Comment Auction the ISS (Score 1) 80
They should auction the ISS to the highest bidder when they get ready to decommission it. I'm sure some rich idiot would want it.
Comment Can it run Shor's Algorithm? (Score 1) 66
Call me when a quantum computer can factor RSA-1024.
Comment Re:Under what jurisdiction? (Score 3, Insightful) 25
> If this 'ban' is somehow enforced, how is this dude supposed to support himself if he isn't allowed to do what he's good at?
Then he can go to prison with all the thieves who aren't allowed to do what they are good at.
Comment Can't believe Jack Dongarra is still at UT. (Score 1) 77
He was there when I was in grad school in the early 90's.
Trump Says US Will Terminate Relationship With WHO Today (cnbc.com) 307
President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States is will be cutting ties with the World Health Organization later today. From a report: "China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying, which is approximately $450 million a year," Trump said during a press conference. Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO's response to the coronavirus, which has hit the U.S. worse than any other country, amid scrutiny of his own administration's response to the pandemic. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to permanently cut off U.S. funding of the WHO. In a letter, he said that if the WHO "does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization." On Friday, Trump said WHO "failed to make the requested a greatly needed reform" and the U.S. "will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs."
UPDATE (6/13/2020): Though Trump promised "immediate" action, two weeks later, Ars Technica reported there was "nothing to indicate that Trump has followed through on his plan."
UPDATE (6/13/2020): Though Trump promised "immediate" action, two weeks later, Ars Technica reported there was "nothing to indicate that Trump has followed through on his plan."
A New Idea For Fighting Rising Sea Levels: Iceberg-Making Submarines (nbcnews.com) 226
To address the affects of global warming, a team of designers "propose building ice-making submarines that would ply polar waters and pop out icebergs to replace melting floes," reports NBC News:
"Sea level rise due to melting ice should not only be responded [to] with defensive solutions," the designers of the submersible iceberg factory said in an animated video describing the vessel, which took second place in a recent design competition held by the Association of Siamese Architects. The video shows the proposed submarine dipping slowly beneath the ocean surface to allow seawater to fill its large hexagonal well. When the vessel surfaces, an onboard desalination system removes the salt from the water and a "giant freezing machine" and chilly ambient temperatures freeze the fresh water to create the six-sided bergs.
These float away when the vessel resubmerges and starts the process all over again.
A fleet of the ice-making subs, operating continuously, could create enough of the 25-meter-wide "ice babies" to make a larger ice sheet, according to the designers. Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha, an architect in Jakarta and the leader of the project, said he sees the design as a complement to ongoing efforts to curb emissions.
"Experts praised the designers' vision but cast doubt on the project's feasibility."
These float away when the vessel resubmerges and starts the process all over again.
A fleet of the ice-making subs, operating continuously, could create enough of the 25-meter-wide "ice babies" to make a larger ice sheet, according to the designers. Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha, an architect in Jakarta and the leader of the project, said he sees the design as a complement to ongoing efforts to curb emissions.
"Experts praised the designers' vision but cast doubt on the project's feasibility."
Comment Priorities (Score 1) 167
Sorry no time to comment, I have some daily quests to do.
Student Arrested For Posting Zombie-Killing AR Game Clip Filmed at His High School (yahoo.com) 352
18-year-old high school student Sean Small was arrested in Indiana on Tuesday and charged with a misdemeanor for posting a videogame clip to social media. An anonymous reader quotes Yahoo Lifestyle:
The clip in question is Sean playing The Walking Dead: Our World, which is an augmented reality game that animates characters into a real-world setting. In this case, players kill zombies. Along with Sean's video he wrote, "Finally something better than Pokemon Go," which is also an augmented reality game....
Sean, who is a member of the Indiana National Guard, pleaded not guilty to an intimidation charge. He was released on $1,000, and his school expulsion hearing is set for next week. The video featured other students walking through the halls as Sean allegedly attempted to kill the zombies the game placed among them.
Realistic footage of shootings in the high school's hallways apparently alarmed the off-duty sheriff's deputy hired to work at the high school -- who then filed the misdemeanor intimidation charge with the county prosecutor.
Sean, who is a member of the Indiana National Guard, pleaded not guilty to an intimidation charge. He was released on $1,000, and his school expulsion hearing is set for next week. The video featured other students walking through the halls as Sean allegedly attempted to kill the zombies the game placed among them.
Realistic footage of shootings in the high school's hallways apparently alarmed the off-duty sheriff's deputy hired to work at the high school -- who then filed the misdemeanor intimidation charge with the county prosecutor.
Google Sued For 'Clandestine Tracking' of 4.4 Million UK iPhone Users' Browsing Data (theguardian.com) 33
Google is being sued in the high court for as much as $4.3 billion for the alleged "clandestine tracking and collation" of personal information from 4.4 million iPhone users in the UK. From a report: The collective action is being led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd over claims Google bypassed the privacy settings of Apple's Safari browser on iPhones between August 2011 and February 2012 in order to divide people into categories for advertisers. At the opening of an expected two-day hearing in London on Monday, lawyers for Lloyd's campaign group Google You Owe Us told the court information collected by Google included race, physical and mental heath, political leanings, sexuality, social class, financial, shopping habits and location data.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Lloyd, said information was then "aggregated" and users were put into groups such as "football lovers" or "current affairs enthusiasts" for the targeting of advertising. Tomlinson said the data was gathered through "clandestine tracking and collation" of browsing on the iPhone, known as the "Safari Workaround" -- an activity he said was exposed by a PhD researcher in 2012. Tomlinson said Google has already paid $39.5m to settle claims in the US relating to the practice. Google was fined $22.5m for the practice by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 and forced to pay $17m to 37 US states.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Lloyd, said information was then "aggregated" and users were put into groups such as "football lovers" or "current affairs enthusiasts" for the targeting of advertising. Tomlinson said the data was gathered through "clandestine tracking and collation" of browsing on the iPhone, known as the "Safari Workaround" -- an activity he said was exposed by a PhD researcher in 2012. Tomlinson said Google has already paid $39.5m to settle claims in the US relating to the practice. Google was fined $22.5m for the practice by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2012 and forced to pay $17m to 37 US states.
It's So Cold Outside That Sharks Are Actually Freezing to Death (vice.com) 424
An anonymous reader writes: As climate change ushers in another year of extreme global temperatures -- a phenomenon President Trump seems a little confused about -- cities up and down the East Coast are facing record-breaking snowfall and subzero temperatures. But while city dwellers might be able to hide indoors and crank up the heat, some animals aren't so lucky. According to the Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, it's gotten so cold that sharks in the area have been washing up on the shore and essentially freezing to death. This week, the organization responded to three thresher sharks that likely suffered "cold shock" in the surrounding waters. Organisms suffer cold shock when they're exposed to extreme dips in temperature and can sometimes experience muscle spasms or cardiac arrest. Scientists believe the sharks swimming off the coast of Cape Cod -- where temperatures have dropped to 6 degrees -- suffered cold shock in the water, and then wound up getting stranded on the shore, where they likely suffocated. "If you've got cold air, that'll freeze their gills up very quickly," Greg Skomal, a marine scientist, told the New York Times. "Those gill filaments are very sensitive and it wouldn't take long for the shark to die."
Should Plant-Based Meat Replace Beef Completely? (pbs.org) 669
Long-time Slashdot reader tcd004 writes: Is beef still "what's for dinner?" Plant-based meat substitute startups say they could provide enough protein to feed the world using only 2% of the land on Earth, dramatically reducing the resources required to create beef products. And adopting plant-based burgers could help reduce heart disease, protect water resources, and stop deforestation. But Beef producers say no laboratory can beat a steer's ability to turn plant-based nutrition into tasty protein, and animals are the best source for natural fertilizer to grow crops. There's a coming war for your dinner plate. Who will prevail?
Comment It's not about price... (Score 5, Insightful) 221
It's not about price. It's about selection. If the powers that be want to kill piracy they should all get together and offer reasonable online purchase and and rental of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING EVER MADE. If people knew everything was available from a reliable source for a reasonable price there would be no temptation to pirate. But they won't do that, because they all want to try to squeeze out the other guy and think that will some how magically give them more money. So piracy continues because people want what they want.
Comment Long hard road with no computer (Score 1) 515
Starting in 7th grade I learned to code from Calcu-letter articles in Popular Science, my "programmable" TI-55 calculator, the description of BASIC from the back of my Algebra 1 book in 9th grade, BYTE magazine in the school library, my dad's Fortran programming assignment from a college class he was taking (punch card era). Problem was I didn't have a computer. When I was a junior in highschool I got my first "real" computer a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1k of ram. When I was a senior in highschool I was able to take a programming "class" with TRS-80 Model III computers. The teacher was a history major. He learned more from me than I did form him. After that it was Pascal as a freshman in college, VAX-C on a VMS system as a sophomore, and finally C on a Unix system as a Junior. I took a networking class as an undergraduate, but had no internet connection until I was in grad school.
Comment Re:Benevolent Billionaires (Score 1) 56
One would have to buy up all the stock and take it private.
CIA Is Investing Heavily In Firms That Do Social Media Mining and Surveillance (theintercept.com) 67
Lee Fang, reporting for The Intercept, lists more than three-dozen companies that have received funding from CIA. In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, the publication claims, has invested in 38 companies that research on "social media mining and surveillance." The unpublicized In-Q-Tel companies are: Aquifi, Beartooth, CliQr, CloudPassage, Databricks, Dataminr, Docker, Echodyne, Epiq Solutions, Geofeedia, goTenna, Headspin, Interset, Keyssa, Kymeta, Lookout, Mapbox, Mesosphere, Nervana, Orbital Insight, Orion Labs, Parallel Wireless, PATHAR, Pneubotics, PsiKick, Rocket Lab, Skincential Sciences, Soft Robotics, Sonatype, Spaceflight Industries, Threatstream, Timbr.io, Transient Electronics, TransVoyant, TRX Systems, Voltaiq, and Zoomdata. From the report: Bruce Lund, a senior member of In-Q-Tel's technical staff, noted in a 2012 paper that "monitoring social media" is increasingly essential for government agencies (PDF) seeking to keep track of "erupting political movements, crises, epidemics, and disasters, not to mention general global trends."CIA also recently funded Clearista, a skin care product company that collects DNA.
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