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An Anonymous Coward writes with an article from The Guardian:

Online dating proved to be a rote, tedious process. I would click around aimlessly for a few hours after a long day spent grading. When I actually did stumble across a woman I liked, she usually hadn’t been online for months, had a full mailbox, or would simply ignore my message.

Whenever I came to him with a particularly sticky physics problem, my adviser Mike was fond of saying: “Getting a PhD in physics doesn’t mean anything, really. Ultimately what you’re doing here is earning a degree in quantitative problem solving. Any kind of problem.” With that spirit and a notebook, I did what any physicist would do. I fired up MATLAB, and started building my model.

My model visualized online dating as a series of Bernoulli trials, a type of randomized experiment where two people’s first impressions of each other could be modeled via a pair of biased coin flips. Only if both parties land on heads (ie “you’re hot!”) do they go out.'

darkfeline writes:

We had another article that suggested that the Oscars do more harm than good, which reminded me of this one. Namely, that the voters who decide on the animation awards might be woefully unfit for making such decisions.

The article states it best:

Imagine a world where the most high-profile animation awards were selected by individuals who had neither working knowledge nor appreciation of the animation art form.

In this world, a voter would pick the best animated short based solely on whether the film contained a dog in it or not.

In this world, a voter would identify the Irish film Song of the Sea and the Japanese film The Tale of The Princess Kaguya as “Chinese fuckin’ things,” not watch either film, and still cast a vote for the best animated feature of the year.

In this world, a voter would give a visual effects award to a film not because the film’s vfx met a certain standard of achievement, but “just to kind of recognize it.”

Keep in mind that this is just a informal survey of seven voters, but perhaps it indicates a larger problem?

cmn32480 writes:

In a vote on the morning of Thursday, February 26, the FCC has approved Net Neutrality.

In a story on Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/fcc-votes-for-net-neutrality-a-ban-on-paid-fast-lanes-and-title-ii/) the FCC has voted to approve Net Neutrality and reclassify fixed and mobile broadband services under Title II as telecommunications services. As expected, the vote was along party lines.

It is expected that Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others will sue to overturn the decision.

What say you Soylentils, is the reclassification of these services under Title II a good thing?

takyon writes:

The BBC reports that three-person IVF will soon be legal in the United Kingdom. The procedure involves replacing mitochondrial DNA in an embryo from that of a second woman in order to eliminate deadly mitochondrial genetic disorders. Alana Saarinen was successfully conceived in the U.S. using the procedure back in 2000, but the FDA banned ooplasm transfer in 2001.

The UK has now become the first country to approve laws to allow the creation of babies from three people. The modified version of IVF has passed its final legislative obstacle after being approved by the House of Lords. The fertility regulator will now decide how to license the procedure to prevent babies inheriting deadly genetic diseases. The first baby could be born as early as 2016. A large majority of MPs in the House of Commons approved "three-person babies" earlier this month. The House of Lords tonight rejected an attempt to block the plan by a majority of 232. Estimates suggest 150 couples would be suitable to have babies through the technique each year.

Additional coverage at Wired UK and The Guardian.

Related: UK Parliament Gives Three-"Source" IVF the Go-Ahead.

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Karl Bode over at techdirt brings the story of how things should work in the business world.

Graphics card powerhouse Nvidia hasn't been having very much fun lately. First, the company took an Internet wide beating from gamers after selling a 4 GB graphics card (the GTX 970) that wasn't really a 4 GB graphics card, resulting in the $300+ purchase choking on high-end resolutions (or when using, say, Oculus Rift). After months of complaints and a false advertising suit, the company finally took to its official blog to acknowledge that the company "failed to communicate" its graphics card's limitations to the marketing department and "externally to reviewers at launch." Yeah, whoops a daisy.

Perhaps a bigger deal was Nvidia's December decision to roll out mobile graphics card drivers that prevented paying customers from overclocking the cards they own. The ability for consumers to do as they see fit with their own hardware, Nvidia claimed at the time, was a bug in the company's driver software that needed to be removed for the safety of the consumer (read: Nvidia got tired of processing returns and calls from idiots who didn't understand things pushed to work harder get hotter than ever when in confined spaces).

The good news is that after being absolutely pummeled in the media for weeks, Nvidia has issued a statement in its forums saying that the company has had a change of heart and will reintroduce the "bug":

"As you know, we are constantly tuning and optimizing the performance of your GeForce PC. We obsess over every possible optimization so that you can enjoy a perfectly stable machine that balances game, thermal, power, and acoustic performance. Still, many of you enjoy pushing the system even further with overclocking. Our recent driver update disabled overclocking on some GTX notebooks. We heard from many of you that you would like this feature enabled again. So, we will again be enabling overclocking in our upcoming driver release next month for those affected notebooks. If you are eager to regain this capability right away, you can also revert back to 344.75."

It's nice to see a company really listen to its customers once in a while.

"gewg_" writes:

The computer-aided design software packages (ECADs) available to electronics folks for creating schematics and printed circuit board layouts have long been an aggravation when trying to share data with someone who uses a package produced by a different vendor--due to proprietary file formats that are (apparently, purposely) incompatible.

Many years ago, Cadsoft's EAGLE was available as a demo that would do very limited PCB creation but which had unlimited ability to view/print already-created files. It was also cross-platform. For a short time, EAGLE-compatible files became a quasi-standard for amateurs and pros on a budget.

In 2006, however, Cadsoft got greedy and DRM'd their stuff so that it would lock you out of your work product under certain circumstances, as described by Markus Zingg on October 24. Cadsoft quickly lost what little luster it had in the community. CERN engineers are hoping to produce a package that will do the same job - but better.

More down the page...

AnonTechie writes:

European law enforcement agencies seized command-and-control servers used by Ramnit, a malware program that steals online banking credentials, FTP passwords, session cookies and personal files from victims.

Ramnit started out in 2010 as a computer worm capable of infecting EXE, DLL, HTM, and HTML files. However, over time it evolved into an information-stealing Trojan that’s distributed in a variety of ways.

Ramnit is capable of hijacking online banking sessions, stealing session cookies which can then be used to access accounts on various sites, copying sensitive files from hard drives, giving attackers remote access to infected computers and more.

Researchers from antivirus vendor Symantec described the malware program as “a fully-featured cybercrime tool” in a blog post Wednesday ( http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/ramnit-cybercrime-group-hit-major-law-enforcement-operation ) and said that it infected over 3.2 million computers over its five years of existence.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2889092/europol-and-security-vendors-disrupt-massive-ramnit-botnet.html

frojack writes:

Gizmorati.com reports that a Japanese university professor is building Japan’s first anonymous web platform for whistleblowers. But the professor isn't sure journalists will even pay attention to it.

The reason:

Even if Professor Hatta’s service manages to attract individuals bold enough to blow the whistle, there’s the question of whether or not Japan’s lapdog press will follow through with reporting their leaks. Japanese news outlets are notoriously reluctant to cover controversial news. In 2011, for example, Michael Woodford, the first first non-Japanese CEO at Olympus, was fired after uncovering attempts to hide US$ 1.5 billion in losses. What was front-page news across much of the western world was barely mentioned in Japan.

When it comes on line Whistleblowing.jp will provide an "untraceable" way for journalists to receive leaked information without fear of compromising a source – of paramount importance since the passage of Japan’s so-called State Secrets Law in December 2013. The law has stiff penalties for "government leakers" as well as the journalists that encourage those leaks.

Whistleblowing is only only accessible via TOR. Then information is delivered to the journalists the leaker selects via GlobalLeaks.org adding another layer of indirection. Professor Hatta says he does not fully trust TOR. No actual leaks will be published on the Whistleblowing.jp site itself. It merely serves as a conduit. And all information transits the system fully encrypted with the key of the journalist who is the intended receiver.

The professor does expect spam, but figures there might be a few important leaks hidden in the spam. No mention is made of any method of detecting entrapment attempts by authorities. Journalists may have to take hint from US police agencies and practice parallel construction.

AnonTechie writes:

In a press release late Tuesday night ( http://www.gemalto.com/press/Pages/Gemalto-presents-the-findings-of-its-investigations-into-the-alleged-hacking-of-SIM-card-encryption-keys.aspx ), Gemalto, one of the world’s largest SIM manufacturers, denied recent allegations that the company had a vast number of sensitive SIM encryption keys stolen by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

The company's statement addressed a number of confidential documents from 2010 which were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published last week by The Intercept. The documents indicated that a task force organized by the NSA and GCHQ broke into Gemalto employee e-mails and found ways to steal the encryption keys corresponding to the SIMs that Gemalto manufactured and sent to mobile carriers. Such a hack would allow state-sponsored spies to decrypt traffic coming to a fake cell tower and thereby watch voice, data, and text messages without a wiretap.

But Gemalto says that after a “thorough investigation,” it concluded that although the company did experience hacks in 2010, it suffered none that could have resulted in the loss of the vast number of SIM encryption keys that The Intercept article referenced. And, the company continued, if some keys had been stolen, then technology pertaining to the 3G and 4G networks that Gemalto builds SIMs for would have prevented substantial hacking. The company believed 2G networks were the only ones that would have truly suffered under such a hack.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/gemalto-says-reports-of-its-hack-by-the-nsa-and-gchq-were-greatly-exaggerated/

AnonTechie writes:

On Friday, September 26, 2014, a telecommunications contractor named Brian Howard woke early and headed to Chicago Center, an air traffic control hub in Aurora, Illinois, where he had worked for eight years. He had decided to get stoned and kill himself, and as his final gesture he planned to take a chunk of the US air traffic control system with him.

Court records say Howard entered Chicago Center at 5:06 am and went to the basement, where he set a fire in the electronics bay, sliced cables beneath the floor, and cut his own throat. Paramedics saved Howard's life, but Chicago Center, which controls air traffic above 10,000 feet for 91,000 square miles of the Midwest, went dark. Airlines canceled 6,600 flights; air traffic was interrupted for 17 days. Howard had wanted to cause trouble, but he hadn't anticipated a disruption of this magnitude. He had posted a message to Facebook saying that the sabotage “should not take a large toll on the air space as all comms should be switched to the alt location.” It's not clear what alt location Howard was talking about, because there wasn't one. Howard had worked at the center for nearly a decade, and even he didn't know that.

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/air-traffic-control/

takyon writes:

The ACLU has released documents obtained from Florida public records requests to law enforcement agencies that give a more complete account of the use of Stingray surveillance technology. "Stingrays, also known as 'cell site simulators,' or 'IMSI catchers,' are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers and force phones in the area to broadcast information that can be used to identify and locate them." The Register reports:

Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have shown that US cops are using the FBI's Stingray mobile phone tracking tech much more often than first thought. And the Feds are going to great lengths to hide the full extent of its use.

"The documents paint a detailed picture of police using an invasive technology - one that can follow you inside your house - in many hundreds of cases and almost entirely in secret," said Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney at the ACLU. "The secrecy is not just from the public, but often from judges who are supposed to ensure that police are not abusing their authority. Partly relying on that secrecy, police have been getting authorization to use Stingrays based on the low standard of 'relevance,' not a warrant based on probable cause as required by the Fourth Amendment."

The ACLU requested information about Stingray use from three dozen Florida police departments and found out that the system has been in use in the Sunshine State since 2007 - much earlier than first thought. According to a May 2014 email, the Stingray system has been used in 1,835 cases in Florida, none of which were national-security related. More than a third of cases using the technology involved robbery, burglary, and theft, and the rest were largely "wanted persons" cases.

The documents also included details of a few specific cases where Stingrays have been used. In one, defense lawyers were able to use the FBI's reluctance to reveal details about the technology to get a sweetheart deal of a sentence for their clients.

Beryllium Sphere (r) writes:

Is anyone really happy with their email handling?

Slate author Chris Kirk got fed up, designed a workflow-based email client, and learned to code. He built on the open source ecosystem, of course.

The article is interesting for ideas about how to make email more usable, pointers to related projects, and what it was like for a non-programmer to try to create an application.

I wonder, though, if an adroit use of Gmail labels would have gotten him most of the way there.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/02/email_overload_building_my_own_email_app_to_reach_inbox_zero.html

frojack writes:

Tampa Bay News10 TV has a story about the loop holes in the E911 system that costs lives. It points the finger at State Government money-grabs, silly procedures in 911 call centers, and arcane routing of 911 calls.

The story relates the death of a woman who was able to report her exact position to 911, but the call center couldn't locate her because she was just across a county line. She drowned in her car which had gone into a pond.

More past the break:

slash2phar writes:

After more than a decade of controversy and debate, the stage is set for Thursday morning’s vote on new FCC Net neutrality rules. If all goes as hoped for, the commission will reclassify broadband as a “common carrier,” a public utility like telephones, power and water — a major step toward insuring an open, free and fair Internet for everyone.

More at http://billmoyers.com/2015/02/25/fccs-net-neutrality-vote-set-thursday-morning/

Live stream from FCC will be available online, assuming you have a connection with sufficient bandwidth : )

Ars Technica has an article on some potentially negative implications if the new rules pass.

Anti-Title II groups are arguing that utility status will bring new taxes that would cost customers billions of dollars a year...the annual increase in federal fees per household will be roughly $17. When you add it all up, reclassification could add a whopping $15 billion in new user fees.

The Consumerist also has a "what you need to know" piece.

"gewg_" writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

As part of its first major retrofit in 30 years, two custom-designed wind turbines have started generating power for the Eiffel Tower. Located above the World Heritage Site's second level, about 400 feet off the ground, the sculptural wind turbines are now producing 10,000 kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to the power used by the commercial areas of the Eiffel Tower's first floor. The vertical axis turbines, which are capable of harnessing wind from any direction, were also given a custom paint job to further incorporate them into the iconic monument's 1,000-foot frame. At the same time they bring the image of the 1889 tower firmly into the 21st Century.

[...]In addition to the wind turbines, the renovation includes energy efficient LED lighting, high-performance heat pumps, a rainwater recovery system, and 10 square meters of rooftop solar panels on the visitor pavilion.

There was no required renewable energy target for the Eiffel Tower's facelift, but the project developers see it as a major landmark in Paris' climate plan. The city's plan(PDF) aims for a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 25 percent drop in energy consumption, and for 25 percent of energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.