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Submission + - Nearly one-third of Americans aren't ready for the next generation of technology (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Thanks to a decade of programs geared toward giving people access to the necessary technology, by 2013 some 85% of Americans were surfing the World Wide Web. But how effectively are they using it? A new survey suggests that the digital divide has been replaced by a gap in digital readiness. It found that nearly 30% of Americans either aren’t digitally literate or don’t trust the Internet. That subgroup tended to be less educated, poorer, and older than the average American.

Submission + - Happy software developers solve problems better. (peerj.com)

HagraBiscuit writes: Researchers from the Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy, have quantified and analysed affective mood index against objective measures of problem-solving effectiveness for a group of software developers.
From report abstract:
"The results offer support for the claim that happy developers are indeed better problem solvers in terms of their analytical abilities. The following contributions are made by this study: (1) providing a better understanding of the impact of affective states on the creativity and analytical problem-solving capacities of developers, (2) introducing and validating psychological measurements, theories, and concepts of affective states, creativity, and analytical-problem-solving skills in empirical software engineering, and (3) raising the need for studying the human factors of software engineering by employing a multidisciplinary viewpoint."

Graziotin D, Wang X, Abrahamsson P. (2014) Happy software developers solve problems better: psychological measurements in empirical software engineering. PeerJ 2:e289 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peer...

Submission + - PayPal freezes account of email encryption startup ProtonMail 1

blottsie writes: PayPal has frozen more than $275,000 in donations to ProtonMail, claiming the email encryption startup may be illegal. A PayPal alert told ProtonMail that was unsure if ProtonMail has the necessary U.S. government approval to encrypt emails, as though anyone who encrypts needs a license to do so. Of course, it is absolutely legal to encrypt email. The freeze remains in place.

Submission + - Court Allowed NSA To Spy On All But 4 Countries

mrspoonsi writes: A court permitted the NSA to collect information about governments in 193 countries and foreign institutions like the World Bank, according to a secret document the Washington Post published Monday. The certification issued by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010 shows the NSA has the authority to “intercept through U.S. companies not just the communications of its overseas targets, but any communications about its targets as well,” according to the Post’s report. Only four countries in the world — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — were exempt from the agreement, due to existing no-spying agreements that the Post highlights in this document about the group of countries, known as “Five Eyes” with the U.S.

Comment Holy Crap!!! (Score 4, Insightful) 54

Local legends suggest that Rheithrosciurus, which is thought to mostly eat giant acorns, can be savage. Hunters say that the squirrels will perch on low branches, jump onto a deer, gash its jugular vein, and disembowel the carcass. "It sounds pretty fantastical," says a skeptical Roland Kays, a zoologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. "Even more than its fluffy tail."

This sounds far too awesome to be fact checked.

Comment Re:Distinct DNA (Score 2, Insightful) 1330

the idea of "when life starts" which is a philosophical, not a scientific problem

Pro-life scientists point out that an embryo is a distinct organism because it has distinct DNA. The life associated with that DNA thus begins when sperm meets egg.

Then pro-life scientists are abusing scientific terminology to justify their philosophy.

Submission + - Silk Road 30,000 bitcoin auction causing stirs, what happens with it is 144,341? (mineforeman.com)

ASDFnz writes: We did not expect the US Marshals Service to release information about the auction of Silk Road bitcoin last week but in the absence of information speculation both on the markets and on the internet is building.

First Barry Silbert, Founder of SecondMarket and BitcoinTrust has tweeted that they were outbid on all blocks.

Since then Alex Walters (a former core Bitcoin developer and the then chief technology officer of Bitinstant) has posted on reddit saying “I Lost” in his $400 to $500 per coin. That post was closely followed by another reddit user saying that his bid of $451.13 per coin was also unsuccessful.

Routers is also now reporting that investment firm Pantera Capital has also been notified that their bids were also unsuccessful.

Meanwhile the actual price of bitcoins of the various exchanges has risen close to 15% from just under $600 a coin to close to $650.

In the end, we may never know who bought the confiscated coins or how much they bought them for but it does seem that it will be a pivotal point in bitcoins evolution.

It is anyone’s guess what will happen when they decide what to do with the remaining 144,341 bitcoins.

Comment Re:One non-disturbing theory (Score 4, Insightful) 304

Is that water, the ultimate solvent -- or perhaps bacteria -- are breaking down the plastics back into it's components, and the ocean (much like the oil from the BP spill) is taking care of itself.

Naw, couldn't be. Go ahead and panic, hippies!

Yeah, and everyone know that broken down oil was completely harmless.

Whatever components that plastic is breaking down into it likely contains a lot of molecules that aren't found in nature. When those molecules enter an organism there's no telling what the hell they're going to do.

I don't understand this fantasy that some people cling to that we can dump endless streams of random crap into the environment and mother nature will just magically take care of it with no consequence. People would sure as hell notice if you started dumping garbage into a lake and screwing up a beach where people swim once a week, why do you think the things that actually live in the polluted water won't be affected?

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