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Businesses

FCC Puts Comcast and Time Warner Merger On Hold 132

Posted by samzenpus from the not-yet dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In a public letter to both Time Warner and Comcast, the FCC said they are putting a hold on the merger deal between the two companies. Citing inadequate responses by both cable companies to earlier FCC requests for additional information, the agency is stopping the clock on its 180-day review period until late October. Comcast and Time Warner together control most of the Internet services in the country. However, the companies said they are in different regions and are not going to suppress the competition.
Science

Is an Octopus Too Smart For Us To Eat? 481

Posted by Soulskill from the no-use-crying-over-spilled-ink dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The New Yorker is running a piece on the ethical dilemma we face when considering octopus intelligence alongside our willingness to eat them. "Octopus intelligence is well documented: they have been known to open jars, guard their unhatched eggs for months or even years, and demonstrate personalities. Most famously, they can blast a cloud of ink to throw off predators, but even more impressive is the masterfully complex camouflage employed by several members of Cephalopoda (a class that also includes squid and cuttlefish)." While humans eat animals ranging widely in mental faculties, the octopus remains one of the smartest ones we do consume. And unlike pigs, for example, their population is not dependent on humanity to survive. As our scientific understanding of intelligence grows, these ethical debates will only come into sharper focus. Where do we draw the line?
Wireless Networking

Marriott Fined $600,000 For Jamming Guest Hotspots 278

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-get-between-hotel-guests-and-their-social-media dept.
schwit1 writes: Marriott will cough up $600,000 in penalties after being caught blocking mobile hotspots so that guests would have to pay for its own Wi-Fi services, the FCC has confirmed today. The fine comes after staff at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee were found to be jamming individual hotspots and then charging people up to $1,000 per device to get online. Marriott has been operating the center since 2012, and is believed to have been running its interruption scheme since then. The first complaint to the FCC, however, wasn't until March 2013, when one guest warned the Commission that they suspected their hardware had been jammed.
Software

End of an Era: After a 30 Year Run, IBM Drops Support For Lotus 1-2-3 156

Posted by timothy from the final-death-knell-is-the-best-one dept.
klubar writes Although it has been fading for years, the final death knell came recently for the iconic Lotus 1-2-3. In many ways, Lotus 1-2-3 launched the PC era (and ensured the Apple II success), and once was a serious competitor for Excel (and prior to that Multiplan and VisiCalc). Although I doubt if anyone is creating new Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets, I'm sure there are spreadsheets still being used who trace their origin to Lotus 1-2-3, and even Office 2013 still has some functions and key compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3. Oh, how far the mighty have fallen.
Beer

Study: Compound Found In Beer Boosts Brain Function 119

Posted by samzenpus from the drink-one-anyway dept.
An anonymous reader writes Researchers have found that a chemical found in hops may actually improve memory. Unfortunately, a person would need to drink 3,520 pints of beer a day to get a high enough dose of the chemical to boost their brain power. A daunting task for even the most enthusiastic Oktoberfest participant. From the article: "Researchers at Oregon State University discovered that doses of xanthohumol, a flavonoid found in hops, improved memory and thinking in a lucky group of mice. Flavonoids are a class of compounds present in plants, known to have numerous health benefits. Last year, researchers discovered that a flavonoid found in celery and artichokes could potentially fight pancreatic cancer. The researchers treated the mice with dietary supplements of xanthohumol over the course of eight weeks. Their goal was to determine if xanthohumol could affect palmitoylation, a naturally occurring process in animals (including humans) that's associated with memory degradation. The mice then went through a series of tests—including the popular Morris water maze—to gauge whether or not the treatments had improved their spatial memory and cognitive flexibility. For the younger mice in the group, it worked. But on the older mice, unfortunately, the xanthohumol didn't seem to have any effect."
Mars

Elon Musk: We Must Put a Million People On Mars To Safeguard Humanity 549

Posted by Soulskill from the let's-send-them-to-saturn-instead dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk's ambitions for SpaceX keep getting bigger. First he wanted to make the trip to Mars affordable, then he wanted to establish a city-sized colony, and now he's got his eye on the future of humanity. Musk says we need a million people on Mars to form a "sustainable, genetically diverse civilization" that can survive as humanity's insurance policy. He continued, "Even at a million, you're really assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars. You would need to mine and refine all of these different materials, in a much more difficult environment than Earth. There would be no trees growing. There would be no oxygen or nitrogen that are just there. No oil." How fast could we do it? Within a century, once the spacecraft reusability problem is solved. "Excluding organic growth, if you could take 100 people at a time, you would need 10,000 trips to get to a million people. But you would also need a lot of cargo to support those people. In fact, your cargo to person ratio is going to be quite high. It would probably be 10 cargo trips for every human trip, so more like 100,000 trips. And we're talking 100,000 trips of a giant spaceship."

Comment Re:Gnomeification? (Score 1) 184

by frisket (#47960707) Attached to: KDE's UI To Bend Toward Simplicity
I thought KDE was touted as being more "Windows-like" than Gnome, but maybe that's just my ignorance (I did use KDE once, many years ago, in the early releases of RH/Fedora). If it needs simplification, they have only themselves to blame. The problem with all GUI approaches to configuration is that they present what the designers believe are the options most people want, but I see no evidence that this has ever been tested or quantified. Usually the one key option you need fixed is absent, meaning you have to dig through the ludicrous syntax of dozens of config files. If a GUI is going to be presented as THE way to configure things, it has to be comprehensive (eg Evolution, although half of that seems to be broken still because it's immature, but a good start). Otherwise the designers need to get off their high horses and agree of one single common compulsory syntax and vocabulary for ALL config files, preferably in something obvious like key=value or XML.

Comment Re:Black letter law (Score 1) 131

by frisket (#47960671) Attached to: Proposed Law Would Limit US Search Warrants For Data Stored Abroad

Whether or not they have implemented anything yet, "addresses concerns by the likes of Microsoft and other tech giants" should read "addresses concerns of non-US populations"...about the ability of the US Government to pry into the private affairs of non-US citizens.

Not that the US Government gives a flying fuck about the views of non-US citizens. If the US Government finally starts to behave decently and respect the views of non-US citizens (even for the most bogus of corporate-funded reasons), it's a start...
Earth

Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Levels 635

Posted by samzenpus from the no-this-doesn't-mean-global-warming-isn't-real dept.
schwit1 writes Scientists have declared a new record has been set for the extent of Antarctic sea ice since records began. Satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometers covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent. Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) said the discovery was made two days ago. "Thirty-five years ago the first satellites went up which were reliably telling us what area, two dimensional area, of sea ice was covered and we've never seen that before, that much area."
Canada

CBC Warns Canadians of "US Law Enforcement Money Extortion Program" 462

Posted by samzenpus from the dash-for-cash dept.
jfbilodeau writes The CBC is warning Canadians about a U.S. program where America law enforcement officers — from federal agents to state troopers right down to sheriffs in one-street backwaters — are operating a vast, co-ordinated scheme to grab as much of the public's cash as they can through seizure laws. "So, for any law-abiding Canadian thinking about an American road trip, here’s some non-official advice: Avoid long chats if you’re pulled over. Answer questions politely and concisely, then persistently ask if you are free to go. Don’t leave litter on the vehicle floor, especially energy drink cans. Don’t use air or breath fresheners; they could be interpreted as an attempt to mask the smell of drugs. Don’t be too talkative. Don’t be too quiet. Try not to wear expensive designer clothes. Don’t have tinted windows. And for heaven’s sake, don’t consent to a search if you are carrying a big roll of legitimate cash.

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