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Comment Democrats may implode from cognitive dissonance (Score 1) 10

by Ellie K (#44418983) Attached to: Klavan has a gentle rant I wish I'd written

Democrat behavior toward women seems hopelessly inconsistent to me.

If they wanted President Obama to be a decent president, they wouldn't have let Hillary get anywhere close to the White House, let alone be his Secretary of State, a top cabinet position. She was so ridiculously unqualified, and performed accordingly. Now they're championing her for 2016. My mother said that Hillary should be required to have a mental competency test first, after that fall and concussion, at 70 years of age.

Regarding Anthony Weiner, I am appalled that he was (in effect) tried and punished twice. He already resigned once for what he did. His wife knows about it, and the main stream (mostly liberal) press shouldn't shame her. The people of the city of New York knew about his background, knew that there might be follow-up incidents, yet they still wanted to elect him as mayor (well, he was the leading contender). Unlike many Democratic policies, this was about a candidate whom the voting public supported. Who knows what their alternative will be now?

Regarding Monica Lewinsky, I wonder where the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Opportunity Office were? Oh, that's right; it's okay if Bill Clinton sexually exploits young women who work for him.

Submission + - Students hijack $80 million superyacht with GPS spoofing (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: A team of university students have hijacked an $80 million superyacht using GPS spoofing without tripping alarms. The experiment (run with permission) saw the White Rose sail from Monaco to the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. Faint GPS signals broadcast from a spoofing device slowly overpowered authentic signals allowing the students control over the yacht's navigational system.

Submission + - MS Tackles CS Education Crisis with Popularity Contest

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: 'The lack of education in computer science is an example of an area of particularly acute concern,' Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith told Congress as he sold lawmakers on the need to improve 'America's access to high skilled foreign talent'. Smith added that Microsoft also wants to 'help American students and workers gain the skills needed for the jobs that will fuel the innovation economy.' Towards that end, Microsoft will award $100,000 worth of donations to five technology education nonprofits 'who teach programming and provide technical resources to those who might not otherwise get the chance.' So, how will Microsoft determine who's most worthy? With a popularity contest, of course! At the end of October, the top five vote-getting nonprofits — only Windows AzureDev Community members are eligible to vote — will split the Microsoft Money. By the way, currently in second place but trying harder is Code.org, the seemingly dual-missioned organization advised by Microsoft's Smith which has reached out to its 140,000 Facebook fans, and 17,000 Twitter followers in its quest for the $50,000 first prize.
Piracy

Piracy Rates Plummet As Legal Alternatives Come To Norway 261

Posted by Soulskill from the fancy-that dept.
jones_supa writes "Entertainment industry groups in Norway have spent years lobbying for tougher anti-piracy laws, finally getting their way earlier this month. But with fines and site-blocking now on the agenda, an interesting trend has been developing. According to a new report published by Ipsos, between 2008 and 2012 piracy of movies and TV shows collapsed in Norway, along with music seeing a massive drop to less than one fifth of the original level. Olav Torvund, former law professor at the University of Oslo, attributes this to good legal alternatives which are available today (Google translation of Norwegian original). Of those questioned for the survey, 47% (representing around 1.7 million people) said they use a streaming music service such as Spotify. And of those, just over half said that they pay for the premium option."

Comment Avoid the 404, consider this source instead (Score 1) 1

by Ellie K (#44302179) Attached to: Graphene May Prove a (Super-Toxic) Electronics Miracle

The URL to the CleanTechnica post needs to be better formatted. Lose the (extra?)
/"> here, http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/15/graphene-may-be-more-toxic-than-previously-thought-research-finds-graphene-can-enter-human-cells-and-disrupt-cellular-function/"> and avoid the 404.

Here's a suggestion: Replace it with another (better, in my humble opinion), the very readable Brown University press release which has similar content, and is easier to understand.Jagged graphene can slice into cell membranes (Brown news). Brown researchers did the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.a few days ago. Graphene MIGHT be very toxic at a single cell's width, whereas shavings from pencil lead are not, as they don't immediately penetrate at a cellular level, unlike graphene.
Advertising

W3C Rejects Ad Industry's Do-Not-Track Proposal 162

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-come-'round-here-with-that-nonsense dept.
itwbennett writes "The W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group, which is mainly concerned with standardizing the mechanisms for server-side compliance with do-not-track requests, has rejected a proposal by from the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) that would have allowed advertisers to continue profiling users who had asked not to be tracked. The proposal would also have allowed them to 'retarget' ads to those users by showing ads relevant to one site or transaction on all subsequent sites they visited, according to the co-chairs of the W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group. The working group co-chairs also said that they planned to reject proposals similar to those made by the DAA."

Submission + - For Algebra, Spreadsheets Beat Newer Teaching Tools (informationweek.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: John Barnes at InformationWeek argues, "You already own better algebra-teaching software than any educational software developer is making." 25 years ago RAND surveyed effective arithmetic teaching programs and found nothing that taught any of the important aspects of algebra. It was understood that arithmetic training programs should not be the model for algebra educational software because arithmetic is taught as procedural training. 25 years later the situation remains the same. And yet there is a piece of instructional software right on your computer that can be used to teach all levels of algebra to all levels of student, in a fully conceptual way. It's the spreadsheet.

Submission + - US DOJ Sets Up Email Address to Receive Tips About George Zimmerman (orlandosentinel.com)

Submitted by brian0918
brian0918 writes: The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the US Department of Justice has just setup an email address to be used specifically by the public to assist in building a civil rights case against George Zimmerman. On a conference call between DOJ officials and various civil rights organizations, "DOJ officials announced they had set up a way for people to send email tips that could help aid in their investigation. The email address will be operational later this week."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

EFF Sues NSA, Justice Department, FBI 333

Posted by Soulskill from the go-big-or-go-home dept.
New submitter Jawnn writes "The Washington Post reports that the EFF has filed suit against the NSA in Federal Court in San Francisco, on behalf of multiple groups (court filing). Those groups include, 'Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates.' EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said, 'The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate and express political views as a group, but the NSA's mass, untargeted collection of Americans' phone records violates that right by giving the government a dramatically detailed picture into our associational ties. Who we call, how often we call them, and how long we speak shows the government what groups we belong to or associate with, which political issues concern us, and our religious affiliation. Exposing this information – especially in a massive, untargeted way over a long period of time – violates the Constitution and the basic First Amendment tests that have been in place for over 50 years.' Apparently, not everyone out there is believing the 'If you have nothing to hide' excuses being offered up from various government quarters."

Submission + - How Do Tech Giants Battle Piracy? Kill The Ads (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by coolnumbr12
coolnumbr12 writes: The Internet Advertising Bureau, the White House and a group of Internet advertising companies have adopted a new set of best practices to battle online piracy by preventing advertisements from running next to content that violates copyright laws. The goal is to strike against so-called piracy websites by removing a key source of revenue for sites like The Pirate Bay.

Submission + - Graphene May Prove a (Super-Toxic) Electronics Miracle (slashdot.org) 1

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Miracle materials able to function as a microprocessor when they’re dry and dissolve into nothing when submerged in water got a lot of press coverage July 16 when researchers posted a video of the dissolving chip in action. The video, first picked up by the Associated Press, is one of a series of efforts at “transient electronics” that will dissolve at the end of their useful lives so they can be recycled or thrown away without increasing the approximately 720,000 tons of e-waste generated by U.S. consumers and businesses every year. The video came from the research group led by John Rogers of the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, whose other crowd-pleasing innovative uses of advanced materials includes a stretchable lithium-ion battery, a micro-camera modeled on an insect eye, flexible circuits designed to be applied to human skin, and tiny instruments meant to be implanted for medical purposes and then dissolve. Graphene—a one-atom-thick layer of carbon laid out as a mesh of hexagons that is currently considered the strongest material in the world—is proving to be so versatile it can be used as a heat sink within a chipset, a heat-reducing component within microprocessors, the surface of a touch screen, an integrated circuit able to run at super-high frequencies, and as the material of the circuits and transistors within the processor. It could potentially be used to create superfast processors that move electrons via quantum tunneling rather than through ordinary electrical circuits. It can also be sandwiched between layers of boron nitride to create capacitors able to operate at high frequencies while remaining flexible. But there’s also something of a catch: according to the most recent research, graphene can be incredibly toxic to humans. When a microsheet of graphene is broken or torn, it sheds nanoparticles so small they can penetrate most filters. Those particles come with sharp, jagged edges that can slash through the walls of human cells and embed themselves in a destructive layer that may be impossible to remove. It’s not clear if the effect of graphene shards is primarily physical (like the effect of asbestos inhaled into the lungs) or if there is a chemical toxicity as well.

Submission + - EFF Sues NSA, Justice Department, FBI

Submitted by Jawnn
Jawnn writes: The Washington Post reports that the EFF has filed suit in Federal Court in San Francisco, on behalf of multiple groups. Those groups include, "...Rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights advocates..." Apparently, not everyone out there is believing the "If you have nothing to hide..." excuses being offered up from various government quarters.

Submission + - In San Jose's clash of the titans, Microsoft beats Google (citeworld.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: To choose a new email and productivity software vendor, San Jose asked Microsoft and Google to show how their products could handle the city's most challenging project: Developing a budget. Microsoft emerged the winner. CITEworld talks to San Jose's CIO to get the details.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is a Biographical movie for Grace Hopper overdue?

Submitted by Dabido
Dabido writes: Rear Admiral Grace Hopper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper is probably last centuries most important female figure in computer science, yet no one has ever made a biographical movie based on her life. There is certainly enough material to make a movie (maybe even a mini-series). She certainly has wit, charm and personality, as demonstrated by her appearance on the David Letterman show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vcErOPofQ. With many media stories complaining that females are under represented in the sciences, is it not time that Hollywood finally made a biographical movie of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper?
OS X

OS X Malware Demands $300 FBI Fine For Viewing, Distributing Porn 173

Posted by timothy from the receipt-is-useless dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A new piece of malware is targeting OS X to extort money from victims by accusing them of illegally accessing pornography. Ransomware typically uses claims of breaking the law and names law enforcement (such as the CIA or FBI) to scare victims, but it is usually aimed at Windows users, not Mac users. The security firm Malwarebytes first spotted this latest threat, noting that criminals have ported the ransomware scheme to OS X and are even exploiting a Safari-specific feature. The ransomware page in question gets pushed onto unsuspecting users browsing high-trafficked sites as well as when searching for popular keywords."

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