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ISS Could Be Fitted With Lasers To Shoot Down Space Junk

An anonymous reader writes Japan’s Riken research institute has suggested a new idea for dealing with space junk. They say a fiber optic laser mounted onto the International Space Station could blast debris out of the sky. From the article: “To combat the increasingly dense layer of dead satellites and miscellaneous space debris that are enshrouding our planet, no idea — nets, lassos, even ballistic gas clouds — seems too far-fetched to avoid. Now, an international team of researchers led by Japan’s Riken research institute has put forward what may be the most ambitious plan to date. They propose blasting an estimated 3, 000 tons of space junk out of orbit with a fiber optic laser mounted on the International Space Station.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ISS Could Be Fitted With Lasers To Shoot Down Space Junk

Facebook Working To Weed Out Fake Likes

jfruh writes In the early days of brands on Facebook, it was crucial for companies to garner as many “likes” as possible to boost their image, and that led to some unethical businesses selling likes that came from fake accounts. Now Facebook is informing brands that they’re working to root out fake likes, leaving like counts lower but realer. Now if only I could get my relatives to stop clicking on pictures that say they like puppies and are against cancer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Working To Weed Out Fake Likes

Whoah, Small Spender! Steam Sets Limits For Users Who Spend Less Than $5

As GameSpot reports, Valve has implemented a policy that reduces the privileges of Steam users unless those users have spent $5 through the service. Along the same lines as suggestions to limit spam by imposing a small fee on emails, the move is intended to reduce resource abuse as a business model. From the article: “Malicious users often operate in the community on accounts which have not spent any money, reducing the individual risk of performing the actions they do, ” Valve said. “One of the best pieces of information we can compare between regular users and malicious users are their spending habits as typically the accounts being used have no investment in their longevity. Due to this being a common scenario we have decided to restrict certain community features until an account has met or exceeded $5.00 USD in Steam.” Restricted actions include sending invites, opening group chats, and taking part in the Steam marketplace. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Whoah, Small Spender! Steam Sets Limits For Users Who Spend Less Than $5

FBI Overstated Forensic Hair Matches In Nearly All Trials Before 2000

schwit1 writes The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence. The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Incorrectly Built SLS Welding Machine To Be Rebuilt

schwit1 writes A giant welding machine, built for NASA’s multi-billion dollar Space Launch System (SLS), has to be taken apart and rebuilt because the contractor failed to reinforce the floor, as required, prior to construction: “Sweden’s ESAB Welding & Cutting, which has its North American headquarters in Florence, South Carolina, built the the roughly 50-meter tall Vertical Assembly Center as a subcontractor to SLS contractor Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. ESAB was supposed to reinforce Michoud’s floor before installing the welding tool, but did not, NASA SLS Program Manager Todd May told SpaceNews after an April 15 panel session during the 31st Space Symposium here. As a result, the enormous machine leaned ever so slightly, cocking the rails that guide massive rings used to lift parts of the 8.4-meter-diameter SLS stages The rings wound up 0.06 degrees out of alignment, which may not sound like much, “but when you’re talking about something that’s 217 feet [66.14 meters] tall, that adds up, ” May said. Asked why ESAB did not reinforce the foundation as it was supposed to, May said only it was a result of “a miscommunication between two [Boeing] subcontractors and ESAB.” It is baffling how everyone at NASA, Boeing, and ESAB could have forgotten to do the reinforcing, even though it was specified in the contract. It also suggests that the quality control in the SLS rocket program has some serious problems. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Incorrectly Built SLS Welding Machine To Be Rebuilt

Discover Users Can Now “Freeze” Misplaced Credit Cards

When you misplace a credit card, the first thing you usually do is cancel it in case it falls into the wrong hands. But it’s a hassle to wait for a new card and update your information. Discover cardholders can now get around this by temporarily freezing their cards instead of canceling them altogether. Read more…

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Discover Users Can Now “Freeze” Misplaced Credit Cards

LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School

theodp writes: Citing statistics that showed a whopping 46 more boys than girls passed the AP Computer Science Exam in 2011-12, the 640, 000+ student Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Tuesday approved a waiver to enable the District to operate a single-gender, all-girls STEM School called the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA). Students in GALA will follow a six year sequence of computer courses starting in middle school that will culminate in AP Computer Science Principles. “Fewer females take AP courses in math, science, or computer science, and they are not as successful as males in receiving passing scores of 3, 4 or 5, ” argued the General Waiver Request (PDF, 700+ pages). “An all girls environment is reasonably necessary for the school to improve the self-confidence of girls in their academic abilities, especially in STEM areas where an achievement gap currently exists. GALA’s admissions shall also comply with AB 1266 to ensure male students who identify as female are admitted to the school.” The school’s CS-related Partners include the UCLA Exploring Computer Science Program, as well as Google-bankrolled Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, and NCWIT. One of the reasons the all-girls STEM school reportedly got the green light is that its backers satisfied federal regulations requiring a “substantially equal school” for excluded male students by submitting a plan for a companion all-boys school that would emphasize English Language Arts, where they often fall short of girls’ test scores, rather than GALA’s focus on STEM. One suspects the no-fan-of-gender-restricted-public-schools ACLU may call BS on this maneuver. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IT Worker’s Lawsuit Accuses Tata of Discrimination

dcblogs writes An IT worker is accusing Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of discriminating against American workers and favoring “South Asians” in hiring and promotion. It’s backing up its complaint, in part, with numbers. The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in San Francisco, claims that 95% of the 14, 000 people Tata employs in the U.S. are South Asian or mostly Indian. It says this practice has created a “grossly disproportionate workforce.” India-based Tata achieves its “discriminatory goals” in at least three ways, the lawsuit alleges. First, the company hires large numbers of H-1B workers. Over from 2011 to 2013, Tata sponsored nearly 21, 000 new H-1B visas, all primarily Indian workers, according to the lawsuit’s count. Second, when Tata hires locally, “such persons are still disproportionately South Asian, ” and, third, for the “relatively few non-South Asians workers that Tata hires, ” it disfavors them in placement, promotion and termination decisions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IT Worker’s Lawsuit Accuses Tata of Discrimination

Amazon’s Giving Away 26 Premium Android Apps and Games For Free

Amazon’s running another one of their signature Android app giveaways , highlighted this time around by the likes of Plants vs. Zombies , Wolfram|Alpha , Runtastic PRO , and Osmos HD . If you own an Android device, take a minute to check out the full list and download anything you might want before the deal ends. [ Amazon Appstore ] Read more…

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Amazon’s Giving Away 26 Premium Android Apps and Games For Free

A Hidden Treasure Trove of Dead .Gov Websites

DolphinSafe.gov . CouldIHaveLupus.gov . GovGab.gov . These were real, registered websites at one time until they were terminated. In some cases—take CyberSafe.gov or Americorpse.gov for example—it’s easy to see why. Read more…

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A Hidden Treasure Trove of Dead .Gov Websites

Ken May

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