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Submission + - Something Hit Earth in 773 AD But Nobody Knows What (medium.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: In November 2012, a group of Japanese scientists discovered that the concentration of carbon-14 in Japanese cedar trees suddenly rose between 774 AD and 775 AD. Others have since found similar evidence and narrowed the date to 773 AD. Astronomers think this stuff must have come from space so now the quest is on to find the extraterrestrial culprit. Carbon-14 is continually generated in the atmosphere by cosmic rays hitting nitrogen atoms. But because carbon-14 is radioactive, it naturally decays back into nitrogen with a half-life of about 5700 years. This constant process of production and decay leaves the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere relatively constant at about one part in a trillion will be carbon-14. One possible reason for the increase is that the Sun belched a superflare our way, engulfing the planet in huge cloud of high energy protons. Recent calculations suggest this could happen once every 3000 years and so seems unlikely. Another possibility is a nearby supernova, which bathed the entire Solar System in additional cosmic rays. However, astronomers cannot see any likely candidates nearby and there are no historical observations of a supernova from that time. Yet another possibility is that a comet may have hit the Earth, dumping the extra carbon-14 in the atmosphere. But astronomers have ruled that out on the basis that a comet carrying enough carbon-14 must have been over 100 km in diameter and would surely have left other evidence such as an impact crater. So for the moment, astronomers are stumped.

Submission + - Adapting Monopoly to demonstrate Modern Monetary Theory (neweconomicperspectives.org) 2

Submitted by buswolley
buswolley writes: Are we really too poor to put America back to work making and building the things we need to maintain a prosperous nation? -Mitch Green

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) posits that America is not too poor, and now proponents of the theory have adapted the rules of the classic board game of Monopoly to demonstrate their case
  http://neweconomicperspectives...

For those that would like a background a great starter is Warren Mosler's "Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economy Policy" at http://moslereconomics.com/wp-...

Submission + - Glow-In-The-Dark Civil War Soldiers Explained (mentalfloss.com)

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Some of the Shiloh soldiers sat in the mud for two rainy days and nights waiting for the medics to get around to them. As dusk fell the first night, some of them noticed something very strange: their wounds were glowing, casting a faint light into the darkness of the battlefield. Even stranger, when the troops were eventually moved to field hospitals, those whose wounds glowed had a better survival rate and had their wounds heal more quickly and cleanly than their unilluminated brothers-in-arms. The seemingly protective effect of the mysterious light earned it the nickname “Angel’s Glow.” Today we know that it was a bacteria now known as P. luminescens.

Comment Re:Team Viewer (Score 0) 165

by polymath69 (#45853525) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best App For Android For Remote Access To Mac Or PC?

Yea, I loved how my parents did everything out in the open; made it a heck of a lot easier to work around all those restrictions since I knew what they were.

(This actually isn't true - my parents were smart enough to know better)

"I was hit on the head by a meteorite once, so everyone should always wear hard-hats. By the way, I wasn't actually ever hit on the head by a meteorite."

TL;DR What??

Submission + - Exponential Algorithm in Windows Update Slowing XP Machines (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: An interesting bug regarding update dependency calculation has been found in Windows XP. By design, machines using Windows Update retrieve patch information from Microsoft's update servers (or possibly WSUS in a company setting). That patch information contains information about each patch: what software it applies to and, critically, what historic patch or patches the current patch supersedes. Unfortunately, the Windows Update client components used an algorithm with exponential scaling when processing these lists. Each additional superseded patch would double the time taken to process the list. With the operating system now very old, those lists have grown long, sometimes to 40 or more items. On a new machine, that processing appeared to be almost instantaneous. It is now very slow. After starting the system, svchost.exe is chewing up the entire processor, sometimes for an hour or more at a time. Wait long enough after booting and the machine will eventually return to normalcy. Microsoft thought that it had this problem fixed in November's Patch Tuesday update after it culled the supersedence lists. That update didn't appear to fix the problem. The company thought that its December update would also provide a solution, with even more aggressive culling. That didn't seem to help either. For one reason or another, Microsoft's test scenarios for the patches didn't reflect the experience of real Windows XP machines.

Submission + - The ultimate anti-action online game: Waiting In Line 3D

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Looking a lot like the venerable Wolfenstein 3D or similar Id action games of the DOS days, the new online game Waiting in Line 3D was released Monday by developer Rajeev Basu, and was played 50,000 times in its first 24 hours of activity... er... inactivity. Is the complete lack of any action a brilliant satire of computer gaming? Is it software-based performance art? Is it silly? Judge for yourself, if you can meet the challenge!

Submission + - Boston Cops Outraged Over Plans To Watch Their Movements Using GPS 3

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The Boston Globe reports that the pending use of GPS tracking devices, slated to be installed in Boston police cruisers, has many officers worried that commanders will monitor their every move. Boston police administrators say the system gives dispatchers the ability to see where officers are, rather than wait for a radio response and supervisors insist the system will improve their response to emergencies. Using GPS, they say, accelerates their response to a call for a shooting or an armed robbery. “We’ll be moving forward as quickly as possible,” says former police commissioner Edward F. Davis. “There are an enormous amount of benefits. . . . This is clearly an important enhancement and should lead to further reductions in crime.” But some officers said they worry that under such a system they will have to explain their every move and possibly compromise their ability to court street sources. “No one likes it. Who wants to be followed all over the place?” said one officer who spoke anonymously because department rules forbid police from speaking to the media without authorization. “If I take my cruiser and I meet [reluctant witnesses] to talk, eventually they can follow me and say why were you in a back dark street for 45 minutes? It’s going to open up a can of worms that can’t be closed.” Meanwhile civil libertarians are relishing the rank and file's own backlash. "The irony of police objecting to GPS technology for privacy reasons is hard to miss in the aftermath of United States v. Jones," says Woodrow Hartzog. "But the officers’ concerns about privacy illustrate just how revealing GPS technology can be. Departments are going to have to confront the chilling effect this surveillance might have on police behavior."

Submission + - TSA Screener Bled to Death because Police wouldn't let Paramedics Into LAX (foxnews.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: An update on the tragic Gunman Opens Fire At LAX (http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/2014210/gunman-opens-fire-at-lax) story: FoxNews reports (www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/15/lax-security-officer-bled-for-33-minutes-as-help-stood-by) that shot Transportation Security Administration Officer Gerardo Hernandez laid helplessly bleeding after a gunman opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport while paramedics waited 150 yards away because police had not declared the terminal safe to enter.

33 minutes passed before wounded Transportation Security Administration Officer Gerardo Hernandez, who was about 20 feet from an exit, was wheeled out by police to an ambulance. For all but five of those minutes, there was no threat from the suspected gunman — he had been shot and was in custody.

Formal conclusions may take months to reach, but what is already known raises the possibility that a lack of coordination between police and fire officials prevented speedy treatment for Hernandez and other victims. Victor Payes, President of the Union Local for TSA Workers at LAX explained: "I basically think there's a lack of coordination between entities at this airport. That lack of coordination may have led to something that shouldn't have happened. We may be talking about Officer Hernandez as a survivor."

Submission + - 5 ridiculous tech fees you're still paying

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: None of us like to spend money (except on shiny new toys). But even we curmudgeons can understand that companies need to charge for things that cost them money; and profit-making is at the heart of our economy.

Still, several charges appear on our bills that can drive even the most complacent techie into a screaming fit. How did this advertised price turn into that much on the final bill? Why are they charging for it in the first place? Herewith, five fees that make no sense at all — and yet we still fork over money for them.

For example: "While Internet access is free in coffee shops, some public transit, and even campsites, as of 2009 15% of hotels charged guests for the privilege of checking their e-mail and catching up on watching cat videos. Oddly, budget and midscale hotel chains are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi, while luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us."
Networking

Submission + - US Gov't Seizes 130+ More Domains In Crackdown (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The DoJ and ICE have once again taken up the banner of anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting by seizing over 130 domains allegedly involved in those activities. TorrentFreak points out that this newest digital raid happened just before 'Cyber Monday,' a time when consumers are encouraged to do a bunch of online shopping. From the article: 'Compared to previous seizure rounds, there are also some notable differences to report. This time the action appears to be limited to sites that directly charge visitors for their services. Most of the domains are linked to the selling of counterfeit clothing (e.g. 17nflshop.com), and at least one (autocd.com) sold pirated auto software. Last year several sites were taken down because they allowed their users to access free music and movie downloads, and these were followed by several streaming services a few months later. No similar sites have been reported in the current round.'
IT

Submission + - Why everyone hates the IT department (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Why are IT staff treated with near universal contempt? PC Pro has investigated why everyone hates the IT department. From cultivating a culture of "them and us", to unrealistic demands from end users and senior management, to the inevitable tension created when employees try and bring their own equipment into the office, PC Pro identifies the key reasons for the lack of respect for IT."
The Media

Submission + - Wounded Copyright Troll Still Alive and Kicking

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Steve Green writes that even as defendents who defeated Righthaven in court and won their attorney’s fees complain they haven’t been paid a total of $216,000 and try to seize Righthaven assets, the copyright troll proved that it is alive and kicking by filing a brief that District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas was wrong to find an Oregon nonprofit was protected by fair use in posting an entire R-J story on the relationship between immigrants and Las Vegas police. A key factor in Mahan’s decision was that the defendant, the Center for Intercultural Organizing in Portland, couldn’t harm the market for a copyright to the story Righthaven obtained for lawsuit purposes from Stephens Media. Mahan also “found that because the work was a news article, the totality of its content was informational and permissible for productive use by others,” Righthaven's outside attorney Shawn Mangano wrote in his brief that "in reaching this erroneous conclusion, the district court failed to accord any degree of creative effort to the work (story) whatsoever.” In a second appeals brief, Mangano appeared to face an uphill challenge in arguing that Righthaven had standing to sue or should have been allowed to sue after amending its Stephens Media lawsuit contract to fix defects — assertions rejected so far by six Nevada judges. The defendants in the appeals have not yet filed their briefs, and it’s likely to be months before the appeals court hears arguments on the cases."

Submission + - ReplayTV discontinuing TV program guide (digitalnetworksna.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ReplayTV is turning off the built-in TV guide at the end of July. There will be no program listings, so the only way to record a program will be by manually selecting a channel number and time. No more selecting a program by name. This will turn many units into bricks. I have several early units that included a lifetime subscription to the program guide. I guess my lifetime has expired.

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