AnonymousDot - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Obvious (Score 3, Insightful) 238

by buchner.johannes on Thursday July 18, 2013 @10:54AM (#44317639) Attached to: The CIA Wants To Know How To Control the Climate

I'm definitely in the camp that Americans need to do more but that is a bit disingenuous comparison. It looks like the Western European Country with the lowest population density is three times the population density of the US. That has huge public transportation ramifications.

Only if you look at the average. The US has large empty areas. If you ignore them -- and you can, for the discussion about public transportation -- the eastern third of the country is densely populated, entirely comparable to Europe.

Submission + - TSA orders searches of valet parked car at airport (whec.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Thursday July 18, 2013 @08:15AM

schwit1 writes: Laurie Iacuzza walked to her waiting car at the Greater Rochester International Airport after returning from a trip and that's when she found it — a notice saying her car was inspected after she left for her flight. She said, “I was furious. They never mentioned it to me when I booked the valet or when I picked up the car or when I dropped it off.”

Iacuzza's car was inspected by valet attendants on orders from the TSA.

Submission + - Congressman Wants to Repeal Patriot Act (techdirt.com)

Submitted by korbulon on Thursday July 18, 2013 @04:37AM

korbulon writes: New Jersey congressman Rush Holt has submitted legislation to repeal both the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act in an attempt to curtail the expansion of government infringment of citizens' rights and privacy. In a press announcement Holt stated: "My bill would restore the probable cause-based warrant requirement for any surveillance against an American citizen being proposed on the basis of an alleged threat to the nation." In an interesting twist, Holt is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat, giving NJ voters have a chance to indirectly voice their opinion regarding NSA surveillance and eavesdropping .

Comment Re:Pick a rumor, any rumor: (Score 1) 101

by Groo Wanderer on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @06:34PM (#44312767) Attached to: Apple Renews Contract With Samsung Over A-Series Processors

Except my site is not ad revenue supported. Basic reading comprehension does seem to be a problem here.

-Charlie

Submission + - Bell Labs Break Record with 31Tbps via a Single 7200km Optical Fibre (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK on Wednesday July 17, 2013 @03:17AM

Mark.JUK writes: Alcatel-Lucent's research and development division, Bell Labs, has successfully broken yet another record after it used 155 lasers (each operating at different frequencies and carrying 200Gbps of data over a 50GHz frequency grid) and an enhanced version of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) to send information at a staggering speed of 31 Terabits per second over a single 7200km long optical fibre cable. Previous experiments have been faster but only over shorter distances or by using a different type of fibre optic cable entirely.

Comment Re:Apple has bought a fab according to semiaccurat (Score 2) 101

by Groo Wanderer on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @10:41AM (#44296775) Attached to: Apple Renews Contract With Samsung Over A-Series Processors

You do realize that the UMC rumor came from the Mac sites who all wrote me asking for free access to essentially republish my work openly. Before I could even respond they flat out made up that I was saying it was UMC, which I did not do. They got this flash of inspiration from the metatags my editor put in. For some reason they picked out UMC and ignored the five other fabs in the tag list. Could it be that UMC was the last one? Did they miss that the tags get alphabetized by the system? Are they that ignorant? Don't answer the last one.

Short story is that the morons at the Mac sites flat out made up the UMC thing and attributed it to me. That is modern 'journalism' for you.

-Charlie

Comment working practives (Score 1) 1501

by lkcl on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @06:19AM (#44294437) Attached to: Kernel Dev Tells Linus Torvalds To Stop Using Abusive Language

well thank god he wasn't naked.

Submission + - Arizona Republicans Propose Bill That Would Not Allow Atheists Graduate (patheos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @02:37AM

An anonymous reader writes: the republicans in AZ are trying to force kids to swear an oath to get a diploma.

A quote from the proposed bill Arizona House Bill 2467
"Beginning in the 20132014 school year, In addition to fulfilling the course of study and assessment requirements prescribed in this chapter, before a pupil is allowed to graduate from a public high school in this state, the principal or head teacher of the school shall verify in writing that the pupil has recited the following oath:

I, _________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God. "

Submission + - Automatically sanitising PDF email attachments

Submitted by supachupa on Tuesday July 16, 2013 @01:03AM

supachupa writes: It seems the past couple of years that spearfishing is getting very convincing and it is becoming more and more likely someone (including myself) will accidentally click on a PDF attachment with malicious javascript embedded. It would be impossible to block PDFs as they are required for business. We do disable javascript on Adobe reader, but I would sleep a lot better knowing the code is removed completely.

I have looked high and low but could not find a cheap out of the box solution or a "how to" guide for automatically neutralising PDFs by stripping out the javascript. The closest thing I could find is using PDF2PS and then reversing the process with PS2PDF.

I wonder if any of you slashies have worked a solution for this that is not too complex, works preferably at the SMTP relay, and can work with ZIPed PDFs as well, or otherwise have some common sense advice for dealing with this so that once its in place, there is no further action required by myself or by users.

Researchers Discover First Use of Fertilizer 71

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday July 15, 2013 @07:46PM from the circle-of-life dept.

sciencehabit writes "Europe's first farmers helped spread a revolutionary way of living across the continent. They also spread something else. A new study reveals that these early agriculturalists were fertilizing their crops with manure 8000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought."

Submission + - Scientists seek biomakers for violence (post-gazette.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15, 2013 @07:15PM

An anonymous reader writes: A Newtown couple, both scientists, who lost their daughter in the school shooting, are wondering whether there were clues in the shooter's physiological makeup — his DNA, his blood, his brain chemistry. They are now involved in a search for biomarkers, similar to those that may indicate disease, for violence. They are raising money to help fund this research, but the effort is running into obstacles, in part, over ethical concerns. "I'm not opposed to research on violence and biomarkers, but I'm concerned about making too big of a leap between biomarkers and violence," said Troy Duster, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. There is concern that science may find biomarkers long before society can deal with its implications.

Comment Think about this one people (Score 4, Interesting) 101

by Groo Wanderer on Monday July 15, 2013 @06:10PM (#44289745) Attached to: Apple Renews Contract With Samsung Over A-Series Processors

Stop and think about this.

1) When was the last time Apple leaked plans like this?
2) The level of detail is too high for a 2015 part
3) Apple never gives the foundry product names
4) They also never specify time frames even to their foundry that far out.
5) Apple and Samsung are not on good terms.
6-17) See 5)
18) Apple is trying to get away from Samsung, cost is not an issue
19) Samsung is not any better than the other two common platform partners for tech.
20) Apple has signed with TSMC for 20nm
21) Losing Apple is a big deal for Samsung Semi, and enough of a big deal to be unpleasant for their stock
22) The source for the story is a Korean newspaper that is likely quite beholden to Samsung

You can draw your own conclusions from the above, mine is damage control on Samsung's part.

-Charlie

Comment Re:Apple has bought a fab according to semiaccurat (Score 1) 101

by Groo Wanderer on Monday July 15, 2013 @06:04PM (#44289697) Attached to: Apple Renews Contract With Samsung Over A-Series Processors

I lost the plot? Darn now what am I going to do this evening? :(

-Charlie

Submission + - Richard Stallman: Snowden leak a chance for privacy, time to fight Big Brother (rt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15, 2013 @02:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: Video interview with RMS on RT: "Snowden and Assange besieged but not defeated, while privacy has a better chance now than it had before. We talk to freedom activist and free software developer Richard Stallman, who believes the fight against the total surveillance on the part of the governments is far from over."

Submission + - Doctor Who (Actor) Warns Against Facebook (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp on Monday July 15, 2013 @05:10AM

judgecorp writes: Matt Smith, the current actor playing Doctor Who, doesn't use Facebook or Twitter, despite his geek icon status. He worries that social media encourages us to create "surrogate versions" or "celebrity versions" of ourselves. He also, arguably, doesn't need their help, being a celebrity already. Smith made the comments in St Petersburg, where he hosted the final of Microsoft's Imagine Cup for student inventors, won this year by a British team with a mesh music-playing application.

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