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Submission + - In what other occupations are IT skills and background useful?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Here on Slashdot we sometimes see questions about how to get IT jobs while having little experience, changing from one specialty to another, or being (gasp) middle aged. And, we see comments that bemoan various aspects of IT work and express a desire to do something entirely different. This is what I'm wondering about, and I thought I'd put my questions to Ask Slashdot.

Has anyone successfully applied their years of IT experience to other lines of work? Is the field that you moved on to entirely unrelated, or is there a more substantial link to your new (but clearly not IT) role?

Submission + - D-Wave Quantum Computers Able to Demonstrate Entanglement (bbc.com)

Submitted by lecoupdejarnac
lecoupdejarnac writes: A study published by the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review X shows that D-Wave's quantum computers are able to attain at least 8-qubits of entanglement:

"Dr Federico Spedalieri of University of Southern California's Viterbi Information Sciences Institute and co-author of the paper, said: 'There's no way around it. Only quantum systems can be entangled. This test provides the experimental proof that we've been looking for.'"

Submission + - SSD breakthrough means 300% speed boost, 60% less power usage.even on old drives 1

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: A breakthrough has been made in SSD technology that could mean drastic performance increases due to the overcoming of one of the major issues in the memory type. Currently, data cannot be directly overwritten onto the NAND chips used in the devices. Files must be written to a clean area of the drive whilst the old area is formatted. This eventually causes fragmented data and lowers the drive's life and performance over time. However, a Japanese team at Chuo University have finally overcome the issue that is as old as the technology itself. Officially unveiled at the 2014 IEEE International Memory Workshop in Taipei, the researchers have written a brand new middleware for the drives that controls how the data is written to and stored on the device. Their new version utilizes what they call a 'logical block address scrambler' which effectively prevents data being written to a new 'page' on the device unless it is absolutely required. Instead, it is placed in a block to be erased and consolidated in the next sweep. This means significantly less behind-the-scenes file copying that results in increased performance from idle.

Submission + - Sony Introduce the RX100 Mark III - First Camera with a Pop-Up Viewfinder (lensvid.com) 1

Submitted by Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth writes: Sony introduced today the first ever camera with a pop up viewfinder — the new RX100 Mark III – the third incarnation of the popular large sensor advanced compact camera.
This feature allowed Sony to keep this camera small (almost tiny) but squeeze a much needed high res viewfinder for use in bright sunlight.

There are a few other interesting new features in this camera including a new fast lens from Zeiss (equivalent in 35mm to 24-70mm with a super fast f/1.8-f/2.8 aperture), and support for the new XAVC S video format (which was introduced on the Sony A7S — which also got its official pricing today).

In the very quick hands on video above Chris Niccolls from from the Camera Store in Canada shows the new RX100 Mark III (this is the first non Sony official video of the camera) and seem to be pretty excited by the changes (to be fair they are much more significant than the previous revision).

Submission + - AMD Preparing To Give Intel A Run For Its Money (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: AMD has never been able to match Intel for profits or scale, but a decade ago it was in front on innovation — the first to 1GHz, the first to 64-bit, the first to dual core. A lack of capital has kept the company barely holding on with cheap mid-range chips since; but now AMD is flush with cash from its profitable business with gaming consoles, and is preparing an ambitious new architecture for 2016, one that's distinct from the x86/ARM hybrid already announced.

Submission + - The shrinking Giant Red Spot of Jupiter (spacetelescope.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot — a swirling storm feature larger than Earth — is shrinking. This downsizing, which is changing the shape of the spot from an oval into a circle, has been known about since the 1930s, but now these striking new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images capture the spot at a smaller size than ever before.

How soon until it's blamed on climate disruption or the sequester?

Submission + - Keepod - Can A "7 Dollar USB Stick" Bring Thousands Of Poor People Online? (bbc.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: The BBC reports: 'The USB flash drive is one of the most simple, everyday pieces of technology that many people take for granted. Now it's being eyed as a possible solution to bridging the digital divide, by two colourful entrepreneurs behind the start-up Keepod. Nissan Bahar and Franky Imbesi aim to combat the lack of access to computers by providing what amounts to an operating-system-on-a-stick. In six weeks, their idea managed to raise more than $40,000 (£23,750) on fundraising site Indiegogo, providing the cash to begin a campaign to offer low-cost computing to the two-thirds of the globe's population that currently has little or no access. The test bed for the project is the slums of Nairobi in Kenya. The typical income for the half a million people in the city's Mathare district is about $2 (£1.20) a day. Very few people here use a computer or have access to the net. But Mr Bahar and Mr Imbesi want to change that with their Keepod USB stick. It will allow old, discarded and potentially non-functional PCs to be revived, while allowing each user to have ownership of their own "personal computer" experience — with their chosen desktop layout, programs and data — at a fraction of the cost of providing a unique laptop, tablet or other machine to each person. In addition, the project avoids a problem experienced by some other recycled PC schemes that resulted in machines becoming "clogged up" and running at a snail's pace after multiple users had saved different things to a single hard drive. The two men hope to get up to 150,000 people signed up to their idea in the country.'

Submission + - Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs 1

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: The state of Oklahoma had scheduled two executions for Tuesday, April 29th. This in spite of myriad objections that the drugs being used for both lethal injections had not been tested, and thus could violate the constitutional right to the courts, as well as the 8th Amendment: protection from cruel and unusual punishment. After much legal and political wrangling, the state proceeded with the executions anyway. It soon became clear that the critics' worst case scenarios were coming true—Oklahoma violently botched the first execution. The inmate "blew" a vein and had a heart attack. The state quickly postponed the second one. "After weeks of Oklahoma refusing to disclose basic information about the drugs for tonight's lethal injection procedures, tonight, Clayton Lockett was tortured to death," Madeline Cohen, the attorney of Charles Warner, the second man scheduled for execution, said in a statement. Katie Fretland at The Guardian reported from the scene of the botched attempt to execute Lockett using the untested, unvetted, and therefore potentially unconstitutional lethal injection drugs.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot : The gas leak problem

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After many years I now have a backup of all my digital data in (at least) two physical locations. But what do people recommend to backup my physical data? And then how to prove my identity?

I call it 'gas leak', because a gas leak in my town caused an explosion that leveled the house. That would have destroyed all my paperwork that proves who I am. If I'd come home from work and said 'buy that's my house', how would I prove it knowing my key no longer fits the smoldering lock?

If I'd left my wallet at home, my bank cards would have been destroyed so I couldn't withdraw money or book into a hotel. Or if I'd left my phone at the office I wouldn't know anyone's number to call, or get anyone to vouch for me.

What preventative steps can you take?

(Since having this nightmare, I've exported my phones VCF file to an online repo, make online notes of all my bank account numbers and passport ID, keep ICE numbers with me at all times (separate from phone/wallet), and hidden a spare mobile phone and house key in a box in a nearby field, but there must be more to do!)

Submission + - US Nuclear Missile Silos Use Safe and Secure Technology - 8" Floppy Disks

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Sean Gallagher writes that the government built facilities for the Minuteman missiles in the 1960s and 1970s and although the missiles have been upgraded numerous times to make them safer and more reliable, the bases themselves haven't changed much and there isn't a lot of incentive to upgrade them. ICBM forces commander Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein told Leslie Stahl from "60 Minutes" that the bases have extremely tight IT and cyber security, because they're not Internet-connected and they use such old hardware and software. “A few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire network,” says Weinstein. “Cyber engineers found out that the system is extremely safe and extremely secure in the way it's developed.” While on the base, missileers showed Stahl the 8-inch floppy disks, marked “Top Secret,” which is used with the computer that handles what was once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), a communication system that delivers launch commands to US missile forces. Later, in an interview with Weinstein, Stahl described the disk she was shown as "gigantic," and said she had never seen one that big. Weinstein explained, "Those older systems provide us some, I will say, huge safety, when it comes to some cyber issues that we currently have in the world."

Submission + - Why Don't People Understand The Chevy Volt? 1

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: The Chevrolet Volt is a range-extended electric car that's been on the market for over three years now, and yet people still don't understand how it works. How is that even possible? Apparently Volt owners hear people think it runs out of charge and dies after 3 to 40 miles leaving you stranded, and that you have to replace the battery every three or four years. Even worse, some people seem to think recharging the battery costs about the same as filling a tank of gas and that you do it every night. The best one? People think President Barack Obama forced GM to build the Volt. These all seem a bit absurd, which leads to the question of why? Why do people not understand the Volt? What's so hard about the concept? Has Chevrolet done a poor job of marketing and explaining the Volt? Probably. But can all the blame really be placed on Chevrolet, or are consumers just really that dense?

Submission + - MIT Designs Tsunami Proof Floating Nuclear Reactor (mit.edu)

Submitted by Amtrak
Amtrak writes: MIT has created designs for a nuclear plant that would avoid the downfall of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The new design calls for the nuclear plant to be placed on a floating platform modeled after the platforms used for offshore oil drilling.

A floating platform several miles offshore, moored in about 100 meters of water, would be unaffected by the motions of a tsunami; earthquakes would have no direct effect at all. Meanwhile, the biggest issue that faces most nuclear plants under emergency conditions — overheating and potential meltdown, as happened at Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island — would be virtually impossible at sea.

Submission + - Oracle Deflects Blame for Troubled Oregon Health Care Site (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Oracle is gearing up for a fight with officials in Oregon over its role developing an expensive health insurance exchange website that still isn't fully operational. In a letter obtained by the Oregonian newspaper this week, Oracle co-president Safra Catz said that Oregon officials have provided the public with a 'false narrative' concerning who is to blame for Cover Oregon's woes. In the letter, Catz pointed out that Oregon's decision to act as their own systems integrator on the project, using Oracle consultants on a time-and-materials basis, was 'criticized frequently by many'. And as far as Oracle is concerned, 'Cover Oregon lacked the skills, knowledge or ability to be successful as the systems integrator on an undertaking of this scope and complexity,' she added.

Submission + - World's First Algae Canopy Produces the Oxygen Equivalent of 4 Woodland Hectares (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Taffykay
Taffykay writes: The world's first urban algae canopy controls the flow of energy, water and CO2 based on weather patterns, visitor's movements, and other environmental variables. Once completed in time for the 2015 Milan Expo, this groundbreaking bio-digital project from ecoLogic Studio will produce the oxygen equivalent of four hectares of woodland, along with nearly 330 pounds of biomass per day.

Submission + - IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay A Relative's Debt

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Just in time for the April 15 IRS filing deadline comes news from the Washington Post that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who are expecting refunds are instead getting letters informing them that because of a debt they never knew about — often a debt incurred by their parents — the government has confiscated their check — sometimes on debts 20 or 30 years old. For example, when Mary Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them. Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family — it’s not sure who — in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. “It was a shock,” says Grice, 58. “What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can’t prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus.”

The Treasury Department has intercepted $1.9 billion in tax refunds already this year — $75 million of that on debts delinquent for more than 10 years, says Jeffrey Schramek, assistant commissioner of the department’s debt management service. The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam. The Federal Trade Commission, on its Web site, advises Americans that “family members typically are not obligated to pay the debts of a deceased relative from their own assets.” But Social Security officials say that if children indirectly received assistance from public dollars paid to a parent, the children’s money can be taken, no matter how long ago any overpayment occurred. Many of the taxpayers whose refunds have been taken say they’ve been unable to contest the confiscations because of the cost, because Social Security cannot provide records detailing the original overpayment, and because the citizens, following advice from the IRS to keep financial documents for just three years, had long since trashed their own records. More than 1,200 appeals have been filed on the old cases but only about 10 percent of taxpayers have won those appeals. "The government took the money first and then they sent us the letter," says Brenda Samonds.." We could never get one sentence from them explaining why the money was taken.”

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