MarkWhittington writes The Washington Post reported that the NASA portion of the president’s 2016 budget proposal is basically status quo though it does provide further funding for a mission to Europa. A Europa probe is near and dear to the new chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA, Rep. John Culberson. However, the $18.5 billion budget proposal also funds the asteroid redirect mission, which has come under increasing fire from both Congress and the scientific community. The Houston Chronicle suggested that the final spending bill will be considerably different once congressional Republicans get through with it. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Obama’s 2016 NASA Budget Status Quo, Funds Europa Mission
New submitter plate_o_shrimp sends word that Google has announced the next group of cities set to receive gigabit fiber infrastructure. They’re concentrating on cities around four metro areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, and Raleigh-Durham. “We’ve been working closely with city leaders over the past year on a joint planning process to get their communities ready for Google Fiber—and now the really hard work begins. Our next step is to work with cities to create a detailed map of where we can put our thousands of miles of fiber, using existing infrastructure such as utility poles and underground conduit, and making sure to avoid things like gas and water lines. Then a team of surveyors and engineers will hit the streets to fill in missing details. Once we’re done designing the network (which we expect to wrap up in a few months), we’ll start construction.” Google also said they’re currently looking into Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and San Jose. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
People are putting butter in their coffee. And hey, if you’re just craving a new flavor experience, more power to you. The problem is that Bulletproof Coffee , the company behind the trend, is claiming that drinking a mug of fatty joe every morning instead of eating breakfast is a secret shortcut to weight loss and mental superpowers, and now the butter coffee has developed a cult of highly caffeinated, shiny-lipped adherents. So now we have to talk about it. Read more… 
A federal judge just sentenced journalist Barrett Brown to 63 months in prison and ordered him to pay nearly $890, 000 in restitution for charges related to the 2011 hack of Stratfor Global Intelligence. Brown’s supporters maintain that the young writer and activist was “merely linking to hacked material.” For that, he’ll spend about five years behind bars. That sucks. Read more… 
Jason Koebler writes: Tucows Inc., an internet company that’s been around since the early 90s — it’s generally known for being in the shareware business and for registering and selling premium domain names — announced that it’s becoming an internet service provider. Tucows will offer fiber internet to customers in Charlottesville, Virginia — which is served by Comcast and CenturyLink — in early 2015 and eventually wants to expand to other markets all over the country. “Everyone who has built a well-run gigabit network has had demand exceeding their expectations, ” Elliot Noss, Tucows’ CEO said. “We think there’s space in the market for businesses like us and smaller.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Greenpeace can get a little aggressive with its tactics. That doesn’t mean that it’s not fighting for a good cause! But after the organization marched through the sacred Nazca Lines etched into the Peruvian desert for a climate protest, capturing it all on camera with a drone, you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking. Greenpeace isn’t the best at thinking things through, though. Read more…