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Science

Spider Discovered That Builds Its Own Spider Decoys 119

Posted by Soulskill from the welp-it's-been-a-good-run dept.
OakDragon writes "A newly discovered species of spider — apparently of the genus Cyclosa — has been discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. The spider builds an elaborate decoy out of web, twigs, and other scraps, which appears to be a much larger spider. The spider will even cause the decoy to move, marionette-style, by shaking the web."
Government

NCTC Gets Vast Powers To Spy On U.S. Citizens 332

Posted by timothy from the so-full-of-hope-for-change dept.
interval1066 writes "In a breathtaking new move by (another) little-known national security agency, the personal information of all U.S. citizens will be available for casual perusal. The 'National Counterterrorism Center' (I've never heard of this org) may now 'examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them.' This is different from past bureaucratic practice (never mind due process) in that a government agency not in the list of agencies approved to to certain things without due process may completely bypass due process and store (for up to 5 years) these records, the organization doesn't need a warrant, or have any kind of oversight of any kind. They will be sifting through these records looking for 'counter-insurgency activity,' supposedly with an eye to prevention. If this doesn't wake you up and chill you to your very bone, not too sure there is anything that will anyway."
Earth

Ticking Arctic Carbon Bomb May Be Bigger Than Expected 339

Posted by Soulskill from the who-invented-carbon-bombs-anyway dept.
sciencehabit writes "Scientists are expressing fresh concerns about the carbon locked in the Arctic's vast expanse of frozen soil. New field studies quantify the amount of soil carbon at 1.9 trillion metric tons, suggesting that previous estimates underestimated the climate risk if this carbon is liberated. Meanwhile, a new analysis of laboratory experiments that simulate carbon release by thawed soil is bolstering worries that continued carbon emissions could unleash a massive Arctic carbon wallop."
The Courts

Virginia Woman Is Sued For $750,000 After Writing Scathing Yelp Review 424

Posted by samzenpus from the sticks-and-stones dept.
First time accepted submitter VegetativeState writes "Jane Perez hired a construction company and was not happy with the work they did and alleged some of her jewelry was stolen. She submitted reviews on Yelp and Angie's List, giving the company all F's. The contractor is now suing her for $750,000. From the article: 'Dietz, the owner of Dietz Development, filed the Internet defamation lawsuit filed last month, stating that "plaintiffs have been harmed by these statements, including lost work opportunities, insult, mental suffering, being placed in fear, anxiety, and harm to their reputations." Perez's Yelp review accused the company of damaging her home, charging her for work that wasn't done and of losing jewelry. The lawsuit follows an earlier case against Perez, which was filed in July 2011 by Dietz for unpaid invoices. According to the recent filing, the two were high school classmates.'"

Comment Re:Bullshit (Score 1) 133

by Local ID10T (#42193009) Attached to: Researchers: PATRIOT Act Can 'Obtain' Data In Europe

Exactly so. There are treaties which specifically require sharing of intelligence data with the USA (and other countries). These treaties are generally held to trump laws prohibiting the sharing of such data.

e.g.
-USA makes request of company x for data.

-Company x responds that it is not allowed to provide the data, per law y in country z.

-USA requests that country z provide exception to law y for company x regarding the requested data, per treaty.

-Country z tells company x to provide the data.

-Company x provides the data, and is prohibited from admitting publicly that it did so. National security requirements in the USA (and in the countries which signed these treaties with the USA) make doing otherwise an act of treason.

Comment Re:They need to sell Finland (Score 2) 186

by Local ID10T (#42187021) Attached to: Nokia Selling Its Headquarters To Raise Funds

GDP is more akin to profit then to revenue. Apple's net profit was 47b in 2012, or about 1/4 of Finland. We should compare apples to Apple.

False.

Whichever method you use for calculating GDP, it is measuring economic activity -thus revenue, not profit.

  • Production method -market value of all final goods and services calculated during 1 year,
  • Income method -sum total of incomes of individuals living in a country during 1 year,
  • Expenditure method - all expenditure incurred by individuals during 1 year.

Simply put: "[GDP] is akin to ignoring a company's balance sheet, and judging it solely on the basis of its income statement." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
Businesses

Nokia Selling Its Headquarters To Raise Funds 186

Posted by Soulskill from the too-much-writing-on-its-walls dept.
PolygamousRanchKid writes with news the Nokia is looking to generate some cash by selling its headquarters and leasing it back from the new owner. The sale price for the 48,000 sq. meter building is €170 million. "The struggling mobile phone company has operated in the glass and steel building in Espoo near Helsinki, known as Nokia House, since 1997. The sale is another step towards reducing costs and concentrating on its core business. Nokia has spent almost a third of its cash reserves in 12 months, and in October had about €3.6bn left in the bank to turn itself into a smartphone manufacturer capable of competing with Apple and Samsung."
Mars

NASA: Curiosity Has Found Plastic On Mars 293

Posted by samzenpus from the mars-needs-organic-polymers dept.
dsinc writes "Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars. 'Right now we have multiple working hypotheses, and each hypothesis makes certain predictions about things like what the spherules are made of and how they are distributed,' said Curiosity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres, of Cornell University. 'Our job as we explore Matijevic Hill in the months ahead will be to make the observations that will let us test all the hypotheses carefully, and find the one that best fits the observations.'" Update: Yes, it's a hoax
Idle

Anthropologist Spends Three Years Living With Hackers 252

Posted by samzenpus from the going-native dept.
concealment writes "Coleman, an anthropologist who teaches at McGill University, spent three years studying the community that builds the Debian GNU/Linux open source operating system and hackers in the Bay Area. More recently, she's been peeling away the onion that is the Anonymous movement, a group that hacks as a means of protest — and mischief. When she moved to San Francisco, she volunteered with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — she believed, correctly, that having an eff.org address would make people more willing to talk to her — and started making the scene. She talked free software over Chinese food at the Bay Area Linux User Group's monthly meetings upstairs at San Francisco's Four Seas Restaurant. She marched with geeks demanding the release of Adobe eBooks hacker Dmitry Sklyarov. She learned the culture inside-out."

Comment Re:This is a good thing (Score 1) 712

As opposed to Windows, which runs like an absolute dream on unsupported hardware, right? How's that old parallel port printer working for you btw, or that old but perfectly adequate graphics card?

Unsupported hardware is hardware which might-or-might-not work, by definition.

The parallel port printer not working is an issue with the lack of a parallel port on a modern PC. Fortunately you can buy USB/LPT adapters (I bought these) which really do work. I was surprised at how well they work -at least on the Win7 & OSX boxes. I plugged the adapter into the computer, plugged the (very outdated: one had a LPT 1824-B and a serial DE-9 port, the other had a LPT 1284-B and an AppleTalk port) printer into the other end, and (in both Win7 and OSX) the printer was listed and worked correctly. I performed no driver installation at all, just let the OS detect and configure itself and when it reported it was finished I tested the results -successful.

The old graphics card thing is even more of a false flag. The standard vga driver (built in to win7) just works with every video card I have seen. If you want better graphics, or specific features, you may have to install the correct driver for the card, but that does not mean it does not work without it.

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