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Submission + - Bitcoin User tells of Interview by FBI and Treasury Department (thedrinkingrecord.com)

Submitted by MrBingoBoingo
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.

Submission + - 850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable by Domestic Law Enforcement

Submitted by onproton
onproton writes: The Intercept reported today on classified documents revealing that the NSA has built its own "Google-like" search engine to provide over 850 billion collected records directly to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the DEA. Reporter Ryan Gallagher explains, "The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies." The search engine, called ICREACH, allows analysts to search an array of databases, some of which contain metadata collected on innocent American citizens, for the purposes of "foreign intelligence." However, questions have been raised over its potential for abuse in what is known as "parallel construction," a process in which agencies use surveillance resources in domestic investigations, and then later cover it up by creating a different evidence trail to use in court.

Submission + - Fedora 21 may come with Gnome 3.14 (themukt.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: The Gnome team has announced the release of version 3.13.3, which is now available for download and testing. There are many major enhancements and features in this release. According to Mathias Clasen of Gnome, “Highlights in this release include Adwaita as the default GTK+ theme, network awareness in our sharing infrastructure, a new design for yelp and add-on support in gnome-software.” The developers are aiming to have Gnome 3.14 available in Fedora 21. Fedora users can try out the release by using a repository created by Richard Hughess.

Submission + - Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they're private corporations, immune to oversight (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by thermowax
thermowax writes: Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws. Kind of amusing this is in arch-Liberal Mass, but enough editorializing: I don't even know where to start here. No FOIA demands, no investigations, or reviews... the police state gets more real on a daily basis.

Submission + - Jackson Palmer leaving Dogecoin

Submitted by pankkake
pankkake writes: Jackson Palmer, one of the founders of Dogecoin, announced he was leaving because the "movement" felt "cultlike", after being involved in a public argument over Dogecoin's trademark.

Not that people were not warned abundantly.

Dogecoin has been steadily losing value and it is anticipated that it will lose more. The author points that altcoins attract increasingly homogeneous groups, confirming Palmer's statements.

Submission + - Should Billionaire-Backed Code.org Pay Its Interns?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Code.org's Corporate and Founding Donors page reads like a Who's Who of the world's wealthiest corporations and individuals. But a job posting entitled Marketing / Communications Intern (Seattle only, part-time, unpaid, Sept-Dec) (screenshot) makes it clear that no portion of the tax-deductible donations will trickle down to the successful candidate, who will be required to put in an unpaid 10-20 hours/week "under pressure" in a "fast-paced environment" for four months "assisting marketing efforts for December’s global Hour of Code campaign, coordinating prize packages, managing partner commitments and events in databases and researching media prospects." So, does this count as one of the "high-paying jobs" provided by the computing revolution that Code.org supporters told California Governor Jerry Brown about last May in a letter touting the Hour of Code? Perhaps Code.org is just trying to be frugal — after all, it's requiring K-12 teachers from school districts in Chicago, New York City, Boston, and Seattle to report to the presumably rent-free offices of Corporate Donors Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to be re-educated on how Computer Science should be taught.

Submission + - Xfce: Choice Desktop environment for new Linux Users (thedrinkingrecord.com) 1

Submitted by MrBingoBoingo
MrBingoBoingo writes: A lot has changed and continued to change in the world of Linux and Unix desktop environments. A stong case though can be made that Xfce is the best direction to point new desktop Linix and *nix users towards. With rapid change happening in the world of desktop environments, what direction is really the best to point aspiring Linux users towards?

Submission + - North Dakota researchers evaluate use of UAS in crop and livestock production

Submitted by stephendavion
stephendavion writes: Researchers at North Dakota State University (NDSU) are working with the university's Carrington Research Extension Center to evaluate the use of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to monitor crop and livestock research projects. As part of the study, researchers are using UAS-mounted thermal, infrared sensors and cameras that capture images at specific frequencies to gather data from fields and livestock at specified times. NDSU Extension Service agricultural machine systems specialist and the project lead John Nowatzki said: "There is currently much interest in using UAS in agriculture.

Submission + - Second Life sequel to use Oculus Rift (playerattack.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: It's been a while since we've heard from the team at Linden Lab, but the company's been secretly preparing to make a major comeback. CEO Ebbe Altberg has confirmed that a sequel to Second Life is in development, scheduled to hit public beta testing in 2015 — and it'll use the Oculus Rift VR headset.

Submission + - Bitcoin Securities Issuer Settles with SEC (thedrinkingrecord.com)

Submitted by MrBingoBoingo
MrBingoBoingo writes: The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has extracted a Settlement from Erik Voorhees that consists of $15,843.98 in profits and a penalty of $35,000 for the high crime of having been involved in financing two offerings with Bitcoin. If you read the Security and Exchange Commission's actual filing you can see that all of the fines and settlements relate to FeedZeBirds with any actions relating to S.DICE on MPEx consisting of a strong finger wag and stern look. With the light assessment in this case, it seems that the SEC's ability to act in mature Bitcoin markets like MPEx may be limited unless they work to build cooperative relationships with those markets.

Submission + - US-EU Trade Agreement Gains Exaggerated, Say 41 Consumer Groups, Economist

Submitted by Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: The main claims about likely economic gains from concluding the US-EU trade agreement TAFTA/TTIP, billed as a "once-in-a-generation prize", are increasingly under attack. BEUC, representing 41 consumer organizations from 31 European countries, has written a letter to the EU Trade Commissioner responsible for the negotiations, Karel De Gucht, complaining about his "exaggeration of the effects of the TTIP", and "use of unsubstantiated figures regarding the job creation potential". In a blog post entitled "Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals?", Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, has even harsher words: "Implying that a deal that raises GDP by 0.4 or 0.5 percent 13 years out means 'job-creating opportunities for workers on both continents' is just dishonest. The increment to annual growth is on the order of 0.03 percentage points. Good luck finding that in the data." If the best-case outcome is just 0.03% extra growth per year, is TAFTA/TTIP worth the massive upheavals it will require to both US and EU regulatory systems to achieve that?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Mars, Ho! Chapter Eleven 2

Journal by mcgrew

Addiction

I woke up before her for once. I took a shit... hey, you wanted everything, right? Started the coffee because the robots really suck at making coffee, and got dressed. I was just taking my first sip when the doorbell rang. It was Tammy.

"Hi, uh Destiny invited me for coffee."

"Come in. She's still asleep, I'll get you a cup."

"Thanks."

Submission + - Big Bang's Smoking Gun Found (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: For the first time, scientists have found direct evidence of the expansion of the universe, a previously theoretical event that took place a fraction of a second after the Big Bang explosion nearly 14 billion years ago. The clue is encoded in the primordial cosmic microwave background radiation that continues to spread through space to this day. Scientists found and measured a key polarization, or orientation, of the microwaves caused by gravitational waves, which are miniature ripples in the fabric of space. Gravitational waves, proposed by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity nearly 100 years ago but never before proven, are believed to have originated in the Big Bang explosion and then been amplified by the universe’s inflation. “Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today,” lead researcher John Kovac, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.

Submission + - Bitcoin Barron Challenges Berkshire (trilema.com) 2

Submitted by MrBingoBoingo

Submission + - Julie Ann Horvath Quits GitHub, Citing Harrassment (twitter.com)

Submitted by PvtVoid
PvtVoid writes: From TechCrunch: The exit of engineer Julie Ann Horvath from programming network GitHub has sparked yet another conversation concerning women in technology and startups. Her claims that she faced a sexist internal culture at GitHub came as a surprise to some, given her former defense of the startup and her internal work at the company to promote women in technology.

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