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Windows

It's 2013, and Windows Activation Is Still Frustrating 435

Posted by timothy from the is-that-nostalgia? dept.
Deathspawner writes "There's little that's more frustrating than being a legal customer and getting screwed over by the company you're supporting. If there's a perfect example of this, it's with Microsoft's OS and its millions of customers that have had to ring its tech support lines for activation help. Recently, a Techgage writer got bit by an issue with Windows 8 — caused by Microsoft itself — and wasn't even able to call to fix it. Microsoft has two problems to solve here: it needs online chat support (like most large companies in 2013) and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis."
Education

Florida Teen Expelled and Arrested For Science Experiment 1078

Posted by timothy from the government-schooling dept.
First time accepted submitter ruhri writes "A 16 year-old girl in Florida not only has been expelled from her high school but also is being charged as an adult with a felony after replicating the classic toilet-bowl cleaner and aluminum foil experiment. This has quite a number of scientists and science educators up in arms. The fact that she's African American and that the same assistant state attorney has decided not to charge a white teenager who accidentally killed his brother with a BB gun has some thinking whether this is a case of doing science while black."
Japan

30 Years To Clean Up Fukushima Dai-Ichi 342

Posted by Soulskill from the blasting-it-into-the-sun-is-not-a-viable-option dept.
0WaitState writes "Damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant may take three decades to decommission and cost operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. more than 1 trillion yen ($12 billion), engineers and analysts said. Relatedly, Japanese officials and power plant operators are now working on the problems involved with disposing of 55,000 tons of radioactive water. '... international law forbids Japan from dumping contaminated water into the ocean if there are viable technical solutions available later. So the plant operator is considering bringing in barges and tanks, including a so-called megafloat that can hold about 9.5 megalitres. Yet even using barges and tanks to handle the water temporarily creates a future problem of how to dispose of the contaminated vessels.'" Yesterday's 7.1 aftershock caused brief power losses at three other nuclear facilities, and small volumes of contaminated water spilled, but no significant radiation leakage occurred before the problems were resolved.
Security

Passwords Are the Weakest Link In Online Security 277

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wish-i-spoke-british dept.
Orome1 writes "It's not surprising to find that 79% of consumers use risky password construction practices, such as including personal information and words. The recent Gawker breach and a detailed analysis of breached passwords show undeniably that passwords continue to be the Achilles' heel of the average Internet user. This insecure trend sadly doesn't shift as 26% of users reuse the same password for important accounts such as email, banking or shopping and social networking sites while 29% had their own email or social network account hacked, and over half (52%) know someone who has had a similar problem."
The Military

Sarah Palin 'Target WikiLeaks Like Taliban' 1425

Posted by CmdrTaco from the name-calling dept.
DMandPenfold writes "Sarah Palin, who is widely tipped as a possible Republican candidate for president in 2012, has said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be hunted down in the way armed forces are targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda." So that means we should spend billions of dollars and not catch him? Good plan.
Mars

Scientists Propose One-Way Trips To Mars 839

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thousands-would-do-it dept.
vortex2.71 writes "Invoking the spirit of Star Trek in a scholarly article entitled 'To Boldly Go,' two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return. 'The main point is to get Mars exploration moving,' said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest Journal of Cosmology with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth."

Comment Stewart & Colbert fans the silent majority? (Score 1) 696

by boyzscout (#33636644) Attached to: Stewart and Colbert Plan Competing D.C. Rallies
I'd like to think that fans of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the silent majority in America. But when you watch mainstream news it's difficult to tell because their pundits keeping whipping the extreme left and right into a frenzy. This silent majority knows how ridiculous guys like Glenn Beck really are and know that these blowhards are just doing what they do for ratings. At least a guy can hope...

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