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Comment: Lawyers that are more deadly than the virus (Score 2) 117

The novel coronoavirus are deadly, we know that

What we did not know --- and thanks to the IP-scandal, now we know --- is how deadly the lawyers are

The outbreak of this novel coronavirus is at least (so far) somewhat contained --- what I am afraid is, and what all others should too, is that, next time, when there is an outbreak of a far more virulent virus, which spread very fast worldwide, will the world still allowing these deadly lawyers ram their law books into the medical research labs ?

Comment: Before and after (Score 2, Insightful) 359

Question: Within the context of quantum mechanic, what is the behavior of TIME ?

What I read from TFA is that they observe a certain particle at the before time frame, and then compare it with another particle at the after time frame, and found some "entanglement"

What if the experiment is carried out on the reverse --- someone checking out a particle at the after time frame and then, some others compare it with another particle at the before time frame and see if they entangle or not

I do understand that experiment that I have just described can't not happen with the limited technology that we have, for the after can not happen _before_ the before

That's why I am falling back to my original question --- what is the behavior of TIME within the context of quantum mechanic ?

Can an "after" happen _before_ a "before" ?

Comment: Google, Big Brother's Helper ? (Score 2, Informative) 80

What they didn't make public is that the hackers have also accessed a database containing information about court-issued surveillance orders that enabled law enforcement agencies to monitor email accounts belonging to diplomats, suspected spies and terrorists.

... and anybody else, as long as the authority can label them "potential threats"

Welcome to 1984, man !!

Comment: The proliferation of computer languages (Score 4, Insightful) 308

by Taco Cowboy (#43789043) Attached to: Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is

I haven't used DART yet, so I will not comment on the strength or the weakness of it

But, all through the decades that I've been in the scene, there have been so many programming languages invented, but so few of them being used

Some of the more widely used programming languages like C, for instance, are not perfect, but they are being used partly because of legacy, partly because of momentum, and partly because of the laziness of programmers to learn new, more useful languages

Talking about legacy, the other day there was a piece on Cobol, and that IBM is trying to extend Cobol to the cloudsphere

As for the languages that are not so-widely used, some of them are downright weird, but then, there are gems among them. The only downside for those few gems is that the ecology is not there to enable those few gems to become more widespread

I guess it's kinda Darwinian game plan --- not all surviving/thriving species are perfect, and not all the extinct species are bad, either

+ - Hollywood Studios Issue DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

Submitted by Aaron B Lingwood
Aaron B Lingwood writes "As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary 'TPB-AFK'. The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response to this free release model has been overwhelmingly positive, but it’s now meeting resistance from Hollywood, TPB’s arch rival.

Pirate Party Australia opines 'Hollywood is using takedown notices to censor Pirate Bay doco, is it incompetence or malice? Always hard to tell'. Whichever the answer, the system is definately broken."

+ - NYT: Apple's Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "Even as Apple became the nation's most profitable tech company, it avoided billions in taxes in the U.S. and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, according to Congressional investigators. The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between lawmakers and Apple CEO Tim Cook at a public hearing on Tuesday. "Apple successfully sought the holy grail of tax avoidance," said Senator Carl Levin. "It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere." In response to the release of the Congressional report, Apple published its prepared testimony a day early. One can only hope to see a Steve Jobs-like presentation by Cook on Tuesday!"
Piracy

Latvian Police Raid Teacher's Home for Uploading $4.00 Textbook 289

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the one-officer-per-dollar dept.
richlv writes "Latvian police recently raided the home of a history teacher and confiscated his computer. The crime? Scanning a history book and making it available on his website covering various topics on history. The raid was based on a complaint from the publisher (Google Translate to English), which has a near-monopoly on educational materials in Latvia, often linked with shady connections in the Ministry of Education."

+ - MI5 abandons multi-million pound IT project ->

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes "There seems to be a special curse that effects the building of digital records and case management software for security services, something to which the US FBI could readily attest. Now the curse has fallen on the British security service MI5 for a sum of at least £90m : "A 2011 Security Committee report said: “"The Security Service’s new electronic information management system is intended to “modernise and enhance the Service’s information management capability” and “provide a greater level of information assurance and mitigate the risks of intelligence failure and information loss”. “The Director General told the Committee in evidence that the project “is in some difficulties”. . . . But it is understood that earlier this year that the MI5 had decided to admit failure and re-start with a new generation of IT specialists."

 "
Link to Original Source

+ - Forbes Takes a Second Look At Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion Device->

Submitted by Baldrson
Baldrson writes "Forbes technology contributor Mark Gibbs reports that: "I haven’t posted about Rossi and his E-Cat since last August simply because there wasn’t much to report other than more of Rossi’s unsupported and infuriating claims ... What everyone wanted was something that Rossi has been promising was about to happen for months: An independent test by third parties who were credible... much to my, and I suspect many other people’s surprise, a report by credible, independent third parties is exactly what we got. Published on May 16, the paper titled “Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device” would appear to deliver what we wanted...And now, the big reveal the authors’ conclusions are (again, the emphasis is mine): ' if we consider the whole volume of the reactor core and the most conservative figures on energy production, we still get a value of (7.93 ± 0.8) 102 MJ/Liter that is one order of magnitude higher than any conventional source.'""
Link to Original Source

+ - Future Promises More Drones, More Drone Hacks->

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes "The “consumerization” of UAV technology has created a lot of opportunities for Cool! — like this video of a UAV flying over (and almost in to) Niagra Falls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMHr6LQhTRE). But it has also led to some problems. In March, a UAV “quadrcopter” came within a couple hundred feet of striking an Alitalia flight trying to land at JFK Airport in New York. More concerning: the FAA is set to license tens of thousands of drones for use over the U.S., many by law enforcement or private security firms. (https://www.eff.org/document/timeline-domestic-drone-integration).That has prompted warnings about a huge breach of privacy for U.S. citizens.
But a security researcher warns that snooping is only part of the problem. Speaking at The Security B-Sides event in Boston, Andrew Clare, a doctoral candidate at MIT’s Humans and Automation Lab (HAL), told an audience of security experts that the same economic pressures that drive UAV adoption will hinder the security of UAVs, leaving many susceptible to hacking and manipulation, as well as data loss."
Link to Original Source
Bitcoin

EFF Resumes Accepting Bitcoin Donations After Two Year Hiatus 92

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the coal-into-digital-plowshares dept.
hypnosec writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has started accepting donations in the form of Bitcoins again after a two year hiatus, stating that the legal uncertainty hovering over the digital currency has all but disappeared. On their blog the EFF noted that a report from U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in addition to their own findings, 'have confirmed that, as a user of Bitcoin or any virtual currency, EFF itself is likely not subject to regulation.'"

+ - Oklahoma Tornado Kills 51; NWS Watch Remains for Plains 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A tornado with winds up to 200 mph flattened the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore today, killing at least 51 and injuring hundreds more, leaving an intensive search for survivors. This comes after a week of devastating tornado activity in the central US plains states, including Texas, Kansas, and Illinois. The National Weather Service has initially assigned an EF-4 (second highest) severity rating to the Moore tornado, and warns that more tornadoes are expected in the region in the coming days and weeks. These events come two years after a massive tornado killed 161 in Joplin, Missouri."

Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?

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