Comment Re:SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score 1) 431
Do you really think a guy who runs a sports car company would want to see public transit improved?
There FTFY.
Feds Offer $20M For Critical Open Source Energy Network Cybersecurity Tools 56
coondoggie writes "The US Department of Energy today said it would spend $20 million on the development of advanced cybersecurity tools to help protect the nation's vulnerable energy supply. The DOE technologies developed under this program should be interoperable, scalable, cost-effective advanced tools that do not impede critical energy delivery functions, that are innovative and can easily be commercialized or made available through open source for no cost."
Apple Has a New Porn Problem 136
adeelarshad82 writes "Twitter's new iOS-only app, Vine, was prominently featured by Apple as an 'Editor's Pick' in its App Store the day it launched. However, given Apple's policies for adult content, they may have rushed the whole thing since this past Sunday, a number of news outlets ran stories covering the rise of easily-accessible pornography on the new video sharing app. As Joshua Topolsky explains, the situation draws even more attention to the vague and sometimes confusing rules of Apple's App Store guidelines, and more clearly showcases the sporadic and often unusual criteria the iPhone-maker uses to decide the fates of applications. So it will be interesting to see how Apple handles this given that they've never been shy about banning similarly racy apps in the past."
Male Scientists More Prone To Misconduct 300
sciencehabit writes "Male scientists — especially at the upper echelons of the profession — are far more likely than women to commit misconduct. That's the bottom line of a new analysis by three microbiologists of wrongdoing in the life sciences in the United States. Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, Seattle; Joan Bennett of Rutgers University; and Arturo Casadevall of Albert Einstein College of Medicine combed through misconduct reports on 228 people released by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) over the last 19 years. They then compared the gender balance — or imbalance, in this case — against the mix of male and female senior scientists and trainees to gauge whether misconduct was more prevalent among men. A remarkable 88% of faculty members who committed misconduct were men, or 63 out of 72 individuals. The number of women in that group was one-third of what one would expect based on female representation in the life sciences."
Comment Re:"Elegant jails" (Score 1) 527
But since the majority of people out there are not experts in C/C++/Java/Perl/Python/CGI/Bison/Guile/Lisp/what have you, they can't do squat w/ the source code. It's like opening up my car trunk and expecting me to know everything about the engine and how it's connected, so that I can replace a 4 cylinder engine w/ a V6 if I so desire.
I'm sorry that you are so angry and confused; your trunk contains your luggage, it has nothing to do with your engine is contained under your hood. Similarly, freedoms granted to you having access to what's under your hood (and to the computer codes) doesn't mean you have personally have to do the repairs to benefit from them, it just means you are free to bring it to which ever service station, mechanic, or friend you choose. Not having access to what's under the hood means, that while you might own a cadallic, it's hood is welded shut and it's engine codes are encrypted. While the dealer service is great for now, if they ever have a slow day, week, month, you have are stuck; if your engine light comes on after the support contract for your car has finished, you'll have to pay every-time to find out it was because your gas cap was loose.
Comment Re:How do they do it? (Score 1) 686
Sounds great until the government run bank has to decide which risky business to provide a business loan to; your ability to get money might depend on wheter you are part of ALEC or which party you belong to, or which campaign you donated to. Moreover, the current banking system is quite efficient, so much so that a fair amount of the rest of the world uses it. It's the improperly regulated trading markets where things are out of hand, but traditional banking really has nothing to do with that.
Ask Slashdot: Keeping Your Media Library Safe From Kids? 307
Serenissima writes "I've spent many hours building my Media Library in XBMC and scraping all the DVD Covers and Fanart. And I love it, I can pull up movies on any computer or device in the house. I played a movie for my son the other day so I could get some cleaning done without him being underfoot. I noticed shortly after that the sound coming from the other room was from a different movie than I played for him. I snuck up and watched for a few minutes and saw him use a trackpad to navigate to the stop and play buttons of different movies in his folder. I know it's only a matter of time before he realizes he can see all of the movies. I don't want him to have nightmares because he saw the T-1000 stab someone in the face. The quickest solution I can think is a screen saver with a password. It's mildly inconvenient to me, but would stop him from accessing anything. However, I remember how much more I knew about computers than my parents when I was a kid, and I have a feeling he's going to surprise me one day. There's a lot of ways out there to stop it, the way we do it now is to not let him watch anything unless we're there (but there are only so many times I can watch the same kid's movie). How do YOU guys find yourself dealing with the convenience of running your own server while keeping your media safe from prying eyes?"
Apple Loses Claim For False Advertising Regarding Amazon "App Store" 138
An anonymous reader writes a court has dismissed Apple's allegations that Amazon's use of the "app store" phrase constituted false advertising. "Apple's efforts to protect its intellectual property sometimes result in lawsuits that leave even the most ardent of Apple fans scratching their heads. One such suit was Apple's March 2011 lawsuit against Amazon over the retailer's use of the phrase 'app store' as used in its Amazon Appstore for Android. "
Microsoft Says Google Trying To Undermine Windows Phone 476
First time accepted submitter Bent Spoke writes "In a bit of delicious irony, Microsoft laments Google is not playing fair by excluding access to meta-data on YouTube, preventing the development of the kind of powerful app readily available on Android. From the article: 'In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said the software giant has spent two years trying to get a first-class YouTube app running on Windows Phone, but to no avail, thanks to the Chocolate Factory's stonewalling.
"YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile applications in 2012, according to recent news reports," Heiner wrote. "Yet Google still refuses to allow Windows Phone users to have the same access to YouTube that Android and Apple customers enjoy."'"
Ask Slashdot: Undoing an Internet Smear Campaign? 338
An anonymous reader writes "My fiancee is a professional writer. She has a great industry reputation and everyone that knows her loves her. But her ex-husband has maintained a number of websites in her name (literally, the URL is her name) that are filled with insane ravings and defamatory content. Have you ever had to deal with an internet smear campaign? The results float to the top of every Google or Bing search of her name. He currently lives abroad and cannot be served with legal papers. His websites are hosted overseas as well, and do not respond to conventional letters or petitions. Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either, and it's still difficult to prove any real 'damages' are done by it. Still, we'd like to see them go away. I'm turning to the best community of geeks in the world: how do I deal with this given the limited options at my disposal?"
Hacked Review System Leads To Fake Reviews and Retraction of Scientific Papers 67
dstates writes "Retraction Watch reports that fake reviewer information was placed in Elsevier's peer review database allowing unethical authors to review their own or colleagues manuscripts. As a result, 11 scientific publications have been retracted. The hack is particularly embarrassing for Elsevier because the commercial publisher has been arguing that the quality of its review process justifies its restrictive access policies and high costs of the journals it publishes."
Comment War room decision (Score 1) 384
You are in Obama's war room, you suggest:
A) Just Nuke Em and get it over with!
B) Send in the drones after Kim Jong-un
C) We need more sanctions.
D) Screw the budget gap; we need more military spending!
E) Other?
A) Just Nuke Em and get it over with!
B) Send in the drones after Kim Jong-un
C) We need more sanctions.
D) Screw the budget gap; we need more military spending!
E) Other?
Comment Re:Why would they stop developing weaponry? (Score 1) 384
We tried that and ended up in WWII anyway.
Comment Re:China (Score 1) 384
The problem is never that x country has nukes and might aim them at us, it's that x country has nukes and might sell them to group y.
Comment Re:It seems "clean" ... (Score 2) 384
That's what I get for trying to post from a mobile device... I meant 'clear', but it looked okay on the tiny screen.
