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Comment Re:victory against science (Score 1) 510

by enrevanche (#45876559) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
I understand your problems with gluten (which I also have), however it is important to understand that the product you are recommending really has very little of its claimed ingredients. The 6X stuff is 1 part in a million, the 12X is 1 part in a trillion. If you take 1 gram of the liquid, you are only getting 1 microgram each of the 6X ingredients and one millionth of a microgram of the 12X ingredients. For almost all substances, these amounts are unlikely to have any substantial physiological effects, especially ones related to something as large as the gut. For something to be labled as gluten-free, it must have less that 20 parts per million and you will typically eat much more than a gram of something. The claim of homeopathy is that the carrier (water or sugar) contains "memory" of the original ingredient which is supposedly as powerful as the ingredient itself.

Submission + - Intel's Knights Landing - a 72 core, 3 teraflop beast (realworldtech.com)

Submitted by asliarun
asliarun writes: David Kanter of Realworldtech recently posted his take on Intel's upcoming Knights Landing chip. The technical specs are startling massive and shows Intel's new found focus on throughput processing (and possibly graphics). 72 Silvermont cores with beefy FP and vector units, mesh fabric with tile based architecture, DDR4 support with a 384bit memory controller, QPI connectivity instead of PCIe, and 16GB on-package eDRAM (yes, 16GB!). All this should ensure throughput of 3 teraflops/s double precision. Many of the architectural elements would also be the same as Intel's future CPU chips — so this is also a peek into Intel's vision of the future. Will Intel use this as a platform to compete with nVidia and AMD/ATI graphics? Or will this be another Larrabee? Or just an exotic HPC product like Knights Corner?

Submission + - Passwords Tried by Hackers - Case Study On Small WordPress Site (s-crib.com)

Submitted by SmartCrib
SmartCrib writes: The total number of passwords we logged was 11,312. This set contains 4,421 different passwords. We can split all passwords into several distinct groups:
  • number passwords – contain only digits;
  • names – first names;
  • popular passwords – passwords that rank high in known statistics;
  • keyboard friendly – characters are next to each other on keyboard;
  • website related – use the website name and/or usernames on the website; and
  • topical – e.g., StarTrek related, football related, and so on.

It seems to be a very bad idea to use password consisting of only digits. We have logged passwords of 1 digit to passwords of 12 digits. As such, even a long number does not help. 22% of all guesses used number passwords.

Passwords made form keys that are close to each other are not so often but I was still surprised by some of them. Here is again a small selection: q1q1q1, qwertuiop, ytngfh, k,jdm, qweasd123, 123asd, qazwsxedcrfv.

Submission + - Academics Against Mass Surveillance speak out

Submitted by Koen Lefever
Koen Lefever writes: Over 250 Academics Against Mass Surveillance demand American and European security agencies to stop large scale monitoring of the population: "The signatories of this declaration call upon nation states to take action. Intelligence agencies must be subjected to transparency and accountability. People must be free from blanket mass surveillance conducted by intelligence agencies from their own or foreign countries. States must effectively protect everyone's fundamental rights and freedoms, and particularly everyone's privacy. "

Submission + - Surround-Ultrasound Creates "Anti-Gravity" Forcefield (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Researchers at the University of Tokyo have published a paper and video describing a technique that is explicitly not an anti-gravity system, and doesn’t pretend to be, but looks very much like one. “The essence of levitation is the countervailing of gravity,” according to the provocative opening of a paper published Dec. 14 on the Cornell University science-publishing site arXiv.org that describes a way to not only raise an object into the air, but maneuver it in three dimensions using only standing waves of ultrasound. Since the mid-1970s, researchers have been able to levitate small objects using focused beams of high-frequency sound that bounce off a flat surface and create a wave of pressure that pushes the object into the air. But they couldn’t cause an object to float, and they couldn’t move it around in any direction other than up or down. The University of Tokyo team led by Yoichi Ochiai built a system that could raise small particles, water droplets and even “small creatures” off a flat surface and zoom them around within an open, cubical area about 21 inches on each side. The system uses four sets of phased arrays – speakers producing focused beams of sound at around 40kHz – to create waves of ultrasonic force on every side of the object rather than just one. The force produced by each of the four ultrasound sources can be changed – and the force on the object manipulated – using the same techniques utilized by older systems. Coordinating the frequencies and force of ultrasound arrays on four sides, however, creates a consistent focal point for the force from each. By keeping frequency changes in sync, the system creates a “bubble” within which the force from all four sources is consistent no matter where within the target area the focus is directed.

Submission + - The UK's Internet Porn Filter and Fighting Censorship Creep (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian takes the UK government's internet porn filter to task by pointing out how absurd the opt-out process is: 'Picture the scene. You're pottering about on the internet, perhaps idly looking up cake recipes, or videos of puppies learning to howl. Then the phone rings. It's your internet service provider. Actually, it's a nice lady in a telesales warehouse somewhere, employed on behalf of your service provider; let's call her Linda. Linda is calling because, thanks to David Cameron's "porn filter", you now have an "unavoidable choice", as one of 20 million British households with a broadband connection, over whether to opt in to view certain content. Linda wants to know – do you want to be able to see hardcore pornography? How about information on illegal drugs? Or gay sex, or abortion? Your call may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes. How about obscene and tasteless material? Would you like to see that? Speak up, Linda can't hear you.' The article also points out how the filter is being used as a tool for private industry to protect their profits. 'The category of "obscene content", for instance, which is blocked even on the lowest setting of BT's opt-in filtering system, covers "sites with information about illegal manipulation of electronic devices [and] distribution of software" – in other words, filesharing and music downloads, debate over which has been going on in parliament for years.'

Submission + - Facebook sued over alleged scanning of users' private messages (latimes.com)

Submitted by Kentrshal
Kentrshal writes: SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is being sued over allegations it monitors private messages on the social network to surreptitiously gather even more information on its users and share the data with marketers.

According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose, Facebook scans the contents of private messages including links to other websites "to improve its marketing algorithms and increase its ability to profit from data about Facebook users."

Submission + - Post-NSA Government Still Trusted Over Private Firms (computing.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Computing reports on a UK survey, "Governments remain the organisations most trusted by the public to handle personal data, despite revelations about surveillance and data collection schemes by the US National Security Agency (NSA), the UK's GCHQ and other governmental organisations around the world. That's according to research by accounting and consultancy firm Ernst & Young, which suggests that more than half of people — 55 per cent — say they're comfortable sharing personal information with central government organisations ... However, consumers are more wary about sharing their data with private companies. Just one-third told Ernst & Young that they're willing to share personal information with financial institutions, while one-quarter are happy to do so when it comes to their energy provider. Only one-fifth of those surveyed said they're comfortable sharing personal data with supermarkets. ... it was web firms that people were most claimed to be wary of sharing information with — fewer than one-in-10 said they were comfortable about sharing data with social networks, such as Facebook or web search engines like Google." — More at IT Pro

Submission + - YouTube goes 4K at CES along with VP9 (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: YouTube will demonstrate 4K videos at the upcoming CES. That’s not the best news, the best part of this story is that Google will do it using it’s own open sourced VP9 technology. Google acquired the technology from O2 and open sourced it. Google started offering the codec on royalty free basis to vendors to boost adoption. Google has also learned the hardware partnership game and has already roped in hardware partners to use and showcase VP9 at CES. According to reports LG (the latest Nexus maker), Panasonic and Sony will be demonstrating 4K YouTube using VP9 at the event. Google today announced that all leading hardware vendors will start supporting the royalty-free VP9 codecs. These hardware vendors include major names like ARM, Broadcom, Intel, LG, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, RealTek, Samsung, Sigma, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba.

Submission + - In 2014, which private cloud platform will you use? 2

Submitted by wawannem
wawannem writes: Lately, I've seen a few sets of predictions related to cloud computing. It seems pretty obvious that OpenStack still maintains a lot of momentum, but other players like Apache CloudStack and Eucalyptus are each innovating as well. I'd like to know how the community feels, will 2014 be the year of OpenStack | Eucalyptus | CloudStack | Other ?

Submission + - First Animation of the World Found In Burnt City In Baluchistan (payvand.com)

Submitted by Junaid Qadir
Junaid Qadir writes: "An animated piece on an earthen goblet that belongs to 5000 years ago was found in Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran. On this ancient piece that can be called the first animation of the world, the artist has portrayed a goat that jumps toward a tree and eats its leaves." And I went on to actually animate it in a gif here.

Submission + - China: The Next Space Superpower (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: "As 2014 dawns, China has the most active and ambitious space program in the world," says this article. While it's true that the Chinese space agency is just now reaching milestones that the U.S. and Russia reached 40 years ago (its first lunar rover landed in December), the Chinese government's strong support for space exploration means that it's catching up fast. On the agenda for the next decade: A space station to rival the ISS, a new spaceport, new heavy-lift rockets, a global satellite navigation system to rival GPS, and China's first space science satellites.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best app for Android for remote access to Mac or PC? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hi, I need to get remote access to my home Mac and Windows PC. At home, it's basically for watching TV, whereas at the office, I need it to work on files I am not allowed to take out when leaving.

I know there's a lot of choice out there, but I need something free and reliable. What do you all recommend?

Submission + - Julian Assange Video DMCA'ed Offline During Aussie Election

Submitted by Pav
Pav writes: On the verge of going viral (600,000 views in a week) this video was taken offline during the Australian election. It's a humourous spoof of the various contenders, plus a guest appearance by the real Julian Assange, who breaks into a few bars of "The Voice" by John Farnham, jarringly and an octave too low — apparently this was the cause of the DMCA concern.

Submission + - Building Snow Dens for the Saimaa Seals

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A project to construct man-made dens for the endangered Saimaa seal will continue after recently receiving EU funding for the next five years. The Saimaa ringed seal is among the most endangered seals in the world, having a current total population of only about 310 in the Saimaa area of Finland. The population is descended from ringed seals that were separated from the rest of their species after the last ice age. This seal, along with the Ladoga seal and the Baikal seal, is one of the few living freshwater seals in the world and Finland is working hard to preserve its tiny population. The University of Eastern Finland and Finland’s Forest Government Organization are leading a group of volunteers to build the right size snow drifts near the water. Finding volunteers has not been a problem as dozens of volunteers participate in den counts each spring, covering the entire Saimaa area. Last winter, a full one-half of the man-made dens were housed by the seals, so the project is considered to be successful.

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