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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

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+ - Microsoft and Google working together on Angular 2 JavaScript framework->

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson (3799011) writes "There are unlikely partnerships, and there are unlikely partnerships — Google and Microsoft certainly make for strange bedfellows. At developer conference ng-conf in Salt Lake City, Google's Angular team revealed that it has been working with the TypeScript Team from Microsoft to produce Angular 2.

The worlds of TypeScript and AtScript have converged, resulting in the collaborative effort that is Angular 2. The new version of the JavaScript framework will be written in TypeScript and will be used to develop the next generation of web sites and web apps."
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+ - OCO2's 1st map of CO2 output->

Submitted by WindBourne
WindBourne (631190) writes "

This past summer, NASA launched its first satellite devoted to measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that is driving global warming.

.... scientists with the space agency unveiled the first carbon maps obtained by the spacecraft, named the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, or OCO-2.

This map is little bit more than a month's worth of data.
Note that the large CO2 emissions in the southern hemisphere is due to Ag with a temporary burns, while the emissions in the north are basically at its lowest points. Also note the CO2 to the east of China over the Pacific."
Link to Original Source

+ - Activists Attacked GPS Satellites with Axes

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Ingrid Burrington writes in The Atlantic about a little-remembered incident that occurred in 1992 when activists Keith Kjoller and Peter Lumsdaine snuck into a Rockwell International facility in Seal Beach, California and in what they called an "act of conscience" used wood-splitting axes to break into two clean rooms containing nine satellites being built for the US government. Lumsdaine took his axe to one of the satellites, hitting it over 60 times. The Brigade's target was the Navigation Satellite Timing And Ranging (NAVSTAR) Program and the Global Positioning System (GPS). Both men belonged to the Lockheed Action Collective, a protest group that staged demonstrations and blockaded the entrance at the Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. test base in Santa Cruz in 1990. They said they intentionally took axes to the $50-million Navstar Global Position System satellite to bring the public's attention to what they termed the government's attempt to control the world through modern technology. "I had to slow the deployment of this system (which) makes conventional warfare much more lethal and nuclear war winnable in the eyes of some," an emotional Kjoller told the judge before receiving an 18-month sentence. "It's something that I couldn't let go by. I tried to do what was right rather than what was convenient."

Burrington recently contacted Lumsdaine to learn more about the Brigade and Lumsdaine expresses no regrets for his actions. Even if the technology has more and more civilian uses, Lumsdaine says, GPS remains “military in its origins, military in its goals, military in its development and [is still] controlled by the military.” Today, Lumsdaine views the thread connecting GPS and drones as part of a longer-term movement by military powers toward automated systems and compared today’s conditions to the opening sequence of Terminator 2, where Sarah Connor laments that the survivors of Skynet’s nuclear apocalypse “lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines.” "I think in a general way people need to look for those psychological, spiritual, cultural, logistical, technological weak points and leverage points and push hard there," says Lumsdaine. "It is so easy for all of us as human beings to take a deep breath and step aside and not face how very serious the situation is, because it's very unpleasant to look at the effort and potential consequences of challenging the powers that be. But the only thing higher than the cost of resistance is the cost of not resisting.""

+ - Homer Simpson Nearly Calculates Higgs Boson 14 years Before its Actual Discovery-> 1

Submitted by operator_error
operator_error (1363139) writes "In the episode, titled “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace,” a mid-life crisis inspires Homer to become an inventor in the mold of Thomas Edison. One scene features him at a blackboard working on an equation to calculate the mass of a Higgs boson, the elusive subatomic particle that is key to understanding why objects in the universe have mass in the first place. (You can see a picture of the blackboard here.)

Simon Singh, a science writer with a doctorate in particle physics, crunched Homer’s numbers and declared that the usually hapless Homer got his math pretty much right.

“That equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson” Singh told the Independent. “If you work it out, you get the mass of a Higgs boson that’s only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is. It’s kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered.”

Well, not exactly.

According to David Kaplan, a bona fide particle physicist at Johns Hopkins University, Homer’s equation yields a value of 777 gigaelectronvolts, or GeV. The actual value measured at the Large Hadron Collider is more like 125 GeV, plus or minus a GeV.

“It is a bit off, but not insanely so,” Kaplan said.

Homer would have done even better if he hadn’t made pi the first term in his equation, Kaplan added. Without it, he’d have had “a nice guess of 99 GeV, which would not have been too shabby,” he said.

Even so, 777 GeV was not outside the realm of possibility back in 1998 – at that time, the upper limit was thought to be around 850 GeV. Still, those in the know were already seeing evidence that the true mass of the Higgs was significantly lower, Kaplan explained.

The fourth line of Homer's equation appears to show how a doughnut can evolve into a spherical body that vaguely resembles the moon."
Link to Original Source

+ - Red Hat strips down for Docker->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir (1463043) writes "Reacting to the surging popularity of the Docker virtualization technology, Red Hat has customized a version of its Linux distribution to run Docker containers. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host strips away all the utilities residing in the stock distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that aren't needed to run Docker containers. Removing unneeded components saves on storage space, and reduces the time needed for updating and booting up. It also provides fewer potential entry points for attackers. (Product page is here.)"
Link to Original Source

+ - Android phone completely disabled after receiving an international call

Submitted by OneSmartFellow
OneSmartFellow (716217) writes "I was out with friends on Friday evening when I received an international phone call from a +7 phone number. It's not at all unusual for me to receive international phone calls, but, I'll admit I have never receievd one from the +7 dialing code. I answered the call, and I could only hear myself speaking. I hung up, and my phone immediately shut off. All attempts to power it back on have failed. I have tried removing the battery, and booting into recovery mode. Phone is a Nexus S with Cyanogenmod installed. It is now a paperweight. I presume I have been hacked somehow. Is there any way to recover from this experience ?"

+ - Xfce 4.12 Released

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa (887896) writes "The Xfce team is pleased to announce the release of the Xfce 4.12, a new stable version of the fast and optimized desktop environment that supersedes Xfce 4.10, which was released 2 years and 10 months ago. While the version number looks like a small jump, there is a big amount of improvements and fixes all around. Most notable things that have seen changes are: the panel, power management, multi-monitor support, task manager, file manager, optical disc burning (Blu-Ray support), Alt-Tab popup, keyboard shortcuts, and wallpaper selector. An online tour of the changes in the new version is available. Looking into the future, the plan to upgrade from GTK2 to GTK3 is probably the hottest topic in the roadmap."

+ - Oracle Sues 5 Oregon Officials for "improper influence"

Submitted by SpzToid
SpzToid (869795) writes "Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, the Oracle Corporation has filed a rather timely suit against five of former governor John Kitzhaber's staff for their "improper influence" in the decision to shutter the Cover Oregon healthcare website, while blaming Oracle to defuse the political consequences. Oracle argues the website was ready to go before the state decided to switch to the federal exchange in April.

"The work on the exchange was complete by February 2014, but going live with the website and providing a means for all Oregonians to sign up for health insurance coverage didn’t match the former-Governor's re-election strategy to 'go after' Oracle,” Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger said in a statement.

Kitzhaber resigned last week amid criminal probes into an influence-peddling scandal involving allegations that his fiancée used her position in his office for personal gain."

+ - As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies->

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens (1697590) writes "On Thursday, before it voted in favor of "net neutrality," the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to override state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that have barred local governments and public utilities from offering broadband outside the areas where they have traditionally sold electricity. Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said the move was as important for internet competition as net neutrality: "Preventing big Internet Service Providers from unfairly discriminating against content online is a victory, but allowing communities to be the owners and stewards of their own broadband networks is a watershed moment that will serve as a check against the worst abuses of the cable monopoly for decades to come." The laws, like those in over a dozen other states, are often created under pressure from large private Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon, who consequently control monopolies or duopolies over high-speed internet in these places."
Link to Original Source

+ - First Evidence of Clathrate Gun Opening Salvo->

Submitted by Sardaukar86
Sardaukar86 (850333) writes "The Siberian crater saga is more widespread — and scarier — than anyone thought.
In the middle of last summer came news of a bizarre occurrence no one could explain. Seemingly out of nowhere, a massive crater appeared in one of the planet’s most inhospitable lands. Early estimates said the crater, nestled in a land called “the ends of the Earth” where temperatures can sink far below zero, yawned nearly 100 feet in diameter.
The saga deepened. The Siberian crater wasn’t alone. There were two more, ratcheting up the tension in a drama that hit its climax as a probable explanation surfaced. Global warming had thawed the permafrost, which had caused methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode. “Gas pressure increased until it was high enough to push away the overlaying layers in a powerful injection, forming the crater,” one German scientist said at the time."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Take your losses (Score 1) 599

by operator_error (#49126341) Attached to: Republicans Back Down, FCC To Enforce Net Neutrality Rules

The hired help can claim to have been doing their job all along, but it was really hard, what with all that public opposition and all.

Who wants to fight for lobbyist's interests when the cause is clearly lost and 4 MILLION AMERICANS WROTE TO VOICE THEIR OPINION DIRECTLY TO THE FCC? But the hired can certainly say they tried hard to serve 'their interests' to those that might come calling in the future.

It is not as if the hired help actually believed they ever served the public's stated interests.

Mommy, what happens to your files when you die?

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