Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader shares a report: A trio of MIT researchers recently tackled a tricky vehicle-routing problem when they set out to improve the efficiency of the Boston Public Schools bus system. Last year, more than 30,000 students rode 650 buses to 230 schools at a cost of $120 million. In hopes of spending less this year, the school system offered $15,000 in prize money in a contest that challenged competitors to reduce the number of buses. The winners -- Dimitris Bertsimas, co-director of MIT's Operations Research Center and doctoral students Arthur Delarue and Sebastien Martin -- devised an algorithm that drops as many as 75 bus routes. The school system says the plan, which will eliminate some bus-driver jobs, could save up to $5 million, 20,000 pounds of carbon emissions and 1 million bus miles (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). The computerized algorithm runs in about 30 minutes and replaces a manual system that in the past has taken transportation staff several weeks to complete. "They have been doing it manually many years," Dr. Bertsimas said. "Our whole running time is in minutes. If things change, we can re-optimize." The task of plotting school-bus routes resembles the classic math exercise known as the Traveling Salesman Problem, where the goal is to find the shortest path through a series of cities, visiting each only once, before returning home.

Sean Parker has now donated nearly $9 million in his effort to legalize marijuana in California. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Billboard: Whether it's founding Napster, guiding Facebook or investing in Spotify, Sean Parker has developed a reputation for pushing change forward, and now he's at the forefront of California's marijuana legalization movement... [A] competing proposal from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform was folded into Parker's, making his the leading ballot measure, by default, for 2016 in a state with the largest medical marijuana market in the country.
The U.S currently has a hodgepodge of legislation, with marijuana entirely legal only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as in the District of Columbia, and in individual cities in Michigan and Maine. But with five more states now voting on legalization, pro-marijuana campaign ads are being broadcast in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, California and Arizona. ("You decide who wins -- criminals and cartels, or Arizona schools?") And meanwhile, Slashdot reader schwit1 has identified one voter who's definitely opposing police efforts to hunt down marijuana growers: All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground... Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the [medicinal] plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21...

Some of the United States' biggest cities have resorted to using dry ice to kill rats. Since dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) turns into a gas, sanitation officials simply need to drop chunks of it into rat infested burrows and let science do the rest. Longtime Slashdot reader mi writes: USA Today reports: "Earlier this week, USA TODAY observed Chicago sanitation department workers at one of the city's oldest parks scoop chunks of smoking dry ice into a burrow before quickly covering the entry and exit holes with dirt and newspaper to stop any rats from escaping as the -109.3-degree Fahrenheit gas dissipated. Sanitation workers say they treat burrows during morning hours, when rats are less active and most likely to be huddled inside the burrows. The asphyxiated dead rats then decompose in place and out-of-sight of city denizens who count the disease-carrying vermin among the vilest of indignities of urban living. 'We are seeing 60% fewer burrows in areas where we are using the dry ice,' said Charles Williams, Chicago's streets and sanitation commissioner. 'It's more environmentally friendly, and it's very humane on the rodents as well.'" Humane or not, what is so especially "undignified" about rats? What makes them worse, than, for example, cats, deer or wild horses?

HughPickens.com writes: Joe Drape and Jacqueline Williams report at the NYT that a major scandal is erupting in the multibillion-dollar industry of fantasy sports, the online and unregulated business in which an estimated 57 million people participate where players assemble their fantasy teams with real athletes. Two major fantasy sports companies were forced to release statements defending their businesses' integrity after what amounted to allegations of insider trading — that employees were placing bets using information not generally available to the public. "It is absolutely akin to insider trading. It gives that person a distinct edge in a contest," says Daniel Wallach. "It could imperil this nascent industry unless real, immediate and meaningful safeguards are put in place."

In FanDuel's $5 million "NFL Sunday Million" contest this week, DraftKings employee Ethan Haskell placed second and won $350,000 with his lineup that had a mix of big-name players owned by a high number of users. Haskell had access to DraftKings ownership data meaning that he may have seen which NFL players had been selected by DraftKings users, and by how many users. In light of this scandal, DraftKings and FanDuel have, for now, banned their employees from playing on each other's sites. Many in the highly regulated casino industry insist daily fantasy sports leagues are gambling sites and shouldn't be treated any differently than traditional sports betting. This would mean a high amount of regulation. Industry analyst Chris Grove says this may be a watershed moment for a sector that may need the legislation it has resisted in order to prove its legitimacy. "You have information that is valuable and should be tightly restricted," says Grove. "There are people outside of the company that place value on that information. Is there any internal controls? Any audit process? The inability of the industry to produce a clear and compelling answer to these questions to anyone's satisfaction is why it needs to be regulated."

ourlovecanlastforeve writes: A few days ago Sprint announced their intent to stop throttling certain customers' bandwidth in the wake of the FCC fining ATT $100,000,000 for doing the same. Sprint has now begun circulating an internal memo to their front-line reps that the 12-month warranty on non-branded accessories, a featured selling point, will be eliminated. Additional rumors are emerging that Sprint may increase prices on unlimited data plans and stop offering wireline long distance service.

seven of five writes: According to Reuters, "Former Hewlett-Packard Co Chief Executive Carly Fiorina announced on Monday she is running for president, becoming the only woman in the pack of Republican candidates for the White House in 2016. ... Fiorina registers near the bottom of polls of the dozen or so Republican hopefuls and has never held public office. But she has already attracted warm receptions at events in the early voting state of Iowa where she is positioning herself as a conservative, pro-business Republican highly critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Fiorina was forced by HP to resign in 2005 as the tech company struggled to digest Compaq after a $19 billion merger."

As part of her announcement, she said, "I think I'm the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works. I understand the world, who's in it, how the world works." I'm sure we'll soon begin hearing from all the HP employees, current and former, who have nothing but love for Carly F.

The Associated Press (as carried by the Boston Herald) reports that a 20-year old Topeka man has been arrested as he attempted to arm what he believed to be a thousand-pound bomb outside Ft. Riley, Kansas. John T. Booker Jr. is alleged to have planned an attack in conspiracy with others who were actually FBI agents; Booker's postings to Facebook in March 2014 about his desire to die as a martyr brought him to the FBI's attention, and the FBI sting operation which ended in his arrest began after these posts. Booker had been recruited by the U.S. Army in February of last year, but his enlistment was cancelled shortly thereafter.

An anonymous reader writes "A Methusen, Mass. high schooler, who goes by the rapper name 'Cammy Dee' has been arrested after posting lyrics that police felt were 'communicating terrorist threats.' This wouldn't be the first time rap lyrics were investigated, but if formally charged for 'communicating terrorist threats' this would a set a chilling low bar for terrorist investigations."

theodp writes "During the night, The Tech broke news that gunshots were reported at MIT near 32 Vassar Street (the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences), and one officer was shot and taken to Mass General Hospital. MIT's Emergency Information page also reports that injuries have been reported. Sadly, CNN is now reporting that the university police officer has died. Look for updates on Twitter." The two suspects identified earlier as being behind the Boston Marathon bombings are believed to be responsible for this. They were found by police. One suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout. The other suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is still being pursued. The Associated Press reports that the two are believed to be from the Russian region near Chechnya. During the firefight, the suspects threw explosive devices at police. Public transit in Boston has been shut down, and hundreds of thousands of people have been asked to not leave their homes. Here are live feed for local TV news and emergency services audio. Police have been warned that the remaining suspect may have a suicide vest.

Reader Okian Warrior points out a related story worthy of notice: "The 4chan crowd, poring over images of the Boston marathon, identified two dark-skinned and bag-carrying suspects (among others). This was then picked up by The New York Post, who ran the image on Thursday's front page with the headline 'Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon.' And now, a completely innocent teen now finds himself scared to leave his home."

An anonymous reader writes "MIT has posted a letter to campus newspaper The Tech providing a timeline of last weekend's 'gunman' hoax. On Saturday morning, Cambridge, MA police were contacted via Internet relay by a tipster who claimed that a someone wearing armor and carrying a 'really big gun' was in Building 7 at MIT (the Massachusetts Ave. entrance to the Infinite Corridor) and was heading towards the office of MIT President Rafael Reif. The call continued for 18 minutes, with the caller eventually claiming that the gunman was seeking to avenge the suicide of Aaron Swartz, who was being prosecuting for alleged illegal downloads of millions of journal articles using MIT's computer network. The caller also identified the gunman as an MIT staff member, who has since been questioned by police and cleared. MIT has been criticized for waiting 1.5 hours before sending a campus-wide alert after the call was received."

First time accepted submitter badford writes "Representative Paul Broun (Georgia Republican) said that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are 'lies straight from the pit of hell' meant to convince people that they do not need a savior. It would not be quite as shocking if Broun did not sit on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. What impact could this have on policy? What impact could this have on STEM education not just in Georgia but all over the U.S.?"

OverTheGeicoE writes "Boston's Logan International Airport is in the process of replacing its X-ray body scanners with millimeter-wave ones. According to the article, nine of the new scanners have been installed already, and ultimately 27 of these scanners will replace the 17 X-ray backscatter scanners that were installed in March of 2010. The new devices are 'being installed come with software that replaces "passenger-specific images" — or nearly naked views of travelers — with generic outlines that highlight only anomalies such as belts, jewelry, wallets — or guns or bombs.' Perhaps this will help TSA workers avoid being part of a cancer cluster. Some speculate that TSA will ultimately eliminate all of its X-ray body scanners."

An anonymous reader writes "Everyone is talking about the recent Higgs boson announcement by the scientists at CERN, but another significant scientific discovery was revealed this week as well. In a study published online in the journal Nature on Wednesday, scientists show that they have successfully found the first dark matter filament."

An anonymous reader writes "That email you might be getting from Barnes and Noble might not be spam, but rather your only chance to prevent the comprehensive record of your buying history at defunct arch-rival Borders from ending up in B&N's data warehouse. You have15 days after the email arrives, assuming that it ever does, since chances are the email address you originally signed up with Borders is long gone." For that very reason, this sounds like a good place for the terms of the bankruptcy to require opting in, rather than opting out.

destinyland writes "Amazon has begun signing their own authors and then publishing the books themselves, leaving booksellers 'wary' as Amazon 'tries to have it all,' according to a Boston newspaper. The co-owner of an independent bookstore near Cambridge considered boycotting Amazon's new line of books, complaining, 'They are a huge competitor, and they don't collect sales tax, giving them an unfair advantage.' A children's bookstore noted that 'the pie is getting cut into fewer pieces. I'd be nervous if I were an adult book publisher.' Borders bookstore has already declared bankruptcy, leaving The Daily Show to joke that bookstores should simply become 'digital downloading' stations — or a 'living history' museum where future generations can learn what a 'magazine rack' was."

Attila Dimedici writes "Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police vehicle passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data wil be kept indefinitely."

An anonymous reader writes "South Carolina's Oconee Nuclear Station will replace its analog monitoring and operating controls with digital systems, as part of a $2 billion plant upgrade by its owner, Duke Energy. It will become the first nuke plant in the US to use digital controls, and its upgrade may be quickly followed by others. The main driver for the move is cost savings; worries about reliability and hackers have been the reason digital systems haven't been adopted sooner."

Khopesh writes "EMC subsidiary RSA was the victim of 'an extremely sophisticated cyber attack' which resulted in the possible theft of the two-factor code used by their SecurID products." The Boston Herald has a short article on the intrusion. Update: 03/17 23:54 GMT by T : Reader rmogull adds "With all the hype that's sure the explode over this one, we decided to do a quick write-up to separate fact from speculation."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Economic Times reports on the first working prototypes of a new technology that would measure blood alcohol content in a driver's fingertips, using sophisticated touch-based sensors situated in steering wheels and door locks and engineers say that unlike court-ordered breath-analyzer ignition locks, which require a driver to blow into a tube and wait a few seconds for the result, their systems will analyze a driver's blood-alcohol content in less than one second. Anti-drunken driving crusaders believe that almost 9,000 road traffic deaths could be prevented every year if alcohol detection devices were used in all vehicles to prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from driving their vehicles. 'We believe this might turn the car into the cure for the elimination of drunk driving,' says Laura Dean-Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But not everyone is enamored of the device which could be available to automakers in eight to 10 years. 'For ordinary, law-abiding citizens, it's an invasion of their privacy,' says Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party."

Maple syrup producers are taking some heat over tapping trees in a few Massachusetts cemeteries. From the article: "In Lancaster’s Old Settlers and Eastwood cemeteries, the Lancaster Cub Scout Pack 9 tapped trees as part of a project after receiving permission. But Lancaster selectmen said they didn’t know cemetery trees would be tapped and they received several calls about it. Walsh said tapping trees along roads is normal, but in cemeteries it’s 'a little tacky.'" It should be noted that grave syrup is an important part of a balanced goth breakfast.

Angela Mejia had to call the police on her 14-year-old son to get him to stop playing Grand Theft Auto. Police managed to convince the teen that 2:30 am was too late, and there would be plenty of hookers to beat in the morning. Mrs. Mejia said, “Sometimes I want to run away, too. I have support from my church, but I’m alone. I want to help my son, but I can’t find a way.” I guess it is illegal to throw away game consoles in the land of parental irresponsibility where the Meijias live.

Hugh Pickens writes "Laura Holson writes in the NY Times that she 'wandered down to the T-Mobile store at Ninth Ave. and 43rd St. in New York City to see what kind of crowds — if any — were lining up to buy the new T-Mobile G1 which went on sale Wednesday' and saw no lines out the door, no crowding at the counter, and a complete lack of crowds. The iPhone appears to still be the gold standard and Etan Horowitz writes that the G1 'doesn't do a great job showcasing its potential. It isn't as intuitive as the iPhone, and it may take average users a while to figure out basic and advanced shortcuts and features' and 'may appeal more to techies who value open-source products and don't mind a somewhat steep learning curve.' Part of the reason for slow interest may also be that T-Mobile's 3G high-speed data network won't be up and running in many cities until the end of the year."

rickthewizkid writes "Recent updates to the iTunes software allow blind users to access the program without assistance. From the article: 'The new software — which transforms the written information on an iTunes-linked computer screen into speech or Braille — stemmed from an agreement between Apple, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer company, the National Federation of the Blind and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.'" It's not just the actual iTunes app, though; the article notes that this update makes iTunes U useable as well.

Barence writes "A new project to create a $12 computer is underway at MIT, the same University that spawned the One Laptop Per Child non-profit laptop. The PCs will be loosely based on Apple 2 machines, first unveiled over 30 years ago, and the team are actively recruiting enthusiasts of the retro computer to help develop the new PC." Update: 08/05 14:13 GMT by T : The original story at the Boston Herald has more information, as well as a photo of the team.

Geoffrey.landis writes "The Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents fired worker Michael Fiola and initiated procedures to prosecute him for child pornography when they determined that internet temporary files on his laptop computer contained child porn. According to Fiola, 'My boss called me into his office at 9 a.m. The director of the Department of Industrial Accidents, my immediate supervisor, and the personnel director were there. They handed me a letter and said, "You are being fired for a violation of the computer usage policy. You have pornography on your computer. You're fired. Clean out your desk. Let's go."' Fiola said, 'They wouldn't talk to me. They said, "We've been advised by our attorney not to talk to you."' However, prosecutors dropped the case when a state investigation of his computer determined there was insufficient evidence to prove he had downloaded the files. Computer forensic analyst Tami Loehrs, who spent a month dissecting the computer for the defense, explained in a 30-page report that the laptop was running corrupted virus-protection software, and Fiola was hit by spammers and crackers bombarding its memory with images of incest and pre-teen porn not visible to the naked eye. The virus protection and software update functions on the laptop had been disabled, and apparently the laptop was 'crippled' by malware. According to Loehrs, 'When they gave him this laptop, it had belonged to another user, and they changed the user name for him, but forgot to change the SMS user name, so SMS was trying to connect to a user that no longer existed ... It was set up to do all of its security updates via the server, and none of that was happening because he was out in the field.' A malware script on the machine surfed foreign sites at a rate of up to 40 per minute whenever the machine was within range of a wireless site."

mdsolar writes "Recent problems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have spurred Congresspeople from Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire to introduce legislation that would allow State governors to request independent safety reviews of nuclear power plants. The reviews would exclude NRC employees who usually work on that plant and include non-NRC reviewers. This review model is based on one that found problems at Maine Yankee before it closed. Problems at Vermont Yankee have included a cooling tower collapse, a SCRAM caused by an un-greased valve, and failure of a safety system during the SCRAM. The plant is coming off of heightened review after shipping nuclear material with insufficient shielding. The plant's application for a 20 year license extension is also currently under review."

DMCBOSTON writes " LinuxWorld will be at the Hynes Auditorium in Boston, moving from NY in 2005." I'll be doing a Slashdot BOF at what I guess will now be the last New York LinuxWorld at the end of January 2004. I'll be sad to see this show move, as I always enjoy NY immensely, and seek any excuse to go there. Boston is a whole different story ;)

Everyone out there who set up content mirrors helped the spread of information survive as well as it did. After the tremendous crush yesterday, conventional news sources seem to have largely recovered. However, people are still cushioning the network burden with their own mirrors and original reporting. We'll be putting up occasional updates as necessary, but for now hit that link below and you can read a ton of stories on all aspects of the story.

Ian Peon writes: "SF Gate has a short article on how the Internet "proved its mettle as a communications facilitator in a time of crisis." Kudos to all those who kept things running!"

An anonymous reader writes: "The who, what, and how are detailed in this Boston Herald story. The weapons were smuggled in the razor cases. And in order to get to the cockpit, they terrorized the stewardesses, killing a few in order to lure the pilot out. Once the pilot was out, they took control of the plane. They have identified a car driven by 5 arabs had flying instruction in arabic. The men have been traced back to different arab countries."

This WorldTribune.com story claims that Israeli intelligence reports favor the idea that the attacks may have had the backing of Saddam Hussein's Bagdhad government. According to a submission from UberOogie ,Osama bin Ladin denies involvement in the attacks. The claims, speculation and disclaimers will no doubt continue.

Connord D writes: "View the Survivor's Register Please, PLEASE go to the survivor registers, register that your looking for your family, tell your friends, pass the word around and identify those that have survived and those that are missing. Help worried families either confirm the fates of their loved ones so that they can mourn, or help them find those people that are missing." And Brian Mears, LAN Systems Operations Manager for Computer Sciences Corporation, writes: "I have created a forum on my website to allow families and friends of survivors to post messages and communicate with each other concerning this most tragic period." Here's the link: http://www.ntadmin.net/forum/.

It would be a godsend if the various survivor registries would pool their data, or if someone sets up a google-like search engine to reach all of them at once.

oo7 writes: "CNN has a stream of the first plane crash. If you'd like to download it you can from the videos section of this site; it has news updated as fast as I can and streams as fast as I can capture. Please forward any unknown news and links that you may have."

pKa writes: "The last image from WTCs 77th floor webcam is available on a few sites around the net. The original WCTA.org cam-site is dead, but available in Googles cache, where you can see the dark screen (camera already dead, most likely) at 09:52:52, 09/11/01 - just before the buildings crashed. Article (in norwegian) with screenshots available here" The stream of concern that yesterday's events will lead to an illiberal attitude toward privacy is growing into a torrent: vena writes: "CNN reported on television broadcast earlier today that the NSA was now going through volumes of recorded cellular calls for calls made by passengers on the planes. Clear admission."

GothChip writes: "Ananova are reporting that just hours after the terrorist attack on New York, the FBI started approaching ISPs asking for help in installing Carnivore."

mkelley writes: "This is only the beginning folks...looks like the internet is going to be blamed for this...Wired has a story that is sure to cause panic. This is going to be the goverment's way to push wiretapping into your email and web surfing. In this time of crisis, people in high places are going to use this to get their agenda through. "Blame the Internet" is going to be the rallying cry for everything ..." If you're interested in the details of the planes the terrorists chose, a Semi-Anonymous Coward writes: "American Airlines flight 77 confirmed down, crashed into the Pentagon, Washington DC. Flight 77 (Dulles to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 757-200:

Boeing 757-200 data and history:

American Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos:

• American Airlines flight 11 confirmed down, crashed into World Trade Center New York. Flight 11 (Boston to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 767-200:
• Boeing 767-200 data and history
• American Airlines Boeing 767-200 photos

United Airlines flight 175 confirmed down, crashed into World Trade Center New York. Flight 175 (Boston to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 767-200:

• United Airlines Boeing 767-200 photos

United Airlines flight 93 confirmed down near Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. Flight 93 (Newark to San Francisco) is scheduled as a Boeing 757-200:

• United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos: United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos"

Adam writes: "That's right - the Grail will soon be back in theaters (or theatres), with 24 seconds of previously unreleased footage!"

WhyCause writes: "The MIT "shrine to clever pranks" has closed it's doors due to space concerns. I thought this development particularly pertinent after the review of "The Hacker Ethic." You can read more about it here." This is a real shame -- it was on my list to visit the next time I traveled to Boston. There are still some great online resources detailing MIT pranks, though, and the exhibits aren't being thrown out, but their future home is uncertain.