noirsoldats - Slashdot User

Submission + - What Minimum-Wage Foes Got Wrong About Seattle (bloomberg.com) 1

Submitted by gollum123 on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @02:08PM

gollum123 writes: The dire warnings about minimum-wage increases keep proving to be wrong. So much so that in a new paper, the authors behind an earlier study predicting a negative impact have all-but recanted their initial conclusions. However, the authors still seem perplexed about why they went awry in the first place. Seattle, like some other thriving West Coast cities, a few years ago passed an ordinance raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour in a series of steps. The reaction was immediate, strident — and deeply wrong. The increase was an “economic death wish” that was going to tank the expansion and kill jobs, according to the sages at conservative think tanks. Despite their dire forecasts, not only were new restaurants not closing, they were in fact opening; employment in food services and drinking establishments has soared,

Submission + - Microsoft wants you to upgrade to Windows 10... whether you like it or not (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @06:08PM

Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft managed to piss off a lot of people with Windows 10. Some people love it, but certainly nowhere near 100 percent of the install base (whatever size Microsoft claims this may be). It's possible for any operating system to be disappointing, but what Microsoft has managed to get wrong with Windows 10 — time and time and time again — is the way upgrades have been delivered.

We've had stories of installation files being downloaded without permission. There are the privacy concerns. There is the confusing installation process that has misled some into upgrading to Windows 10. But even after weeks and months of complaints, the forced Windows 10 upgrades are still happening. If anything, the problem is getting worse. Microsoft is making it harder and harder for Windows 7 and Windows 8 user to avoid Windows 10. A coerced user is not a happy user, yet Microsoft continues to force Windows 10 down people's throats in a number of ways. WT actual F?

You would expect that any upgrade would be optional. This seems like a reasonable assumption, but it's something that Microsoft appears to fail to understand. People buying a new computer are still able to opt for Windows 7 if they want, but the forced upgrade problem means that there is absolutely no guarantee that Windows 10 won’t be foisted on them at some point in the future.

Submission + - Physicists find new evidence for helium 'rain' on Saturn (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @05:24PM

sciencehabit writes: Using one of the world’s most powerful lasers, physicists have found experimental evidence for Saturn’s helium “rain,” a phenomenon in which a mixture of liquid hydrogen and helium separates like oil and water, sending droplets of helium deep in the planet’s atmosphere. The results show the range of blistering temperatures and crushing pressures at which this takes place. But they also suggest that a helium rain could also fall on Jupiter, where such behavior was almost completely unexpected.

Submission + - British Court Rejects Donald Trump's Attempt to Block Wind Farm

Submitted by HughPickens.com on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @05:11PM

HughPickens.com writes: Sewell Chan reports at the NYT that Britain’s highest court has unanimously rejected an attempt by Donald J. Trump to block the construction of a wind farm near his luxury golf resort in northeast Scotland. Trump has vowed to stop further development on the project if the offshore wind farm — 11 turbines, which would be visible from the golf resort 2.2 miles away — goes forward. Trump spokesman George A. Sorial denounced the ruling as “extremely unfortunate for the residents of Aberdeen and anyone who cares about Scotland’s economic future” adding that the wind farm will “completely destroy the bucolic Aberdeen Bay and cast a terrible shadow upon the future of tourism for the area. History will judge those involved unfavorably, and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates the current Scottish government’s dangerous experiment with wind energy.”

Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, withdrew Trump’s status as a business ambassador to Scotland last week after Trump called for Muslims to be barred from entering the United States. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it awarded him in 2010. Trump’s mother was born in Scotland and moved to the United States in the 1930s. " I think I do feel Scottish," said Trump at one time.

Submission + - 3D XPoint is more than it seemed

Submitted by duckintheface on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @03:26PM

duckintheface writes: The public focus on the Intel /Micron technology called 3D XPoint has been about it's ability to supplant conventional SSD memory. But it seems that the companies have been under-selling the tech until they have all the legal issues wrapped up. http://bit.ly/1YhzSBg

The article provides an in-depth look at the underlying tech which indicates that 3D XPoint can also replace DRAM and processor chips. This new tech represents an ELE (Extinction Level Event) for computer hardware companies that are not named Intel or Micron.

Submission + - Some Geneticists Push for Databases Over Journals as Main Source of Information (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by neoritter on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:57PM

neoritter writes: The issues of reproducibility in journals continue present problems. This time in the world of clinical geneticists. Where a misleading or incorrect journal on the effect of a gene variant can affect the decisions made by doctors and patients alike; from heart monitoring implants to abortions. Poor sampling and low thresholds for evidence have led some clinical geneticists to work towards an open database of genetic information. Scientists and doctors would go to a “one-stop shop for disease genes” to check and share information with each other under the strictest of standards.

Submission + - Tacoma goes all in to support municipal fiber

Submitted by Peterus7 on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:44PM

Peterus7 writes: The Tacoma city council just voted unanimously to invest and upgrade their Click! fiber network as a municipal ISP, which likely means gigabit speeds. This decision was made in light of a proposal from Wave Broadband, which wanted to lease the municipal fiber backbone for 40 years initially, then 5. This vote came after the Tacoma Public Utility board passed both resolutions, to lease and go all in as a city run ISP. Now that the proposal has gone through to allow the city to sell service as an ISP, Tacoma will be added to the growing number of cities with municipal fiber.

Submission + - Budget bill includes super-CISA (engadget.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: "Last night's budget bill wasn't all about avoiding a government shutdown. Packed inside the 2,000-page bill announced by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the full text of the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015. If you'll recall, the measure passed the Senate back in October, leaving it up to the House to approve the bill that encourages businesses to share details of security breaches and cyber attacks.

Despite being labeled as cybersecurity legislation, critics of CISA argue that it's a surveillance bill that would allow companies to share user info with the US government and other businesses. As TechDirt points out, this version of the bill stripped important protections that would've prevented directly sharing details with the NSA and required any personally identifying details to be removed before being shared. It also removes restrictions on how the government can use the data."

Submission + - FOIA'd documents give tour of Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:22PM

v3rgEz writes: In the 1990s, during our nuclear disarmament initiative, the Congress preserved two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos as historic sites. The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (MMNHS) is one of them, and MuckRock used FOIA to take a tour of what's publicly on display, including a Domino's Themed Blast Door and probing questions guides are told to ask visitors, including, "Could you turn they key?" Well, could you?

Submission + - BIg Brother has been alive and well in the UK for the last 15 years, it seems.

Submitted by gb7djk on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @02:07PM

gb7djk writes: The investigative journalist Duncan Campbell has written an article at The Register claiming that the UK Government has been secretly creating a database of all telephone calls, financial and travel records for the last 15 years.

Submission + - Tou Pi Day (TP Day) (egfbt.com)

Submitted by sacridias on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @05:30PM

sacridias writes: A new movement is starting Tou Pi Day. Join us in making this movement real, we have a few months to get the word out and make the first Tou Pi day one to remember. The 1st TP day is scheduled for Jan 9th 2013.

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study 174

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 22, 2010 @09:09PM from the write-of-the-bumblebee dept.

flintmecha writes "A group of British schoolchildren may be the youngest scientists ever to have their work published in a peer-reviewed journal. In a new paper in Biology Letters, children from Blackawton Primary School report that buff-tailed bumblebees can learn to recognize nourishing flowers based on colors and patterns. The paper itself is well worth reading. It's written entirely in the kids' voices, complete with sound effects (part of the Methods section is subtitled, ''the puzzle'duh duh duuuhhh') and figures drawn by hand in colored pencil."

Microwave Map of Entire Moon Revealed 82

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @03:31PM from the quickest-route-mode dept.

Zothecula writes "The first complete microwave image of the Moon taken by Chinese lunar satellite Chang'E-1 has been revealed. Chang'E-1 is China's first scientific mission to explore planetary bodies beyond Earth and the on-board Lunar Microwave Radiometer has made it possible for the first time to globally map the Moon in microwave frequencies. Radar observations of the Moon are unable to provide thermal information, and microwave observations taken from Earth cannot reach the far side of the moon. So Chang'E-1's (CE-1) orbit was conducted at an altitude of 200km (124 miles) and allowed it to observe every location of the moon with a nadir view and at high spatial resolution."

NVIDIA Announces New Line of Fermi-Based Mobile Chips 54

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 03, 2010 @03:39PM from the double-your-solitaire-fps dept.

MojoKid writes "NVIDIA has announced an entire line-up of Fermi-based GeForce GT and GTX 400M mobile GPUs, seven in total, and revealed a number of notebook design wins from major OEMs. Like their desktop-targeted counterparts, the mobile GeForce GT and GTX 400M series GPUs make use of technology from NVIDIA's desktop architecture, which debuted in the GF100 GPU at the heart of the company's flagship GeForce GTX 480. GeForce GT and GTX 400M series GPUs are DirectX 11 compatible and support all of NVIDIA's 'Graphics Plus' features, including PhysX, 3D Vision, CUDA, Verde drivers, 3DTV Play and Optimus dynamic switching technology. The GeForce GTX 470M and GTX 460M are the most powerful of the group and target enthusiasts and gamers, while the GeForce GT 445M, GT 435M, GT 425M, GT 420M and GT 415M target performance-conscious, but more mainstream consumers."

GMail Introduces Priority Inbox 242

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday August 31, 2010 @11:05AM from the we-have-priority dept.

jason-za writes with this quote from a Google announcement: "People tell us all that time that they're getting more and more mail and often feel overwhelmed by it all. We know what you mean — here at Google we run on email. Our inboxes are slammed with hundreds, sometimes thousands of messages a day — mail from colleagues, from lists, about appointments and automated mail that's often not important. It's time-consuming to figure out what needs to be read and what needs a reply. Today, we're happy to introduce Priority Inbox (in beta) — an experimental new way of taking on information overload in Gmail."

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