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Submission + - We're Planning to Shoot an Asteroid to See What Happens (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: What better way to understand how to deflect an incoming asteroid than to smash into one to see what happens? This may sound like the storyline to a certain science fiction movie involving a team of oil drillers, but this is science fact, and Europe has started planning a mission to map a small target asteroid that NASA will attempt to shoot with a speeding spacecraft, no nukes required. As the first half of the joint Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment mission, the European Space Agency this month has started planning for the launch of its Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) in October 2020. AIM’s target will be the binary asteroid system of Didymos, which is composed of a main 800 meter-wide hunk of space rock circled by a smaller 170 meter-wide asteroid informally known as “Didymoon.” It’s the smaller asteroid that the joint NASA/ESA mission is interested in bullying.

Comment Re:Woop Di Do Da! (Score 1) 265

The government is not writing checks out of the general fund to pay people to drill for oil.

So, the trillions of taxpayer dollars we've spent on wars to protect energy interests just don't count? The hundreds of thousands of lives that were spent in these wars, counting the civilian casualities?

You might have an answer to that question if you weren't one of the "people who don't really understand this stuff".

And you're worried about 30% of the cost of solar panels. You're a special kind of person, you are.

Comment Re:Woop Di Do Da! (Score 1) 265

Is there any other mainstream technology that repeatedly makes outlandish claims, and just shrugs it off as if it never happen when those claims don't deliver, and yet gets massive taxpayer-sponsored support?

Coal, hydraulic fracturing, the pharmaceutical industry. The defense industry.

Shall I go on?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Living Without Social Media in 2015?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Slashdot, we frequently write derogatory comments regarding social networking sites. We bash Facebook and the privacy implications associated with having a great deal of your life put out there for corporations to monetize. Others advocate for deleting your Facebook profile. Six months ago, I did exactly that. However, as time went on, I have fully realized social media's tacit importance to function in today's world, especially if you are busy advancing your career and making the proper connections to do so. Employers expect a LinkedIn profile that they can check and people you are meeting expect a Facebook account. I have heard that not having an account on the almighty Facebook could label you as a suspicious person. I have had employers express hesitation in hiring me (they used the term "uncomfortable") and graduate school interviewers have asked prying questions regarding some things that would normally be on a person's social media page. Others have literally recoiled in horror at the idea of someone not being on Facebook. I have found it quite difficult to even maintain a proper social life without a social media account to keep up to date with any sort of social activities (even though most of them are admittedly quite mundane). Is living without social media possible in 2015? Does social media have so much momentum that the only course of action is simply to sign up for such services to maintain normality despite the vast privacy issues associated with such sites? Have we forgotten how to function without Facebook?

Comment Re:Yes, it's free. Also, the patent system sucks (Score 1) 198

Explicit language might modify what would otherwise be there only by an implicit doctrine.

In general, a licensor can modify their own terms. So, if you are using the GPL on software to which you hold the copyright, and you add some sort of exception, it applies. You can't do it to other people's software.

Submission + - Obama authorizes penalties for foreign cyber attackers (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: President Barack Obama has today signed an executive order [https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/04/01/our-latest-tool-combat-cyber-attacks-what-you-need-know] extending the U.S. administration’s power to respond to malicious cyberattacks and espionage campaigns. The order enforces financial sanctions on foreign hackers who action attacks against American businesses, institutions and citizens. The new legislation will enable the secretary of the Treasury, along with the attorney general and secretary of State, to inflict penalties on cyber criminals behind hacking attacks which “create a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy or economic health or financial stability of the United States,” Obama said. Sanctions could include freezing of assets or a total ban on commercial trade. The authorities will be limited to imposing the new sanctions solely in cases where the attacks are considered significant enough to warrant a penalty. Punishable attacks could include malicious security breaches of critical infrastructure, DDoS campaigns against computers and networks, or those that result in the “significant misappropriation of funds or economic resources, trade secrets, personal identifiers..."

Submission + - Verizon Subscribers Can Now Opt Out Of 'Supercookies' (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Verizon said in January that it would allow subscribers to opt out of having a unique identifier placed on their phones that critics have labelled a ‘supercookie’ because it’s almost impossible to remove, but it didn’t say when. On Tuesday, Verizon said the identifier won’t be inserted for customers who opt out of its mobile advertising program: 'Verizon Wireless has updated its systems so that we will stop inserting the UIDH after a customer opts out of the relevant mobile advertising program or activates a line that is ineligible for the advertising program,” such as as a government or business line,' Verizon said in a change to its policies Tuesday.

Submission + - Amazon Moves "Buy Now" Into the Physical World, With the Dash Button (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: The Amazon Dash Button is a small device that you can stick to walls or a variety of household appliances. Each button is associated with a certain brand or product, and when you set it up (via smartphone) you associate the button with a specific size or quantity (like, say, two 12-packs of Starbucks K-cups or one 2-pack of 50 oz. Tide detergent) and shipping speed. When you start to get low on said product, mash the button and Amazon takes care of the rest.

Submission + - German Man Creates the World's First Working 3D Printed Solar Powered Engine

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: An engineer in Germany has 3D printed what is believed to be the first working solar powered engine. It runs entirely off of the sun's heat, and can be fabricated on virtually any desktop 3D printer. It is designed after the concept of the Stirling engine, and he says that it could be scaled up to actually function as a working engine for a vehicle.

Submission + - AngularJS Releases Version 2.0; Rebranded to CircleJS

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Popular JavaScript client-side MVC framework AngularJS has announced a new release and rebranding after days of hard work and midnight development. Version 1.3 (codenamed AcuteJS) was shortly followed by version 1.4 (codenamed ObtuseJS) and now the project has finally come full circle. "Moving to TypeScript has allowed us to implement four-way data binding between the keyboard and database," the sole developer who devotes 17.2% of his time to maintaining AngularJS said, "a keystroke is now just a few hundred thousand digest cycles away from being stored through your browser to the server — of course your printer will receive a promise." Despite criticism of event listeners triggering other event listeners that then, in turn, trigger the event listeners that triggered them, CircleJS looks to be a forerunner in the race from micro-MVC to nano-MVC architecture.

Comment Re:Woop Di Do Da! (Score 1) 265

Is there any other technology, besides renewable energy, that makes certain Slashdot readers so darn mad? It's like they would prefer that it just didn't exist.

If you say Apple has 13% of the personal computer market, they're popping corks and doing the peepee dance. If you say a newer technology, solar energy, has reached 5%, while facing enormous geo-political resistance and the enmity of the most powerful corporations in the world, it actually pisses you off for some reason.

I'm curious. What is it about solar energy that spurs such surprising anger among this segment of Slashdot readers? What did solar energy do to you?

Submission + - MP3 Backend of Firefox and Thunderbird Found Vulnerable (mozilla.org)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A critical vulnerability has been found in the MPEG-1 Layer III playback backend of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. Security researcher Aki Helin reported a use-after-free scenario when playing certain audio files on the web using the Fluendo MP3 plugin for GStreamer on Linux. This is due to a flaw in handling certain MP3 files by the plugin and its interaction with Mozilla code. A maliciously crafted MP3 file can lead to a potentially exploitable crash. Linux is the only affected platform, so Windows and OS X users are safe from this particular vulnerability.

Submission + - Google Maps now offering Pac-Man (google.com)

Submitted by Iamthecheese
Iamthecheese writes: April Fools day has been a time for Google to roll out new ideas in the past. Gmail was one of them. There have been various other little games and widgets published on this day by Google as well. Today I noticed (from one computer but not a different one) the availability of Pac Man. Just click the button and have fun!

Submission + - Dev Hints Mozilla Will Rebrand Thunderbird As Firefox Mail (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla Developer Joshua Cranmer hints that Mozilla will rebrand Thunderbird as Firefox Mail after recent announcement showing
Thunderbird growth. Rumors suggest Mozilla had been considering rebranding to a different bird but ultimately decided Firefox Mail
would have stronger appeal to users.

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