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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for takyon

The South African Center for High Performance Computing's (SA-CHPC) Ninth Annual National Meeting was held Nov. 30 - Dec. 4, 2015, at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) International Convention Center in Pretoria, SA. The award-winning venue was the perfect location to host what has become a popular industry, regional and educational showcase.

With the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) being built in the great Karoo region, implications for SA and the HPC industry have captured the attention of a broad range of stakeholders. SKA will be the world's biggest radio telescope, and the most ambitious technology project ever funded. With an expected 50-year lifespan, SKA Phase One construction is scheduled to begin in 2018, and early science and data generation will follow by 2020.

With only a few years in which to prepare for SKA, it's not surprising that the CHPC conference has begun to feature in-depth data science and network infrastructure content, in addition to the meeting's traditional HPC tutorials, workshops, plenaries, and student programs. Once again, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) HPC and Industry Forums were co-located with the CHPC meeting. An increased number of conference attendees from data science and high-speed network occupations added diversity in terms of gender, discipline and nationalities represented. All things considered, the annual CHPC meeting provides a wealth of learning opportunities, and brings professional networking to an emerging region of the HPC world.

Source: http://www.hpcwire.com/2016/03/01/south-africa-maps-hpc-future/

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

While many VPN providers say they do not log their users' activities in order to protect anonymity, it's not often their claims get tested in the wild. However, a criminal complaint filed by the FBI this week notes that a subpoena sent to Private Internet Access resulted in no useful data being revealed about a suspected hoaxer.

...

"Our company was subpoenaed by the FBI for user activity logs relating to this matter," London Trust Media Executive Chairman Andrew Lee informs TorrentFreak.

"After scrutinizing the validity of the subpoena and confirming it, we restated as we always do the content of our privacy policy and then we notified the agent that we do not log any user activity. The agent confirmed his understanding of our company's policy and position and then pursued alternative leads.

"This report makes it clear that PIA does not log user activity and we continue to stand by our commitment to our users."

This definitely makes me glad of my choice of VPN providers.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-providers-no-logging-claims-tested-in-fbi-case-160312/

Original Submission

bitstream writes:

The C code library "libotr" that implements the Off-the-Record (OTR) protocol has a vulnerability CVE-2016-2851. The library is used in many secure instant messengers such as Pidgin, ChatSecure, Adium and Kopete.

The library and the applications that use it could be exploited by attackers to crash an app running on your local machine using libotr or execute remote code. The bug is fixed in libotr v4.1.1.

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports:

Each year, the global egg industry kills billions of male baby chicks because only female hens lay eggs — but CSIRO scientists say they have now come up with a solution to this major ethical issue.

Chicks are bred by hatchery companies who sell the day-old animals to farmers — but before the producers receive the fluffy little chicks, they are sorted by sex.
Female chickens will grow to become hens and lay eggs until they are about 80 weeks old.
But Pete Bedwell, the editor of industry magazine Poultry Digest, said the useless males were destroyed shortly after they hatched.
...
"A day-old chick is extraordinarily cute and unfortunately that is a factor, it's killing Bambi."

Tim Doran and Mark Tizard work at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong.
Dr Tizard said an embryo could be micro-injected and a green fluorescent protein gene placed on the male chromosome.

"We're marking the chromosome that says become male. When you get to breeding to produce the birds that will go on to lay eggs, the mark follows the males and not the females."

[Continues...]

takyon writes:

A new craze is sweeping the nation, and Crayola is happy about it:

The amateur artists can be found coloring in airport lounges, doctor's office waiting rooms and while they watch TV shows at home. They are forming coloring meet-up groups at libraries and coffee shops so they can chit-chat as they doodle. Coloring books for adults — a genre once considered little more than a novelty — are suddenly a big business, a bright spot in the financial results of publishers and retailers alike. Nielsen Bookscan estimates that some 12 million were sold in 2015, a dramatic jump from the 1 million sold the previous year.

Whether it is a short-lived fad remains to be seen. The new generation of books are typically filled with intricate black-and-white illustrations that are art themselves. While many find the act of coloring to be a calming distraction from hours spent tapping, swiping and staring at screens, some early adopters aren't exactly hooked. Several reviewers on Amazon.com found the need to stay in the lines to be anything but soothing. "Most of the pages are full of pictures that are so small I can hardly see the details to color them, which causes more stress than if I hadn't tried to color in the first place," wrote one reviewer of a popular coloring book on Amazon.

While adult coloring book sales have escalated in the United States in the past year, experts say the catalyst for the craze was the work of Scottish author Johanna Basford, whose 2013 title, "Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book," began burning up bestseller lists with its detailed images of topiaries and flowers, and its "Where's Waldo"-esque challenge to find hidden items in the elaborate illustrations.

Amazing. Is it time for an adult coloring book oriented nexus on SoylentNews?

Here's some fancy Google search data about the trend.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Previously: Google's AlphaGo Takes on South Korean Go Champion; Wins First Match

After a one day break following the second match, AlphaGo has defeated Go champion Lee Se-dol 9d for a third time, winning overall in the best out of 5 competition. From the BBC:

"AlphaGo played consistently from beginning to the end while Lee, as he is only human, showed some mental vulnerability," one of Lee's former coaches, Kwon Kap-Yong, told the AFP news agency.

[...] After losing the second match to Deep Mind, Lee Se-dol said he was "speechless" adding that the AlphaGo machine played a "nearly perfect game". The two experts who provided commentary for the YouTube stream of for the third game said that it had been a complicated match to follow. They said that Lee Se-dol had brought his "top game" but that AlphaGo had won "in great style".

Google DeepMind has won $1 million in prize money which will be donated to charities, including UNICEF and Go-related organizations.

GoGameGuru coverage for the second and third matches.

Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search (DOI: 10.1038/nature16961)

[Lee Se-dol did triumph over AlphaGo in the 4th match. -Ed.]

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HughPickens.com writes:

Sites like Facebook and Instagram are now baked into the world of today's families. Many, if not most, new parents post images of their newborn online within an hour of birth, and some parents create social media accounts for the children themselves — often to share photos and news with family, although occasionally in the pursuit of "Instafame" for their fashionably clad, beautifully photographed sons and daughters. Now KJ Dell'Antonia writes in The New York Times about the growing disconnect between parents and their children.

The one surprising rule children want their parents to know: Don't post anything about me on social media without asking me. "As these children come of age, they're going to be seeing the digital footprint left in their childhood's wake," says Stacey Steinberg. "While most of them will be fine, some might take issue with it." Alexis Hiniker studied 249 parent-child pairs distributed across 40 states and found about three times more children than parents thought there should be rules about what parents shared on social media. "Twice as many children as parents expressed concerns about family members oversharing personal information about them on Facebook and other social media without permission," says co-author Sarita Schoenebeck. "Many children said they found that content embarrassing and felt frustrated when their parents continued to do it."

When researchers asked kids what technology rules they wished their parents would follow — a less common line of inquiry — the answers fell into seven general categories:

1. Be present — Children felt there should be no technology at all in certain situations, such as when a child is trying to talk to a parent.
2. Child autonomy — Parents should allow children to make their own decisions about technology use without interference.
3. Moderate use — Parents should use technology in moderation and in balance with other activities.
4. Supervise children — Parents should establish and enforce technology-related rules for children's own protection.
5. Not while driving — Parents should not text while driving or sitting at a traffic light.
6. No hypocrisy — Parents should practice what they preach, such as staying off the Internet at mealtimes.
7. No oversharing — Parents shouldn't share information online about their children without explicit permission.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) rules on Wi-Fi router firmware are having an effect on the market:

Network gear maker TP-Link will no longer allow people to install customized firmware on its Wi-Fi routers in the US – and the FCC is to blame. In a brief statement and FAQ posted this week, TP-Link – which is based in Shenzhen, China – said the FCC's revised rules on radio-based equipment makes user reprogrammable firmware illegal in America, and therefore it cannot sell in the US routers that can be re-flashed by their owners.

"Devices sold in the United States will have firmware and wireless settings that ensure compliance with local laws and regulations related to transmission power," TP-Link said. "As a result of these necessary changes, users are not able to flash the current generation of open-source, third-party firmware."

[...] The FCC earlier backed off a bit on the matter, but maintains it will not allow devices that can be re-flashed to operate outside authorized radio frequency bands. TP-Link, however, said that the FCC rules as they stand will not allow it to offer people the ability to reprogram their router firmware.

"The FCC requires all manufacturers to prevent users from having any direct ability to change RF [radio frequency] parameters (frequency limits, output power, country codes, etc)," TP-Link stated. "In order to keep our products compliant with these implemented regulations, TP-LINK is distributing devices that feature country-specific firmware."

Previously: New FCC Rules Could Ban WiFi Router Firmware Modification
FCC Clarifies Position on WiFi Routers: Okay to Modify OS but Not Radio Firmware

Original Submission

n1 writes:

The Intercept reports:

During an appearance on MSNBC this afternoon, Hillary Clinton credited President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, with starting a "national conversation" on HIV/AIDS.

[...] Clinton's telling of HIV/AIDS history doesn't align with the facts. President Reagan waited seven years to address the HIV/AIDS crisis, even as thousands of Americans died from the disease. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the administration's surgeon general, said the president dragged his feet on the issue "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." Koop said their position was that AIDS victims were "only getting what they justly deserve."

In 1985 the Reagans' friend Rock Hudson, then dying of AIDS, traveled to Paris in a desperate attempt to be treated by a French military doctor. As BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner reported last year, Hudson's publicist sent the Reagan White House a telegram begging for help in getting Hudson moved to a French military hospital where the doctor could treat him. Nancy Reagan personally saw and rejected the request.

After the story gained some attention on social media and online news sources:

At 4:24 PM EST, Clinton tweeted out a short statement walking back her praise for the Reagans, saying that she "misspoke" about their record on HIV/AIDS. The statement was similar to one tweeted around an hour and a half earlier by LGBT rights organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president Chad Griffin. The HRC endorsed Clinton without asking its membership list to approve of the endorsement.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A rare Walt Whitman letter, written on Jan. 21, 1866 on behalf of a dying soldier, has been discovered in the National Archives by a team digitizing the pension files of Civil War widows:

Pvt. Robert N. Jabo, of the 8th New Hampshire infantry, was dying of tuberculosis in Washington's Harewood Hospital and needed to write to his family. The Civil War had been over for months. Most soldiers had gone home. And Jabo's wife and six children were no doubt wondering where he was. But he was sick and illiterate. So a cheerful, bearded man who regularly visited hospitalized soldiers offered to write a letter for him.

"My dear wife," it began, "you must excuse me for not having written. . . . have not been very well." The letter explained that it was penned by "a friend who is now sitting by my side." And in a postscript, the friend identified himself: "Walt Whitman." The rare Whitman "soldier letter," one of only three known to exist, was discovered last month by a National Archives volunteer who is part of a team preparing Civil War widows' pension files to be digitized and placed online.

[...] Whitman, the American poet, journalist and essayist, was known for making the rounds of the local hospitals, where he would dispense snacks and money. He would also sit with wounded and dying soldiers and write letters for them. "I do a good deal of this, of course, writing all kinds, including love letters," Whitman wrote in a dispatch for The New York Times in 1864. "Many sick and wounded soldiers have not written home to parents, brothers, sisters, and even wives . . . for a long, long time," he wrote. "Some are poor writers, some cannot get paper . . . many . . . dread to worry the folks at home — the facts about them are so sad to tell."

The soldier died 11 months later, and the letter was inserted into his pension file to prove that his illness was related to his military service. The soldier's wife ended up receiving her $12/month war widow's pension seven years after she applied. The full letter, from the National Archives:

[Continues:]

BM Suppository writes:

id Software is well known for publicly releasing the source code of its old first-person-shooter games. Now Croteam is joining the club by releasing the source code of the engine of the very first Serious Sam game. It's the very same engine that the company used for Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter and The Second Encounter.

Croteam's Vyacheslav Nikitenko, who worked on the source code and prepared Serious Engine v.1.10 for this release, had this to say: "Historically, this version of Serious Engine is very important for Croteam and for me personally. I created several mods for Serious Sam back in the day, before even starting the work on the source code, and it was a great tool for learning. And it's even better today! Obviously, Serious Engine v1.10 won't produce top-notch graphics, but the source code is very well commented, easy to modify, and there are lots of user generated mods out there. This version has everything you need to build your own game – or just experiment. If you're looking to get started, just download the files from GitHub and head over to SeriousZone, it has a great community and lots of tutorials."

Happy hacking!

Original Submission

legont writes:

Reuters reports:

Federal Reserve... I guess it is where the money is.

Additional Coverage also on Reuters.

Original Submission

mendax writes:

Ars has a story about a new software project that could be a solution (temporarily at least) to the problem of government forcing companies to turn over signing keys. From the article:

Cothority, a new software project designed to make secret backdoored software updates nearly impossible, is offering to help Apple ensure that any secret court orders to backdoor its software cannot escape public scrutiny.

Currently, when Apple or any software maker issues a software update, they sign the update with their encryption keys. But those keys can be stolen, and a government could coerce the company to sign a backdoored software update for a targeted subset of end users—and do so in secret.

Cothority decentralises the signing process, and scales to thousands of cosigners. For instance, in order to authenticate a software update, Apple might require 51 percent of 8,000 cosigners distributed around the world.

The article does, however, point out:

Cothority can't defend against a "bug door" slipped into iOS by, say, an undercover NSA employee working for Apple. Nor can it prevent the government from coercing Apple to backdoor all iOS devices.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Fun project, but perhaps one key design flaw: automatic beer dispenser, but no bathroom...

A space where a guy might retreat to in order to have some time to himself, tinker on some personal project or indulge in other masculine rituals is colloquially called a "man cave" (though apparently, women can have an equal-opportunity rejoinder with the "she shed").

Wanting to build a more high-tech version of the classic man cave, New Zealander Jono Williams built this futuristic, solar-powered, smartphone-app-controlled micro-home. It's modern-looking, has an incredible panoramic view, and conveniently comes with a beer dispenser, hidden in its custom-designed couch. Take a tour of this incredible retreat with Living Big In A Tiny House:

Original Submission

hemocyanin writes:

DST is this weekend and I'm already grumpy about it. For good reason: Daylight Saving Time is hot garbage:

When Benjamin Franklin proposed Daylight Saving Time — he invented it — it was a joke. These days, it's more like a practical joke we play on ourselves every single year. It's time to end this dumb prank once and for all.

[...] Proponents of DST will tell you that it saves energy. This is because a study in the 1970s found a 1 percent benefit to energy use in Daylight Saving Time. You may notice, though, that the 1970s are now 40 years ago, and energy consumption has changed somewhat in the interim. More recent research shows no difference in energy usage in places where it doesn't go into effect, compared to places observing DST. A few studies suggest Daylight Saving Time actually means more energy is used, rather than less.

[...] Several major disasters have also been chalked up to sleep deprivation, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. [...] a paper presented at the American Economic Association showed that traffic accidents rise by about 6 percent nationally for the next six days after we move our clocks forward.

[Ed Note: Daylight Saving Time starts tonight at 2:00am in the majority of the United States. Please check your local listings for your beginning and end dates and times.]

Original Submission