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Submission Summary: 1 pending, 151 declined, 33 accepted (185 total, 17.84% accepted)

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Submission + - Study suggests much more water on the moon than thought 1

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Two days after the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, the journal Nature Geoscience published a paper claiming there may be "thick ice deposits inside permanently shadowed simple craters" on the moon (abstract, report on Phys.org ). The paper compares craters on the moon to similar craters on Mercury that are known to contain thick ice deposits. While the article is paywalled, the dataset, code, references, and supplemental information are available on the abstract's page.

Submission + - Grad student proves you can trust a quantum computer

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Question: "If you ask a quantum computer to perform a computation for you, how can you know whether it has really followed your instructions, or even done anything quantum at all?" Then-grad-student Urmila Mahadev shows that the answer is not only "yes" but you can prove it using classical computers. Quanta Magazine has the scoop at Graduate Student Solves Quantum Verification Problem.

Submission + - Passively-cooling "paint-on" polymer lowers temperatures up to 6C

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: According to the web site of the journal Science, researchers at Columbia University have developed a sunlight-reflecting polymer that can be applied like paint and which can cool buildings up to 6C. While this isn't the first material that provides passive daytime radiative cooling, it is novel in that it can be applied like paint while still being very efficient. The abstract and PDF are at Mandal et al, Hierarchically porous polymer coatings for highly efficient passive daytime radiative cooling, DOI: DOI: 10.1126/science.aat9513 News reports are here, here, here, and elsewhere.

Submission + - Bitcoin, other virtual currencies likely manipulated last year 1

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The New York Times says Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say. Related coverage is here and elsewhere.

In his paper titled "Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered" (abstract here but paper unavailable as of the time of this submission) University of Texas researcher John Griffin analyzed the blockchain for bitcoin and several other coins and found suspicious activity related to the Bitfinex exchange and the Tether virtual currency created by the owners of Bitfinex. Tether is supposed to be tied to the US dollar. Bitfinex executives have previously denied they were involved in any manipulation.

Other currencies including Ether and Zcash had suspicious activity as well.

Submission + - "US elections still vulnerable to rigging, disruption" (AP) (ap.org)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The AP just released another story on the vulnerabilities of paperless voting machines.

It's nothing we haven't seen at /. before, but it's worth repeating: Common types of paperless machines simply cannot be audited or re-counted, making them an attractive target for those wanting to commit fraud.

If the main AP URL is down or paywalled, here are some alternates:

http://www.chron.com/news/texa...

http://www.post-gazette.com/ea...

http://news.findlaw.com/apnews...

or just search your favorite news search engine for the title or the opening text: "Jill Stein’s bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge shot it down Dec. 12. That’s because the Green Party candidate’s effort stood almost no chance of detecting potential fraud or error in the vote — there was basically nothing to recount."

If this is accepted, I trust the moderator will remove the "meta" information that's useful to Firehose readers but not useful on the main page.

Submission + - POLL: What should replace the Electoral College (archives.gov)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Slashdot Poll:

What should replace the Electoral College as practiced today, where it's winner-take-all-by-state in all but two states?

* It's fine the way it is, don't change a thing.

* Popular vote winner takes the White House.

* Make electoral votes automatic, eliminate the electoral college.

* Make electoral votes automatic, but have each state's electoral votes mirror that state's popular vote.

* By-Congressional-District with 2 state-wide electors like Nebraska and Maine.

* By-Congressional-District, without state-wide electors (www.fourthirtysix.com anyone?).

* Something else (specify below)

* CowyboyNeal gets to pick the President.

--

Too bad about the 8-option limit. I wanted to squeeze in "I'm not from your silly country, you insensitive clod" but I put in the CowboyNeal option instead.

Submission + - Ask /.: Why are American tech people paid so well?

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Ask Slashdot:

Why are American programmers and IT professionals paid so much when many programming and IT jobs can be outsourced overseas so easily?

If I'm a mid-career programmer looking for a job, why should I expect to be paid a whole lot more than my peer in India when applying for a job that could easily be outsourced to India? If I do get the job, why should I expect to keep it more than a year or two instead of being told "your job is being outsourced" before 2020?

Is my American education and 5-25 years of experience in the American workplace really worth it to an employer?

Should we, as an industry, lower our salary expectations — and that of students entering the field — to make us more competitive with our peers in India and similar "much cheaper labor than first world" economies? If not, what should we be doing to make ourselves competitive in ways that our peers overseas cannot duplicate?

Note — I'm not talking about jobs that can't be easily outsourced like on-site tech support or "security clearance required" positions, and I'm not talking about "rock star" or "near rock star" employees (the "top 10%" of the industry). I'm also not talking about positions that aren't almost entirely technical, such as management or sales positions.

(dis)claimer: I am an American-born, American-educated mid-career IT professional who is not currently looking for work.

Submission + - Oak Ridge National Laboratory turns CO2 to booze, er, I mean fuel (ornl.gov)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The laboratory's process turns carbon dioxide into ethanol using common materials and nanotechnology. The laboratory press release is here, the paper is here.

The press release did not mention how much, if any, of the ethanol would be used for celebratory purposes.

Paper citation:

Song, Y., Peng, R., Hensley, D. K., Bonnesen, P. V., Liang, L., Wu, Z., Meyer, H. M., Chi, M., Ma, C., Sumpter, B. G. and Rondinone, A. J. (2016), High-Selectivity Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Ethanol using a Copper Nanoparticle/N-Doped Graphene Electrode. ChemistrySelect. doi:10.1002/slct.201601169

Submission + - Hackers have infiltrated our power grid's control networks (lasvegassun.com)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: A security researcher and the Associated Press are reporting that hackers have infiltrated many of our nation's power grid networks. Exfiltrated data included engineering plans and other non-public information that could aid an attacker later as well as account credentials. Multiple companies were affected but one of the more notable ones was the energy provider Calpine.

Submission + - India bans rape documentary, BBC will air it tonight

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: In a classic case of the Streisand effect, BBC4 will move up its scheduled broadcast of India's Daughter to 10PM Wednesday night after it was banned in India. It was originally scheduled to air this Sunday, which is International Women's Day. "The move was made after Indian authorities banned the domestic broadcast of the film and said they were also trying to prevent it from being shown worldwide."

The film is about the brutal 2012 gang rape of Jyoti Singh, a 23-year old student.

Yes, I realize that Slashdot is "news for nerds" but the attempted worldwide censorship by India and BBC4's response should strike a chord with many /. readers.

Submission + - UK Tribunal says UK-US surveillance illegal

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The Guardian reports that the UK's Investigative Powers Tribunal has ruled against some aspects of the GCHK/NSA survellance that took place from 2007-2014, saying it "breached human rights law." It goes on to say that the current way things are happening is legal. To read more, go to the IPT's list of judgments page and scroll to the bottom. Or just go straight to the linked PDFs: Liberty_Ors_Judgment_6Feb15.pdf and Liberty-Order6Feb15.pdf

Submission + - Unexplained out-of-band WIndows DVD patch

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Microsoft released September 2014 update for DVD playback in Windows 7 SP1

as an out-of-band "Important" update yesterday without explaining why it was rushed instead of waiting two weeks.

Microsoft knows that patching annoys system administrators and others and typically doesn't do out of band updates without a good reason. Unlike the recent out-of-band Russian Time Zone update, there isn't an obvious to be a "you must install this by a certain date or something will break" reason to rush this.

Does anyone know why Microsoft didn't either 1) wait two weeks or 2) provide a clearer explanation of why this is important enough to push out early?

Canada

Submission + - 30+ year old minor drug charge keeps Canadian contest winner from Super Bowl (www.cbc.ca) 3

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: It's not "your rights ONline" but a Canadian who won an all-expenses-paid trip to New Orleans couldn't get past US Customs because he got busted with 2 grams of pot back in 1981, when he was 19 years old.

With Toronto and other Canadian cities having tech hubs, this "zero tolerance" is probably already having an impact on technology companies who have employees or contractors with ancient criminal records and who can't send them to US industry events.
Government

Submission + - Congress, at Last Minute, Drops Requirement to Obtain Warrant to Monitor Email (allgov.com) 1

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Before passing the Video Privacy Protection Act Amendments Act, the Senate dropped an amendment which would require the feds to get warrants before looking at mail older than 6 months that is stored on a 3rd-party server.

This means the status quo, dating from the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, remains.
The Military

Submission + - Dolphins With Friggin' Lasers^H^H^H^H^H^HPistols (en.rian.ru)

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: OK, it's not sharks with lasers, but Reuters reports the Ukranians are training their dolphin killing machines to use knives and pistols.

The other country training dolphins to take over the world before they leave and thank us for all the fish? The United States.

I for one welcome our aquatic mammalian overlords.

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