GTA will wear?" I thought as I looked at artist Karen Taylor's masterful 3D rendering of Bishop. Bishop is a man who has been a fugitive for almost 40 years (he's 77 now, and Taylor age-processed him to look that old) after allegedly killing his mother, his wife, and their three sons in Bethesda, Md. Bishop, a former Foreign Service officer for the State Department, is described by the FBI as "highly intelligent," and investigators on his case believe he could be hiding in plain sight.

Submission + - Interview: Ask John McAfee What You Will

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Founder of the computer anti-virus company McAfee Associates, John McAfee gained world-wide attention eluding Belizean authorities in the jungle. Since we last sat down with John, he's been working on a device that blocks the government's ability to spy on PCs and mobile devices, been asked by the GOP to fix Obamacare, and has seen his last name removed from his old company. The rebranding garnered this response from McAfee: 'I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet. These are not my words, but the words of millions of irate users. ... My elation at Intel's decision is beyond words." John has agreed to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.

Submission + - Is DIY brainhacking safe? (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My colleague at IEEE Spectrum, Eliza Strickland, looked at the home transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) movement. People looking to boost creativity, or cure depression, are attaching electrodes to their heads using either DIT equipment or rigs from vendors like Foc.us. Advocates believe experimenting with the tech is safe, but a neuroscientist worries about removing the tech from lab safeguards...

Submission + - Genome Pioneer, X Prize Founder Tackle Aging (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hot on the heels of Google's spin-off company Calico, another major contender has emerged in the race to develop technologies for extending healthy human lifespan. Dr Craig Venter, who was first to map the entire human genetic code and the first to engineer a synthetic lifeform, has teamed up with founder of the X-Prize, Dr Peter Diamandis, to create Human Longevity Inc.(http://www.humanlongevity.com) “Your age is your No. 1 risk factor for almost every disease," said Dr. Venter. “Using the combined power of our core areas of expertise—genomics, informatics, and stem cell therapies, we are tackling one of the greatest medical/scientific and societal challenges—aging and aging related diseases,” said Dr. Venter. “Between 1910 and 2010 improvements in medicine and sanitation increased the human lifespan by 50 percent from 50 to 75 years.....our goal is to make 100-years-old the new 60," said Diamandis.

Submission + - Agbogbloshie: the world's largest e-waste dump – in pictures

Submitted by kc123
kc123 writes: Photographer Kevin McElvaney documents Agbogbloshie, a former wetland in Accra, Ghana, which is home to the world’s largest e-waste dumping site. Boys and young men smash devices to get to the metals, especially copper. Injuries, such as burns, untreated wounds, eye damage, lung and back problems, go hand in hand with chronic nausea, anorexia, debilitating headaches and respiratory problems. Most workers die from cancer in their 20s

Submission + - Interview: Ask Richard Stallman What You Will

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Richard Stallman (RMS) founded the GNU Project in 1984, the Free
        Software Foundation in 1985, and remains one of the most important
        and outspoken advocates for software freedom. RMS now spends much
        of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws,
        digital rights management, and software patents. He's agreed to
        answer your questions about GNU/Linux, how GNU relates to Linux
        the kernel, free software, why he disagrees with the idea of open source, and other issues of public concern. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

Submission + - Harold Ramis dies at 69

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Writer and comedian Harold Ramis has passed away at 69. Ramis had a hand in many classic comedies but is especially loved for playing the ghost-hunting Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters. 'His creativity, compassion, intelligence, humour and spirit will be missed by all who knew and loved him,' said his family in a statement.

Submission + - Let's Finance College With a Tax on All Graduates

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: As the number of students attending colleges and universities has steadily increased and the cost for most students has climbed even faster, student debt figures (both total and per person) have continued to get bigger. Now Josh Freedman at Forbes Magazine proposes a graduate tax-funded system of higher education, under which students would pay nothing to attend college upfront. Instead, once they graduate and move out of their parents’ basements, they would begin to pay an additional income tax (say, for example, three percent) on their earnings that would fund higher education. "In other words, the current crop of college graduates funds the current crop of college students, and so on down the line. There is no debt taken on by students, which minimizes risk (good); repayment is tied to income, because only people who make income pay the tax (also good); and it is simpler and more easily administrable than plans to make loans easier to pay off (still good)." The main argument for a graduate tax comes from its progressivity. Supporters of a graduate tax point out that most college graduates, particularly those from elite universities that use a greater share of resources, are richer than people who have not graduated from college. The state of Oregon made headlines last year for an innovative proposal called “Pay It Forward” to fund higher education without having students take on any debt. Pay It Forward amounts to a graduate tax: All of the graduates of public colleges in Oregon would pay nothing up front in tuition but would pay back a percentage of their income for a set number of years. These payments would build a fund that would cover the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no upfront costs. "As pressure mounts for more students from all backgrounds to attend college, it will become increasingly difficult to try to stem the rapid tuition inflation under a loan system," concludes Freedman. "Our current student loan system has made college more expensive, turned higher education into an individual, rather than a communal, good, and generated serious negative economic and social risks."

Submission + - Atlas of Historical Geography of U.S. Digitized

Submitted by memnock
memnock writes: The Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond digitized the atlas: 'Here you will find one of the greatest historical atlases: Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, first published in 1932. This digital edition reproduces all of the atlas's nearly 700 maps.'

Submission + - Super Bowl Ads: Worth the Price or Waste of Time?

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Every year companies are willing to dish out big bucks to reach tens of millions of consumers with their Super Bowl ads. This year is no exception with an average price tag of $4 million for a 30-second commercial. We've seen: beer obsessed frogs, field goal kicking horses, celebrities drinking various beverages, explosions of all sizes, homages to 1984, and day trading babies in the past. Since talking about the commercials has become almost as popular as the game itself, here's a place to do just that. What have you liked and what do you think would have been better left on the cutting room floor.

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