Comment Perfect! (Score 1) 391
Step 1: Send video link to all political officials, claiming it to be cute kitties
Step 2: Have them arrested for clicking on the video
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
Magnitude 6.0 Quake Hits Northern California, Causing Injuries and Outages 135
As numerous sources report, an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 struck California early Sunday morning, with an epicenter about 9 miles south of Napa. According to the San Francisco Chronicle's account, Some power lines down in western Contra Costa County, but Bay Area bridges appeared to be fine, according to the California Highway Patrol. There were widespread reports of power outages, gas leaks and flooding in the North Bay, with at least 15,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers without power in Vallejo, Napa, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa and Sonoma. Police reminded motorists to stop at darkened intersections. ... In Benicia, several miles from the epicenter, the quake was strong enough to knock pictures off mantles.
Bay Area bridges appear to have survived the quake -- significant, in that the L.A. Times reports that USGS estimates peg it as "the largest earthquake to strike the Bay Area since the Loma Prieta temblor of 1989," and says that injury reports (especially from glass) are streaming in from the area around Napa. The Times also has a larger estimate of customers suffering power outages: "more than 42,000" around the northern Bay Area. Unsurprisingly, social media channels are full of pictures showing some of the damage.
For those in California, did you feel the quake? (And from how far away?) Update: 08/24 13:15 GMT by T : Also in earthquake news: an even stronger quake (magnitude 6.4) on Saturday struck central Chile, shaking Santiago -- nearly 70 miles from the epicenter -- for more than half a minute, but with "no immediate reports of fatalities or serious damage."
For those in California, did you feel the quake? (And from how far away?) Update: 08/24 13:15 GMT by T : Also in earthquake news: an even stronger quake (magnitude 6.4) on Saturday struck central Chile, shaking Santiago -- nearly 70 miles from the epicenter -- for more than half a minute, but with "no immediate reports of fatalities or serious damage."
Anomaly Triggers Self-Destruct For SpaceX Falcon 9 Test Flight 113
SpaceMika (867804) writes "A SpaceX test flight at the McGregor test facility ended explosively on Friday afternoon. A test flight of a three-engine Falcon 9 Dev1 reusable rocket ended in a rapid unscheduled disassembly after an unspecified anomaly triggered the Flight Termination System, destroying the rocket. No injuries were reported." Update: 08/23 13:33 GMT by T : Space.com has video.
Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Find Good Replacement Batteries? 131
An anonymous reader writes: I have an old phone with a battery that barely works anymore. My current phone's battery is mediocre — I can put up with it, but I've been thinking about getting a new one. My four-year-old ThinkPad holds less of a charge than I'd like, and less than it did when I bought it. In all these cases, the only thing holding me back from buying a new battery is that I'm not sure where to find a good one. Searching for my phone's battery on Amazon (or any major online retailer) yields a dozen results, all fairly cheap. But which are reliable? They all seem to have varying reviews, ranging from "Perfect official factory replacement!" to "Garbage knock-off, worse than the battery I replaced." Part numbers don't seem to help, as the knock-offs replicate those pretty well. I ask you, Slashdot: where can I find a good replacement battery?
Finding an ISIS Training Camp Using Google Earth 134
An anonymous reader writes: Terrorist organization ISIS has been in the news a lot lately for their hostile activities in Iraq and Syria. They've also been very active online, posting propaganda and photos on various social networking sites to try to recruit more members. Frequently, they'll have pictures of themselves in nondescript locations — but even carefully selected images give clues to a real location. Citizen journalists at Bellingcat analyzed a group of these photos, comparing buildings and bridges in the background to images from Google Earth. With very little to go on, they were able to pinpoint the location of a terrorist training camp.
Solar Plant Sets Birds On Fire As They Fly Overhead 521
Elledan writes: Federal investigators in California have requested that BrightSource — owner of thermal solar plants — halt the construction of more (and bigger) plants until their impact on wildlife has been further investigated. "Unlike many other solar plants, the Ivanpah plant does not generate energy using photovoltaic solar panels. Instead, it has more than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Together, they cover 1,416 hectares. Each mirror collects and reflects solar rays, focusing and concentrating solar energy from their entire surfaces upward onto three boiler towers, each looming up to 40 stories high. The solar energy heats the water inside the towers to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate enough electricity for 140,000 homes." The concentrated solar energy chars and incinerates the feathers of passing birds. BrightSource estimates about a thousand bird die this way every year, but an environmental group claims the real number is much higher.
Delaware Enacts Law Allowing Heirs To Access Digital Assets of Deceased 82
An anonymous reader writes Ars reports: "Delaware has become the first state in the U.S .to enact a law that ensures families' rights to access the digital assets of loved ones during incapacitation or after death." In other states, the social media accounts and email of people who die also die with them since the companies hosting those accounts are not obligated to transfer access even to the heirs of the deceased. In Delaware, however, this is no longer the case. The article notes that even if the deceased was a resident of another state, if his/her will is governed by Delaware law, his/her heirs will be allowed to avail of the new law and gain access to all digital assets of the deceased.
Murder Suspect Asked Siri Where To Hide a Dead Body 160
An anonymous reader writes A Florida man currently on trial for murder reportedly attempted to use Siri to garner ideas about where to bury the body of his dead roommate. According to police allegations, a University of Florida student named Pedro Bravo murdered his roommate via strangulation in late September of 2012 over a dispute involving Bravo's ex- girlfriend. According to a detective working the case, Bravo subsequently fired up Siri on his iPhone and asked it "I need to hide my roommate."
Comment The Big Friends Theory (Score 1) 442
Leonard = Ross
Penny = Rachel
Howard = Chandler
Bernadette = Monica
Sheldon = Joey
Amy = Phoebe
Raj = Smellycat
Comment It's 2014, where's our HD? (Score 1) 286
The original Xbox even had marginal support for 720p. When the 360 came out, I was so excited to finally have a device that could make use of my extremely expensive 1080p screen... but alas, the majority of games were only 720p. They did look very pretty in their own right... but on a nine-foot wide screen, the jaggies are pretty noticeable. The only games that got 1080p were kids games that required minimal processing power... and pretty sure most kids couldn't give a flying fuck that they were actually getting the full 1080p.
So then the PS4 and Xbox One come along. Surely, with the average three year old gaming PC being easily able to play games in 1080p with moderate graphical quality, these snazzy next gen consoles will FINALLY support the HD standard that came out A DECADE AGO, right?
Noop. And now the PC MASTERRACE fanboys have that much more to gloat over.
Comment Re:I must be missing something (Score 1) 81
I'm guessing this will allow people who aren't using a TV, but using a computer monitor or projector that doesn't have a tuner to do so.
However, the biggest benefit will probably be using your Xbox as a DVR to record shows, then organize them and play them in the Xbox's media player.
Comment This is all well and good... (Score 1) 80
...but it's going to take forever to text a message on my rotary-dial phone!
Comment This seems pointless (Score 1) 110
Why not just throw your laptop in your car and do a few laps around your neighborhood? You could cover the same amount of area in half an hour that took the cat a week. It's not like the cat can get closer to networks than your car can, as most WAPs broadcast far enough to reach the road, not to mention the wifi adapter is more powerful and antenna is bigger on a laptop than on a cat collar contraption.
I understand that this is more of a proof-of-concept and a cool gadget to rig up, however if this gentleman is already into wardriving, then he's probably already mapped most of his neighborhood, and the information his cat obtained is nothing new.
Comment Re:Easily-broken WEP security (Score 1) 110
No shit, Sherklock. Wardriving isn't about hacking networks, it's about mapping them passively and gathering real-world statistics about how many networks are properly secured and how many aren't.
Besides, if a cat can hack your WEP, good luck taking him to court.
Connected Collar Lets Your Cat Do the War-Driving 110
MojoKid (1002251) writes "Security researcher Gene Bransfield, with the help of his wife's grandmother's cat, decided to see how many neighborhood WiFi access points he could map and potentially compromise. With a collar loaded with a Spark chip, a Wi-Fi module, a GPS module, and a battery, Coco the cat helped Gene identify Wi-Fi networks around the neighborhood and then reported back. The goal here is obvious: Discover all of the unsecured, or at least poorly-secured, wireless access points around the neighborhood. During his journey, Coco identified dozens of Wi-Fi networks, with four of them using easily-broken WEP security, and another four that had no security at all. Gene has dubbed his collar the "WarKitteh", and it cost him less than $100 to make. He admits that such a collar isn't a security threat, but more of a goofy hack. Of course, it could be used for shadier purposes." (Here's Wired's article on the connected cat-collar.)
