Of the many schemes to make the government more efficient, this is probably the only one that involves typography. A middle schooler in Pittsburgh has calculated that by simply switching the typeface used in government documents from Times New Roman to Garamond, it would save taxpayers $400 million in ink. Read more…
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The US Government Would Save $400 Million If It Just Switched Typefaces
concertina226 writes “If you think the crisis in the Ukraine is limited just to being just on the ground, think again. A cyberwar is flaring up between Ukraine and Russia and it looks like just the beginning. On Friday, communication centers were hijacked by unknown men to install wireless equipment for monitoring the mobile phones of Ukraine parliament members. Since then, Ukrainian hackers have been defacing Russian news websites, while Russia’s Roskomnadzor is blocking any IP addresses or groups on social media from showing pro-Ukraine ‘extremist’ content.” Adds reader Daniel_Stuckey: “On the other side of the border, RT — the news channel formerly known as Russia Today and funded by the state — had its website hacked on Sunday morning, with the word ‘Nazi’ not-so-stealthily slipped into headlines. Highlights included ‘Russian senators vote to use stabilizing Nazi forces on Ukrainian territory, ‘ and ‘Putin: Nazi citizens, troops threatened in Ukraine, need armed forces’ protection.’ RT was quick to notice the hack, and the wordplay only lasted about 20 minutes.” Finally, as noted by judgecorp, “The Ukrainian security service has claimed that Russian forces in Crimea are attacking Ukraine’s mobile networks and politicians’ phones in particular. Meanwhile, pro-Russian hackers have defaced Ukrainian news sites, posting a list of forty web destinations where content has been replaced. The pro-Russians have demonstrated Godwin’s Rule — their animated GIF equates the rest of Ukraine to Nazis.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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In Ukraine, Cyber War With Russia Heating Up
At the company’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, SanDisk announced today the imminent release of the single largest-capacity MicroSD card ever created. This tiny storage medium offers an unprecedented 128 GB of space, but don’t expect it to come cheap. Read more…
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This MicroSD Card Packs Massive Capacity into a Minute Form Factor
The US military has poured millions upon millions of dollars into squad-based tactical UAVs—the kind deployed by troops for close-range ASAP reconnaissance—over the past few years, developing the likes of the Puma AE and Black Hornet . But ST Kinetics has just unveiled a clever surveillance system that uses modified 40 mm rounds—and it could do the job of those micro-UAVs at a fraction of the cost. Read more…
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Who Needs UAVs When You’ve Got Surveillance Munitions?
krakman writes with this excerpt from Bloomberg News: “Bitcoin plunged more than 8 percent [Friday] after a Tokyo-based exchange halted withdrawals of the digital currency, citing technical malfunction. Mt. Gox, claimed in a blog post it needed to ‘temporarily pause on all withdrawal requests to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes.’ It promised an ‘update’ — not a reopening — on Monday, Feb. 10, Japan time. This is day after Russia’s Prosecutor General concluded Bitcoin and other digital currencies are illegal under current law.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Bitcoin Plunges After Mt. Gox Exchange Halts Trades
After the successful soft landing of its carrier vessel on the surface of the moon, China’s Jade Rabbit lunar rover has begun beaming back photos of the lunar surface. From the BBC’s article, with links to video as well as several photos, comes this description: “Chang’e-3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1, 900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod-2, which was kept warm by polonium-210. But the six-wheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust. The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour. … The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night. According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise. It will also scout valuable mineral resources that could one day be mined.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Photos Stream Back From China’s Lunar Lander
Michael sez, “Apparently medieval Russian schoolroooms used birch bark for things like writing practice. Erik Kwakkel, medieval book historian at Leiden University, Netherlands, has some charming photos of stick-figure illustrations on bark by kids who, like kids everywhere, got a bit bored with the lesson and started doodling in the margins. There are links to more images (and an interesting scholarly article) at the bottom of the post .” The most special items, however, are the ones shown above, which are from a medieval classroom. In the 13th century, young schoolboys learning to write filled these scraps with alphabets and short texts. Bark was ideal material for writing down things with such a short half-life. Then the pupils got bored and started to doodle, as kids do: crude drawings of individuals with big hands, as well as a figure with a raised sword standing next to a defeated beast (lower image). The last one was drawn by Onfim, who put his name next to the victorious warrior. The snippets provide a delightful and most unusual peek into a 13th-century classroom, with kids learning to read – and getting bored in the process. Medieval kids’ doodles on birch bark [Erik Kwakkel] ( Thanks, Michael ! )
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Medieval kids’ birch-bark doodles
A new photo captured by Artyom Anikeev shows Russia’s new Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter—America’s F-22 Raptor’s nemesis. According to The Aviationist, its new camouflage—inspired by a typical white tip Red Sea’s shark—will make it look “as a rhomboidal shaped aircraft, smaller than the actual airplane” from a distance. Read more…
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Newly captured photo shows Russia’s new badass shark stealth fighter
In perhaps the most counter-intuitive scientific finding of recent time, researchers have discovered a volcano lurking beneath Antarctica . [ Nature Geoscience ] Read more…
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In perhaps the most counter-intuitive scientific finding of recent time, researchers have discovered
The CIA is quietly trying to stop Russia building a series of monitoring stations—devices that form part of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System—on US soil. Read more…
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The CIA Is Trying to Stop Russia Building Monitoring Stations in the US