kodiaktau - Slashdot User

Facebook Puts Users On Suicide Watch 187

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @10:57PM from the keeping-an-eye-on-things dept.

Mark Wilson writes A few months ago Twitter was criticized for teaming up with suicide prevention charity Samaritans to automatically monitor for key words and phrases that could indicate that someone was struggling to cope with life. Despite the privacy concerns that surrounded Samaritans Radar, Facebook has decided that it is going to launch a similar program in a bid to prevent suicides. Working with mental health organizations including Forefront, Now Matters Now, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and Save.org, Facebook aims to provide greater help and support for anyone considering suicide or self-harm.

Ask Slashdot: Old PC File Transfer Problem 466

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @08:54PM from the I'll-never-let-you-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes I have an old Compaq Contura Aero laptop from the nineties (20 Mhz, 12 Mb RAM, Windows 3.11, 16-bit, PCMCIA, COM, LPT, floppy) with 160 Mb drive that I would want to copy in full to a newer machine. The floppies are so unreliable — between Aero's PCMCIA floppy drive and USB floppy disk drive — that it is a total nightmare to try and do it; it just doesn't work. If that option is excluded, what else can I do? I have another old laptop with Windows XP (32-bit, PCMCIA, COM, LPT) that could be used; all other machines are too new and lack ports. Will be grateful for any ideas.

Xeroxed Gene May Have Paved the Way For Large Human Brain 93

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @08:10PM from the look-at-the-big-brain-on-test-subject-35 dept.

sciencehabit writes Last week, researchers expanded the size of the mouse brain by giving rodents a piece of human DNA. Now another team has topped that feat, pinpointing a human gene that not only grows the mouse brain but also gives it the distinctive folds found in primate brains. The work suggests that scientists are finally beginning to unravel some of the evolutionary steps that boosted the cognitive powers of our species. "This study represents a major milestone in our understanding of the developmental emergence of human uniqueness," says Victor Borrell Franco, a neurobiologist at the Institute of Neurosciences in Alicante, Spain, who was not involved with the work.

Comment Re:He's being polite. (Score 2) 114

by CrimsonAvenger on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:31PM (#49139973) Attached to: Schneier: Everyone Wants You To Have Security, But Not From Them

What he means to say is what most of have known in our darkest heart of hearts since the first help ticket: The vast majority of users are technically illiterate idiots, and you can't fix stupid.

Note that there is a difference between "stupid" and "ignorant".

Note that being "technically illiterate" puts you into the "ignorant" category, but that claiming that "technically illiterate" is the same as "idiot" puts you well into the "stupid" category.

Now, arguably you can claim that the vast majority of users really don't care very much about the subject at hand, which might very well move them into the "stupid" group. But being technically illiterate, in and of itself, is not a sign of "stupid"....

Comment Interesing... (Score 3, Insightful) 394

by CrimsonAvenger on Thursday February 26, 2015 @11:44AM (#49137287) Attached to: Lawmakers Seek Information On Funding For Climate Change Critics

SO, they're only investigating the funding sources of people who disagree with their position.

Well, that couldn't be biased at all, now could it?

Comment Long Range Foundation (Score 2) 45

by CrimsonAvenger on Thursday February 26, 2015 @10:03AM (#49136355) Attached to: The Believers: Behind the Rise of Neural Nets

This sounds like the LRF from Heinlein's Time for the Stars.

They were required to spend their money researching things whose payback was so far in the future that no-one else would touch it.

And they kept making embarrassing amounts of money as a result of the products of their research. wonder if this lot will do the same?

Intel To Rebrand Atom Chips Along Lines of Core Processors 109

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @09:09AM from the keeping-it-consistent dept.

angry tapir writes Intel has announced that going forward it will use style of branding for its Atom chips that is similar to its branding for Core chips. Atom CPUs will have the X3, X5 and X7 designations, much like with the Core i3, i5 and i7 brands. An Atom X3 will deliver good performance, X5 will be better and X7 will be the best, an Intel spokeswoman said.

Users Decry New Icon Look In Windows 10 516

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @06:29AM from the no-sir-I-don't-like-it dept.

jones_supa writes A lot of people got upset about the flat looks of Modern UI presented in Windows 8. Recent builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview have now started replacing the shell icons, and to some people they are just too much to bear. Basically, Microsoft opted to change the icons in search of a fresh and modern look, but there are plenty of people out there who claim that all these new icons are actually very ugly and the company would better stick to the previous design. To find out what people think about these icons, Softpedia asked its readers to tell their opinion and the messages received in the last couple of days pretty much speak for themselves. There are only few testers who think that these icons look good, but the majority wants Microsoft to change them before the final version of the operating system comes out.

Uber Offers Free Rides To Koreans, Hopes They Won't Report Illegal Drivers 193

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:59AM from the what-happens-in-seoul-stays-in-seoul dept.

itwbennett writes Uber Technologies is offering free rides on its uberX ride-sharing service in the South Korean capital of Seoul, after city authorities intensified their crackdown on illegal drivers by offering a reward to residents who report Uber drivers to police. South Korean law prohibits unregistered drivers from soliciting passengers using private or rented vehicles and carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or fines of up to 20 million won.

5 White Collar Jobs Robots Already Have Taken 257

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 26, 2015 @01:26AM from the I-for-one-welcome-our-new-robot-coworkers dept.

bizwriter writes University of Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated in 2013 that 47 percent of total U.S. jobs could be automated and taken over by computers by 2033. That now includes occupations once thought safe from automation, AI, and robotics. Such positions as journalists, lawyers, doctors, marketers, and financial analysts are already being invaded by our robot overlords. From the article: "Some experts say not to worry because technology has always created new jobs while eliminating old ones, displacing but not replacing workers. But lately, as technology has become more sophisticated, the drumbeat of worry has intensified. 'What's different now?' asked Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst at market research firm Outsell. 'The pace of technology advancements plus the big data phenomenon lead to a whole new level of machines to perform higher level cognitive tasks.' Translated: the old formula of creating more demanding jobs that need advanced training may no longer hold true. The number of people needed to oversee the machines, and to create them, is limited. Where do the many whose occupations have become obsolete go?"

Reddit Imposes Ban On Sexual Content Posted Without Permission 311

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @11:03PM from the permission-slip-or-get-out dept.

Mark Wilson writes If you want to post naked pictures or videos of people on Reddit without their consent, you only have a couple of weeks to do so. As of March, the site is imposing a ban on content of an explicit nature that the subject has not given permission to be posted. The cleanup of the site comes hot on the heels of news from Google that explicit content will be banned from Blogger. It also comes in the wake of last year's Fappening which saw a glut of naked celebrity photos leaked online.

Argonne National Laboratory Shuts Down Online Ask a Scientist Program 106

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @09:10PM from the ask-someone-else dept.

itamblyn writes In a surprising decision, Argonne National Laboratory has decided to pull the plug on its long-standing NEWTON Ask A Scientist Program. NEWTON is (soon to be was) an on online repository of science questions submitted by school children from around the world. A volunteer group of scientists contributed grade-level appropriate answers to these questions. For the past 25 years, a wide range of topics ranging have been covered, including the classic "why is the sky blue" to "is there way to break down the components of plastics completely into their original form". Over the years, over 20,000 questions have been answered. According to ANL, the website will be shut down permanently on 1 March. There is no plan to make the content available in an alternate form or to hand over stewardship to another organization. When contacted about transferring the repository to another institution or moving to a donation model, the response from ANL was simply: "Thank you again for all your support for Newton. Unfortunately, moving Newton to another organization is not a possibility at this time. Thank you again for your energy and support."

Ceres' Mystery Bright Dots May Have Volcanic Origin 28

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @08:28PM from the stay-out-of-the-lava dept.

astroengine writes As NASA's Dawn mission slowly spirals in on its dwarf planet target, Ceres' alien landscape is becoming sharper by the day. And, at a distance of only 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers), the robotic spacecraft has revealed multiple bright patches on the surface, but one of the brightest spots has revealed a dimmer bright patch right next door. "Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," said Chris Russell, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and principal investigator for the Dawn mission. "This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations."

3 Million Strong RAMNIT Botnet Taken Down 23

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @07:45PM from the bring-it-down dept.

An anonymous reader writes The National Crime Agency's National Cyber Crime Unit worked with law enforcement colleagues in the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, co-ordinated through Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, to shut down command and control servers used by the RAMNIT botnet. Investigators believe that RAMNIT may have infected over three million computers worldwide, with around 33,000 of those being in the UK. It has so far largely been used to attempt to take money from bank accounts.

US Govt and Private Sector Developing "Precrime" System Against Cyber-Attacks 55

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2015 @07:05PM from the knowing-is-half-the-battle dept.

An anonymous reader writes A division of the U.S. government's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) unit, is inviting proposals from cybersecurity professionals and academics with a five-year view to creating a computer system capable of anticipating cyber-terrorist acts, based on publicly-available Big Data analysis. IBM is tentatively involved in the project, named CAUSE (Cyber-attack Automated Unconventional Sensor Environment), but many of its technologies are already part of the offerings from other interested organizations. Participants will not have access to NSA-intercepted data, but most of the bidding companies are already involved in analyses of public sources such as data on social networks. One company, Battelle, has included the offer to develop a technique for de-anonymizing BItcoin transactions (pdf) as part of CAUSE's security-gathering activities.

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