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Hugh Pickens writes:

NBC News reports that a man wanted in the killing of a woman — and who may have posted photos online of her body on 4chan with details of the crime — is believed to have led police in Portland, Oregon, on a high-speed chase but has now turned himself in. The slain woman was found in an apartment in Port Orchard, Washington. Police are investigating images of a naked woman with red marks around her neck that were shared anonymously on the online forum 4chan. The photos were accompanied by the message: "Turns out it’s way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies." When other users questioned the authenticity of the pictures, which have now been deleted, a reply said: "Check the news for Port Orchard, Washington, in a few hours. Her son will be home from school soon. He'll find her, then call the cops. I just wanted to share the pics before they find me." The Port Orchard Independent was among several local newspapers to quote police officers as saying the images appeared to have been posted before officers were called. Investigators said they were able to trace Kalac's cellphone. About 6:20 a.m. Tuesday, he sent two texts to a friend. According to the affidavit, the first read, "S--- is all f----d now. You'll see me in the news." The second read, "There will be no more me. ever, You'll read about it. That's all."

sudo rm -rf writes:

The International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reports

The landlocked European duchy has been called a “magical fairyland” for brand-name corporations seeking to drastically reduce tax bills.

Pepsi, IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their global tax bills while maintaining little presence in the tiny European duchy, leaked documents show.

These companies appear to have channeled hundreds of billions of dollars through Luxembourg and saved billions of dollars in taxes, according to a review of nearly 28,000 pages of confidential documents conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a team of more than 80 journalists from 26 countries.

The leaked documents can be found here.(requires flash)

Direct Link to Apple/iTunes 2011 tax return. (flash)

Blackmoore writes:

Ars Technica brings us - One man’s failed quest to buy wired Internet from TWC or Verizon. TWC got $10M in state broadband grants but won't extend service just anywhere.

Time Warner Cable’s (TWC) lines are a third of a mile from Walser’s house, and the company has received more than $10 million in state funding to bring broadband to underserved portions of New York over the past two years. But the company (which will be purchased by Comcast if the government approves the merger) told Walser they won’t do the construction unless he pays more than $20,000. That’s just to reimburse TWC for its troubles—the monthly access bill would be on top of that.

I guess I have a simple solution: Stop feeding the abusive providers.

AnonTechie writes:

You can count on Republicans in the next Congress to champion less regulation on issues that matter to tech -- particularly, overreaching privacy and cybersecurity rules.

But the GOP-controlled Congress of 2015 may be less likely to boost spending in areas like basic research, and supercomputing or high performance computing development. In some ways, the Republican win is good for tech, "if you think about the risk of over-regulation," said Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

But Republican control will raise questions about support for the tech economy through funding of science and research, education and training. "Those are going to be a lot weaker," said Atkinson. "I think they (the Senate) will put budget cutting ahead of investment."

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2843903/gop-takeover-in-congress-could-bode-ill-for-supercomputing-and-science.html

What does SN think about the Republican win in the elections ?

Blackmoore writes:

BoingBoing - EMERGENCY! Protest FCC sellout on net neutrality across the USA!

The Guardian - Net neutrality advocates to protest against 'hybrid' FCC solution in dozens of cities:

Evan from Fight for the Future writes, "Internet users! It's time to get angry and get active. The FCC just leaked their net neutrality proposal -- and it's TERRIBLE. After nearly 4 million people spoke out demanding strong net neutrality rules against Cable company censorship, throttling, and discrimination, the FCC is pushing rules that would explicitly open the door for that kind of abuse."

Also https://www.battleforthenet.com/:

Cable companies are famous for high prices and poor service. Several rank as the most hated companies in America. Now, they're attacking the Internet–their one competitor and our only refuge–with plans to charge websites arbitrary fees and slow (to a crawl) any sites that won't pay up. If they win, the Internet dies.

gewg_ writes:

Silviu Stahie at Softpedia reports

Someone had the curiosity to see what would happen in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (which is powered by the Unity desktop environment) if he opened 100 applications at once. That's usually more than enough to bring a powerful system down, but that's not the case with Ubuntu.

"When I went crazy enough to open all of my 100 apps (100 windows) on the desktop to see the performance hit on Ubuntu 14.04 with Unity. Nothing happened really, except that Launcher and Switcher got full. You can see the good smooth animation of Switcher icons. Beautiful!" wrote Ali Najafi on discourse.ubuntu.com.[1]

He did use a powerful Core-i7 2GHz CPU, which is not very expensive however, so it should be available to numerous users. With 100 apps open at once in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the processor didn't go above 50% and the RAM memory was filled at about 75% (out of 6GB). As you can see from the video he posted, everything is running quite smoothly, although that's one crowded Alt-Tab menu.

Silviu mentions Window's notoriously bad memory management. So, how many apps can Redmond's minions get running simultaneously? Anyone up to the challenge?

[1] All content is behind scripts.

hubie writes:

November 4 marked the 50th year since John Bell submitted one of the most famous papers in physics: On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox [PDF]. In this paper he addressed the paradox pointed out by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR) in their famous Gedanken experiment.

Quantum Mechanics (QM) does not permit one to simultaneously measure pairs of mutually non-commuting observables, i.e., if one precisely measures the spin of a particle on its x-axis, one cannot also know the spins on its y- and z-axes. EPR envisioned an experiment using entangled particles where one could simultaneously determine values for non-commuting observables and thus argued that this means QM is an incomplete theory and there must be yet unknown "hidden" variables that would make it complete (and on top of that, these hidden variables are local variables, meaning that there is no need for faster-than-light information transmission, also known as that spooky action at a distance ).

Bell's paper presented an inequality relationship that, if not satisfied, means for the EPR Gedanken experiment one must give up the idea of hidden variables or accept that spooky action at a distance. Bell's Inequality has laid the foundation of quantum information theory and quantum cryptography [PDF], given license to people to metaphysically run amok with QM, and fifty years later we're still arguing about what it really tells us about QM and what our experiments so far really mean. Some of the best explanations of Bell's work come from his own [PDF] words [PDF].

gewg_ writes:

From the WinBeta subforum of reboot.pro:

I'm Pierre Schweitzer, one of the ReactOS developers. This is a free operating system that aims to re-implement Windows, but this time with an open source license.

ReactOS now supports reading files from NTFS volume. This was a long awaited feature people were asking for. And here it is.

You can see what I'm talking about on the three pictures [included in the fine article].

Hugh Pickens writes:

A variety of debates ensue during discussions whether a given programming language is “the right tool for the job" and while some of these debates may appear to be tinged with an almost religious fervor, most people would agree that a programming language can impact not only the coding process, but also the properties of the resulting product. Now computer scientists at the University of California - Davis have published a study of the effect of programming languages on software quality using a very large data set from GitHub that analyzed 729 projects with 80 Million SLOC by 29,000 authors and 1.5 million commits in 17 languages. The large sample size allowed them to use a mixed-methods approach, combining multiple regression modeling with visualization and text analytics, to study the effect of language features such as static vs. dynamic typing, strong vs. weak typing on software quality. By triangulating findings from different methods, and controlling for confounding effects such as team size, project size, and project history, they report that language design does have a significant, but modest effect on software quality.

Most notably, it does appear that strong typing is modestly better than weak typing, and among functional languages, static typing is also somewhat better than dynamic typing. We also find that functional languages are somewhat better than procedural languages. It is worth noting that these modest effects arising from language design are overwhelm- ingly dominated by the process factors such as project size, team size, and commit size. However, we hasten to caution the reader that even these modest effects might quite possibly be due to other, intangible process factors, e.g., the preference of certain personality types for functional, static and strongly typed languages.

n1 writes:

The Guardian reports:

Theresa May has reportedly moved to quash an attempt by her cabinet colleague Sajid Javid to improve mobile phone coverage by warning that the plans could aid terrorists, according a leaked letter.

[...] May argues in the leaked internal Whitehall letter that Javid’s plans to end “not-spots”, by allowing customers to roam between rival networks, could aid criminals and terrorists. The Times reported that May’s objections centre around concerns that roaming would make it more difficult for the agencies to track suspects.

In the letter, extracts of which have been published in the Times, May says that national roaming “could have a detrimental impact on law enforcement, security and intelligence agency access to communications data and lawful intercept”.

Blackmoore writes:

EFF Fights for Common Sense, Again, in DMCA Rulemaking

Ridiculous Exemption Process Forces Consumers to Beg for Basic Rights

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed six exemption requests with the U.S. Copyright Office today, part of the elaborate, every-three-year process to right the wrongs put in place by the Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). EFF's requests received crucial assistance from the Organization for Transformative Works, the NYU Technology Law & Policy Clinic, attorney Marcia Hofmann, and former EFF intern Kendra Albert.

Two of EFF's requests this year are on behalf of people who need to access the software in cars so they can do basic things like repair, modify, and test the security of their vehicles. Because Section 1201 of the DMCA prohibits unlocking "access controls"—also known as digital rights management (DRM)—on the software, car companies can threaten anyone who needs to get around those restrictions, no matter how legitimate the reason.

At least someone is trying to reverse the loss. For the full petitions: https://www.eff.org/cases/2015-dmca-rulemaking

AnonTechie writes with an article from El Reg:

Security shortcomings in new cars could nurture a new branch of the infosec industry in much the same way that Windows' security failings gave rise to the antivirus industry 20 or so years ago, auto-security pioneers hope.

Former members of Unit 8200, the signals intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces, have banded together to create a start-up developing technology and services designed to protect connected cars from next generation hackers.

Argus Cyber Security has developed an intrusion prevention system "appliance" for cars instead of computers. The Israeli start-up is also offering consulting services to car makers, who it claims are waking up to the nascent threat.

Car thieves are already taking advantage of electronic car entry and ignition systems to steal cars. Recent reports suggest that insurers are refusing cover for keyless Range Rovers in London following the rise of targeted attacks on keyless cars.

An anonymous coward writes with an article from PandoDaily:

Nest plans to offer its smart thermostat to Irish consumers for free when they sign up for a two-year contract with Electric Ireland. Nest chief executive Tony Fadell said at the Web Summit in Dublin that the deal could put his company’s thermostats in up to 1.6 million homes, according to CNET, and claimed that similar deals would be announced for other countries in the future.

[...] Google is infamous for its ability to offer consumers products which are paid for not by their users but by the ads those users see. Its products are among the best in their categories, and when it’s free to use them, there’s little reason for consumers to pay for another service. Now Google is just applying that same logic to the real world — and it will probably work out for it just as well.

Even I’ve grown sick of hearing this sentiment, but it’s more relevant now than ever: If you aren’t the one paying for a service, you are the product.

mechanicjay writes:

OpenSUSE 13.2 has dropped. I've been busy the last few months and not been able to run a beta anywhere, but from the release notes, it looks like they've finally cleaned up some of the big warts from 13.1. These big ones include completing the re-factoring of YAST after the transition to Ruby and actually integrating different system tools with systemd. Having basically broken system management tools made living with 13.1 a bit of a pain for the last year or so. Major SUSE releases generally start to come together in the x.2 releases -- here's to the Green Lizard!

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Phys.org brings us news that the Coffee robusta tree's genome has been sequenced. Why does this matter? Well, unless you're anti-GMO or just anti-coffee:

Over the longer term, the identification of the coffee tree genome sequence opens up new possibilities for varietal improvement, knowledge of the specific functions of the genes (in particular those specific to coffee trees), the possibility of transferring results to other species, and refining diagnostic tools for the function of the plant.

It will facilitate the completion of applied projects, such as the selection or creation of coffee tree varieties with improved technological and/or qualitative characteristics; more resistant to environmental constraints and to bioagressors, such as for example orange leaf rust. In fact, this disease still has a considerable impact on coffee cultivation and the economy of small producer countries in Central America such as Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica. Lastly, it should help guide producers toward ecologically intensive agriculture.