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Submission + - Linux 3.13 Kernel To Bring Major Features (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There's many improvements due in the Linux 3.13 kernel that just entered development. On the matter of new hardware support there's open-source driver support for Intel Broadwell and AMD Radeon R9 290 "Hawaii" graphics, NFTables will eventually replace IPTables, the multi-queue block layer is supposed to make disk access much faster on Linux, HDMI audio has improved, Stereo/3D HDMI support is found for Intel hardware, file-system improvements, and support for limiting the power consumption of individual PC components.

Comment Basically a weakness the way it was designed (Score 1) 183

by apleschu (#45156819) Attached to: Ed Felten: Why Email Services Should Be Court-Order Resistant
The way Lavabit designed the system was still in a way that the SSL master key was able to decrypt "something". If the system would have been designed in a way that even the master key does't get you anything the court can order all day long. Its like a court order to person A that as of tomorrow the sky will be light pink instead of blue. Just because the court or the FEDS want something to happen doesn't mean it is going to happen if there is no way technically this is going to work. Granted, if Lavabit's system would have been designed in such a way the court could have ordered that they create a new software version which then allows them to see certain things, but even that can be made impossible with the correct software design. Its "just" a question how far you want to push your design and how much self protection you want to build into your design. Until 2013 everyone, or almost everyone was under the impression that SSL was reasonably safe. 2013 is the year when that changed and a prediction is that one will see many products springing up that do not have those problems any more (e.g. BitMessage)

Comment Re:Not really the best practice (Score 2) 155

Bingo! If you have the need or wish to encrypt you NEED to do it yourself. Each and every email client worth something is able to encrypt/decrypt. And the ones that are not I'd let go as fast as I let go of a hot coal. At the same time you cannot be hit by a 'quiet' discovery, you know that each employee has their own key, and so on. if you NEED encrypotion there is just no good reason to have encryption farmed out.

Submission + - How would an astronaut falling into a black hole meet their end? (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: According to the accepted account, an astronaut falling into a black hole would be ripped apart, and his remnants crushed as they plunged into the black hole’s infinitely dense core. Calculations by Joseph Polchinski, a string theorist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, though point to a different end: quantum effects turn the event horizon into a seething maelstrom of particles and anyone who fell in would hit a wall of fire and be burned to a crisp in an instant. There's one problem with the firewall theory. If Polchinski is right, then either general relativity or quantum mechanics is wrong and his work has triggered a mini-crisis in theoretical physics.
Science

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Explaining to my girlfriend that humans didn't ride dinosaurs (dinosaurc14ages.com) 4

Submitted by
p00kiethebear
p00kiethebear writes: "Dear Slashdot. Remember when you learned that Santa Clause wasn't real? I have a wonderful and beautiful girlfriend. She treats me so right in every way. We've been together for almost a year now and everything seemed to be going perfectly until this morning. Over breakfast we were discussing dinosaurs and she told me a story about how her grandfather, fifty years ago, dated footprints of a dinosaurs and a man that were right next to each other to be within the same epoch of history. I laughed when she said this and then realized that she wasn't joking. She seriously believes this. She believes dinosaurs and humans walked at the same time together. Her grandfather told her this when she was little so regular logic and wiki isn't going to be able to contest her childhood dreams that she has been raised to believe. The odd thing is that she's not religious, it's just what her archeologist grandfather taught her. More important than just backing up evidence to the contrary, how do I explain this to her without crushing her childhood dreams? Is it even worth discussing it further with her? Have you ever had a loved one or family member that believed something that made you uncomfortable?"
Databases

Cassandra and Voldemort Benchmarked 45

Posted by timothy from the rifling-the-file-cabinet dept.
kreide33 writes "Key/Value storage systems are gaining in popularity, much because of features such as easy scalability and automatic replication. However, there are several to choose from and performance is an important deciding factor. This article compares the performance of two of the most well-known projects, Cassandra and Voldemort, using several different mixes of access types, and compares both throughput and latency."
Image

Japanese Astronaut Gets Designer "Space Suit" 110

Posted by samzenpus from the look-good-anywhere dept.
Naoko Yamazaki knows you have to look good at work even if your work is in outer space. Japanese fashion designer Tae Ashida has created a designer suit for the female astronaut to wear during her stay on the International Space Station. "As a female designer, I chose a design and colour with a sense of grace ... so that she can feel at ease as she carries out a tough mission in a male-dominated, bleak atmosphere. It's like a dream come true to see my clothes worn in space," said Ashida. "I'm looking forward to seeing her wear my design."
Technology

Iron Alloy Could Create Earthquake-Proof Buildings 107

Posted by samzenpus from the shake-all-you-want dept.
separsons writes "Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University designed a new shape memory metal alloy. The super elastic iron alloy can endure serious stretching and still return to its original shape. The scientists say that once optimized, the material could be used in everything from braces to medical stents to earthquake-proof buildings!"
Science

Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165

Posted by timothy from the you-must-become-the-frozen-water dept.
ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."
Biotech

Scientists To Breed the Auroch From Extinction 277

Posted by samzenpus from the back-by-popular-demand dept.
ImNotARealPerson writes "Scientists in Italy are hoping to breed back from extinction the mighty auroch, a bovine species which has been extinct since 1627. The auroch weighed 2,200 pounds (1000kg) and its shoulders stood at 6'6". The beasts once roamed most of Asia and northern Africa. The animal was depicted in cave paintings and Julius Caesar described it as being a little less in size than an elephant. A member of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology suggests that 99% of the auroch's DNA can be recreated from genetic material found in surviving bone material. Wikipedia mentions that researchers in Poland are working on the same problem."
Space

A Hyper-Velocity Impact In the Asteroid Belt? 114

Posted by Soulskill from the i-played-that-game dept.
astroengine writes "Astronomers have spotted something rather odd in the asteroid belt. It looks like a comet, but it's got a circular orbit, similar to an asteroid. Whether it's an asteroid or a comet, it has a long, comet-like tail, suggesting something is being vented into space. Some experts think it could be a very rare comet/asteroid hybrid being heated by the sun, but there's an even more exciting possibility: It could be the first ever observation of two asteroids colliding in the asteroid belt."

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