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Submission + - How Little It Cost To Bribe Senators To FastTrack TPP Bill (zerohedge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money.

Submission + - Population Control is a Taboo Subject - Should it Be?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "In the world of solutions to environmental problems," writes Adele Peters, "one topic rarely gets any discussion: Birth control. By 2050, the U.N. estimates that the human population will hit 9.6 billion, putting unprecedented pressure on the planet's energy and agriculture systems. But that estimate tends to be accepted as inevitable, rather than as a number that could (or should) change." Peters continues, "The subject of population control wasn't always taboo. "The bestselling environment-related book of the '60s and '70s was not Silent Spring, it was Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb," says [Foundation for Deep Ecology's Tom] Butler. "So this was a huge and integrated topic of conversation decades ago, and then it fell off the radar screen." Part of the challenge is that the topic is now politically fraught both for the right and left. "On the right, if we're talking about the demographic trajectory of the human family, inevitably, this brings up questions of sexuality, abortion, immigration, women's rights, gender equity—all kinds of hot button issues," he says. "And then on the far ends of the left spectrum, there's a radical fringe that has tried to portray family planning as equal to coercion."" So, should we continue to ignore the 9.6 billion elephants in the room?

Submission + - Java API are protected by copyright (arstechnica.co.uk)

Submitted by nickweller
nickweller writes: The Justice Department is weighing in on the hot-button intellectual property dispute between Google and Oracle, telling the Supreme Court that APIs are protected by copyright. ..

A federal appeals court ruled that the "declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection."

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 + - Silk Road founder begs judge to 'please leave me my old age' ahead of sentencing (bgr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If federal prosecutors have their way, Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind Silk Road, will be sentenced to an extremely long prison term: we’re talking 20 years at the very minimum.

According to the New York Times, the prosecution handling the case has opted not to seek a life sentence for Ulbricht, but will instead try to convince the presiding judge that Ulbricht deserves a sentence that is “substantially above the mandatory minimum of 20 years.” Three months ago, a jury convicted the 30-year old Ulbricht on seven criminal counts, including narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

Ulbricht’s sentencing is scheduled for Friday.

Meanwhile, Ulbricht late last week begged the court for leniency in the form of a 1.5 page letter he sent to Judge Katherine Forrest.

The letter reads in part: "Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made. I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker."

Submission + - New Technique to Develop Single Molecule Diode

Submitted by William Robinson
William Robinson writes: Under the direction of Latha Venkataraman, associate professor of applied physics at Columbia Engineering, researchers have designed a new technique to create a single-molecule diode, that has rectification ratio as high as 250, and 'ON' current as high as 0.1 microamps. The idea of creating a single-molecule diode was suggested by Arieh Aviram and Mark Ratner who theorized in 1974, which has been the 'holy grail' of molecular electronics ever since its inception to achieve further miniaturization, because single molecule represent the limit of miniaturization.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: When we perfect age reversing, how do we decide who gets to live? 4

Submitted by ourlovecanlastforeve
ourlovecanlastforeve writes: With biologists getting closer and closer to reversing the aging process in human cells, the reality of greatly extended life draws closer. This brings up a very important conundrum: You can't tell people not to reproduce and you can't kill people to preserve resources and space. Even at our current growth rate there's not enough for everyone. Not enough food, not enough space, not enough medical care. If — no, when — age reversal becomes a reality, who gets to live? And if everyone gets to live, how will we provide for them?

Submission + - Part of Antarctica Suddenly Started Melting at a Rate of 14 Trillion Gal. a Year

Submitted by merbs
merbs writes: Sometime in 2009, a long-stable, glacier-filled region in Antarctica suddenly began to melt. Fast. A team of scientists with the University of Bristol made the alarming observation by looking at data from the CryoSat-2 satellite: The glaciers around the Southern Antarctic Peninsula, which had showed no signs of change through 2008, had begun losing 55 trillion liters (14.5 trillion gallons) of ice a year. And they evidenced no signs of slowing down.

Submission + - The Brainteaser Elon Musk Asks New SpaceX Engineers (dice.com) 9

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: The latest biography of Elon Musk, by technology journalist Ashlee Vance, provides an in-depth look into how the entrepreneur and tech titan built Tesla Motors and SpaceX from the ground up. For developers and engineers, getting a job at SpaceX is difficult, with a long interviewing/testing process... and for some candidates, there's a rather unique final step: an interview with Musk himself. During that interview, Musk reportedly likes to ask candidates a particular brainteaser: 'You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?' If you can answer that riddle successfully, and pass all of SpaceX’s other stringent tests, you may have a shot at launching rockets into orbit.

Submission + - Australia criminalise teaching encryption? (theconversation.com)

Submitted by petherfile
petherfile writes: According to Daniel Mathews new laws that have been passed but not yet come into effect could criminalize teaching encryption. He details how a ridiculously broad law could effectively make anything regarding encryption of over 512 bits criminal if your client is not Australian. It could apparently even conceivably include division as a controlled thing of military interest.

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