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Submission + - Comet to make close call with Mars (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: In mid-October, a comet sweeping through our inner solar system for the first time will pass near Mars—so close, in fact, that if it were buzzing Earth at the same distance it would fly by well inside our moon’s orbit. And while material spewing from the icy visitor probably won’t trigger the colossal meteor showers on the Red Planet that some scientists predicted, dust and water vapor may still slam into Mars, briefly heating up its atmosphere and threatening orbiting spacecraft. However it affects the planet, the comet should give scientists their closest view yet of a near-pristine visitor from the outer edges of our solar system.

Comment Re:Expensive? (Score 1) 285

by knorthern knight (#47503643) Attached to: How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads

> Primarily because the school boards aren't in the business of
> writing textbooks or funding the creation of the same.

Classical English literature
===================
you can get Shakespeare's works *FREE* from project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

Astronomy
========
http://nineplanets.org/ (yeah, the website name is an anachronism) *FREE* and since it's a website, you don't need to order and pay for a new edition each time new discoveries are made

Evolution
=======
Tree of Life Project http://tolweb.org/tree/

Dinosaur Specific http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/d... *FREE* and since it's a website, you don't need to order and pay for a new edition each time new discoveries are made

For those fundamentalist schools who don't believe in evolution Project Gutenberg has the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims version

A school district should be able to get a good chunk of its needs free off the web. Most of these sites will easily give permission to download and duplicate. Instead of handing out 16 KG of books to each student, hand out 16-gigabyte USB keys to each student with the necessary e-books and/or mirrored websites.

Submission + - Enraged Verizon FiOS Customer Seemingly Demonstrates Netflix Throttling (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The ongoing battle between Netflix and ISPs that can't seem to handle the streaming video service's traffic boiled over to an infuriating level for Colin Nederkoon, a startup CEO who resides in New York City. Rather than accept excuses and finger pointing from either side, Nederkoon did a little investigating into why he was receiving such slow Netflix streams on his Verizon FiOS connection, and what he discovered is that there appears to be a clear culprit. Nederkoon pays for Internet service that promises 75Mbps downstream and 35Mbps upstream through his FiOS connection. However, his Netflix video streams were limping along at just 375kbps (0.375mbps), equivalent to 0.5 percent of the speed he's paying for. On a hunch, he decided to connect to a VPN service, which in theory should actually make things slower since it's adding extra hops. Speeds didn't get slower, they got much faster. After connecting to VyprVPN, his Netflix connection suddenly jumped to 3000kbps, the fastest the streaming service allows and around 10 times faster than when connecting directly with Verizon. Verizon may have a different explanation as to why Nederkoon's Netflix streams suddenly sped up, but in the meantime, it would appear that throttling shenanigans are taking place. It seems that by using a VPN, Verizon simply doesn't know which packets to throttle, hence the gross disparity in speed.

Comment The submission is outright wrong (Score 1) 552

by knorthern knight (#47463939) Attached to: The Last Three Months Were the Hottest Quarter On Record

> The Heartland Institute skews the data by taking two points
> and ignoring all of the data in between, kind of like grabbing
> two zero points from sin(x) and claiming you're looking at a
> steady state function.

Totally, 100% false. I'll give the poster the benefit of the doubt, and assume they don't know what they're talking about. Check for yourself...
1) download the file of monthly anomalies from ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly...
2) import into a spreadsheet
3) take the slope() function for the 3rd column for the range Sept 1996 to June 2014

You get a very slightly negative result.The slope() function uses *ALL THE POINTS FROM THE START TO THE END*. I repeat, the submission is flat out wrong.

Submission + - Source Code Leaked for Tinba Banking Trojan (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: The source code for Tinba, known as the smallest banker Trojan in circulation, has been posted on an underground forum. Researchers say that the files turned out to be the source code for version one of Tinba, which was identified in 2012, and is the original, privately sold version of the crimeware kit.

Tinba performs many of the same malicious functions as other banker Trojans, injecting itself into running processes on an infected machine, including the browser and explorer.exe. The malware is designed to steal financial information, including banking credentials and credit-card data and also makes each infected computer part of a botnet. Compromised machines communicate with command-and-control servers over encrypted channels. Tinba got its name from an abbreviation of “tiny banker”, and researchers say that it’s only about 20 KB in size.

Submission + - Biohackers Are Engineering Yeast to Make THC 1

Submitted by meghan elizabeth
meghan elizabeth writes: How do you get weed without the weed? By genetically engineering yeast to produce THC, of course.
Once theorized in a stoner magazine column more than a decade ago, a biotech startup working in Ireland is actively trying to transplant the genetic information that codes for both THC and another cannabinoid called CBD into yeast so that "marijuana" can be grown in a lab—no plants necessary.

Submission + - DARPA social media research stirs a murky, controversial pot (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: DARPA’s two-year old program to better understand and perhaps ultimately influence social media has begun to bear fruit but some of that harvest is raising a stink. DARPA said when rolling out its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program was to develop a social networks science that will develop automated and semiautomated operator support tools and techniques for the systematic and methodical use of social media at data scale and in a timely fashion. But in building that science the agency says it has funded myriad social media/Twitter research (including a study that looked at Lady Gaga’s Twitter following—a model of social media popularity, DARPA stated) as well as a look into Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit and Kickstarter.

Submission + - How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wired reports, "Beneath its slick interface and crystal clear GPS-enabled vision of the world, Google Maps roils with local rivalries, score-settling, and deception. Maps are dotted with thousands of spam business listings for nonexistent locksmiths and plumbers. Legitimate businesses sometimes see their listings hijacked by competitors or cloned into a duplicate with a different phone number or website. In January, someone bulk-modified the Google Maps presence of thousands of hotels around the country, changing the website URLs to a commercial third-party booking site ... Small businesses are the usual targets. .... These attacks happen because Google Maps is, at its heart, a massive crowdsourcing project, a shared conception of the world that skilled practitioners can bend and reshape in small ways using tools like Google’s Mapmaker or Google Places for Business. .... Google has gotten much better at policing malicious edits, to the point where they’re rare today. ... The system has loopholes though, and troves of money-hungry spammers looking for weaknesses. In February, an SEO consultant-turned-whistleblower named Bryan Seely demonstrated the risk dramatically when he set up doppelganger Google Maps listings for the offices of the FBI and Secret Service. Seely channeled the incoming phone calls through to the real agencies while recording them. The stunt got a lot of attention. The Secret Service told Seely he was “a hero” for showing them the vulnerability."

Submission + - Superior Yuytu rover can go conquer Mars (yournewsticker.com)

Submitted by pesttest
pesttest writes: Chief designer of the first in the history of space exploration rover Chinese Yuytu Yan Jia (Jia Yang) shared with the publication of his vision Xinhua further development of the national space program. Scientist expressed hope that soon modified version of his brainchild to conquer Mars. “I very much hope that the Chinese will explore....

Submission + - Facebook recruiting Highschool students (engadget.com)

Submitted by Charliemopps
Charliemopps writes: Facebook and other tech firms are hiring ever young and younger talent. But now Facebook is recruiting talent from Highschools and apparently paying as high as $5000 per month for a teenage intern.

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