Chickenlips - Slashdot User

Submission + - Weather on Mars surprisingly pleasant, Curiosity rover finds Read more: http:// (foxnews.com)

Submitted by

hessian

on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @06:46PM

hessian writes: "Curiosity's onboard weather station, which is called the Remote Environment Monitoring Station (REMS), has measured air temperatures as high as 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) in the afternoon. And temperatures have climbed above freezing during more than half of the Martian days, or sols, since REMS was turned on, scientists said.

These measurements are a bit unexpected, since it's still late winter at Gale Crater, the spot 4.5 degrees south of the Martian equator where Curiosity touched down on Aug. 5.

"That we are seeing temperatures this warm already during the day is a surprise and very interesting," Felipe Gómez, of the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, said in a statement."

Submission + - Expert Fingers DDoS Toolkit Used in Bank Cyberattacks (csoonline.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @06:19PM

CWmike writes: "Cyberattackers who disrupted the websites of U.S. banks over the last two weeks used a highly sophisticated toolkit — a finding that points to a well-funded operation, one security vendor says. Prolexic Technologies said the distributed denial of service (DDoS) toolkit called 'itsoknoproblembro' was used against some of the banks which included Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. Each of the banks was struck on separate days. The attackers, who called themselves Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, claimed to be hacktivists angry over YouTube video trailers made in the U.S. that denigrated the Prophet Muhammad. Security vendors have questioned the attackers' claims, saying the assaults were far more sophisticated than those launched by typical hacktivists, a term used to describe hackers who target websites in the name of a political or social cause. Prolexic's findings bolstered that belief. The toolkit is capable of simultaneously attacking components of a website's infrastructure and application layers, flooding the targets with sustained traffic peaking at 70 gigabits per second. In addition, Prolexic found that traffic signatures were unusually complex and therefore difficult to reroute away from the targets."

Submission + - Philippine Internet users protest against online libel law

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @12:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: Internet users in the Philippines are protesting against a law that would make it a crime to post defamatory comments on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, ZDNet reports. Among the controversial provisions in the so-called "Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012" is a clause on online libel, which it defines as libel "committed through a computer system or any other similar means which may be devised in the future". Ironically, the law, which takes effect Oct. 3 in Manila, imposes harsher penalties for this new category of crime than the penalties for libel in the print media, according to a AFP wire service report. Persons convicted of online libel may face a jail term of up to 12 years and a fine of up to $24,000.

Submission + - Spinning Solar Cells Generate 20X More Power Than Flat Photovoltaics (v3solar.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @11:49AM

An anonymous reader writes: If there’s one constant among the vast majority of solar panel designs, it’s flatness; while solar panels can be equipped to tilt to follow the sun’s path through the course of the day, there are still significant efficiency limitations to this basic design. V3Solar’s rather elegant photovoltaic Spin Cell cones aim to address that, and their current prototype was recently third-party verified as capable of generating “over 20 times more electricity than a static flat panel with the same area of photovoltaic cells.”

Comment Valerie Plume Anyone? (Score 1) 338

by Chickenlips on Friday April 06, 2012 @05:46PM (#39602289) Attached to: Waterboarding Whistleblower Indicted Under Espionage Act

Deja Vu all over again ...

When the Bush White House orchestrated the "outing" of then CIA operative Valerie Plume (Wilson by marriage), not a single individual was ever held accountable. The ultimate motivation for destroying Mrs. Wilson's 'cover' was to head off her husband (Ambassador) Joseph Wilson from calling out the Bush White House on the lies it was manufacturing, which eventually paved the way for the invasion of Iraq.

John Kiriakou's allegedly acted as a "whistle blower", publicizing illegal/immoral activity within a government organization. I am pretty sure a whistle blower protection law was passed in the late 80's. It appears increasingly true that laws were made to be broken by the government that creates, and then selectively enforces them.

Hard to imagine who I'll choose who to vote for in November. Right now the write in candidate "None of the Above" looks good.

Comment Re:Computer from kit is a great way to start (Score 1) 196

by Chickenlips on Thursday January 26, 2012 @10:36PM (#38835899) Attached to: For Sinclair Fans, The ZX81 Lives On

I used the ZX-81 (assembled) with the 16K memory pack (rubber band to prevent sudden "data loss") for about two years, using it to teach myself how to program in basic and machine language (poke, peek, REM statments, etc.) It was a great learning tool.
Saving and loading programs was iffy and irritating for me until I built a Schmitt trigger interface to clean up the signal between the tape machine and the computer. Ah, fond memories.
My finger tips have been numb ever since (nice, hot membrane keyboard).

Comment Re:Enlighten me, please! (Score 2) 263

by Chickenlips on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @01:26AM (#38815565) Attached to: US Embassy Sanctioned Lawsuit Against Aussie ISP iiNet

The Monroe Doctrine was, for nearly two centuries, the U.S. government's excuse to dabble in the affairs of nations in the Southern Hemisphere. Two examples of government intervention with an official premise of national security (or the like) but the underlying reason being the assistance of large business concerns: Panama, 1903. The U.S. encouraged Panama to break away from Columbia, and form an independent nation. The U.S. anchored warhips nearby to discourage Columbia from responding militarily. In return, the U.S. gained sovereignty over a narrow swath of land that would become the Panama Canal Zone. Nicaragua, 1907 & 1909. Marines are twice sent into the country. The main beneficiary being the United Fruit Company.
The U.S. isn't alone. Industrial espionage on behalf of a nation's industry is pretty common in this world. The MPAA is just the latest client to be exposed.

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