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Submission + - Star Trek Continues is meeting their Kickstarter stretch goals (kickstarter.com) 2

Submitted by jdavidb
jdavidb writes: A couple of months ago on Slashdot, I learned about Star Trek Continues, a faithful continuation of the Star Trek original series five year mission, lovingly recreated by Vic Mignogna and a dedicated cast and crew. The original Enterprise set from Desilu has been recreated, great scripts have been written, fantastic guest stars have been enlisted including stars from the original series and other Star Trek voyages, and the three episodes filmed so far look like they genuinely came right of the era that produced the original series. Continues has now turned my children on to original series Star Trek, and we eagerly await more episodes.

Continues has two more days to go with a Kickstarter campaign. They have already raised enough money to produce two more episodes and meet their first stretch goal: creating a set for Engineering. Now they are within sight of their next stretch goal: creating a planet set so the Continues Enterprise team can visit strange new worlds and experience the tragic loss of nameless redshirts.

Comment Re:The fail of this article... (Score 1) 14

by Bomarc (#49042511) Attached to: Samsung: WHAT is my SmartTV reporting? To whom?
for the fun of it... started looking at the first item. It is used to get/send data to other parties (usatoday) appears to be looking for news to display.

Suggestion: Take this info (including what /. won't let you display) and post it. Take some key items, with the original posting -- shake/stir and re-post.
I realize that some data is encrypted, but (as noted above) some is not.
I WOULD like to see this posted on /. -- with as much detail can be generated for the article.
Definite /. fail.. can't have list(s) of URL's in the posting.

Comment The fail of this article... (Score 1) 14

by Bomarc (#49041883) Attached to: Samsung: WHAT is my SmartTV reporting? To whom?
Though this article does not have an "link" article, NetAlien -- using Wireshark has the means to view the data being shared. NetAlien does not indicate what that data was/is. Also - a list of what (exactly) URL's are being accessed (including the IP addresses) would be helpful form a complete article. All this info would be of interest for a complete posting here for consideration. Good start, needs a LOT more info before it is /. ready.

Submission + - FBI can't find its drone privacy reports (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: Programs run by the federal government are typically required to undergo a Privacy Impact Assessment if there's a chance they'll veer into monitoring the activities of citizens: The assessments help balance the risks and benefits of the program, and help guide any oversight to prevent abuse.

But despite being legally mandated, the FBI and Justice Department have had a tough time producing the assessments done in conjunction with the Bureau's domestic surveillance drone program, first telling privacy advocates to file a FOIA request, and then rejecting that request, before ultimately claiming they now simply can't find the documents altogether.

Submission + - Why Farmers Can't Repair Tractors (wired.com)

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: First we had "planned obsolescence", the term coined by Vance Packard in 1960's bestseller "The Waste Makers". Next we had EULA agreements. Today, even farm tractor owners are not allowed to fix their agricultural equipment with wire and duct tape. Maker/Fixer Kyle Wiens of IFIXIT writes about trying to hack a neighbor's harvester, without success, in Wired News.

Submission + - DMCA Exemption Would Let Fans Run Abandoned Games (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Games that rely on remote servers became the norm many years ago, and as those games age, it's becoming more and more common for the publisher to shut them down when they're no longer popular. This is a huge problem for the remaining fans of the games, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids the kind of hacks and DRM circumvention that would be required for the players to host their own servers. Fortunately, the EFF and law student Kendra Albert are on the case. They've asked the Copyright Office for an exemption in the case of players who want to keep abandoned games alive. It's another important step in efforts to whittle away at overreaching copyright laws.

Submission + - No big bang after all (phys.org)

Submitted by cyberspittle
cyberspittle writes: "The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once."

Submission + - Hidden Apollo 11 artefacts found in Neil Armstrong's closet after over 40 years (techienews.co.uk)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Over 40 years after Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space travel, a hidden bag full of artefacts has been discovered by his widow Carol Armstrong. Carol found the bag after Neil’s death in 2012 shortly after he underwent a heart surgery. The bag contains a total of 20 items including the priceless 16mm movie camera that recorded Apollo 11’s descent to the surface of the moon, optical alignment sight used by crew for docking manoeuvres, and Waist tether among other things. The purse and the contents are now on loan at the National Air and Space Museum for preservation, research and eventual public display.

Comment Re:This data has been validated by an IPCC reviewe (Score 1) 4

by Bomarc (#49013191) Attached to: The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
I view this as another conspiracy website:
"to no good is their efforts to prevent the archiving of their data and documents"
referenceing a "robots.txt" file. Who ever wrote this didn't follow the links to download the data!

Ever think that maybe they just want to limit the automated searchers and the like crawling their website? As a owner of a website, I restrict by robots.txt; I don't want every web-crawler visiting every web page. With hundreds of data points - could significantly bog down their network access. The info is available as a single download, and available as CD-ROM.
One such location (of MANY):

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-...

Still don't see a conspiracy here.

Comment Source is not to be trusted. (Score 1) 4

by Bomarc (#49011889) Attached to: The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
The source (Christopher Booker) has published many opinions -- none based on any level of scientific fact. He appears to to have an ax to grind against scientific principles. From Wiki (re: Christopher Booker):
He has taken a stance which runs counter to the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including global warming, the link between passive smoking and cancer, and the dangers posed by asbestos.

Though he is offering an opinion, most people do have their own opinion. The fact that he (sill) has a forum does not mean that his opinion is any more valid than scientific research on any of the topics presented.

Voted "down" ... as "Not the best"

Submission + - Comcast Does It Again and Renames a Customer 'SuperB*tch' Bauer (wired.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Yesterday Mary Bauer received her Comcast bill in the mail. But the 63-year-old Chicago area resident says she’s not going to open it. That’s because someone at Comcast switched her name on the bill, addressing it instead to “SuperB*tch Bauer.”
Bauer has been having problems with Comcast for months. As she related her story to Chicago’s WGN television station, she’s had a lot of service and billing issues. Technicians have been dispatched to her place a whopping 39 times, and she recently got into it with telephone support after her bills stopped arriving.

Whether that prompted the “SuperB*tch” name change, Comcast doesn’t know. Comcast spokesman Jack Segal, told us that the company is “investigating this thoroughly, and we have reached out to our customer.”

Meanwhile, Bauer is understandably angry. “This is a disgrace to me,” she told WGN. “Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”

Comcast employs about 130,000 people nationwide. This looks like the work of a lone smart-ass with little common sense, and not like it’s the result of corporate policy. But this isn’t the first time someone in the bowels of the company’s billing department has pulled such a stunt. Last month, the company changed another customer’s name to “*sshole” Brown, after he tried to cancel his cable package.

And a decade ago, another Chicago area customer found herself renamed “B*tch Dog” by the cable company.

Submission + - The strangest moon in the Solar System

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Moons in our Solar System — at least the ones that formed along with the planets — all revolve counterclockwise around their planetary parents, with roughly uniform surfaces orbiting in the same plane as their other moons and rings. Yet one of Saturn's moon's, Iapetus, is unique, with a giant equatorial ridge, an orbital plane that doesn't line up, and one half that's five times brighter than the other. While the first two are still mysteries, the last one has finally been solved!

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