66114889
submission
samzenpus writes:
Many outlets are reporting the death of Tom Magliozzi, co-host of the long-running weekly National Public Radio show Car Talk . Tom and his brother Ray ran a repair shop in the '70s and in 1987 landed their radio gig. They were known as "Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers." The show stopped recording two years ago and is currently airing old episodes. Tom died of complications from Alzheimer's at age 77.
66104229
submission
schwit1 writes:
While east Ukraine, aka the Donetsk Republic, was voting over the weekend in what the west pre-emptively classified as another sham vote as its outcome would merely push east Ukraine even closer to the Kremlin, Russia was busy conducting its most comprehensive Nuclear preparedness drill in recent history, one involving the entire "nuclear triad" consisting of strategic bombers; submarines and an the ICBM shown below on Saturday morning.
As reported by the Barents Observer, the silo-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast. A few minutes later, the dummy nuclear warhead hits its target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far eastern corner, the Ministry of Defense reports. The Ministry adds that the Topol-M missile has an “extremely high accuracy of target destruction.”
This took place after a close encounter on Friday, when Norwegian F-16s were scrambled from Bodø airbase for the second time this week as a group of four Tu-95 strategic bombers were approaching from the northeast, Norway’s TV2 reports. The bombers, flying out over the Barents Sea from Russia’s Kola Peninsula, were accompanied by four Il-78 tankers.
The third arm of Russia’s nuclear triad, the submarine based ballistic missiles (SLBM), were tested on Wednesday, when “Yury Dolgoruky” launhced a Bulava missile from submerged position in the Barents Sea.
65961459
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
China's Chang'e 5 T1 space mission has sent back iconic photos of the Moon and Planet Earth
In the photo, The Earth hangs like a white and blue bauble in the black of space, distant and heart-achingly beautiful. You can see it here — http://planetary.s3.amazonaws....
The spacecraft's trajectory will carry it back to Earth at about 21:30 UT on October 31. Happy Halloween!
65957805
submission
MrBingoBoingo writes:
Startup LedgerX has submitted applications to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commisions to begin offering options based on Bitcoin prices which will be bought and sold in US Dollars. This comes after last major options market in Bitcoin announced they were discontinuing Bitcoin/Dollar options sold and settled in Bitcoin back in February due to poor price signal and the daunting challenge of insuring Put options.
65953531
submission
thygate writes:
In France, an investigation has been launched into the appearance of "drones" on 7 different nuclear power plant sites across the country in the last month. Some of the plants involved are Creys-Malville en Bugey in the southeast, Blayais in the southwest, Cattenom en Chooz in the northeast, Gravelines in the north, and Nogent-sur-Seine, close to Paris. On each occasion "drones" were seen on the domain somewhere from late in the evening to early in the morning, while it is forbidden to fly over these sites on altitudes less than 1 km in a 5 km radius. According to a spokesman of the state electric company that runs the facilities (EDF), there was no danger to the security and production of the plants. However these incidents will likely bring nuclear safety concerns back into the spotlight. France is number one country in the world when it comes to dependency on nuclear power, with a total of 58 centrals spread over 19 sites across the country.
Greenpeace's head of its anti-nuclear power campaign has already denied involvement. Their spokesman added that these events are very troubling, and also mentions they have learned about more "drone" activity above the French Center for nuclear research (CEA) close to Paris.
65457771
submission
MrBingoBoingo writes:
As bad as the Bash shell behavior was, giving attackers a shell on your server This WordPress XMLRPC Pingback hole is just as bad to your fellow internet residents. Sure Shell Shock was worse for you since it offered a shell on your machine, but to your friendly Internet neighbors the WordPress bullshit is just as bad. And much like WordPress there were Bash scripts that had been functional since 1992 which no longer work on patched versions of Bash, but for WordPress Backwards compatibility is still more important.
65456319
submission
storagedude writes:
With Amazon Web Services losing $2 billion a year, it’s not inconceivable that the cloud industry could go the way of storage service providers (remember them?). So any plan for cloud services must include a way to retrieve your data quickly in case your cloud service provider goes belly up without much notice (think Nirvanix). In an article at Enterprise Storage Forum, Henry Newman notes that recovering your data from the cloud quickly is a lot harder than you might think. Even if you have a dedicated OC-192 channel, it would take 11 days to move a petabyte of data – and that’s with no contention or other latency. One possible solution: a failover agreement with a second cloud provider – and make sure it’s legally binding.
64816515
submission
Sockatume writes:
Apple's new thin-but-wide iPhones 6 require more space in users' pockets. Perhaps more space than is available, as owners are reporting that their phones are subtly but permanently bending after several hours of ordinary sitting, even when stored in a front rather than back pocket. The issue was noted occasionally on the previous aluminium models, the iPhone 5 and 5S; earlier handsets and most competitors' models are made of steel or plastic. Apple commentator John Gruber proffers that affected owners "need looser pants".
64278239
submission
jones_supa writes:
According to a bug report, a recent Ubuntu 14.04 LTS update broke the desktop for some Nvidia Optimus users. Right now is known that a regression is introduced by either version 0.2.91.5 or 0.2.91.6 of package 'ubuntu-drivers-common'. Users of the Optimus platform might want to hold the package at 0.2.91.4 until the bug is fixed, especially if they are Lenovo ThinkPad users. The bug manifests itself as the desktop not being usable and the user is stuck at a purple screen.
64262723
submission
StartsWithABang writes:
Hydroelectric dams are one of the best and oldest sources of green, renewable energy, but — as the Three Gorges Dam in China exemplifies — they often cause a host of environmental and ecological problems and challenges. One of the more interesting ones is how to coax fish upstream in the face of these herculean walls that can often span more than 500 feet in height. While fish ladders might be a solution for some of the smaller dams, they're limited in application and success. Could Whooshh Innovations' Salmon Cannon, a pneumatic tube capable of launching fish up-and-over these dams, finally restore the Columbia River salmon to their original habitats?
64252481
submission
64002743
submission
NGOHQ writes:
The latest version (37) of Google Chrome uses DirectWrite for font rendering on Windows PCs. DirectWrite is a DirectX API made for the purpose of high-quality, resolution-independent text rendering. On paper it sounds great, but some people might not like the new fonts appearance (blurry text on some websites). This guide will show you how to disable DirectWrite.
63998237
submission
brokenin2 writes:
Hal Finney, the number two programmer for PGP and the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction has passed away. From the article on Coindesk: "Shortly after collaborating with Nakamoto on early bitcoin code in 2009, Finney announced he was suffering from ALS. Increasing paralysis, which eventually became near-total, forced him to retire from work in early 2011."
63972315
submission
__aajbyc7391 writes:
In a bid to harness the energy and enthusiasm swirling around today’s open, hackable single board computers, Imagination Technologies, licensor of the MIPS ISA, has unveiled the Creator C120 development board, the ISA's counter to ARM's popular Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black SBCs. The MIPS dev board is based on a 1.2GHz dual-core MIPS32 system-on-chip and has 1GB RAM and 8GB flash, and there's also an SD card slot for expansion. Ports include video, audio, Ethernet, both WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, and a bunch more. OS images are already available for Debian 7, Gentoo, Yocto, and Arch Linux, and Android v4.4 is expected to be available soon. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the board is that there's no pricing listed yet, because the company is starting out by giving the boards away free to developers who submit the most interesting projects.
63877497
submission
MrBingoBoingo writes:
Recently a Bitcoin user reports being interviewed over their past use of a now defuct exchange service by agents from the FBI and Treasury Department. This encounter raises concerns that earlier Bitcoin users who entered the space inocuously and without ties to Dark Markets or The Silk Road might need to prepare for Law Enforcement questioning about their early Bitcoin related activities.
