Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Space

Copenhagen Suborbitals Test Rocket Engine 9

Posted by samzenpus from the to-infinty-and-beyond dept.
An anonymous reader writes Copenhagen Suborbitals, the amateur manned space program, is conducting a rocket engine test today. The event is being streamed Live in HD on YouTube. The rocket engine is named BPM 2 and is a prequel to a planned series of test of the BPM 5 rocket engine currently being built. The purpose of the BPM 2 test is primarily to test a newly constructed mobile test stand and to test various fuel additives before the BPM 5 test series are to begin later in the first half of 2015.
Space

Supernovae May Not Be Standard Candles; Is Dark Energy All Wrong? 199

Posted by Soulskill from the either-that-or-it-isn't dept.
StartsWithABang writes: The accelerated expansion of the Universe — and hence, dark energy — was discovered by taking the well-understood phenomenon of type Ia supernovae and measuring them out to great distances. The results indicated that they were fainter than expected, and hence more distant, and hence the Universe's expansion must be accelerating. But new results have just come out, showing that supernovae may not be standard after all. Does this mean dark energy may not be real, or that it may just be slightly weaker than we previously thought?
Bitcoin

MIT May Help Lead Bitcoin Standards Effort 67

Posted by Soulskill from the rename-it-MITcoin dept.
gthuang88 writes: With everyone from PayPal merchants to Rand Paul starting to accept Bitcoins as payment, the race is on to develop technical standards for the virtual currency. Now MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito is getting ready to unveil a plan for MIT to become an independent, neutral home for standards development. Ito is enlisting cryptographer Ron Rivest and economist Simon Johnson to help with the effort, which could provide an academic alternative to the Bitcoin Foundation for conversations about the currency's future. Ito says, "I’m not pushing it, but I’m offering MIT as a neutral academic home for some of the conversations and the technical coordination. Which I think will give a lot more stability to Bitcoin, which right now is a little bit fragile."
The Military

UN To Debate Lethal Autonomous Weapons 166

Posted by Soulskill from the smart-money-is-on-the-lethal-autonomous-weapons dept.
Hallie Siegel writes: Should robots be allowed to make life and death decisions? This will be the topic of heated debate at the United Nations (UN) Palais des Nations in Geneva next week (April 13-17th, 2015). As part of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), experts from all over the world will gather to discuss 'questions related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems.' The Open Roboethics Research Initiative will be presenting public views at the debate. Human rights groups are urging the UN to ban such weapons. A new report titled "Mind the Gap" details the accountability issues that need to be solved before going any further. "A key concern with fully autonomous weapons is that they would be prone to cause civilian casualties in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The lack of meaningful human control that characterizes the weapons would make it difficult to hold anyone criminally liable for such unlawful actions."
Space

Stars Form Near Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole 32

Posted by Soulskill from the volatile-real-estate dept.
New submitter Aspiring Astronomer writes: Scientists report that stars have likely formed near the supermassive black hole in the heart of our galaxy. How does this happen, if a black hole exerts so much gravitational force that not even light can escape? Astronomers believe the black hole may actually facilitate the formation of these stars. According to study author Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, the gases and dusts constantly flowing toward black holes compress and heat up, creating enough disturbance to cause the materials to collapse and then form a star. Yusef-Zadeh speculates that in addition to stars forming near black holes, planets may form there, too. The disk around a protostar (a mass of gas and materials that form early in star formation) breaks off into clumps of matter, and when paired with the extreme force of a black hole, may cause the formation whole planets.
Network

Nokia Networks Demonstrates 5G Mobile Speeds Running At 10Gbps Via 73GHz 55

Posted by timothy from the that-is-one-packed-headline dept.
Mark.JUK writes The Brooklyn 5G Summit appears to have provided a platform for Nokia Networks to demo a prototype of their future 5G (5th Generation) mobile network technology, which they claim can already deliver data speeds of 10 Gigabits per second using millimeter Wave (mmW) frequency bands of 73GHz. The demo also made use of 2×2 Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO) links via single carrier Null Cyclic Prefix modulation and frame size of 100 micro seconds, although crucially no information about the distance of this demo transmission has been released and at 73GHz you'd need quite a dense network in order to overcome the problems of high frequency signal coverage and penetration.

Comment Strike Two. (Score 2) 629

It shouldn't even be a criminal charge. It may be a crime by the letter of the law, but c'mon, this couldn't be handled in-house?!

Green had previously received a three-day suspension for accessing the system inappropriately.

Green was released on Wednesday from Land O'Lakes Detention Center into the custody of his mother. He'll likely be granted pretrial intervention by a judge, sheriff's detective Anthony Bossone said.

Green also received a 10-day school suspension. It's unclear if he'll return to Paul R. Smith to complete the school year after the suspension.

Middle school student charged with cybercrime in Holiday

Individuals who successfully complete a Pretrial Intervention Program will have their criminal charges dismissed.

Pretrial Intervention is for first offenders charged with third degree misdemeanors or felonies. Violate your PTI and you will be looking at a very pissed off judge and prosecutor.

Understanding Florida's Pre-Trial Intervention Program

Comment He set out to embarass a teacher he disliked. (Score 1) 629

Especially because he put GAY GUYS on the computer, the horrors. If he had changed the wallpaper to a cat picture this would not have happened I guarantee it.

Don't be an idiot.

Green said that on the morning in question, he accessed the computer that stored the FCAT files and, realizing that computer didn't have a camera, found another.

''So I logged out of that computer and logged into a different one and I logged into a teacher's computer who I didn't like and tried putting inappropriate pictures onto his computer to annoy him,'' Green said.

The teacher he was targeting was out that day. Instead, the substitute teacher saw the picture and reported it to the school's administration.

Middle school student charged with cybercrime in Holiday
Education

Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce a 7-Year-Old To Programming? 315

Posted by timothy from the first-you-must-erase-his-mind dept.
THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes I'm a professional programmer and have been programming since I was a small boy. I want to introduce this to my 7-year-son but know nothing about teaching this to children. Since he enjoys Roblox and Minecraft very much, and knows how to use computers already, I suspect teaching him to write his own small games would be a good starting point. I'm aware of lists like this one, but it's quite overwhelming. There are so many choices that I am overwhelmed where to start. Anyone in the Slashdot in the community have recent hands-on experience with such tools/systems that he/she would recommend?
Security

French TV Network TV5Monde Targeted In 'Pro-ISIS' Cyberattack 71

Posted by timothy from the hate-by-wire dept.
An anonymous reader writes French broadcaster TV5Monde [was] today working to regain control of its 11 television channels and online platforms after hackers claiming ties with the Islamic State hijacked its network on Wednesday evening, forcing the media group to show only pre-recorded content. The television network was able to return in part to its planned schedule by 1:00am (23:00 GMT) last night, after the hacking group had suspended its broadcast services for three hours. Yves Bigot, the Parisian company's director general, said that the network had been "severely damaged" by an "unprecedented attack" which would have taken weeks to prepare. The hacking group posted threats and shared a collection of files across TV5Monde's Facebook page which it claimed were copies of ID cards and CVs of relatives of French soldiers involved in anti-IS operations. More coverage at The Independent, which says the attack "revealed personal details of French soldiers."
Software

Why Some Developers Are Live-Streaming Their Coding Sessions 131

Posted by timothy from the look-at-me-look-at-me dept.
itwbennett writes Adam Wulf recently spent two weeks live-streaming himself writing every line of code for a new mobile app. He originally started to live-stream as 'a fun way to introduce the code to the community.' But he quickly learned that it helps him to think differently than when he was coding without the camera on. "Usually when I work, so much of my thought process is internal monologue," he said, "but with live streaming I try to narrate my thought process out loud. This has forced me to think through problems a little differently than I otherwise would, which has been really beneficial for me."
Businesses

Netflix Algorithm Tells You When Your Best Employee Is About To Leave You 210

Posted by timothy from the time-your-bonuses-accordingly dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Former Netflix data scientist Mohammad Sabah has used the basis of the video-streaming company's movie-recommendation engine to create a new system to predict when valuable employees are likely to leave your company for pastures new. The new application 'Workday Talent Insights' uses the basis of the engine to correlate diverse factors such as interval between promotions and current length of tenure with equivalent job opportunities at employment websites, in order to gauge 'corporate restlessness', and provide options for employers who identify potential leavers."
Earth

Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? 298

Posted by timothy from the my-grandmother-could've-told-you-that dept.
sciencehabit writes The Dutch population has gained an impressive 20 centimeters in the past 150 years and is now officially the tallest on the planet. Scientists chalk up most of that increase to rising wealth, a rich diet, and good health care, but a new study suggests something else is going on as well: The Dutch growth spurt may be an example of human evolution in action. The study shows that tall Dutch men on average have more children than their shorter counterparts, and that more of their children survive. That suggests genes that help make people tall are becoming more frequent among the Dutch. "This study drives home the message that the human population is still subject to natural selection," says Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University who wasn't involved in the work. "It strikes at the core of our understanding of human nature, and how malleable it is."
Businesses

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women 892

Posted by samzenpus from the all-things-equal dept.
sabri points out that Reddit CEO Ellen Pao plans to ban salary negotiations in an attempt to equalize pay for men and women. "After losing a sex-discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley last week, Ellen Pao continues on her crusade to bring gender equality to the tech world, but this time with a focus on her home turf. As Reddit’s interim CEO, Pao said she wants to eliminate salary negotiations from the company’s hiring process. In her first interview since the lawsuit, Pao told with the Wall Street Journal Monday that the plan would help level the playing field. 'Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,' she said. 'So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

Work expands to fill the time available. -- Cyril Northcote Parkinson, "The Economist", 1955

Close