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+ - How Google's algorithm could fix the financial system

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Google's famous PageRank algorithm transformed the web by making it much easier to search. An algorithm, cleverly applied, transformed the world. Could that same algorithm, translated into the world of banking, do the same for our perpetually unstable financial system? Yes, according to recent research by some physicists and economists. The best way to eliminate the problem of "too big to fail," they suggest, isn't through complex regulations that banks will inevitably work around. Rather, it's to design the system to have automatic "radical transparency," so that financial institutions have natural incentives to act in ways that improve overall system stability, even as they go about seeking their own profits. http://tinyurl.com/p6zg34k"

+ - NASA radar system could help predict sinkholes->

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes "don't recall ever hearing about as many disastrous sinkholes as I have in the past couple of years — the most recent swallowing up a bunch of Chevrolet Corvettes in a museum in Kentucky. The trend no doubt hasn't been lost on the country's best and brightest scientists and NASA for example now says it has evidence that using one of its aircraft-deployed radar systems it can foresee sinkholes before they happen, decreasing danger to people and property."
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+ - The Death Cap Is Spreading Across the United States

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Discover News reports that although it's big, meaty, looks innocuous, and smells delicious, the death cap is now an invasive species on every continent except Antarctica and is spreading along the East and West Coasts and appears to be moving south into Mexico. "When someone eats Amanita phalloides, she typically won’t experience symptoms for at least six and sometimes as many as 24 hours.," says Cat Adams. "Eventually she’ll suffer from abdominal cramps, vomiting, and severely dehydrating diarrhea. This delay means her symptoms might not be associated with mushrooms, and she may be diagnosed with a more benign illness like stomach flu. To make matters worse, if the patient is somewhat hydrated, her symptoms may lessen and she will enter the so-called honeymoon phase." Without proper, prompt treatment, the victim can experience rapid organ failure, coma, and death. But good news is on the way. S. Todd Mitchell of Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, California has treated more than 60 patients with a drug derived from milk thistle. The patients who have started the drug on time (within 96 hours of ingesting the mushroom) and who have still had kidney function intact have all survived. “When administered intravenously, the compound sits on and blocks the receptors that bring amatoxin into the liver, thus corralling the amatoxins into the blood stream so the kidneys can expel them faster,” says Adams. "“As long as the drug is started within 96 hours or less following an ingestion of these deadly mushrooms, we’ve had 100% of patients make full and complete recovery." Still, Mitchell cautions against the “regular look” of deadly mushrooms. “They smell very good and when they’re cooked, many patients have described them as the most delicious mushrooms they’ve ever eaten. Unfortunately, famous last words for some.”"

+ - Should developers fix bugs in their own time? 7

Submitted by Bizzeh
Bizzeh writes "Today my boss came to me with what he thought to be a valid point and analogy. If a builder builds a wall, and a week later, bricks begin to fall out of the bottom, but he continues to build the wall higher, he would have to replace those lower bricks he did not place correctly at his own expense and in his own time. When a software developer writes a piece of software, when bugs are discovered, they are paid to fix them by the company and on the companies time. I didn't know how to refute the analogy at the time, but it did make me think, why are bugs in software treated differently in this way?"

+ - How Online Clues Located North Korea's Missile-Launcher Factories-> 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "It all started with a parade through Pyongyang on April 15, 2012, held to commemorate the birthday of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung. At this parade, one thing had analysts buzzing: six mobile launchers carrying KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Bloggers in China quickly noted the similarities between the trucks and those used by the Chinese military, right down to the shape of the windows and the grille pattern. It's the stuff of spy thrillers. A few seconds of video, literature, a couple of memoirs and Google Earth helped locate a secret North Korean military plant — and using none of the classified tools of the intelligence trade."
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+ - How About A Spherical Solar Collector ?-> 5

Submitted by Applehu Akbar
Applehu Akbar writes "German architect André Broessel claims to have invented a solar collector that is far more efficient than today's flat panels, even flat panels with tracking. He calls it the Betaray. The idea is that a fixed transparent sphere can concentrate any available sunlight, direct or diffuse, and coming from any direction, to its center. At that point a small high-efficiency collector, presumably one that loves high temperatures, harvests the energy.

Broesser's orb is a lot prettier to look at than existing solar collectors, but for me two questions arise. For one, wouldn't a hemisphere work just as well and be cheaper to manufacture, easier to keep cool and more easily mounted? And if so, why not arrays of multiple, much smaller hemispheres as an efficient collector design for all those suburban rooftops?"
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+ - How Snowden gained high-level access ..->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview on Tuesday with the Wall Street Journal, former NSA chief and Booz Allen Vice Chairman Mike McConnell explained how Edward Snowden gained access to all of the files that he’s been leaking. If McConnell is to be believed, Snowden was hired in the first place after using a trick he probably learned in high school: He “stole” an NSA admittance test with the answers, and used it to ace the test."
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+ - Major Internet Censorship Bill Passes in Turkey -> 1

Submitted by maratumba
maratumba writes "The Bill extends what are already hefty Internet curbs in place under a controversial 2007 law that Earned Turkey equal ranking with China as the world’s biggest web censor according to a Google Transparency report published in December.
The text notably permits a government agency, the Telecommunications Communications Presidency (TIB), to block Access to websites without court authorization if they are deemed to violate privacy or with content Seen as “insulting”.
Erdogan, Turkey’s all-powerful leader since 2003, is openly suspicious of the Internet, branding Twitter a “menace” for being Utilized in organisation of mass nationwide protests in June in which siX people died and thousands injured."
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+ - Target's data breach started with an HVAC account->

Submitted by Jim Hall
Jim Hall writes "Security blogger Krebs reports that Target's data breach started with a stolen HVAC account. Last week, Target said the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now claim that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers. Attackers stole network credentials from Fazio Mechanical Services, then used that to gain access to Target's network. It’s not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target’s payment system network."
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+ - Adblock's days are numbered-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "PageFair offers a free JavaScript program that, when inserted into a Web page, monitors ad blocking activity. CEO Sean Blanchfield says he developed the monitoring tool after he noticed a problem on his own multiplayer gaming site. PageFair collects statistics on ad blocking activity, identifies which users are blocking ads and can display an appeal to users to add the publisher's website to their ad-blocking tool's personal whitelist. But Blanchfield acknowledges that the user appeal approach hasn't been very effective.

ClarityRay takes a more active role. Like PageFair, it provides a tool that lets publishers monitor blocking activity to show them that they have a problem — and then sells them a remedy. ClarityRay offers a service that CEO Ido Yablonka says fools ad blockers into allowing ads through. "Ad blockers try to make a distinction between content elements and advertorial elements. We make that distinction impossible," he says.

From ComputerWorld http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245190/Ad_blockers_A_solution_or_a_problem_?taxonomyId=71&pageNumber=4"
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+ - Meteor Trails Could Reveal Other Objects on Collision Course with Earth->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "Want to know if that meteor that just struck Earth has a companion? Take a look at its trail. A new study shows that images of a meteor’s streak through the atmosphere taken by Earth-gazing probes, including weather satellites, can pin down the object’s orbit, enabling scientists to check and see whether another planet-threatening object is traveling in the same trajectory. The threat to our planet from an object’s orbital companions isn’t merely an abstract concern: One recent study suggests that about 15% of the asteroids that cross Earth’s path may be part of double or triple asteroid systems."
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+ - CryptoSeal shuts down VPN service. NSA suspect.->

Submitted by sl4shd0rk
sl4shd0rk writes "CryptoSeal Privacy, a consumer VPN service, has apparently shuttered it's doors saying it has immediately zeroed it's crypto keys citing "it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product." the statement goes further with a warning: "For anyone operating a VPN, mail, or other communications provider in the US, we believe it would be prudent to evaluate whether a pen register order could be used to compel you to divulge SSL keys protecting message contents, and if so, to take appropriate action,". Sounds like another victim of FISA endorsed illegal NSA activity."
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+ - Astronomy's 20th Century Legacy Preserved in 21st Century Cloud->

Submitted by MCastelaz
MCastelaz writes "A team of astronomers at the Astronomical Photographic Data Archive is launching a crowdfunding campaign to bring the diverse and rich astronomical photographic collections of 20th century astronomy into the 21st century digital world. Before the invention of digital cameras in the 1990's, and for more than 120 years before that, astronomers put in several million telescope hours photographing the night sky — measuring star brightnesses, detecting comets, planets, nebulae, mapping our Galaxy, and building the foundations of our understanding of our Universe. All of this raw beauty, and secrets yet to be discovered, are held as largely unexplored photometric, astrometric, spectral and surface brightness images on thin, fragile pieces of glass. Digitizing the glass photographic plates is the only way to forever preserve these several thousand terabytes of data acquired and left as a legacy to us by our greatest scientists studying the night sky, and giving future explorers a time machine to the past night sky. The project was recently launched on Kickstarter and has a little less than a month go."
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In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

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