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Comment Re::facepalm: (Score 1) 1218

by fredubu (#41029061) Attached to: Kentucky Lawmakers Shocked To Find Evolution In Biology Tests
No, I'm not a troll. The fact that I hit a nerve is entirely coincidental, believe me. I'm being labelled a troll because my position is not popular, that's all, and you can't make that less true merely by being profane, although there are probably more then a few fifteen year olds who will think you're some kind of a tough guy for doing so. So, if that's what you were looking for, kudos to you. I have been involved in choosing corporate computers and systems, so I'm not entirely ignorant of the general process, for what that's worth (which is not much in my opinion, but better then nothing.) Your'e right about the specific use of those machines, I don't know what they were used for specifically, but I find it really hard to believe that there is something incredibly unique about a privatized version of a free unix that wouldn't be rather common.
SuSE

Submission + - SUSE Slowly Shows UEFI Secure Boot Plan (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "One blog post at a time, SUSE is revealing its plan for getting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) to boot on machines with UEFI Secure Boot. The short version: 'For now, it seems, SLES will implement an approach similar to that used by Fedora,' writes Brian Proffit. 'For whatever reason, SUSE seems to be taking a Saturday-morning-serial approach to their big reveal, taking their own sweet time to explain why they are choosing the path they are planning to implement,' writes Proffitt. '[Director of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Olaf] Kirch's first blog entry on Tuesday merely introduced the problem of UEFI Secure Boot. Today's blog only specified the use of the shim bootloader.' Just dying to know what's next? Tune in to the SUSE blog."
Software

Submission + - Productivity and creativity software coming to Steam

Submitted by
lga
lga writes: "Valve announced today in a press release that they are expanding Steam beyond games and will start to deliver other software. This means that Steam will compete directly with Microsoft's Windows Store and perhaps explains some of Gabe's disdain for Windows 8. The ability to save documents to Steam Cloud space also brings Valve into competition with the likes of Dropbox and Skydrive.

According to the press release:

The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.

"

Submission + - Kim Dotcom Raid - What Really Happened (3news.co.nz)

Submitted by chill
chill writes: The police raid on the Dotcom mansion has been discussed for so many months and now the footage of that morning has begun to emerge.

A New Zealand television station has details emerging from the trial as well as video from the raid.
Software

Submission + - Bad software runs the world (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by
whitroth
whitroth writes: "Excerpt:
What do most people think of when they think of software? A decade ago, probably Microsoft Word and Excel. Today, it's more likely to be Gmail, Twitter, or Angry Birds. But the software that does the heavy lifting for the global economy isn't the apps on your smartphone. It's the huge, creaky applications that run Walmart's supply chain or United's reservation system or a Toyota production line.

And perhaps the most mission-critical of all mission-critical applications are the ones that underpin the securities markets a large share of the world's wealth is locked up. Those systems have been in the news a lot recently, and not for good reasons. In March, BATS, an electronic exchange, pulled its IPO because of problems with its own trading systems. During the Facebook IPO in May, NASDAQ was unable to confirm orders for hours. The giant Swiss bank UBS lost more than $350 million that day when its systems kept re-sending buy orders, eventually adding up to 40 million shares that it would later sell at a loss. Then last week Knight Capital — which handled 11 percent of all U. S. stock trading this year — lost $440 million when its systems accidentally bought too much stock that it had to unload at a loss.* (Earlier this year, a bad risk management model was also fingered in JP Morgan's $N billion trading loss, where N = an ever-escalating digit.)

The underlying problem here is that most software is not very good. Writing good software is hard.
--- end excerpt ---"
Movies

Submission + - No bomb powerful enough to destroy an on-rushing asteroid, sorry Bruce Willis (networkworld.com) 2

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Maybe it's the doom predictions some folks are fearing about the end of the Mayan calendar this year or maybe these guys are obsessed with old Bruce Willis movies. Either way a class of physics students from the University of Leicester decided to evaluate whether or not the premise of Willis' 1998 "Armageddon" movie — where a group of oil drillers is sent by NASA to detonate nuclear devices on an asteroid that threatens to destroy Earth — could actually happen."

Submission + - US State Department Hacks Al-Qaeda Websites in Yemen (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
shuttah
shuttah writes: "In the growing Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton revealed today that "cyber experts" had recently hacked into web sites being used by an Al-Qaeda affiliate, substituting the group’s anti-American rhetoric with information about civilians killed in terrorist strikes. Also this week, a statement from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs revealed the presence an Al-Qaeda video calling for "Electronic Jihad." Was this act of Infomation Warfare a strategic response?

While Yemen is no stranger to Al-Qaeda activity, the terrorist group's presence has become more visible with a recent suicide bombing killing 100 military troops in its capital Sanaa."
Wine

Submission + - Red Wine and the Secret of Superconductivity (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Red wine is a popular marinade for meat, but it turns out that it may become a popular treatment for creating iron based superconductors as well: "Last year, a group of Japanese physicists grabbed headlines around the world by announcing that they could induce superconductivity in a sample of iron telluride by soaking it in red wine. They found that other alcoholic drinks also worked--white wine, beer, sake and so on--but red wine was by far the best. The question, of course, is why. What is it about red wine that does the trick? Today, these guys provide an answer, at least in part. Keita Deguchi at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and a few buddies, say the mystery ingredient is tartaric acid and have the experimental data to show that it plays an important role in the process. . . It turns out that the best performer is a wine made from the gamay grape--for the connoisseurs, that's a 2009 Beajoulais from the Paul Beaudet winery in central France." Link to academic paper
Censorship

Submission + - China Unblocks Sensitive Keywords (baidu.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Reports from oversea (in Chinese) and Hongkong-based Chinese media report that China appears to have unblocked several sensitive political keywords. Using Baidu.com the country's leading search engine, users within the mainland border find, in Chinese, uncensored web page links and images using keywords like Tiananmen and "June 4". (Readers can click on the first one to view the images.) Given that the unblocking of these most sensitive keywords (of all) comes one week after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao publicly denounced left-wing leader Bo Xilai's movement of "striking down the ganster while reviving the red culture" as going down the path of Cultural Revolution, it could signal the silent start of a major political change. Separately, the Financial Times reports that the Premier has proposed the rehabilitation and re-evaluation of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, but he met strong resistance from the left-wing fraction led by Bo. Bo has been sacked following the denouncement. Also the linked sites of the search result appear still being blocked and that other keywords, such as "Dalai Lama", are still being censored.
Privacy

Submission + - Japanese CCTV camera can scan 36 million faces/second (infowars.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new camera technology from Hitachi Hokusai Electric can scan days of camera footage instantly, and find any face which has EVER walked past it. Its makers boast that it can scan 36 million faces per second. The technology raises the spectre of governments – or other organisations – being able to ‘find’ anyone instantly simply using a passport photo or a Facebook profile. The ‘trick’ is that the camera ‘processes’ faces as it records, so that all faces which pass in front of it are recorded and stored instantly. Faces are stored as a searchable ‘biometric’ record, placing the unique mathematical "faceprint" of anyone who has ever walked past the camera in a database. When the police – or anyone else – want to search for a particular individual, they’re searching through a gallery of pre-indexed faces, rather than a messy library of footage. "We think this system is suitable for customers that have a relatively large-scale surveillance system, such as railways, power companies, law enforcement, and large stores," says the company. The company aims to make the system available to purchase within the next tax year, according to a report in DigInfo. The system is aimed primarily at government users/buyers.
Security

Submission + - Cyber Security Bills Open Door To Govt, Corporate Abuse (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Gunkerty Jeb
Gunkerty Jeb writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is sounding alarms about a collection of overly vague cyber-security bills making their way through Congress.

EFF looked at two bills making their way through Congress: The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 2105), sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) of Connecticut and the Secure IT Act (S. 2151), sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) . The digital rights group claims that the quality of both bills ranges from “downright terrible" to "appropriately intentioned." Each, however, is conceptually similar and flawed, EFF said.
China

Submission + - USA Puts Tariff on Chinese Solar Panels (digitimes.com)

Submitted by
retroworks
retroworks writes: "Two stories in Digitimes make a puzzle of economic policy. USA and European tax incentives and stimulus increase steady demand for solar panels. Chinese government subidizes production of solar panels to meet this growing demand. USA and EU complain, place tariff on Chinese solar panels. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120321PD219.html Do allegations that China has used government funding to subsidize the production trump our desire for cheaper solar power? Subsidizing demand led to subsidized production. In other words, one market interference (subsidized demand for solar) leads to its counterpoint, government tariff and taxation of the same product. Is this different than governments role in nuclear research was 50 years ago?"
Australia

Submission + - Citing cyber-espionage, Australian Govt bans China's Huawei (delimiter.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like paranoia regarding Chinese cyber-espionage is riding sky-high within the Australian Government. It was confirmed today that the country's Attorney-General's Department had banned Chinese networking vendor Huawei (the number two telco networking equipment vendor globally) from bidding for work supplying equipment to the government's $50 billion National Broadband Network universal fibre project. The unprecedented move comes despite the fact that Huawei has offered to share its source code with security officials, and despite the fact that Huawei is not being accused of having broken any laws in Australia. Questions over the legality of the Government's move are already being raised. Is this security paranoia at record levels?
Science

Submission + - Mountaintop Blasting to Mine the Sky with the Giant Magellan Telescope (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers have begun to blast 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to make room for what will be the world's largest telescope when completed near the end of the decade. The telescope will be located at the Carnegie Institution's Las Campanas Observatory-one of the world's premier astronomical sites, known for its pristine conditions and clear, dark skies. Over the next few months, more than 70 controlled blasts will break up the rock while leaving a solid bedrock foundation for the telescope and its precision scientific instruments.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook asserts trademark on word "book" in new user agreement (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Facebook is trying to expand its trademark rights over the word "book" by adding the claim to a newly revised version of its "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities," the agreement all users implicitly consent to by using or accessing Facebook. The company has registered trademarks over its name and many variations of it, but not on the word "book". By inserting the trademark claim into the Facebook user agreement, the company hopes to bolster its standing in lawsuits against sites that incorporate the word "book"."

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