Comment Is it April 1st? (Score 1) 553
Seriously, did I time warp?
Comment Re:No money in it. (Score 2, Insightful) 71
They will probably sell each piece for $500.
Submission + - Hackers broke into FAA air traffic control systems (cnet.com)
PL/SQL Guy writes: "Hackers have repeatedly broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week, and the FAA's increasing use of commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies as part of an effort to modernize the air traffic control systems poses a higher security risk to the systems than when they relied primarily on proprietary software, the report said. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at only 11 of hundreds of air traffic control facilities. In 2008, more than 870 cyber incident alerts were issued to the organization responsible for air traffic control operations and by the end of the year 17 percent (more than 150 incidents) had not been remediated, "including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control" of operations computers, the report said."
Submission + - NASA running low on fuel for space exploration (msn.com)
smooth wombat writes: With the end of the Cold War came warmer relations with old adversaries, increased trade and a world less worried about nuclear war. It also brought with it an unexpected downside: lack of nuclear fuel to power deep space probes. Without this fuel, probes beyond Jupiter won't work because there isn't enough sunlight to use solar panels which probes closer to the sun use.
The fuel NASA relies on to power deep space probes is plutonium-238. This isotope is the result of nuclear weaponry and since the United States has not made a nuclear device in 20 years, the supply has run out. For now, NASA is using Soviet supplies but they too are almost exhausted.
It is estimated it will cost at least $150 million to resume making the 11 pounds per year that is needed for space probes.
The fuel NASA relies on to power deep space probes is plutonium-238. This isotope is the result of nuclear weaponry and since the United States has not made a nuclear device in 20 years, the supply has run out. For now, NASA is using Soviet supplies but they too are almost exhausted.
It is estimated it will cost at least $150 million to resume making the 11 pounds per year that is needed for space probes.
Stimulus Could Kickstart US Battery Industry 369
Al sends along a Technology Review piece that begins "Provisions in the Congressional stimulus bill could help jump-start a new, multibillion-dollar industry in the US for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrids and electric vehicles and for storing energy from the electrical grid to enable the widespread use of renewable energy. The nearly $790 billion economic stimulus legislation contains tens of billions of dollars in loans, grants, and tax incentives for advanced battery research and manufacturing, as well as incentives for plug-in hybrids and improvements to the electrical grid, which could help create a market for these batteries. Significant advances in battery materials, including the development of new lithium-ion batteries, have been made in the US in the past few years; but advanced battery manufacturing is almost entirely overseas, particularly in Asia."
Human-Animal Hybrids Fail 554
SailorSpork writes "Fans of furries and anime-style cat girls will be disappointed by the news that attempts to create human animal hybrids have failed. Experiments by British scientists to create embryonic stem cells by putting human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs had raised ethical concerns, but the question of how we would treat sub-humans will have to wait until we actually figure out how to make them."
Comment Re:video down on youtube (Score 2, Informative) 5
Submission + - Tips for taking your laptop in and out of the US? 1
casualsax3 writes: I'm going to be taking a week long round trip from NYC to Puerto Vallarta Mexico sometime next month, and I was planning on taking my laptop with me. I'll probably want to rip a few movies and albums to the drive in order to keep busy on the flight. More important though, is that I'm also going to be taking pictures while I'm there, and storing them on the laptop. With everything in the news, I'm concerned that I'll have to show someone around the internals of my laptop coming back into the US. The pictures are potentially what upsets me the most, as I feel it's an incredible violation of my privacy. Do I actually need to worry about this? If so, should I go about hiding everything? I've heard good things about Truecrypt. Is it worth looking into or am I being overly paranoid?
Submission + - Infringement "Detrimental" to Health & (wired.com)
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that copyright infringement 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.' You might laugh, but that means that they can close up a property for up to one year for violations of ordinance 13.90.010 (PDF) and the owner can be fined $1,000 for each infringing work produced on site. Not to mention the penalties in the PRO-IP Act, which just sailed through the House."
Journal Journal: New Idea for producing movies.
I am working on a way to make movies in a more open source copy left sort of way.
By this I mean viewer / fan funded and freely distributable movies that would be in essence owned by the creative commons.
Submission + - Data on old floppy disks (Amstrad) (wikipedia.org) 1
Jeppe Utzon writes: "Back in 1987, when I was a teenager in high school still, I spent most evenings, nights and weekends writing small programs in BASIC on my Amstrad CPC 6128. Some of these programs were simple games, some drew grapics, some could help me with math or train me in french — and most were utterly pointless. But I never had as much satisfying fun as when writing those programs — even if noone in my family understood any of it when I proudly displayed the fruits of three sleepless nights of labour.
Now, 20 years later, I still have a sealed pack of about 15 disks with all my work on them (along with a few of my favorite games) and I was wondering if it was possible to get the data out somehow so that I could run it in emulation on my Mac. I know of the emulators, but have no clue what would be needed to extract the data — or if it is even extractable after all these years. I realise the chances of the data still being intact are quite low, but I'd like to give it a shot anyways. So if anyone has any pointers it would be greatly appreciated."
Submission + - Nathan Myhrvold and the business of invention (newyorker.com)
elwinc writes: There's a great New Yorker story about Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures company, whose business model is to nurture ideas, write patents, and sell them. Apparently they're filing about 500 patents a year including a passive thorium reactor that consumes waste from conventional reactors. On the lighter side, you can read how Nathan has achieved "dominant T. rex market share."
Feed Macworld: The iTunes Store: Five years and $2,315.60 later (macworld.com)
Submission + - The physics of whipped cream (nasa.gov)
SpaceAdmiral writes: "An experiment on the Space Shuttle Columbia has been analyzing your ice cream sundae. Or, rather, it looked at the phenomenon of "shear thinning," which explains why whipped cream comes out of the can like a liquid, but sits atop your sundae like a solid. The experiment actually involved shear thinning of xenon, a substance used in ion rocket engines, but whipped cream tastes better."
Submission + - Fake Subpoenas Sent to Pwn CEOs (sans.org)
An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Storm Center is reporting that a round of e-mails is being sent out that looks like a subpoena being sent to the CEOs of major US corporations. The e-mail tries to entice the victim to click on a link that gives them "more information" about being subpoena'd to testify in a federal court case. According to ISC Handler John Bambenek:
An interesting problem is that while the courts do send some electronic notices out, they are not PGP or Digitally signed to ensure that they are authentic.We've gotten a few reports that some CEOs have received what purports to be a federal subpoena via e-mail ordering their testimony in a case. It then asks them to click a link and download the case history and associated information. One problem, it's total bogus. It's a "click-the-link-for-malware" typical spammer stunt. So, first and foremost, don't click on such links. An interesting component of this scam was that it did properly identify the CEO and send it to his e-mail directly. It's very highly targeted that way.
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