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Submission + - Looping in Bash: An Introduction (tidbitsfortechs.com)

Submitted by toygeek
toygeek writes: When I first learned about Linux in the 90's, I read that it was possible to even write your own commands to use at the command line. Later I learned about bash scripting, and it wasn't long before I needed to learn how to loop in bash. Looping in bash is one of the fundamental building blocks of bash programming. It isn't hard to do at all and is worth learning. The main reason to learn looping in bash is to handle doing the same thing over and over again. They're easy to do even at the command line. Please follow along as we look a couple of basic examples, and how you can expand on them.

Submission + - School system goes "all in" on open source

Submitted by Czech37
Czech37 writes: Open source is playing an ever-expanding role in education at all levels. One school board that’s embraced open source is the Penn Manor School District in Pennsylvania. The District has rolled out the largest open source student laptop program in the state, with 3,500 Linux-powered computers distributed to students. But Penn Manor’s commitment to open source goes deeper than just handing out laptops. The schools themselves are now run on open source, and in this interview with Opensource.com, district IT manager Charlie Reisinger discusses why the schools' open source efforts have been so successful.

Submission + - The disaster and ensuing coverup of the Obamacare website

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New reports reveal significant corruption in the Obama administration’s botched effort to create the Obamacare website.

The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning. Titled, “Behind the Curtain of the HealthCare.gov Rollout,” the report fingers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw the development of the site, and its parent Department of Health and Human Services.

“Officials at CMS and HHS refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks,” the report says. “There is also evidence that the Administration, to this day, is continuing its efforts to shield ongoing problems with the website from public view.”

The evidence includes emails that show Obamacare officials more interested in keeping their problems from leaking to the press than working to fix them. This is both both a coverup and incompetence.

Submission + - World population expected to hit 11 billion by 2100 (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: Using modern statistical tools, a new study led by the University of Washington and the United Nations finds that world population is likely to keep growing throughout the 21st century. The number of people on Earth is likely to reach 11 billion by 2100, the study concludes, about 2 billion higher than widely cited previous estimates. The paper published online Sept. 18 in the journal Science includes the most up-to-date numbers for future world population, and describes a new method for creating such estimates.

“The consensus over the past 20 years or so was that world population, which is currently around 7 billion, would go up to 9 billion and level off or probably decline,” said corresponding author Adrian Raftery, a UW professor of statistics and of sociology. “We found there’s a 70 percent probability the world population will not stabilize this century. Population, which had sort of fallen off the world’s agenda, remains a very important issue.”

The paper explains the most recent United Nations population data released in July. This is the first U.N. population report to use modern statistics, known as Bayesian statistics, that combines all available information to generate better predictions.

Most of the anticipated growth is in Africa, where population is projected to quadruple from around 1 billion today to 4 billion by the end of the century. The main reason is that birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa have not been going down as fast as had been expected. There is an 80 percent chance that the population in Africa at the end of the century will be between 3.5 billion and 5.1 billion people.

Submission + - Artificial Spleen Removes Ebola, HIV Viruses and Toxins From Blood Using Magnets (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Harvard scientists have invented a new artificial spleen that is able to clear toxins, fungi and deadly pathogens such as Ebola from human blood, which could potentially save millions of lives.

When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins in the blood that begin to multiply quickly, causing sepsis, a life-threatening condition whereby the immune system overreacts, causing blood clotting, organ damage and inflammation.

To overcome this, researchers have invented a "biospleen", a device similar to a dialysis machine that makes use of magnetic nanobeads measuring 128 nanometres in diameter (one-five hundredths the width of a single human hair) coated with mannose-binding lectin (MBL), a type of genetically engineered human blood protein.

Submission + - Canon printer hacked to run Doom video game (bbc.com)

Submitted by wiredog
wiredog writes: From the Beeb, the news that security researcher Michael Jordon has hacked a Canon's Pixma printer to run Doom. He did so by reverse engineering the firmware encryption and uploading via the update interface.

But does it play Barney Doom? And can you get Linux running on the thing?

Submission + - If Tesla Can Its Gigafactory On 100% Renewables, Why Can't Others? (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said his company's Gigafactory battery plant, the world's largest, will be "self contained" and run on solar, wind and geothermal energy. The obvious problem with renewable sources is that they're intermittent at any given location, but on a larger scale they're quite predictable and reliable, according to Tom Lombardo, a professor of engineering and technology. Lombardo points out that Tesla isn't necessarily going off-grid, but using a strategy of "net metering" where the factory will produce more renewable energy than it needs, and receive credits in return from its utility when renewables aren't available. So why can't other manufacturing facilities do the same? What Tesla is doing isn't necessarily transferable to other industries? Sam Jaffe, principal research analyst with Navigant Research, believes Tesla's choice of locations — Reno — and its product is optimal for using renewable and not something that can be reproduced by every industry.

Submission + - Laid off from job, man builds tweeting toilet (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: With parts from an electric motor, a few household items, an open-source hardware board running Linux, and some coding, Thomas Ruecker, built a connected toilet that Tweets with each flush. The first reaction to the Twitter feed at @iotoilets may be a chuckle. But the idea behind this and what it illustrates is serious. It tracks water usage, offers a warning about the future of privacy in the Internet of Things, and may say something about the modern job hunt. Ruecker built his device on a recent long weekend after he was laid off as an open source evangelist at a technology firm undergoing "rightsizing," as he put it. He lives in Finland.

Submission + - Hidden Archeology of Stonehenge Revealed in New Geophysical Map (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Utilizing a comprehensive array of remote sensing technology and non-invasive geophysical survey equipment, researchers working on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England have revealed hundreds of previously unknown features buried deep beneath the ground as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project. The finds include images of dwellings from the Bronze and Iron Ages as well as details of buried Roman settlements never before seen.

Submission + - AT&T says 10Mbps is too fast for "Broadband," 4Mbps is enough 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AT&T and Verizon have asked the FCC not to change the definition of broadband from 4Mbps to 10Mbps, contending that "10Mbps service exceeds what many Americans need today to enable basic, high-quality transmissions." From the article: "Individual cable companies did not submit comments to the FCC, but their representative, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), agrees with AT&T and Verizon. 'The Commission should not change the baseline broadband speed threshold from 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream because a 4/1 Mbps connection is still sufficient to perform the primary functions identified in section 706 [of the Telecommunications Act]—high-quality voice, video, and data,' the NCTA wrote."

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