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Submission + - IRS Deleted Hundreds of Back-up Tapes Containing Thousands of Lerner Emails

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: According to new information from the House Oversight Committee, the IRS deleted hundreds of backup tapes containing thousands of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the conservative-targeting scandal. The tapes were destroyed nine months after a congressional subpoena was issued to the agency demanding they be preserved and turned over.

Submission + - The Milky Way has a skeleton, and its first "bone" may be huge

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Spiral galaxies contain high density dust at the centers of their spiral arms, forming the skeleton of galactic structure. While these arm-tracing infrared dark clouds had been seen in many galaxies external to our own, none had ever been discovered in the Milky Way. Until, that is, one of these “skeletal” features was discovered using the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2010. Recently, that “bone” was discovered to be even longer than suspected, and may be the central feature of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, the closest major spiral arm to the Sun.

Submission + - Want a law passed? Bribe your Senator!

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A survey of the Senators who voted for the secret fast track trade legislation — whose language has still not been published for the public to read — has found that they all received huge donations in the past few months from businesses that support the legislation, while the law was being written and voted on.

Some were Democrats who held back until they got a lot of cash donations, then voted yes. Some were Republicans who took the money up front and then wrote the legislation. All told more than a million dollars in bribes were handed over to senators to guarantee their "yay" votes.

Submission + - Nichelle Nichols, Uhura from Star Trek, Hospitalized with Stroke (variety.com)

Submitted by fightinfilipino
fightinfilipino writes:

“Last night while at her home in L.A., Nichelle Nichols suffered from a mild stroke,” McGinnis wrote. “She is currently undergoing testing to determine how severe the stroke was. Please keep her in your thoughts.” Nichols, 82, appeared in the original “Star Trek” TV series, which ran from 1966-1969, as well as the “Star Trek” movies. She also played the role of Nana Dawson in the ABC show “Heroes,” and voiced characters in the TV series “Futurama,” “Gargoyles” and “Spider-Man.”

Submission + - Wanted: Test case manager plugin (testlog.com)

Submitted by Bomarc
Bomarc writes: I’ve been working with software testing ... for a few years now. And there seems to be a serious lack of QA — Test Case Management (TCM) tools. The company that I’m working for needs a good test case manager. Currently JIRA is the tool of choice for other aspects of project management. I’m not asking to jump ship from JIRA, but the Atlassian TCM “Zephyr” has several problems, some of the key ones include: It does not have (any) matrix capabilities, no test case suite capabilities, if you change one test case (including assignments) the system changes all of the runs from that test case, the integration between the defect tracker and the TCM is archaic (at best), the number of actions to pass/fail a step (or test case) are annoying (way to many). Whoever designed it doesn’t use it. If you watch the “Introduction” for Zephyr – it is amusing to see how the person performing he demo skips over and fumbles when dealing with the flaws I’ve mentioned above.

I have use the product “TestLog” which is a well thought out product; has test matrix capabilities (and other good features) however it does not have any integration with JIRA. (Hint hint: Atlassian, this is what you need!).

In asking the /. community: Is there any company that makes a “plug-in” for JIRA with a similar features to TestLog – test case management that is well thought out, not just an afterthought?

Submission + - D.C. Police Detonate Pressure Cooker In Vehicle (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday evening in Washington D.C., police officers on routine patrol spotted an unoccupied car parked near the National Mall. They deemed it "suspicious," and took a look inside, where they found a pressure cooker. They also claimed to smell gasoline. The officers called the bomb squad, and at 7:45pm they initiated a controlled detonation of the car's contents. Afterward, a search of the car found no evidence that it contained explosives or any other suspicious materials. The car's owner was located and arrested for driving on a revoked license.

Submission + - Largest eruption in the known Universe is ~100 times the size of Milky Way

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: At the center of almost every galaxy is a supermassive black hole (SMBH); at the center of almost every cluster is a supermassive galaxy with some of the largest SMBHs in the Universe. And every once in a while, a galactocentric black hole will become active, emitting tremendous amounts of radiation out into the Universe as it devours matter. This radiation can cut across the spectrum, from the X-ray down to the radio. At the heart of MS 0735.6+7421, there’s a >10^10 solar mass black hole that appears to have been active for hundreds of millions of years, something unheard of!

Submission + - H-1B visa employees are crowding out other workers says new study (workpermit.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: According to a new study published by researchers from the University of California, Notre Dame University and the US Department of Treasury, H-1B employees are crowding out other workers and new H-1B hires did not lead to an increase in patent applications.

The study, titled 'The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration on Firms: Evidence from H-1B Visa Lotteries,' says that companies gaining additional H-1B visas 'has an insignificant effect on patenting' and 'H-1B employees crowd out the employment of other workers quite substantially.'

Submission + - Baton Bob receives $20,000 settlement for Coerced Facebook Post (clatl.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: After arresting him during a June 2013 street performance, Atlanta Police Officers forced costumed street performer "Baton Bob" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Bob) to make a pro-police statement on his Facebook page before they would allow him to be released on bond. (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/07/01/1538226/baton-bob-strikes-back-against-police-that-coerced-facebook-post-from-him)

Social media coverage of the incident triggered a six-month internal police investigation into the arrest. Atlanta Police Officer H.J. Davis was given a one-day suspension, then resigned from the Atlanta Police department a few weeks later. Atlanta Police Lt. Jeffrey Cantin received a five-day suspension for "violating responsibilities of a supervisor".

Baton Bob also filed a federal lawsuit against the city, arguing that officers made a wrongful arrest that violated, well, nearly every constitutional right you can name. Those included Jamerson's "right to free speech, his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, his right to remain silent while in custody, his right to be free from compelled speech, his right to counsel, and his right to privacy."

The City of Atlanta's legal department reviewed the case and determined that a $20,000 settlement would "be in the best interest of the city" rather than fighting the claims in court.

Comment Re:Passwords are insecure. (Score 1) 2

by Bomarc (#49707333) Attached to: Banks Conspire
I'll go one step further: All business (esp banks) that have lost customer info should be required to pay the customer who had the info taken (weather or not any actual info was used).

I'm getting tired of the "breaches" (and regular notifications)... if they can't guard the barn door closed - then wall it up until they can. I'm putting my money in the "bank" for a reason, not under the mattress.

Submission + - Banks Conspire 2

Submitted by Jim Sadler
Jim Sadler writes: I'll keep it short. Why do banks, charge cards and others have such lousy password software? My bank allows twenty letters or numbers but not all combinations of letters and numbers. Then on top of that one can not use symbols or ASCI symbols in ones password. Needless to say pass phrases are also banned. For example "JackandJillwentupthehilltofetch1394pounds of worms." would be very hard to crack and very easy to recall.
              I can't imagine why such passwords would be so hard to handle for financial institutions and they have everything in the world to lose from sloppy security. So just why, considering that these institutions complain of mega money being lost, do they not have a better password system? Do they somehow gain when money goes missing?

Submission + - Canadian Prime Minister to Music Lobby: Here's Your Copyright Term Extension (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Canadian government's decision to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings in the budget may have taken most copyright observers by surprise, but not the music industry. The extension will reduce competition, increase costs for consumers, and harm access to Canadian Heritage, but apparently all it took was a letter from the music industry lobby to the Prime Minister of Canada. Michael Geist reports on a letter sent by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the music lobby on the day the change was announced confirming that industry lobbying convinced him to extend the term of copyright without any public consultation or discussion.

Submission + - Kepler Observes Neptune Dance with Its Moons

Submitted by Liquid Tip
Liquid Tip writes: NASA's K2 mission has the capability to stare continuously at a single field of stars for months at time. The video shows K2 observations spanning 70 days from November, 2014 through January, 2015 reduced to 34 seconds. During this time some some members of our Solar System are seen passing through the K2 field-of-field, including some asteroids and the giant outer planet Neptune which appears at day 15. A keen eyed observe will also notice an object close orbit around Neptune. It is the large moon Triton which orbits every 5.8 days. The fainter moon Nereid can be seen tracing Neptune’s motion

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Mercury's Magnetic Field Was Once As Strong As Earth's - Study - Design & Tr (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Design & Trend
Mercury's Magnetic Field Was Once As Strong As Earth's - Study
Design & Trend
(Photo : Getty Images/NASA) Mercury's magnetic field may once have been as strong as Earth's. Data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft, which orbited Mercury for four years before crashing into its surface a week ago, suggests that Mercury's liquid metal...
Data from MESSENGER reveals secrets of Mercury's Magnetic FieldNY City News
NASA Messenger last WORDS, Mercury's magnetic field is 4 billion years oldThe Hoops News
Mercury's Mysterious Magnetic Past Goes Back 4B YearsSci-Tech Today
The Market Business-Space.com-University of British Columbia
all 108 news articles

Comment Re:"Kills Off PCs" -- Um, no it doesn't. (Score 1) 107

by Bomarc (#49635107) Attached to: Self-Destructing Virus Kills Off PCs

Did the submitter even bother to read the article??

Actually he did. The article has the quote "kill off"... (I was going to post the same thing when the article was in Firehose -- but decided not to) however if you read the article the PC isn't killed (reality nothing is) just the MBR is nuked. Anyone ever hear of "backup" ?

The only thing "exciting" about this one is the detection that is being removed ... then it removed the MBR. But there is no elaboration on this action.

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