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Transportation

It's Too Hot For Some Planes To Fly In Phoenix (npr.org) 286

Posted by BeauHD from the can't-touch-this dept.
In Phoenix on Tuesday, temperatures were forecast to climb as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, causing more than 40 American Eagle regional flights out of Phoenix's international airport to be canceled. NPR reports: American Airlines said in a statement that the Bombardier CRJ aircraft used on some shorter routes have a maximum operating temperature of 118 degrees. For bigger jets, the threshold is higher. The carrier says that, for example, Airbus aircraft have a maximum operating temperature of 127 degrees and that for Boeing, it is 126 degrees. As USA Today reports: "Extreme heat affects a plane's ability to take off. Hot air is less dense than cold air, and the hotter the temperature, the more speed a plane needs to lift off. A runway might not be long enough to allow a plane to achieve the necessary extra speed." Bianca Hernandez, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tells NPR that Phoenix is seeing an unusually strong high-pressure system, which is causing the soaring temperatures.
Windows

Dell Launches XPS 13 2-in-1 Laptop With Intel Kaby Lake Chip, Starts at $1,000 (venturebeat.com) 114

Posted by msmash from the new-laptops dept.
Ahead of CES 2016, which officially kicks off Tuesday, Dell has announced a convertible version of its popular XPS 13 laptop. The machine is powered by a seventh-generation Kaby Lake Intel Core i chip (i5 and i7 options are available), Intel HD Graphics 615 integrated GPU, 4 to 16GB LPDDR3 RAM, a 128GB-1TB solid-state drive (SSD), a 720p webcam on the bottom of the display with support for Windows Hello, a fingerprint scanner, a 46 watt-hour battery, and a 13.3-inch touchscreen, available in QHD+ or FHD configurations. From a report on VentureBeat: The bezel is very narrow, in keeping with the XPS style. The fanless PC offers an SD card slot and two USB-C ports, and a USB-A to USB-C adapter comes in the box. The laptop is 0.32-0.54 inch thick, which is thinner than Dell's 2016 XPS. But the keyboard hasn't been squished down -- the keys have 1.3mm travel, or just a tad bit (0.1mm) more than you get on the XPS laptop -- which is impressive. The laptop weighs 2.7 pounds. The question is whether people will want the convertible option when the laptop is fine as is. The convertible XPS 13 starts at $1000, which is $200 more than the XPS 13 laptop.
Earth

Bigger Isn't Better As Mega-Ships Get Too Big and Too Risky 265

Posted by BeauHD from the bigger-isn't-always-better dept.
HughPickens.com writes: Alan Minter writes at Bloomberg that between 1955 and 1975, the average volume of a container ship doubled -- and then doubled again over each of the next two decades. The logic behind building such giants was once unimpeachable: Globalization seemed like an unstoppable force, and those who could exploit economies of scale could reap outsized profits. But it is looking more and more like the economies of scale for mega-ships are not worth the risk. The quarter-mile-long Benjamin Franklin recently became the largest cargo ship ever to dock at a U.S. port and five more mega-vessels are supposed to follow. But today's largest container vessels can cost $200 million and carry many thousands of containers -- potentially creating $1 billion in concentrated, floating risk that can only dock at a handful of the world's biggest ports. Mega-ships make prime targets for cyberattacks and terrorism, suffer from a dearth of qualified personnel to operate them, and are subject to huge insurance premiums. But the biggest costs associated with these floating behemoths are on land -- at the ports that are scrambling to accommodate them. New cranes, taller bridges, environmentally perilous dredging, and even wholesale reconfiguration of container yards are just some of the costly disruptions that might be needed to receive a Benjamin Franklin and service it efficiently. Under such circumstances, you'd think that ship owners would start to steer clear of big boats. But, fearful of falling behind the competition and hoping to put smaller operators out of business, they're actually doing the opposite. Global capacity will increase by 4.5 percent this year. "Sooner or later, even the biggest operators will have to accept that the era of super-sized shipping has begun to list," concludes Minter. "With global growth and trade still sluggish, and the benefits of sailing and docking big boats diminishing with each new generation, ship owners are belatedly realizing that bigger isn't better."
Bitcoin

Russian Hacker Selling Information of 32 Million Twitter Accounts, Report Says (zdnet.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-change-your-password dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The hacker who has links to the recent Myspace, LinkedIn, and Tumblr data breaches, is claiming to have obtained a database of millions of Twitter accounts. The data reportedly includes addresses, usernames, and plain-text passwords of 379 million Twitter accounts. The hacker, Tessa88, wants 10 bitcoins, or about $5,820 for the cache. On Wednesday, LeakedSource claimed that the real number of accounts was just under 33 million, which is more than 10 percent of Twitter's monthly active accounts. This follows the hacking of Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter and Pinterest accounts.
Botnet

Ask Slashdot: Who's Going To Win the Malware Arms Race? 155

Posted by Soulskill from the not-you-and-not-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes: We've been in a malware arms race since the 1990s. Malicious hackers keep building new viruses, worms, and trojan horses, while security vendors keep building better detection and removal algorithms to stop them. Botnets are becoming more powerful, and phishing techniques are always improving — but so are the mitigation strategies. There's been some back and forth, but it seems like the arms race has been pretty balanced, so far. My question: will the balance continue, or is one side likely to take the upper hand over the next decade or two? Which side is going to win? Do you imagine an internet, 20 years from now, where we don't have to worry about what links we click or what attachments we open? Or is it the other way around, with threats so hard to block and DDoS attacks so rampant that the internet of the future is not as useful as it is now?
Media

The Current State of Linux Video Editing 223

Posted by Soulskill from the stop-motion-tux dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The VFX industry has for most of the last 30 years been reliant on Macs and Windows machines for video editing, primarily because all of the Linux-based FOSS tools have been less than great. This is a shame, because all of the best 3D and 2D tools, other than video, are entrenched in the Linux environment and perform best there. The lack of decent video editing tools on Linux prevents every VFX studio from becoming a Linux-only shop. That being said, there are some strides being made to bridge this gap. What setup do you use? What's still missing?

Comment Two distinct disciplines (Score 2, Interesting) 609

by amn108 (#31608336) Attached to: Math Skills For Programmers — Necessary Or Not?

...which often benefit from a fruitful relationship. That said, I would point out that in my experience programming and mathematics are two distinct disciplines, and neither requires the other. You really can be a professional programmer without knowing anything beyond the most basic arithmetics.

Programming is application of pure logic, the latter isolated from the all but basic mathematical concepts. Mathematics is application of logic in a specific manner which springs from simple arithmetics and has evolved into own world, not in the one of the most important "worlds" we have.

One important remark would be that programming is often APPLICATION of mathematics, which is one case where the two disciplines cannot, for a time being, be separated. In that case, one obviously needs a programmer who is also a good mathematician.

Also, obviously, given two programmers with equal programming skills, pick one with the better math skills over the other, if no other qualities affect the choice. It is like picking any other job candidate - you pick one with more qualifications, even if these apply only remotely to the field of work the company does. And since mathematics is a close cousin here, the choice should be obvious.

Comment Re:It's pretty amazing (Score 3, Interesting) 148

by Chakra5 (#31608156) Attached to: New Ancient Human Identified

Apes have intelligence and hands, but lack effective communication due to the inability to control vocalization ( like birds ).

I would say that Apes have quite effective communication as do many creatures...it's just not (as) vocal. Vocal communication may be _more_ effective in many ways, but even a simple house cat does a hell of a lot more than meow if you know what to look for.

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