Willtor - Slashdot User

Iran Court Summons Mark Zuckerberg For Facebook Privacy Violations 304

Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 27, 2014 @12:23PM from the beacon-of-tolerance-and-privacy dept.

wiredmikey (1824622) writes "An Iranian judge has summoned Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer allegations that his company's apps have breached people's privacy, it was reported Tuesday. The court in Fars province ordered that Zuckerberg address unspecified 'violation of privacy' claims made by Iranians over the reach of Facebook-owned apps, ISNA news agency reported. 'Based on the judge's verdict, the Zionist manager of Facebook... should report to the prosecutor's office to defend himself and make compensation for damages,' Rouhollah Momen-Nasab, a senior Iranian Internet security official, told ISNA. Access to social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, are routinely blocked by Iranian authorities, as are other websites considered un-Islamic or detrimental to the regime."

The Physics of Hot Pockets 222

Posted by samzenpus on Friday May 16, 2014 @01:10AM from the when-you-absolutely-have-to-eat dept.

StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "You've all had the experience: you're all excited to microwave your favorite snack. So you pull it out of the freezer, you throw it in, and you let it rip. A minute or two later, you pull it out, and there it is: boiling on the outside, frozen in the middle. Finally, a physicist answers the eternal question: why do microwaved foods remain frozen on the inside when they reach scalding temperatures on the outskirts? Starts With A Bang explains the whole phenomenon. Bonus for the crisping sleeve explanation!"

Lectures Aren't Just Boring, They're Ineffective, Too, Study Finds 166

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 12, 2014 @05:28PM from the stop-talking dept.

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Are your lectures droning on? Change it up every 10 minutes with more active teaching techniques and more students will succeed, researchers say. A new study finds that undergraduate students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods."

Thorium: The Wonder Fuel That Wasn't 204

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 12, 2014 @02:35PM from the almost-there dept.

Lasrick (2629253) writes "Bob Alvarez has a terrific article on the history and realities of thorium as an energy fuel: For 50 years the US has tried to develop thorium as an energy source for nuclear reactors, and that effort has mostly failed. Besides the extraordinary costs involved, In the process of pursuing thorium-based reactors a fair amount of uranium 233 has been created, and 96 kilograms of the stuff (enough to fuel 12 nuclear weapons) is now missing from the US national inventory. On top of that, the federal government is attempting to force Nevada into accepting a bunch of the uranium 233, as is, for disposal in a landfill (the Nevada Nuclear Security Site). 'Because such disposal would violate the agency's formal safeguards and radioactive waste disposal requirements, the Energy Department changed those rules, which it can do without public notification or comment. Never before has the agency or its predecessors taken steps to deliberately dump a large amount of highly concentrated fissile material in a landfill, an action that violates international standards and norms.'"

First Arrest In Japan For 3D-Printed Guns 274

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 08, 2014 @08:45AM from the illegal-objects-around-the-world dept.

PuceBaboon (469044) writes "Earlier today (Thursday), police in Kawasaki, Japan, arrested a man for violation of the firearms control law. He was apparently in possession of five, 3D-printed handguns, two of which were reportedly capable of firing normal rounds (although no actual bullets were found). The suspect was arrested after releasing video of the guns online. Japan has very strict gun control laws and, whether or not the suspect actually appeared in the alleged video, he may just have signed himself up for some serious porridge."

Goodyear's New State-of-the-Art Airship Makes Its First Flight 66

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 23, 2014 @01:42AM from the ehnvelope-ahnvelope dept.

Zothecula (1870348) writes "The Goodyear blimp may have been flying around for almost 90 years, but it still manages to turn heads. On Friday, there was another reason to look beyond nostalgia for the days of the great airships of old as Goodyear unveiled its new state-of-the-art blimp to the media, Goodyear associates and dealers at its Wingfoot Lake hangar in Suffield, Ohio. Built in partnership with the Zeppelin company, the new craft that replaces the 45-year old GZ-20 blimp fleet is not only larger and faster, it isn't even a blimp, but a semi-rigid airship."

Does Relying On an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? 627

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 24, 2014 @05:02PM from the speak-up dept.

itwbennett writes "Writing about his career decisions, programming language choices, and regrets, Rob Conery says that as a .NET developer he became more reliant on an IDE than he would have with PHP. Blogger, and .NET developer, Matthew Mombrea picks up the thread, coming to the defense of IDEs (Visual Studio in particular). Mombrea argues that 'being a good developer isn't about memorizing the language specific calls, it's about knowing the available ways to solve a problem and solving it using the best technique or tools as you can.' Does using an IDE make you lazy with the language? Would you be better off programming with Notepad?"

World-First Working Eukaryotic Cell Made From Plastic 109

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 17, 2014 @06:25AM from the I-prefer-real-cells dept.

Zothecula writes "Previously, chemists have managed to create artificial cell walls and developed synthetic DNA to produce self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cells. Now, for the first time, researchers have used polymers to produce an artificial eukaryotic cell capable of undertaking multiple chemical reactions through working organelles."

Researchers: Global Risk of Supervolcano Eruption Greater Than Previously Though 325

Posted by samzenpus on Monday January 06, 2014 @04:23PM from the big-boom dept.

rbrandis writes "The eruption of a 'supervolcano' hundreds of times more powerful than conventional volcanoes – with the potential to wipe out civilization as we know it – is more likely than previously thought, a study has found. An analysis of the molten rock within the dormant supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States has revealed that an eruption is possible without any external trigger, scientists said."

Comment Re: Fuck Them (Score 1) 225

by LocutusMIT on Thursday December 05, 2013 @12:59PM (#45609027) Attached to: eBay Founder Pleads For Leniency For the PayPal 14

It's different because a picket line can be crossed. Picketing relies on convincing potential customers to choose not to patronize a particular business. A better analogy for a DDOS attack might be deliberately blocking the doors so customers can't get in--for which the business can (and often successfully does) sue for lost income.

This isn't to say that picketing doesn't sometimes get out of hand, or that the penalty currently on the table isn't way too high. To be honest, I always thought that these sorts of damages were handled in a civil lawsuit after the criminal proceedings. But I'm not an expert in law.

Red Hat Releases Ceylon Language 1.0.0 159

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Wednesday November 13, 2013 @01:31PM from the everyone-is-doing-it dept.

First time accepted submitter Gavin King writes with news that the Ceylon language hit 1.0 "Ceylon 1.0 is a modern, modular, statically typed programming language for the Java and JavaScript virtual machines. The language features, an emphasis upon readability and a strong bias toward omission or elimination of potentially-harmful constructs; an extremely powerful type system combining subtype and parametric polymorphism with declaration-site variance, including first-class union and intersection types, and using principal types for local type inference and flow-dependent typing; a unique treatment of function and tuple types, enabling powerful abstractions; first-class constructs for defining modules and dependencies between modules; a very flexible syntax including comprehensions and support for expressing tree-like structures; and fully-reified generic types, on both the JVM and JavaScript virtual machines, and a unique typesafe metamodel. More information may be found in the feature list and quick introduction." If you think Ceylon is cool, you might find Ur/Web interesting too.

Uneven Enforcement Suspected At Nuclear Plants 93

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 16, 2013 @03:26PM from the bring-donuts-for-the-inspectors dept.

mdsolar sends this news from the Associated Press: "The number of safety violations at U.S. nuclear power plants varies dramatically from region to region, pointing to inconsistent enforcement in an industry now operating mostly beyond its original 40-year licenses, according to a congressional study awaiting release. Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures cited in the Government Accountability Office report show that while the West has the fewest reactors, it had the most lower-level violations from 2000 to 2012 — more than 2½ times the Southeast's rate per reactor. The Southeast, with the most reactors of the NRC's four regions, had the fewest such violations, according to the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. The striking variations do not appear to reflect real differences in reactor performance. Instead, the report says, the differences suggest that regulators interpret rules and guidelines differently among regions, perhaps because lower-level violations get limited review."

Comment Re:Uh oh! (Score 1) 380

by LocutusMIT on Friday September 20, 2013 @10:20AM (#44902543) Attached to: Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret

Windmills do not work that way!

Insiders Say B&N Will Launch New Nook,Tablet In October 50

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @09:31AM from the around-the-corner dept.

Nate the greatest writes "Rumors are circulating that Barnes & Noble is going to release their new hardware soon. Two different sources inside B&N have confirmed that a launch is imminent, with one saying B&N will launch both a tablet and an ereader. The other says that a new tablet is coming. I tend to think that the first source is probably right because product pages for several accessories leaked in early August. The pages referenced 2 different new models. Also, B&N recently announced plans to continue to develop both new ereaders and tablets, though they've changed their minds so much that I don't know if that announcement is worth anything."

Former DHS Official Blames Privacy Advocates For TSA's Aggressive Procedures 325

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 12, 2013 @03:42PM from the it's-that-pesky-interest-in-freedom dept.

colinneagle writes with an interesting excerpt from Senate testimony offered yesterday, on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, from Stewart Baker. Baker formerly served as DHS Assistant Secretary and NSA General Counsel, and gave his opinion on the source of the real problems within the TSA, opining: "Unlike border officials, though, TSA ended up taking more time to inspect everyone, treating all travelers as potential terrorists, and subjecting many to whole-body imaging and enhanced pat-downs. We can't blame TSA for this wrong turn, though. Privacy lobbies persuaded Congress that TSA couldn't be trusted with data about the travelers it was screening. With no information about travelers, TSA had no choice but to treat them all alike, sending us down a long blind alley that has inconvenienced billions."

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