HansonMB - Slashdot User

Submission + - China's Nuclear Rover Will Sample the Moon (vice.com) 1

Submitted by HansonMB on Thursday January 17, 2013 @01:36PM

HansonMB writes: After launching on one of the nation’s Long March rockets and a three-day transit, Chang'E 3 will reach the Moon and enter into a 62 mile orbit. Once settled, the 2,645 pound lander will separate from the roughly 8,200 pound spacecraft and descend into a highly elliptical orbit 62 by 9.5 miles above the surface.

Submission + - A Chat With Zavilia, a tool for ID'ing Rioters (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Thursday August 18, 2011 @04:05PM

HansonMB writes: Social media isn’t just great for starting "social unrest,” it’s proving to be quite helpful for quashing it too. Not long after the bricks began to fly in London’s latest kerfuffle, locals angry over raging mobs scrambled to assist the police in their attempt to identify street-fighters and free-for-all hooligans. Swarms of rioters are being summoned to courts while police work to hush the streets and refurbish neighborhoods.

Now with more than 1,000 people charged over the chaos, a few citizen groups continue to provide web-based rioter identification platforms, in hopes of being good subjects, maintaining the country’s pursuit of order, and keeping their neighborhoods safe.

Consider, for example, Zavilia.com, a team comprised of British natives roused by the public’s response to the riots. As an organization, this is its first foray online, and certainly not its last. I connected with the managing director of Zavilia.com, Matthew, who prefers not to reveal his full identity, to get his take on this trendy tactic.

Comment There's already an app for this (Score 1) 482

by HansonMB on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @12:05PM (#37045048) Attached to: The London Riots and Facial Recognition Technology

The police in the US have an app that searches for outstanding warrants + criminal histories using facial recognition. Pretty scary http://slashdot.org/submission/1751294/Sending-you-to-Jail-Theres-an-app-for-that

Submission + - Will China's Weibo replace Facebook and Twitter? (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Thursday July 14, 2011 @03:25PM

HansonMB writes: Launched in 2009, the micro-blogging service is owned by Chinese interweb behemoth Sina Corp, which happens to be the same company that partnered with Google before their deals famously floundered (cf those anxieties) and Google hightailed out of China (before coming back of course).

Weibo is often described as a Facebook-Twitter hybrid, but anyone who takes a closer look can easily see that it’s a different beast entirely. Actually, I would argue Weibo is better than both. Here’s a breakdown of its standout features—some of which Google Plus has already included, and others that I’d love to see incorporated soon.

Submission + - Copyright Law is Killing Science (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Tuesday April 26, 2011 @12:31PM

HansonMB writes: Whereas copyright tends to focus on protecting artists’ ability to make money from their work, scientists don’t use similar incentives. And yet, her work is often kept within the gates of the ivory tower, reserved for those whose universities or institutions have purchased access, often at high costs. And for science in the age of the internet, which wants ideas to spread as widely as possible to encourage more creativity and development, this isn’t just bad: it’s immoral

Submission + - NYC Resistor: DIY hackers doing awesome things (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Monday April 25, 2011 @11:09AM

HansonMB writes: Founded by a handful of friends who wanted a place to tinker with electronics and meet like-minded hackers for good, NYC Resistor. has blossomed into one of the country’s most influential hackerspaces. On any given Thursday night, their cozy, cluttered loft workshop is crawling with a diverse crowd of hardcore tinkerers and curious newcomers. Throwing some caution and many user warranties to the wind, they’re there to build, refine, break and share everything from toy robots to intricate paper sculpture to open source musical instruments.

Submission + - California Library Plan: Get Rid of Books (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Monday April 04, 2011 @02:30PM

HansonMB writes: Facing the likelihood of state budget cuts that would eliminate $15 million for library and reading programs – and, apparently, a future in which people no longer read things on paper – the city of Newport Beach is considering turning its first library into a community center that would host all the same amenities – except for the books.

Submission + - Calculate drunkenNES with an 8-bit Breathalyzer (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @02:39PM

HansonMB writes: Electrical engineer Batsly Adams isn’t a traffic cop, but if you find yourself at a chiptune show in New York, you should probably pull over anyway to try his new homebrew 8-bit breathalyzer game. Unlike that 8-bit Gatsby game, DrunkenNES is a for-real NES game lovingly constructed with machine code by Batsly, music by chiptune artist Kris Keyser and art by Motherboard photographer Emi Spicer.

Comment UPDATE (Score 1) 188

by HansonMB on Monday February 28, 2011 @06:48PM (#35342354) Attached to: The Uncertain Future of NYC's Last Arcade

And now it's closed: http://slashdot.org/submission/1485408/UPDATE-NYCs-last-arcade-is-now-closed

Submission + - The uncertain future of NYC's last arcade (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB on Wednesday February 23, 2011 @12:00PM

HansonMB writes: With Pictures: At around nearly the same time every year, rumors start to crop up that Chinatown Fair, the last beloved vestige of New York City’s video arcade golden age, will soon be facing its final days. It happened again last week when tweets and blog posts reignited talk of the legendary arcade’s imminent foreclosure. Without even talking to anyone, you could feel a sense of looming dread as gamers of all ages partook of their usual button-pounding pastimes. But the Fair, which has stood in one form or another on Mott Street just off Canal since the 1950’s, isn’t going down without a fight.

Submission + - LOFAR, the world's biggest telescope (motherboard.tv) 1

Submitted by HansonMB on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @01:23PM

HansonMB writes: Back in September, Motherboard ventured into the English countryside to listen to the universe. There lives a brand new piece of Europe’s already-massive Low Frequency Radio Array radio telescope: a clever EU-wide installation that uses low-tech antennas and supercomputer-power data processing to transform into a giant mega-telescope, absorbing cosmic radio waves from the full sky.

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