pigrabbitbear - Slashdot User

Submission + - No One Is Totally Sure How North Korea Sent a Rocket to Space (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Wednesday December 12, 2012 @01:05PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "How did North Korea take a rocket design that failed just 90 seconds into launch and turn it into something that works in only eight months? As Robert Beckhusen noted at Wired, "Still, rocketry is an extraordinarily difficult engineering task. It’s not uncommon for developed countries with advanced rocket programs to fail at it."

According to rocketry experts, North Korea's program is based on reverse-engineering old Soviet technology, which isn't exactly the most reliable place to start. But for such an impoverished country, it's easier than starting from scratch. On Monday, David Wright at All Things Nuclear wrote a an excellent post explaining why it didn't seem realistic for North Korea to finish engineering a working rocket in just eight months, noting that the U.S. and Japan were still crunching telemetry data to figure out why the April rocket failed at least into October. If it took those two countries at least that long to figure out what went wrong, Wright argues, then a December launch seemed too soon to be realistic."

Submission + - Urbanization Has Left the Amazon Burning (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @05:22PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Farming, logging, and strip mining has long altered much of the Amazon rainforest, with slash-and-burn land-clearing techniques turning large portions of the forest into patchworks of pastures, second-growth forest, and degraded land. Now, rural people are increasingly moving to booming Amazonian cities; paradoxically, the land they're leaving behind is being ravaged by wildfires.

A new paper published in PNAS shows that in the Peruvian Amazon, land use changes and depopulation have let large wildfires fly through converted land. It puts a damper on those optimistic that the urbanization of the Amazon may allow parts of the forest to recover, by centralizing populated areas and leaving old converted land to be slowly gobbled up by the encroaching forest."

Submission + - All of Your Devices Are Bumming You Out (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Friday December 07, 2012 @01:42PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "A new study from Michigan State University shows that media multitasking exhibits a strong correlation with social anxiety and depression/a.

Importantly, the direction of causality remains to be seen: Does multi-tasking make us more anxious and depressed? Or, as the study’s leader, Mark W. Becker, an assistant professor of psychology, put it in an email, “are depressed and anxious [people] turning toward media multitasking as a form of distraction?”

The results of this study aren’t conclusive in that regard, he says. But they’re an important step. “While that question will not be easy to answer, it is worth pursing because the practical implications of the findings depend on the causal direction,” he said."

Submission + - To Win the Bitcoin Arms Race, Crypto Miners are Building Custom Microchips (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Thursday December 06, 2012 @11:06AM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Bitcoin is thriving. Over a year after many pundits declared it dead, the virtual currency is holding its value and now being accepted as payment everywhere, from casinos to WordPress to stripper subreddits to drug markets. And what's even more interesting is that a new industry is emerging to support the crazy nerds that mine Bitcoin.

The first thing they need: microchips.

Anybody can create Bitcoin. Per the rules of its mysterious creator, "Satoshi Nakamoto," all it takes is a piece of free software that can be downloaded from the web and a computer powerful enough to run it. Just like our currency essentially consists of pieces of paper that the government promises is worth money, Bitcoin are unique codes that must be generated using a complex mathematical formula that basically amounts to brute force. Distributed in computers across the world, the software keeps track of all of Bitcoin's anonymized transactions; the computer that can complete the next block of the log is rewarded with a fresh batch of Bitcoin (currently l25, or about $316). The software will take care of the math for you, but it will also render your computer useless while it's running. This is where the microchips come in."

Submission + - One-Third Of Young America Now Tweets On The Toilet (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @12:34PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "A new report is out, and it shows that a third of all American youth are already using social media extensively while they're in the bathroom.

Everyone's poring over this new 'How-we-use-social-media-in-modern-America' study that Nielson just put out, and Will Oremus points us to the good stuff:

"You've got gender disparities in the amount of time spent on social media," he writes in Slate. "You've got the rise of Twitter as a second screen . You've got Pinterest as the fastest-growing social network . But most importantly by far, you've got nothing short of a paradigm shift in how Americans use the bathroom. Yes, according to Nielsen, 32 percent of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 report that they engage in social networking while on the pot.""

Submission + - In New Documentary on Drones, Drones Are Still Scary (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @07:02PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "It’s a story about not just the most overlooked facets of the American Drone Age – small-scale recon drones, not the ominously hulking and Hellfire-missile-toting hunter-killer drones so characteristic of American anti-terror missions abroad—as the Federal Aviation Administration ramps up the authorizing process for those itching to fly drones in US airspace. It’s a story about the fears, the uncertainties, and the hopes arising when tools once solely used in the military eventually seep over to law enforcement, various federal agencies, and everyday civilians, and quick."

Submission + - Murder Is Like a Disease (No, Really) (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @06:54PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "With a homicide rate historically more than three times greater than the rest of the United States, Newark, N.J., isn’t a great vacation spot. But it’s a great place for a murder study.

Led by April Zeoli, an assistant professor of criminal justice, a group of researchers at Michigan State University tracked homicides around Newark from 1982 to 2008, using analytic software typically used by medical researchers to track the spread of diseases. They found that “homicide clusters” in Newark, as researchers called them, spread and move throughout a city much the same way diseases do. Murders, in other words, did not surface randomly—they began in the city center and moved in “diffusion-like processes” across the city."

Submission + - How Quantum Physics Will Make Online Banking Safer (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday November 20, 2012 @02:02PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Hackers are good at what they do, and they’re only getting better. Sure, you’ve got the hijinks of groups like Anonymous, who seem to have little trouble breaking into pretty much any website, even the CIA’s. But that’s just code cracking, finding a back door into a website, and maybe downloading some security contractor’s email inbox. There’s a whole other tier of hackers, serious thieves, who can not only find their way through a maze of code, but can actually tap into the very wires that carry that code from place to place. It’s a serious threat, and not even the most sophisticated fiber optic networks were safe. Not until now anyways."

Submission + - Climate Change Will Obliterate the Global Economy and Doom the Poor (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday November 20, 2012 @11:04AM

pigrabbitbear writes: "The World Bank has released a new report examining the very-likelihood that the world will be 4C warmer by century’s end. Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank’s president, says he hopes the results “shock the world into action.”

According to the report, “we’re on track for a 4C warmer world marked by extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise.” Which will result in an unstable world where the poor, the least able to adapt, will suffer, and food and labor shortages will throw the global economy into a tailspin."

Submission + - John McAfee's Is Now Blogging as a Fugitive, Isn't Bad at It (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Monday November 19, 2012 @03:38PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Whether or not you’ve been following the saga of cyber security millionaire and bath salt aficionado John McAfee, you’re going to want to check out his new blog, The Hinterland. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an apparent madman. This is the same man who’s wanted by police for questioning regarding the murder of his neighbor, American ex-pat Gregory Faull, who had recently filed a complaint against McAfee for “roguish behavior.” If you’re wondering what exactly that could mean, look no further than The Hinterland."

Submission + - Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs Movie Will Have Just Three Scenes (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Friday November 16, 2012 @11:24AM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Aaron Sorkin revealed the structure of the hotly anticipated Steve Jobs biopic in an interview yesterday at the Hero Summit, an invite-only “theatrical-journalism event” hosted by the Daily Beast. It sounds surprisingly awesome. According to Sorkin — whose magisterial work with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook made him the obvious writing candidate — the upcoming feature will only have three 30 minute chapters, each shot in real-time. “And each of these 3 scenes will take place backstage before a product launch,” he said.

The products? The Macintosh, NeXT, and the iPod."

Submission + - Angry Celebrities Aside, Facebook's Promoted Posts Are Its Path to Redemption (vice.com)

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pigrabbitbear

on Thursday November 15, 2012 @12:49PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Facebook has been getting a lot of flack lately over EdgeRank, its algorithm that decides who will see your latest post show up in their Newsfeed. After the formula was rejiggered in September, some have seen their reach plummet as much as 50 percent. Enter Like-gate.

Power users aren’t pleased. Star Trek alum and social media all-star George Takei — he’s got 3 million Facebook followers — is dedicating an entire chapter in his new book Oh Myyy on his status update travails. “I am curious as to why interactivity rates on my page appear to fluctuate so much when I have done nothing different,” writes Takei (on Facebook of all places). And then a couple weeks ago Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban threatened on Twitter to quit Facebook altogether.

Much of the uproar hinges on the belief that Facebook is strategically shackling engagement to tempt users into ponying up for promoted posts in the company’s post-public search for profits. Facebook claims the network is fiddling with filters to battle spam. For Cuban, that means paying $3000 to reach 1 million fans — which is apparently intolerable. So much that Cuban is threatening to move the Mavericks along with the 70 or so companies he’s invested in onto new platforms. (Notice that there’s no mention of Google+.)"

Submission + - What's Wrong With Robots Making Our iPhones? (vice.com)

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Thursday November 15, 2012 @12:01PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "What do you do when you’re one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers and you’ve garnered global controversy for claims of low wages and substandard working conditions? Honhai, the Taiwanese company that owns Foxconn, decided last year it would combat all the labor concerns by building an army of one million robots. Now the robots are starting to show up for work."

Submission + - Israel Just Live-Blogged a Brutal Gaza Bombing (vice.com)

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @06:54PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "Israel just launched a brutal, tightly orchestrated assault on Hamas that killed nine people and wounded 40 others. Among the dead was Ahmed al-Jabari, the org’s military chief. It was the largest war effort the nation has led on Gaza in over four years, but it’s still perhaps most remarkable for this: The official Twitter feed of the Israeli Defense Force, which documented the entire operation in realtime."

Submission + - Did a CIA Drone Really Level Two Homes in Indianapolis? (vice.com)

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Tuesday November 13, 2012 @04:45PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "The theories swirling around a mysterious, deadly explosion in Indianpolis over the weekend sound like the recipe for a futuristic Tom Clancy thriller or a dystopian video game.

“It was just mass chaos,” Dan Able, a southside Indianapolis resident, told the Indianapolis Star. “You can’t even imagine how bad it was.”

Able wasn’t the only one to witness the destruction from the mysterious explosion that officials are still struggling to explain. The horrific event left at least two dead, obliterated two homes, damaged 18 others, rendered another 27 temporarily uninhabitable, and briefly displaced some 200 residents."

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