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Submission + - NSA "Knows the way you think" (siliconbeat.com)

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: “As you write a message, you know, an analyst at the NSA or any other service out there that’s using this kind of attack against people can actually see you write sentences and then backspace over your mistakes and then change the words and then kind of pause and — and — and think about what you wanted to say and then change it. And it’s this extraordinary intrusion not just into your communications, your finished messages but your actual drafting process, into the way you think.”

More information here:
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature...

Submission + - This Is Your Brain While Videogaming Stoned (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Pot and video games have long been bound together in hazy, wedded bliss—as well as in compulsion and codependency. Many a World of Warcraft binger has been found in the darkest hours of the night with clouds of sweet, milk-white smoke curling around him, a bong next to the keyboard. But the way these lovers, games and weed, commingle has only rarely been studied, and when done so, usually exclusively in the context of substance abuse and how it relates to what is known as PVP: “problem video game playing.”

Submission + - Water Cannons Used Against Peaceful Anti-TTIP Protestors: The Next ACTA Revolt? (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), potentially the world's biggest trade agreement, has been negotiated behind closed doors for nearly a year now. Apart from what we learn from a few official releases — and an increasing number of leaks — we still don't really know what is being agreed in the name of 800 million people in the US and EU. When a peaceful anti-TTIP protest was held outside yet another closed-doors meeting in Belgium, the local police sent in the water cannons and arrested nearly 300 people in what seems an extreme over-reaction. Will TTIP turn into the next ACTA revolt?

Submission + - Curiosity Rover may have brought dozens of microbes to Mars (nature.com)

Submitted by bmahersciwriter
bmahersciwriter writes: Despite rigorous pre-flight cleaning, swabbing of the Curiosity Rover just prior to liftoff revealed some 377 strains of bacteria.
"In the lab, scientists exposed the microbes to desiccation, UV exposure, cold and pH extremes. Nearly 11% of the 377 strains survived more than one of these severe conditions. Thirty-one per cent of the resistant bacteria did not form tough, protective spore coats; the researchers suspect that they used other biochemical means of protection, such as metabolic changes."
While the risk of contaminating the red planet are unknown, knowing the types of strains that may have survived pre-flight cleaning may help rule out biological 'discoveries' if and when NASA carries out it's plans to return a soil sample from Mars.

Comment Re:Optimistic (Score 1) 343

by HagbardMytrCeline (#46970971) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Does Your Job Need To Exist?

People talk about reducing the military all the time but forget that making a bunch of (often, highly-skilled) workers redundant, forcing them to sit around being miserably broke and unemployed all day is hardly an improvement.

Or is the invisible hand meant to wave this problem away?

If you RTFA you would see the answer to this problem at the end: ", and that’s exactly the sort of logic that basic income would get rid of."

Submission + - Pentagon bracing for public dissent over climate and energy shocks (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increased domestic spying on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis. Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally granted the Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic emergency or civil disturbance — 'Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.' The public is being increasingly viewed by the Pentagon as potential enemies that must be policed by the state.

Submission + - If we Buck Feta and leave, where should we go? 17

Submitted by Covalent
Covalent writes: I am a long-time slashdot reader (don't let the UID fool you), and I agree with most of you that the Beta is a disaster. Dice has promised a fix, but what if this garbage is the new reality? Is there a suitable alternative to slashdot that members would find equally (or more) fulfilling? Is someone going to fork slashdot and start it anew (Taco can you hear me?) Or is this just the end of an era?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What happens when there are no more bitcoins left to be mined? (wikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by Unequivocal
Unequivocal writes: I've been following the bitcoin saga from a distance for some time. I'm technical and I think I understand how it works, but I'm definitely no expert on the subject. I've got a couple of questions for Slashdot. I've noticed that baked into the system is a fundamental limit on the total number of bitcoins. I haven't seen any articles addressing the two main questions that arise for me relating to this fundamental limit on total circulating bitcoins:
  • Question 1: Fiat currency like US dollars don't limit the amount in circulation so as to manage inflation of the currency. Currencies in the past that don't do this are usually subject to runaway inflation or deflation at some point. Why won't bitcoin be subject to this economic condition? I understand that bitcoins are infinitely divisible so perhaps that is the way bitcoin inflation/deflation is handled?
  • Question 2: I believe the bitcoin network processes it's transactions by incentivizing miners with new currency in exchange for processing the transactions (I think that's how it works). What happens when there are no more bitcoins for miners to mine? How will all the transactions be processed? What are the incentives to support the transaction network without new bitcoins as incentives?

I definitely appreciate any insights into the economic mechanics of the network along these lines!

Submission + - New Zealand Schools find less structure improve childrens' behavior

Submitted by geminidomino
geminidomino writes: A research project involving eight schools in Dunedin and Auckland report that loosening rules on the playground may lead to fewer incidents of bullying, vandalism, and injury. One principal opines ""The kids were motivated, busy and engaged. In my experience, the time children get into trouble is when they are not busy, motivated and engaged. It's during that time they bully other kids, graffiti or wreck things around the school."

As one might expect, the article states that there was a lot of resistance to the project, and I'm kind of surprised they got as many administrators to sign on as they did. The story may be premature, as the article states that "the results of the study will be collated this year," but it may be interesting to see how the numbers shake out.

Submission + - Are we on the verge of being able to regrow lost limbs? This scientist thinks so (medium.com)

Submitted by blastboy
blastboy writes: Michael Levin is a Russian-American scientist who started life programming Pac-Man clones on his TRS-80 and freezing bugs in his kitchen. In recent years, he's become fascinated by the role electricity plays in the body—and whether it could even help people regrow lost limbs. Guess what? It's starting to pay off: his team at Tufts is on the verge of a major breakthrough in regenerative medicine. It was just announced that this story was awarded the 2013 Institute of Physics prize for science journalism.

Submission + - Could this man hold the secret to human regeneration? (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This man is GROWING LIMBS using electrical impulses. Award-winning author Cynthia Graber writes in the digital publisher MATTER: "Regenerating a small body part under special circumstances is one thing, but what if we could regrow entire lost limbs? What if we could signal to our bodies to regrow damaged retinal tissue—or even to regrow an entire eye? Michael Levin doesn’t think this is an outlandish fantasy. In fact, he thinks he may be on the path to figuring out how to do precisely that."
Read the story here: https://medium.com/matter/1e66944f0a8d

Submission + - Why we think there's a multiverse, not just our Universe.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Are you ready to have your mind blown? It's generally accepted that the Universe's history is best described by the Big Bang model, with General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory as the physical laws governing the underlying framework. It's also accepted that the Universe probably started off with an early period of cosmic inflation prior to that. Well, if you accept those things — as in, the standard picture of the Universe — then a multiverse is an inevitable consequence of the physics of the early Universe, and this is probably the best explainer of how-and-why I've ever seen. Mind = blown.

Submission + - Senators Propose Bill To Shut Off NSA's Water Supply In California (undisinfo.co.uk)

Submitted by Nerdfest
Nerdfest writes: Disgruntled with NSA spying on US citizens, two senators from opposing parties have introduced a bill banning companies in California from providing essential utility services to A Screenshot from Change.org via RT.comthe agency – including cutting off its computer-cooling water supply.

The NSA is a very resource-hungry organization which could stand to lose a lot from this. The initiative by activists and other organizations, apparently seeks to incapacitate the agency in return for its rights violations.

Submission + - Security Experts Call for Boycott of RSA Conference in NSA Protest

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: ZDNet reports that at least eight security researchers or policy experts have withdrawn from RSA's annual security conference in protest over the sponsor's alleged collaboration with the National Security Agency. Last month, it was revealed that RSA had accepted $10 million from the National Security Agency to implement an intentional cryptographic flaw, commonly called a backdoor, in one of its encryption tools. The withdrawals from the highly regarded conference represent early blowback by experts who have complained that the government's surveillance efforts have, in some cases, weakened computer security, even for innocent users. Jeffrey Carr, a security industry veteran who works in analyzing espionage and cyber warfare tactics, took his cancellation a step further calling for a boycott of the conference, saying that RSA had violated the trust of its customers. "I can't imagine a worse action, short of a company's CEO getting involved in child porn," says Carr. "I don't know what worse action a security company could take than to sell a product to a customer with a backdoor in it." Organizers have said that next month's conference in San Francisco will host 560 speakers, and that they expect more participants than the 24,000 who showed up last year. "Though boycotting the conference won't have a big impact on EMC's bottom line, the resulting publicity will," says Dave Kearns. "Security is hard enough without having to worry that our suppliers — either knowingly or unknowingly — have aided those who wish to subvert our security measures."

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