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Comment Song selection method? (Score 2) 2

I'd be interested in finding out how they selected songs. Previous decades' music seems to get better over time as the bad stuff gets forgotten and only the best gets replayed. That process hasn't had time to happen yet for the 2010's hence the poll results.

Did the researchers control for this by picking randomly from the full range of songs released in previous decades, or only from those still readily available or in circulation (ie. the good stuff)?

Submission + - UK Government Proposes 'Licence To Hack' As Encryption Proves Hard To Defeat (thetimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Times reports (paywalled) that the Investigatory Powers Bill promised by the UK government over the summer is likely to be presented to parliament next month, and that it will contain 'dizzying' powers for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to hack the devices of individuals under investigation, with the permission of the home secretary. An implementation of the Wilson Doctrine will mean that British MPs will not be subject to these powers in the same way as other citizens. According to a digital evidence expert that the Times interviewed, the bill addresses the difficulty that the UK government is sharing with other nations in defeating encryption effectively. "Hacking is different from interception because it allows hackers to take control of the device, using it for surveillance and accessing data from the source, rather than simply intercepting them, which is becoming increasingly difficult."

Submission + - The NYPD's X-Ray Vans (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few years ago, we heard tales of vans outfitted by the U.S. government to hold giant X-ray scanners, which they'd use to drive around and inspect vehicles. Now, it turns out similar vans have made their way to police departments, including the NYPD. The police are unwilling to explain (PDF) how they're used, or how often. "A state court has already ruled that the NYPD has to turn over policies, procedures, and training manuals that shape uses of X-rays; reports on past deployments; information on the costs of the X-ray devices and the number of vans purchased; and information on the health and safety effects of the technology. But New York City is fighting on appeal to suppress that information and more, as if it is some kind of spy agency rather than a municipal police department operating on domestic soil, ostensibly at the pleasure of city residents."

Submission + - Bank's severance deal requires IT workers to be on call for two years (computerworld.com) 3

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: SunTrust Banks in Atlanta is laying off about 100 IT workers as it moves work offshore. But this layoff is unusual for what it is asking of the soon-to-be displaced workers: The bank's severance agreement requires terminated employees to remain available for two years to provide help if needed, including in-person assistance, and to do so without compensation. Many of the affected IT employees, who are now training their replacements, have years of experience and provide the highest levels of technical support. The proof of their ability may be in the severance requirement, which gives the bank a way to tap their expertise long after their departure. The bank's severance includes a "continuing cooperation" clause for a period of two years, where the employee agrees to "make myself reasonably available" to SunTrust "regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment at SunTrust."

Submission + - A Scientist Is Selling the Right to Name His Newly-Discovered Moth on eBay (vice.com)

Submitted by sarahnaomi
sarahnaomi writes: An entomologist has decided to use the platform to auction off the naming rights for a newly-discovered species of moth.

When a new species is discovered, the honor of naming it goes to whoever found it. However, Eric H. Metzler, an entomologist from the Wedge Entomological Foundation, decided to ask Western National Parks Association—who funded some of his research—to start an online auction and take the proceeds.

Submission + - Study questions scientific dating method

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A new study has raised questions about the methods scientists have used to date the late heavy bombardment in the early solar system.

A study of zircons from a gigantic meteorite impact in South Africa, now online in the journal Geology, casts doubt on the methods used to date lunar impacts. The critical problem, says lead author Aaron Cavosie, a visiting professor of geoscience and member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the fact that lunar zircons are âoeex situ," meaning removed from the rock in which they formed, which deprives geoscientists of corroborating evidence of impact. "While zircon is one of the best isotopic clocks for dating many geological processes," Cavosie says, "our results show that it is very challenging to use ex situ zircon to date a large impact of known age."

The problem is that the removal of the zircon from lunar rocks changes the data enough to make the dating unreliable. The method might work on Earth, but the dating done on Apollo samples can be questioned. This means that much of the supposed history of the solar system, centered on what planetary scientists call the late heavy bombardment, a period 4 billion years ago when the planets were being hit by innumerable impacts as they cleared the solar system of its dusty debris disk, might not have happened as dated from lunar samples. If so, our understanding of when that bombardment ended and life began to form on Earth might be considerably incorrect.

The solution? Get to the planets in person, where you can obtain many samples in situ and thus gather a much deeper understanding of the geology.

Submission + - Red Hat buys Ansible (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to VentureBeat Red Hat Inc is about to buy the company behind the automation and orchestration software Ansible, in a move seen as a good deal since Ansible, other than being almost universally expanding, is also used by Red Hat's own cloud and system platforms and could probably use some strong backing for the extra services it wishes to offer. The question remains whether this will have consequences in steering the future direction of the Python-based opensource platform itself (on github), one of the most trivial to implement (compared to cfengine, ever-changing puppet or Chef) yet very powerful, to directions more interesting to Red Hat.

Submission + - documents expose the inner workings of Obama's drone wars

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A little over 2-years-ago Edward Snowden leaked a giant batch of NSA documents, Chelsea Manning handed Wikileaks a pile of government secrets in 2010, and now another source has leaked an equally impressive cache of papers focusing on Obama's drone program. The Intercept published the documents covering the U.S.A.'s use of drones to kill targets. Perhaps most eye-opening is the disclosure that as much as 90% of attacks over a five month period hit the wrong targets. According to The Intercept: "When the Obama administration has discussed drone strikes publicly, it has offered assurances that such operations are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground and are authorized only when an 'imminent' threat is present and there is 'near certainty' that the intended target will be eliminated. Those terms, however, appear to have been bluntly redefined to bear almost no resemblance to their commonly understood meanings."

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