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Submission + - Antares rocke explodes on launch 1

Submitted by sneakyimp
sneakyimp writes: The Antares rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corporation exploded on launch due to a "catastrophic anomaly" after a flawless countdown. No injuries are reported and all personnel are accounted for. According to the audio stream hosted by local news affiliate WTVR's website, the Cygnus spacecraft contained classified crypto technology and efforts are being made to cordon off the wreckage are. Additionally interviews of personnel and witness reports are to be limited to appropriate government agencies so that an accident report can be generated. This accident is likely to have a detrimental effect on the stock price of Orbital Sciences Corp, traded on the NYSE. The Antares rocket's engines are based on old soviet designs from the 60s. While this is sure to be a blow to NASA due to the cost, it may well boost the fortunes of their chief competitor, SpaceX. Both companies were recently awarded resupply contracts by NASA.

Submission + - WSJ: Prepare to hang up the phone - forever (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon Communications are lobbying states, one by one, to hang up the plain, old telephone system, what the industry now calls POTS--the copper-wired landline phone system whose reliability and reach made the U.S. a communications powerhouse for more than 100 years. Is landline obsolete, and should be immune from grandparents era social protection?

Comment Re:Beer. (Score 1) 400

by tocs (#46611711) Attached to: The 3D Economy — What Happens When Everyone Prints Their Own Shoes?
The giant manufactures are not going to go out of business because of 3D printing. 3D printing might, though, give certain types of businesses a little competition.

Craft beers have not killed off major breweries but they have an impact on the economy. Craft Beer The Craft Beer Boom Added $34 Billion To The Economy Last Year

Comment No plastic soap dishes yet. (Score 1) 400

by tocs (#46611323) Attached to: The 3D Economy — What Happens When Everyone Prints Their Own Shoes?
I took a look at Etsy and I do not see any plastic soap dishes yet. There are a few 3D printed things made from plastic, metals, and ceramics (blatant self promotion). Businesses like Shapeways and Ponoko are making high end 3D printing more accessible. Companies like Pololu and Sparkfun are making easer to build the tools. Businesses like and Nervous Systems are taking advantage of the sort of low hanging fruit type opportunities.

The 3D printing hype is a little optimistic in ways but there is more to the notion of small scale production than 3D printing. CNC machines are very main stream in industry and the cost is well within the reach of Middle America. The cost of automation is coming down and is much more accessible than it used to be.

I would also like to see a move away from big box stores. It would be nice for a change to be able to walk into a store (camera shop, hardware store, and other more or less specialty stores) and talk to some one that knows what they are talking about.

Submission + - NSA quantum compute effort disclosed 2

Submitted by sumoinsanity
sumoinsanity writes: Schrödinger's cat is "probably" still in the bag as disclosed by the Washington Post. Perhaps it is both disturbing and reassuring as discussed here. The reassuring part is that PKI is still OK when done properly as the NSA desires to break it with Quantum Crypto. The disturbing bit is that it is perhaps just a matter of time before PKI succumbs and our private parts are out there for all to see :-|

Comment Re:Its *not* $634M - $1.2 billion contract to Serc (Score 1) 365

by tocs (#45133521) Attached to: Buried In the Healthcare.gov Source: "No Expectation of Privacy"
I do not know much about the new health care laws. Certainly, I have no idea what the costs are going to be. So, my question is how does this story, Obamacare glitches give paper applications new life fit into the picture. It sounds a little like the health care program is not going to cost so much as the infrastructure and bureaucracy to support it.

From the link above:
"The Obama administration has been prepared for a crush of paper. Over the summer, it awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Serco, which says it expects to process 6.2 million paper applications in the health law’s first open enrollment period running through the end of March."

Submission + - Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics (simonsfoundation.org)

Submitted by Lee_Dailey
Lee_Dailey writes: Physicists have discovered a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.

“This is completely new and very much simpler than anything that has been done before,” said Andrew Hodges, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University who has been following the work.

Submission + - Linux health given the reveletion of NSA crypto-subverting attacks? 4

Submitted by deepdive
deepdive writes: I have a basic question. What is the privacy/security health of the Linux kernel (and indeed other FOSS OS's) given all the recent stories about the NSA going in and deliberately subverting various parts of the privacy/security sub-systems. Basically, can one still sleep soundly thinking that the most recent latest/greatest ubuntu/opensuse/what-have-you distro she/he downloaded is still pretty safe. Or do people need to get a little worried and start burning some extra night oil over this?

Submission + - Plants communicate using fungi (bytesizebio.net)

Submitted by Shipud
Shipud writes: In response to aphid attacks, some plants produce chemicals that repel the aphids and attract wasps, the aphids' natural enemies. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen have shown that plants attacked by aphids can communicate that information to neighboring plants via existing networks of fungi in the soil. Thus fungal symbiosis with plants is shown to be taken one step further: not only do they provide nutrients to plants, they also function as communication hardware.

Submission + - Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash (wired.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 “no” voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 “yes” voters.

Comment Re:It's A Start (Score 1) 362

by tocs (#44381923) Attached to: NSA Still Funded To Spy On US Phone Records
The fight in congress is over. If a few votes are needed to pass some bill some one in the executive branch talks to some one in the NSA that talks to a buddy at Booz Allen. The buddy at Booz Allen takes a few minutes to look at the list that he has compiled for this very purposes picks out a few names (5 or 6 of the 435 represenatives that can be bought, sold, or blackmailed) and give them to the guy at the NSA (adding you "owe me a beer for this").

The guy at Booz Allen looks forward to the beer (maybe he will buy a round, he has a good paying job) and gets back to work feeding information to others at Booz Allen and the rest of the Carlyle Group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton#Political_contributions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton#Business
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton#Government

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How To Begin Simple Robotics As a Hobby?

Submitted by nedko.m
nedko.m writes: I would describe myself as more of a "software guy" rather than somebody who likes to play with hardware much, but I've wanted to start doing basic robotics projects as a hobby for quite a while now. However, I was never sure where to start from and what the very first steps should be in order to get more familiar with the hardware aspects of robotics. For instance, I would like to start off with a simple soccer robot. Any suggestions on what low-budget parts should I obtain, which would provide me, subsequently, extensibility to a bit more elaborate projects?

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Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while you'd run out of air to push against.

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