Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Drones map the Matterhorn (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Mark Gibbs
Mark Gibbs writes: To demonstrate just how practical and powerful geo-mapping by drones is senseFly, makers of the eBee drone (priced at about $12,000), in collaboration with Drone Adventures (planning and logistics), Pix4D (data post-processing) and Mapbox (online visualization) mapped the Matterhorn.

Submission + - Microsoft Makes An Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Business Insider reports: "Microsoft is generating $2 billion per year in revenue from Android patent royalties, says Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund in a new note on the company. He estimates that the Android revenue has a 95% margin, so it's pretty much all profit. This money, says Sherlund, helps Microsoft hide the fact that its mobile and Xbox groups are burning serious cash."

Submission + - Chelyabinsk-sized asteroid impacts may be more common than we thought

Submitted by The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: Using data from the Feb. 15, 2013 asteroid impact over Russia, scientists have determined that we may be hit by objects in this size range (10 — 50 meters across) more often than we previously thought, something like once every 20 years. They also found the Chelyabinsk asteroid was likely a single rock about 19 meters (60 feet) across, had a mass of 12,000 tons, and was criss-crossed with internal fractures which aided in its breakup as it rammed through the Earth's atmosphere.

Submission + - Auto-Detecting Fake Social Media Accounts (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Facebook estimates 5 percent of its accounts are bots, frauds, or otherwise fake; Twitter puts the estimate for its accounts at 7 percent. Now services are arising that claim to automatically assess an account to tell whether or not it represents a real human. One such service, called BeehiveID, is already helping assess online dating accounts to check for fakes, and surely other companies will jump into this market soon enough.

Submission + - RSS satellite data; No global warming for 17 years

Submitted by knorthern knight
knorthern knight writes: James Hansen, in a 1988 speech speech to the US Congress, claimed that 10 years of rising temperatures proved that the earth was warming. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/climatechange.carbonemissions2 But in 2008, a 10 year pause was not considered sufficient to show that it had stopped. In a 2011 news release https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html Ben Santer said a minimum 17 year pause was required before claiming that it was more than statistical noise. The November 4 update of RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) monthly temperature anomalies to the end of October ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt shows that over a 204 month period (Nov 1996 to Oct 2013) there has been no warming. Indeed, the slope is very slightly negative for that period. A more detailed story at skeptical site http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/04/rss-reaches-santers-17-years/

Submission + - Withhold Passwords From Your Employer, Go to Jail? (forbes.com)

Submitted by ericgoldman
ericgoldman writes: Terry Childs was a network engineer in San Francisco, and he was the only employee with passwords to the network. After he was fired, he withheld the passwords from his former employer, preventing his employer from controlling its own network. Recently, a California appeals court upheld his conviction for violating California's computer crime law, including a 4 year jail sentence and $1.5 million of restitution. The ruling provides a good cautionary tale for anyone who thinks they can gain leverage over their employer or increase job security by controlling key passwords.

Comment Re:employers (Score 1) 545

>If you were a smart employer, you'd let your employees work from home and
> save on office space, not to mention the employee's time and gas money.

a) Not everybody is a code-monkey or a helpdesk-script-reader. How, pray tell, are mechanics, bus drivers, construction workers, etc, supposed to "work from home"?

b) Be careful what you wish for. If your job can be done from the other side of town, it can just as easily be done from the other side of the planet by some 3rd-worlder at a fraction of your current salary.

Comment Re:I don't understant the hate (Score 4, Informative) 362

by knorthern knight (#45209665) Attached to: Firefox's Blocked-By-Default Java Isn't Going Down Well

> I don't get it why people hate Java applets so much they want them to go altogether.

Because Java applets are a honking big security hole, and currently the most-often-used attack-vector to take over unsuspecting users' machines. See http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=5&product_id=1526&version_id=&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=0&cvssscoremax=6.99&year=0&month=0&cweid=0&order=1&trc=35&sha=d158a5520a2bc52f7443268daaab5851ced00564 for a list of recent problems.

Comment IPTABLES too complex and shouldn't be in kernel (Score 3, Insightful) 235

by knorthern knight (#45178587) Attached to: NFTables To Replace iptables In the Linux Kernel

I've been using linux since 2000. Two comments...

1) IPCHAINS was nice, simple, and usable. IPTABLES has stuff scattered all over the place. This may affect me more as a Gentoo user who configures his own kernel. I have to remember to...
a) enable Netfilter
b) enable "Advanced netfilter configuration" so that I can specify multi-port matches
c) check off the necessary items in "Core Netfilter Configuration"
d) check off the necessary items in "IP: Netfilter Configuration"
That's on a simple home system that doesn't attempt NAT/Masq/Routing/etc.

2) A problem with putting detailed specifications into the kernel is that when I want to enable new features (not just new rules), I have to tweak the kernel, rebuild it, and reboot. If we had to do this with new MTAs or crons or other system programs, there would be a huge outcry. Moving this out of the kernel looks logical.

Submission + - Gamers solve decade old HIV puzzle in ten days (zmescience.com) 2

Submitted by twocows
twocows writes: From the article: "Scientists from Washington University have been struggling for the past decade to decipher the complex structure of a enzyme that exhibits AIDS-like behavior, and which might hold a critical role in building a cure for the disease. Gamers playing spatial game Foldit have managed to collectively determine the enzyme’s structure in ten days."

Submission + - New Species Of Giant Air-Breathing Fish Discovered (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by starr802
starr802 writes: The fish is an arapaima, an air-breathing fish native to the Amazon Rainforest rivers in Brazil that is typically six to seven feet long. The new discovery marks the first arapaima species to be discovered since 1847.

Submission + - 5,300-Year-Old Iceman Has 19 Living Relatives In Austria (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by minty3
minty3 writes: Ötzi the iceman may have perished 5,300 years ago, but the mummy has relatives that are alive and well in Austria.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Legal Medicine at Innsbruck Medical University found 19 men related to the mummy using DNA samples taken from 3,700 blood donors from the state of Tyrol in western Austria.

Slashdot Top Deals

It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. -- Phil White

Close