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Submission + - UN Report: Climate Changes Overwhelming (bbc.com)

Submitted by iONiUM
iONiUM writes: From the article, "The impacts of global warming are likely to be "severe, pervasive and irreversible", a major report by the UN has warned." A major document was released by the IPCC outlining the current affects on climate change, and they are not good. For specific effects on humans: "Food security is highlighted as an area of significant concern. Crop yields for maize, rice and wheat are all hit in the period up to 2050, with around a tenth of projections showing losses over 25%."

Submission + - Debugging Death: An Engineer's Eureka Moment With a GM Flaw 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Hired by the family of Brooke Melton in their wrongful-death lawsuit against GM, engineer Mark Hood was at a loss to explain why the engine in Melton's 2005 Chevy Cobalt had suddenly shut off, causing her fatal accident in 2010. Hood had photographed, X-rayed and disassembled the two-inch ignition switch, focusing on the tiny plastic and metal switch that controlled the ignition, but it wasn't until he bought a replacement for $30 from a local GM dealership that the mystery quickly unraveled. Eyeing the old and new parts, Hood quickly figured out a problem now linked to 13 deaths that GM had known about for a decade. Even though the new switch had the same identification number — 10392423 — Hood found big differences — a tiny metal plunger in the switch was longer in the replacement part, the switch's spring was more compressed, and most importantly, the force needed to turn the ignition on and off was greater. "It's satisfying to me because I'm working on behalf of the Meltons," Hood said. "It won't bring their daughter back, but if it goes toward a better understanding of the problem, it might save someone else." Next week, GM CEO Mary Barra will testify before Congress about events leading up to the wide-ranging recall of 2.6 million vehicles.

Submission + - Homemade Sci-fi Movie Space Trucker Bruce = Lots of Cardboard Goodness 2

Submitted by antoine64
antoine64 writes: "It took Juneau, Alaska filmmaker Anton Doiron 6 years and around $10,000 to complete his sci-fi movie Space Trucker Bruce. All the sets for the film were built in rooms of his house using cardboard including a 35ft long hallway in his back yard. The movie took 6 years to make because all the filmmaking tasks were done by Anton. He built the sets, operated the camera, acted, edited, and completed the 105 computer animated space shots and 450 composite shots. Space Trucker Bruce is available on Vimeo and on the Space Trucker Bruce website."

Submission + - WPA2 wireless security cracked

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Achilleas Tsitroulis of Brunel University, UK, Dimitris Lampoudis of the University of Macedonia, Greece and Emmanuel Tsekleves of Lancaster University, UK, have investigated the vulnerabilities in WPA2 and present its weakness. They say that this wireless security system might now be breached with relative ease by a malicious attack on a network. They suggest that it is now a matter of urgency that security experts and programmers work together to remove the vulnerabilities in WPA2 in order to bolster its security or to develop alternative protocols to keep our wireless networks safe from hackers and malware.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-w...

Comment Re:No contract, wifi-only (Score 1) 126

by dpilot (#46476447) Attached to: Replicant OS Developers Find Backdoor In Samsung Galaxy Devices

Mine has been in airplane mode from day 1, with wifi on. I've seen where others have problems keeping wifi on when airplane is also on, but I haven't. Perhaps the fact that the SIM card is still in the original box, never inserted, has something to do with this. I bought an unlocked phone, and have never given it a chance to lock itself.

Submission + - The paranoid's survival guide: Protect your privacy on social, mobile

Submitted by rlinke
rlinke writes: Is privacy dead? Not by a long shot. While you can't control everything that's out there about you, there's quite a bit you can do to reduce your data footprint — or at least avoid adding to it. For this series, Computerworld asked nine privacy experts for tips and tricks they use for keeping their own personal data profiles on the down low.

Whether your goal is avoiding tracking by marketers, ensuring your personal safety or protecting yourself from government surveillance, there are steps you can take to minimize your exposure both online and off, these professionals say.

Comment Re:No contract, wifi-only (Score 1) 126

by dpilot (#46470115) Attached to: Replicant OS Developers Find Backdoor In Samsung Galaxy Devices

As ChunderDownUnder reminds me, I forgot to mention that this phone has never been out of airplane mode, in addition to never having a SIM card plugged in. Flashing out of T-Mobile software was also one of the first things I did, and the other night I flashed CyanogenMod 11 M4. (Of course some of the guys on IRC suggest that even that is too commercial, and that I should go to snapshots over on xda-developers, to be safer.)

I keep my tinfoil hat handy, just like I tend to channel RMS and ESR. But there are practical limits...

Submission + - The Rise and Fall of Supersymmetry

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Have you ever wondered why the masses of the fundamental particles have the small values that they do, compared to, say, the Planck scale? Whether the fundamental forces all unify at some high energy? And whether there's a natural, compelling particle candidate for dark matter? Well, in theory supersymmetry (or SUSY, for short) could have solve all three of these problems. In fact, if it solves the first one alone, there will be definitive experimental signatures for it at the Large Hadron Collider. Well, the LHC has completed its first run, and found nothing. What does this mean for theoretical physics, for SUSY in particular, and what are the implications for string theory? A very clear explanation is given here; it might be time to start hammering in those coffin nails.

Comment Re:"A Logic Named Joe" (Score 1) 293

by dpilot (#46350317) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Essays and Short Stories Should Be In a Course On Futurism?

I consider one of the saddest examples of inaccuracy to be "2001: A Space Odyssey".

No manned mission to Jupiter.
No HAL-9000. (But maybe that's a blessing?)
No manned base on the moon of any sort, let alone of the scale in the movie.
No pure-space vehicles like the lunar shuttle.
No commercial, civilian, accessible space station.
No common-use picture-phones.
No Pan Am shuttle to the space station.
No Pan Am.

Comment Ars Technica has a very good treatment on this (Score 1) 102

by dpilot (#46245541) Attached to: Study Finds Methane Leaks Negate Benefits of Natural Gas-Powered Vehicles

They look at this article, as well as various responses to it. The overall tone is even and reasonable. There is a bit of sensationalism to TFA, and some of its claims appear to be taking worst-case situations and generalizing them to the entire population of wells, etc.

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