Gmail Spam Filter Changes Bite Linus Torvalds

An anonymous reader points out The Register’s story that recent changes to the spam filters that Google uses to pare down junk in gmail evidently are a bit overzealous. Linus Torvalds, who famously likes to manage by email, and whose email flow includes a lot of mailing lists, isn’t happy with it. Ironically perhaps, it was only last week that the Gmail team blogged that its spam filter’s rate of false positives is down to less than 0.05 per cent. In his post, Torvalds said his own experience belies that claim, and that around 30 per cent of the mail in his spam box turned out not to be spam. “It’s actually at the point where I’m noticing missing messages in the email conversations I see, because Gmail has been marking emails in the middle of the conversation as spam. Things that people replied to and that contained patches and problem descriptions, ” Torvalds wrote. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Gmail Spam Filter Changes Bite Linus Torvalds

AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

An anonymous reader writes: In past years the AMD Catalyst Linux driver has yielded better performance if naming the executable “doom3.x86” or “compiz” (among other choices), but these days this application profile concept is made more absurd with more games coming to Linux but AMD not maintaining well their Linux application profile database. The latest example is by getting ~40% better performance by renaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Linux. If renaming the “csgo_linux” binary to “hl2_linux” for Half-Life 2 within Steam, the frame-rates suddenly increase across the board, this is with the latest Catalyst 15.7 Linux driver while CS:GO has been on Linux for nearly one year. Should driver developers re-evaluate their optimization practices for Linux? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

Japan’s population decline creates "housing glut"

Japan anticipates that falling birth rates and negligible immigration will result in population decline —as much as 1m a year. Millions of homes are already empty, reports Nomura Research , with a million in bad shape. Read the rest

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Japan’s population decline creates "housing glut"

Lockheed Martin buys helicopter maker Sikorsky

Don’t look now, but Lockheed Martin just became an even larger aerospace powerhouse. The aircraft maker has acquired helicopter maker Sikorsky (best known for the UH-60 Blackhawk) for $9 billion. The two have already been partners on programs like the MH-60, but this gives Lockheed its very own rotary-wing team. If a customer wants something that flies, the company will have it covered. The buyout is poised to close by late 2015 or early 2016, provided everything goes smoothly. The union might come at a stiff price, however. Lockheed says it’s conducting a “strategic review” of both its information systems group and a chunk of its missile division — tough times in the market have led Lockheed to believe that these segments would be better-off either spun out or sold to someone else. That puts the future of more than 17, 000 workers in doubt, and that’s not including whatever jobs might be cut when the Sikorsky deal wraps up. [Image credit: AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee] Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Lockheed Martin

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Lockheed Martin buys helicopter maker Sikorsky

Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

Spotify just added a load of new features with a recent update and now it’s looking to help you find new music. To do just that, a new tool called Discover Weekly builds a two-hour playlist of suggestions based on your listening habits and those of folks with similar preferences. What’s more, the collection of tunes — basically a mixtape — is refreshed every Monday so that you’re greeted with new material on the regular. In fact, my collection was updated early this morning. Spotify says the more you use it, the better it’ll get, adapting as your musical taste evolves. Soon, Discover Weekly with appear at the top of your saved playlists for easy access. And yes, you can save individual songs you like or share the whole lot with your pals. I’ve had access to the tool for a few days, and based on the first set of tracks Spotify selected, I’m cautiously optimistic. Meek Mill, Run the Jewels, Of Monsters and Men and Miguel are getting the bulk of my attention these days, so the tool built my first playlist of songs from Caribou, Modest Mouse, Action Bronson, Flying Lotus and more. Understandably, this group of initial picks is a bit of a mixed bag — similar to my tastes — but I’m looking forward to seeing how the feature changes during weeks when I lean more towards one genre. In this morning’s update, for example, I received mostly hip-hop picks as my listening last week centered around that genre during workouts. While Apple Music touts its human-curated playlists, Spotify is relying on its software here, and it seems to work just fine. You’ll be able to try it for yourself soon enough, as the curated playlist should appear across all of Spotify’s apps shortly. Filed under: Portable Audio/Video , Internet , Software Comments

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Spotify’s Discover Weekly uses your habits to recommend new music

A Simple Magnetic Adapter Gives Your Charging Cables MagSafe Powers

A magnetic power connector didn’t seem that revolutionary when first revealed, but over the years the Apple MacBook’s MagSafe connector has proven itself to be an invaluable feature. And as the Znaps magnetic adapter shows, it would be just as useful for your mobile devices too. Read more…

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A Simple Magnetic Adapter Gives Your Charging Cables MagSafe Powers

Plastic roads may put asphalt to shame

The days of putting up with crumbling asphalt streets might just come to an end. Construction company VolkerWessels has revealed plans for recycled plastic roads that are both more sustainable and more practical than old-fashioned blacktop. Besides reusing material, they’d last about three times longer and survive greater temperature ranges (between -40F and 176F) — despite their fragile look, they’re less likely to crack under the strain of vehicles or the weather. You can pre-assemble them to lay them down faster, too, and their hollow structure is handy for cabling and pipes. This is just a concept at the moment, but VolkerWessels fully intends to test it and make sure that it holds up in the real world. That’s not idle talk, either. The Dutch city of Rotterdam is interested in trying out these plastic surfaces in its “street lab, ” and the company hopes to have an honest-to-goodness route in operation within three years. If the idea still sounds outlandish, look at it this way: it’s likely the closest you’ll ever get to driving a Hot Wheels track in real life. Filed under: Transportation , Science Comments Via: The Guardian , IEEE Spectrum , Slashdot Source: VolkerWessels

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Plastic roads may put asphalt to shame

Company Aims To Launch Spacecraft On Beams of Microwaves

MarkWhittington writes: The quest for cheap access to space, to make space travel as inexpensive as air travel, has eluded engineers, government policy makers, and business entrepreneurs from before the beginning of the space age. It has become axiomatic, almost to the point of being a cliché, that the true space age will not begin until launch costs come down significantly. Forbes reported about a company called Escape Dynamics that has a unique approach to the problem. The company proposes to launch payloads into low Earth orbit on beams of microwaves. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Company Aims To Launch Spacecraft On Beams of Microwaves

Popular Torrent Site Disappears From Google After Penalty

An anonymous reader writes: Following what appears to be a severe penalty, the popular torrent site KickassTorrents has become pretty much unfindable in Google. Meanwhile, the top search result in many locations points to a scam site that’s serving malware to its visitors. For now, only DuckDuckGo presents the real site as a main result. With millions of visitors per day, KickassTorrents is arguably the most visited torrent site on the Internet, and has gained new users during the moments when the notorious Pirate Bay has been offline. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Popular Torrent Site Disappears From Google After Penalty

The Tesla Model S Just Got Upgraded To LUDICROUS SPEED [UPDATING]

The Tesla Model S P85D is already insanely fast . No, seriously – its 691 horsepower made it so fast it’s got an Insane Mode. But that’s not fast enough, because Tesla just found a way to step it up even higher than that, to 762 horsepower. To Ludicrous Mode. Read more…

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The Tesla Model S Just Got Upgraded To LUDICROUS SPEED [UPDATING]