Legal Site Groklaw Shuts Down Rather Than Face NSA in Heartrending Post

For the last 10 years, if you wanted to understand a complex legal issue in the news, your first stop was Groklaw. A free, open source exchange of theories and ideas, Groklaw has been an invaluable resource for lawyers and laymen alike. Last night, its owner pulled the plug. It was a matter of privacy. Read more…        

Original post:
Legal Site Groklaw Shuts Down Rather Than Face NSA in Heartrending Post

Urban Terror Code Stolen

New submitter herbalt writes “The code of the free FPS game Urban Terror (a standalone game based on a Quake 3 mod), has been stolen. The development team, Frozen Sand, at first stated their Git Repository had been hacked, but later issued an announcement stating the perpetrator of the leak was a member of the development team. Frozen Sand also states they have found chat logs indicating there had been ‘a plot to get B1naryTh1ef to steal the code so they could sell Urban Terror under a different name on Steam.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View post:
Urban Terror Code Stolen

Researchers Release Tool That Can Scan the Entire Internet In Under an Hour

dstates writes “A team of researchers at the University of Michigan has released Zmap, a tool that allows an ordinary server to scan every address on the Internet in just 45 minutes. This is a task that used to take months, but now is accessible to anyone with a fast internet connection. In their announcement Friday , at the Usenix security conference in Washington they provide interesting examples tracking HTTPS deployment over time, the effects of Hurricane Sandy on Internet infrastructure, but also rapid identification of vulnerable hosts for security exploits. A Washington Post Blog discussing the work shows examples of the rate with which of computers on the Internet have been patched to fix Universal Plug and Play, ‘Debian weak key’ and ‘factorable RSA keys’ vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, in each case it takes years to deploy patches and in the case of UPnP devices, they found 2.56 million (16.7 percent) devices on the Internet had not yet upgraded years after the vulnerability had been described.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View the original here:
Researchers Release Tool That Can Scan the Entire Internet In Under an Hour

How One Programmer Is Coding Faster By Voice Than Keyboard

mikejuk writes “Is it possible that we have been wasting our time typing programs. Could voice recognition, with a little help from an invented spoken language, be the solution we didn’t know we needed? About two years ago Tavis Rudd, developed a bad case of RSI caused by typing lots of code using Emacs. It was so severe that he couldn’t code. As he puts it: ‘Desperate, I tried voice recognition’. The Dragon Naturally Speaking system used by Rudd supported standard language quite well, but it wasn’t adapted to program editing commands. The solution was to use a Python speech extension, DragonFly, to program custom commands. OK, so far so good, but … the commands weren’t quite what you might have expected. Instead of English words for commands he used short vocalizations — you have to hear it to believe it. Now programming sounds like a conversation with R2D2. The advantage is that it is faster and the recognition is easier — it also sounds very cool and very techie. it is claimed that the system is faster than typing. So much so that it is still in use after the RSI cleared up.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View article:
How One Programmer Is Coding Faster By Voice Than Keyboard

The World’s First CPU Liquid Cooler Using Nanofluids

An anonymous reader writes “CPU water cooling may be more expensive than air cooling, but it is quieter and moves the bulk away from your CPU. It’s also improving, as Zalman has just demonstrated with the announcement of the Reserator 3. Zalman is claiming that the Reserator 3 is the world’s first liquid cooler to use nanofluids. What’s that then? It involves adding refrigerant nanoparticles to the fluid that gets pumped around inside the cooler transporting the heat produced by a CPU to the radiator and fan where it is expelled. By using the so-called nanofluid, Zalman believes it can offer better cooling, and rates the Reserator 3 as offering up to 400W of cooling while remaining very quiet. The fluid and pump is supplemented by a dual copper radiator design and “quadro cooling path, ” which consists of two copper pipes sitting behind the fan and surrounded by the radiators. The heatsink sitting on top of the CPU is a micro-fin copper base allowing very quick transfer of heat to the nanofluid above.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View article:
The World’s First CPU Liquid Cooler Using Nanofluids

The Death of the American Drive-in

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “Claire Suddath writes in Businessweek that the number of drive-ins in America has dwindled from over 4, 000 in the 1960s to about 360 today. Since Hollywood distributors are expected to stop producing movies in traditional 35 millimeter film by the end of this year and switch entirely to digital, America’s last remaining drive-ins — the majority of which are still family-owned and seasonally operated — could soon be gone. ‘We have challenges that other movie theaters don’t, ‘ says John Vincent, president of United Drive-In Theater Owners Association and the owner of Wellfleet Drive-In in Cape Cod, Mass. ‘We have fewer screens and can only show one or two movies a night. Now we have to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to stay in business.’ According to Vincent, only 150 drive-ins have converted to digital so far — the other 210 have until the end of the year either to get with the program or go out of business. It may seem silly to fret over the fate of 210 movie theaters whose business model is outdated, even compared with regular movie theaters, but Honda Motor Co. is offering help with a program called ‘Project Drive-In.’ The car company is planning to give away five digital projectors by the end of the year. Winners will be determined by voting from the public, which can be done online through Sept. 9 at ProjectDriveIn.com. ‘Cars and drive-in theaters go hand in hand, ‘ says Alicia Jones, manager of Honda & Acura social marketing, ‘and it’s our mission to save this slice of Americana that holds such nostalgia for many of us.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read More:
The Death of the American Drive-in

Dishwasher-Size, 25kW Fuel Cell In Development

mcgrew writes “Forbes has an article about a new type of fuel cell that is 90% less costly than current cells at one tenth the size (making it the size of a dishwasher), with far higher efficiency than current cells. It runs at only 149 degrees Celsius (300F) . It was jointly developed by Diverse Energy and the University of Maryland. ‘The first-generation Cube runs off natural gas, but it can generate power from a variety of fuel sources, including propane, gasoline, biofuel and hydrogen. The system is a highly efficient, clean technology, emitting negligible pollutants and much less carbon dioxide than conventional energy sources. It uses fuel far more efficiently than an internal combustion engine, and can run at an 80 percent efficiency when used to provide both heat and power.’ It produces enough power to run a moderate-sized grocery store, or five homes. A smaller, home-sized unit is on the way. Is the municipal power plant on the way out?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read this article:
Dishwasher-Size, 25kW Fuel Cell In Development

Google DNS Is Down. Here’s How to Fix Your Internet

If you’re having trouble accessing the internet on your computer today, it may be a DNS problem: Google’s DNS servers are currently having issues . Luckily, changing your DNS is easy. Check out the post below for more information on what DNS is and how to change it on your computer. Read more…        

See the original post:
Google DNS Is Down. Here’s How to Fix Your Internet

A "Glitch" Made All the Doors in a Max. Security Prison Open at Once

A Florida prison says that a computer “glitch” is to blame after all of the doors in the maximum security wing opened without warning. Wired has news for them , though. Sometimes, these kinds of glitches are caused by sneaky characters called hackers. And this situation looks pretty suspect. Read more…        

Continue Reading:
A "Glitch" Made All the Doors in a Max. Security Prison Open at Once

This Is What Astronauts Use to Poop in Space (Ew. Awesome. …Ew.)

So our dear friend Cmdr. Chris Hadfield shared a horrifying piece of trivia this morning: Soyuz astronauts get two enemas before launch. Which is a little uncomfortable, but necessary because, uh, Soyuz restroom looks like this. Read more…        

Visit site:
This Is What Astronauts Use to Poop in Space (Ew. Awesome. …Ew.)