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the solar panels would suck up all the energy from the Sun

Yeah, the concern about as valid, as the fear, that the inhabitants' flatulence raises the planet's temperature.

Not to the original, but here's a link to the image of the series of maneuvers they had to do to get into orbit, over five years:
http://goo.gl/ONZpns

Full article here: http://gizmodo.com/tonight-is-...

Did you RTFA? I'm not normally one to defend /. editors with their crappy proofing and duplicates, but in this case the click bait comes from outside /.

The original article and a few others:

• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-23]
• Diamond nanothread rivals graphene as the next big wonder material Now scientists want to build a space elevator out of it. [2015-11-27]
• We may soon be riding up to space in style in elevators made of diamonds [2015-11-23]
• Our Future Space Elevator May Be Built of Diamond [2015-11-21]
• Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator [2015-11-19]
• Scientists Say We Could Build a Space Elevator Using Microscopic Diamond Chains [2015-11-19]

What's your fondest memory of Bill Gates Blue Screen-of-death that could?

Olympic fail - Blue Screen of Death Strikes Bird's Nest During Opening Ceremonies Torch Lighting
http://www.gizmodo.com/5035456...

Replaced years ago.
http://gizmodo.com/5028294/zun...

That was the Surface Pro 3, not the new Surface Pro 4, and Microsoft largely addressed his issues in their firmware update last October: http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/11/01/surface-3-update

The new model is significantly more powerful, with no noticeable parallax or lag, and a greatly improved display: http://gizmodo.com/the-surface-pro-4-has-the-most-accurate-tablet-display-1738801322

http://gizmodo.com/this-130-wi...

Asus and Intel are making these types of devices. There are probably other companies making them by now as well.

An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO

"Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where even if Nick rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long as visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the "open source hardware" and we will make our own offering on the commercial side." ref

“Geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type.” ref

'Halt the NC from making any noise in FY98 .. We are executing on a PR plan to expose the NC as "dead"' ref

'They kept the NC specification around despite saying they would not .. There is some failure in communication.'

The iPad Pro disappoints me for not having access to arbitrary / legacy / opensource apps (I need to be able to run things which aren't on Apple's App store: Macromedia FreeHand, FontForge, various CNC apps).

The Microsoft Surface 4 and Book don't suit my needs 'cause the hover distance w/ N-Trig is low, and it has jitter problems w/ slow strokes (which don't affect most people or typical usage).

Both of them disappoint me for not having a truly daylight viewable display --- I really want a vendor to build daylight view booths into their stores and then show off a unit which has a transflective display --- I despair of ever replacing my Fujitsu Stylistic ST4121.

But I seem to be the only person who cares --- most recent article I can find on daylight viewable comparisons is from years ago: http://gizmodo.com/5888618/dis...

Illegal? Maybe, maybe not: http://gizmodo.com/its-perfect...

It might be illegal but I don't have an ethical problem with stripping DRM from books I purchase.

The unspoken assumption, that folks like Google wish to remain unspoken and unexamined, is that "better then (sic) a human" part. That they are so committed to glossing over that suggests that they are also doubtful about how soon automated cars will, in fact, driver better than humans. Certainly, we're nowhere near that now.

Their profit is built into every transaction, legal or not. The cost of fraud is spread over the customer base, and is part of the fees paid by users and merchants. Collectively the user base pays for theft from the system, and the credit card companies make more money. That $1.8 billion in illegal billings is a profit center.

The reason that the credit card companies are rolling out smart cards in the US after all this time is that the federal regulators realized what was going on and changed the rules. The cost of fraud can no longer be passed onto users.

According to this article in Gizmodo when France made the switch from mag to smart credit cards their fraud rate dropped by 50%. The rule change is driving the technology shift. As MasterCard's Carolyn Balfany told the WSJ:

Part of the October 2015 deadline in our roadmap is what's known as the 'liability shift.' Whenever card fraud happens, we need to determine who is liable for the costs. When the liability shift happens, what will change is that if there is an incidence of card fraud, whichever party has the lesser technology will bear the liability.

The new rules mean the organization with the least secure system is the one that pays.

So if a merchant is still using the old system, they can still run a transaction with a swipe and a signature. But they will be liable for any fraudulent transactions if the customer has a chip card. And the same goes the other way; if the merchant has a new terminal, but the bank hasn't issued a chip and PIN card to the customer, the bank would be liable. Either way, liability no longer falls on the consumer.

Now if the Feds would just clean up the rest of the corrupt banking sector practices there might even be a return to capitalism in the US. Somehow I doubt it will happen.

Modern users connect using apps.

2) Most countries use drones. You are only reading about the US produced ones. They've been used heavily as far back and including WWII
3) I'm sure spy agencies use cars, cell phones, restaurants and probably social media sites like this one
4) Again, they are not new. Did you know that Marilyn Monroe worked assembling drones in WWII? It's true
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com...

I like cats if they are friendly, but they are not good for me; I am somewhat allergic to them. This allergy makes my face itch and my eyes water. So the bed, and the room I will usually be staying in, need to be clean of cat hair. However, it is no problem if there is a cat elsewhere in the house—I might even enjoy it if the cat is friendly.

Dogs that bark angrily and/or jump up on me frighten me, unless they are small and cannot reach much above my knees. But if they only bark or jump when we enter the house, I can cope, as long as you hold the dog away from me at that time. Aside from that issue, I'm ok with dogs.

If you can find a host for me that has a friendly parrot, I will be very very glad. If you can find someone who has a friendly parrot I can visit with, that will be nice too.

DON'T buy a parrot figuring that it will be a fun surprise for me. To acquire a parrot is a major decision: it is likely to outlive you. If you don't know how to treat the parrot, it could be emotionally scarred and spend many decades feeling frightened and unhappy. If you buy a captured wild parrot, you will promote a cruel and devastating practice, and the parrot will be emotionally scarred before you get it. Meeting that sad animal is not an agreeable surprise.

http://gizmodo.com/5853729/ple...

Actually, autonomous cars are programmed to exceed the speed limit by up to 10 mph. This is done because Google deems it safer than driving at the speed limit and being slower than the other cars on the road.

http://gizmodo.com/googles-autonomous-car-is-programmed-to-speed-because-i-1624025227
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996

That seems pretty interesting, I'm kind of losing confidence in the woman writing those articles though. She's making statements like this:

Looking at the code, there appear to be several database tables where the system keeps track of when humans chat or message with other humans. It also seems that Ashley Madison even keeps records of what each member says to the other in chat sessions. ... So much for Ashley Madison's guarantee that they'll keep your affair hushed up. Right now, the company has reams of incredibly incriminating personal information about everything its human users are doing and saying.

I mean, where are they supposed to store that data if not in a database? She sounds a little bit alarmist and relatively non-technical for someone trying to analyze a database dump.

Perhaps one of the most poignant parts of reading the engineers' comments in the code was when I uncovered a set of descriptions for how the engager bots should act. I found these in a database devoted to engager activity. Here are a few of them:

host bot mother creates engagers

birth has been given! let the engager find itself a man!

randomizing start time so engagers don't all pop up at the same time

for every single state that has guest males, we want to have a chat engager

Annalee, you found those in code comments or a database?

They operate by inhabiting, as a demon might, previously existing fake profiles

Yes, it's all witchcraft and sorcery.

The Angels, also called "hosts" by the company’s engineers, lay dormant until a bot animates them and uses them like a skin to contact a male user.

I think that Annalee thinks that her target audience is politicians.

It's unclear what else the engager would say - either the bots really are this simple, or further chat phrases weren't in the code. Most likely, based on what I saw from other bot code, the bot would urge the man to pay credits to talk further.

The most genius part of this entire scam is that the men will never go to the authorities if they figure it out. If a man gets messages from 10 different women all saying this:

I'm sexy, discreet, and always up for kinky chat. Would also meet up in person if we get to know each other and think there might be a good connection. Does this sound intriguing?

He's going to know that he's being scammed. He's not going to tell anyone about it though, beyond complaining to the site. He's not going to the media. It's like the druggie who gets his drugs stolen. He's not going to call the police to report that.

All told though, it's an interesting article with some better analysis. Upon hearing about the leak this was what I was most excited about - getting a real insider peak at how a dating site actually operates, from an analytical perspective it's great that both the source code and some or all of the database was leaked. From a privacy perspective that's obviously a horrible thing, but I'm definitely interested in the broad (non-personal) conclusions that come from seeing all of this information.

She posted another article here that shows the profit motive for running the bots, from email:

http://gizmodo.com/one-chart-t...

There's actually an update to the Gizmodo article since I'd last read it. I'm reading the new article now.

http://gizmodo.com/ashley-madi...

Its quite interesting.

You're looking at a single metric or two (inbox opened, messages replied to) and trying to extrapolate additional information that is simply not there.

You are right. I conflated "replied to" with "sent". That changes things significantly. But the debate is somewhat mooted by the new article.

-cheers

Like I said, I doubt we'll ever know the exact number, but the truth is probably somewhere between 12,000 and 2.1 million.

http://gizmodo.com/almost-none...

The truth is probably somewhere below 15,000 'real' members, and probably much lower, like 1000. After all, someone joining and responding to a couple messages and then never coming back is being counted as an "active" member here. I'm willing to bet of the 10k women who had replied to "at least 1 message", a majority of even them were gone within a week or two. And that 15,000 includes people who were active in the past but might not have used the site in 2 years... how many active women were there in the last 3 months? I think one could credibly suggest it was in the hundreds.

Only 1,492 women had ever checked their inbox. (20 million men had)
Only 9,700 women had ever replied to a single message. (Note the article explains how this number can be higher than the above number.) (6 million men did)
Only 2,400 women had engaged in chat. (11 million men did)

The higher portion of paid deletes for women also lines up with the large number of female accounts that basically existed for one day and never came back; a good number of those may have opted for the paid delete. Especially if they were only checking to see if their husband had an account.

The proportions don't line up 100% (although it makes sense that more men checked their inboxes; they weren't getting all the messages on login that women did. So women would answer their messages directly from login, and rarely check their inbox, while men would futilely check their inbox looking for messages that would never come.)

Frankly, as I said, based on what I see there. I don't think the site even credibly had even 1000 active women on it at any one time.

He ran a fraud:

Almost None of the Women in the Ashley Madison Database Ever Used the Site

...

About two-thirds of the men, or 20.2 million of them, had checked the messages in their accounts at least once. But only 1,492 women had ever checked their messages.

...

... a member had last replied to a message from another person on Ashley Madison. 5.9 million men had done it, and only 9700 women had.

...

Out of 5.5 million female accounts, roughly zero percent had ever shown any kind of activity at all, after the day they were created.

...

Actually, Google programs their cars to break the speed limit. They say it's safer, but it does involve breaking the law. http://gizmodo.com/googles-autonomous-car-is-programmed-to-speed-because-i-1624025227

Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."

Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.

Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second

Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan

Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.

Is Amazon an unpleasant place to work? Quote: "Based on my experience, I agree with what everyone has said about the company being a horrible place to work."

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon

Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."

Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.

Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second

Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan

Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.

Is Amazon an unpleasant place to work? Quote: "Based on my experience, I agree with what everyone has said about the company being a horrible place to work."

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon

"After reading this I'm not going to even entertain the thought of working there."

A few links to stories that say that's a good decision:

Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."

Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan

Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture

Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.

Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.

Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second

"After reading this I'm not going to even entertain the thought of working there."

A few links to stories that say that's a good decision:

Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long. Quote: "Amazon's work-life balance is awful."

Inside Amazon's Kafkaesque performance-improvement plan

Inside Amazon's Bizarre Corporate Culture

Glassdoor Reviews of Amazon

Amazon Is a Time Thief, by an Amazon Employee.

Working for Amazon Sounds Utterly Soul Crushing.

Life in an Amazon Warehouse: Fear and Efficiency at 35 Orders Per Second

> This release is focusing on deprecating weak and unsafe cryptographic methods,

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

> though some of the work won't be complete until 7.1.

well I guess that is okay then...

> This release removes support for the following: In the next release, they plan to retire more legacy cryptography. This includes refusing RSA keys smaller than 1024 bits,

LOL! Well, If it makes u feel safer! hahahahaha! http://gizmodo.com/nsa-paid-se...

> disabling these ciphers: blowfish-cbc,

Damn you Bruce Schneier! ''Please take a moment to read Authenticated Encryption and understand why you should prefer to use CCM or EAX over other modes, such as CBC or CTR'' http://www.cryptopp.com/wiki/A...

"... it's not the disaster that people are making it out to be."

One of the issues is this: "people" are saying negative things. Apple has become a gay-supporting, headphone-selling, watch-making corporation that announces products before they are ready.

Apple's Tim Cook profiled as "most powerful gay man in Silicon Valley"

5 Reasons Apple Headphones Are The Actual Worst. We are all victims.

Exclusive: Corrupt Apple Store Employees Come Forward Across America (12/20/12)

Apple CEO Tim Cook is apparently not someone who can handle being a CEO. A capable CEO would not run a company in a way that gets so much negative or distracting publicity.

Does Tim Cook deserve to be paid so much? "Cook's pay package was valued at $378 million when he became Apple's CEO."

What a hostile response. Sounds like I'm speaking to the pope. I'm sorry I upset your religious worldview. Put down your bible for a minute, and I'll go through your points:

1) Life is theorized to have arisen multiple times on early Earth, in between giant catastrophic impacts. Once the solar system was quieter, it "stuck" and here we are.

Maybe, but there's also very compelling evidence that says otherwise:

http://science.slashdot.org/st...

2) The Sun is nearly 100 million miles from the Earth, and has been as long as they have both been in existence. Any other star coming in between would have utterly destroyed the solar system. It has been theorized that the solar system's Oort cloud was shaped by close encounters with other stars at a distance of around a light year but that's pointless to even measure in miles.

Except when Earth was a protoplanet. Earth has only fully cleared its orbital position of meteors somewhat recently. Now, I'm not saying that the edge of another star system came within a hundred million miles, rather likely somewhere under a billion.

It's entirely likely that all of our planets received ejecta containing this material, but remember that Earth is the only planet to truly be within the Goldilocks zone.

3) Microbes "thriving" in space have never been detected, so we clearly don't "know" that. In any case, it's much more likely for life to evolve on a planet than for life to evolve on a planet, then magically survive transportation through space and arrive on another planet where it can also magically survive.

I'm sorry that wasn't mentioned in your bible, but it is mentioned here:

http://gizmodo.com/why-do-bact...

And here:

http://content.time.com/time/h...

And a lot of other places, if you just looked up from your bible. I know, I know, it's hard to get past a self inflicted dogmatic view, but all I ask is that you try.

Guy in the video looks pretty white to me. Maybe you mean the bullshit that white dudes who are sick in the head go on about while they do evil:

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/heres-video-of-the-jerk-who-killed-hitchbot-1721797093

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com...

Here's a story with a picture of the robot back when he was in good health, as well as a picture of the now deceased robot:

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com...

Based on this review, actually, I think I'll give the Compute Stick a miss. The fundamental problem is that it tries to cram a whole PC on a USB stick, with predictably dodgy results. I have a whole fully-powered PC sitting upstairs - I just need to forward its video/audio downstairs, and my keyboard/mouse input upstairs!

Gizmodo had an article a while back on this topic.

Is It OK to Shoot Down Your Neighbor's Drone?

Basically, under the law, the drone is the same as a full-fledged aircraft. Now, the other side of the equation is that you only own ~100 feet above your property. If it was flying higher, then it is legal.

If it was lower, then it's a different story. In any event, the most prudent course is to call the cops - anything else would just be an overkill, and even if you were in the right, it's just a pain.

You could probably still be subjected to civil suits and what not.

http://gizmodo.com/is-it-ok-to-shoot-down-your-neighbors-drone-1718055028

(a) Whoever willfully—

(1) sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce; ...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years or both.

“This applies even if a drone is hovering over your backyard,” says Sachs. “According to the FAA, it controls all airspace from the blades of the grass up. However, even if you did own X feet above your property, you would not be permitted to shoot a drone that flies within that space because shooting any aircraft is a federal crime.”

Compared to the cost of your organs on the black market.

Sometimes, a "news story" is so obviously a press release that it's almost embarrassing.

Here's a couple of news stories that hit the wire in the past few days, so you tell me why you think there's suddenly a story about how we're all going to live in a robocar utopia:

http://gizmodo.com/hackers-hav...

http://gizmodo.com/chrysler-re...

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is recalling 1.4 million cars due to a security flaw that leaves the vehicles vulnerable to complete takeovers from hackers.

Yes, over a million popular cars can be commandeered by hackers from thousands of miles away.

This is a response to a Wired investigation demonstrated how hackers can exploit a security hole in the UConnect software installed in many of the company’s popular new models. The software has a flaw can be used to take control over the vehicles, cutting transmission and endangering/scaring the bejeezus out of the people in the car.

People who own those millions of cars won’t all get shiny, new, unhackable versions of their rides. They’ll just get a USB stick. FCA’s recall will give people a software update on a USB that fixes the security hole discovered by researchers.

(emphasis mine)

Sometimes, a "news story" is so obviously a press release that it's almost embarrassing.

Here's a couple of news stories that hit the wire in the past few days, so you tell me why you think there's suddenly a story about how we're all going to live in a robocar utopia:

http://gizmodo.com/hackers-hav...

http://gizmodo.com/chrysler-re...

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is recalling 1.4 million cars due to a security flaw that leaves the vehicles vulnerable to complete takeovers from hackers.

Yes, over a million popular cars can be commandeered by hackers from thousands of miles away.

This is a response to a Wired investigation demonstrated how hackers can exploit a security hole in the UConnect software installed in many of the company’s popular new models. The software has a flaw can be used to take control over the vehicles, cutting transmission and endangering/scaring the bejeezus out of the people in the car.

People who own those millions of cars won’t all get shiny, new, unhackable versions of their rides. They’ll just get a USB stick. FCA’s recall will give people a software update on a USB that fixes the security hole discovered by researchers.

(emphasis mine)

Actually the strategy is go get rid of "patch Tuesday" Now your systems will get hosed like uhm, whenever.

...to fix the drone problem.
http://gizmodo.com/5955042/sou...

It might require some software changes though.

More of you are not complaining about how hot THIS YEAR is.

It's much hotter than what is being 'officially' reported! (Acurite weather station calibrated/ spot on)

  like Clockwork, every day is triple digits, 100F at night, ground temperatures 140F-190F

Home air conditioning systems are struggling, Car air conditioning system are failing (over-pressure shutdown), everything man-made is failing, baking, and micro-evaporating.

Barely survivable until the power goes out or ..the reservoirs dry up? Bottled water s regularly sold out or costs more than a gallon of gasoline.

I think you'll find most people making arguments against the thing have not heard it.

I've never even heard OF it. I'm not arguing anything, I'm just noticing your rhetorical devices, you make it pretty easy to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you (they must not know what they're doing; you obviously do). That's called No True Scotsman. If someone disagrees with you, then instead of debating their points and possibly conceding your own you just say they don't know what they're doing, they're not a "real audio guy", because a "real audio guy" wouldn't have that opinion. This attitude is all over the "high end audio" world. Just ask the guy who decided that the Pear Anjou cables are "danceable". I think of those kinds of reviews and people whenever I see or hear someone say something like "no one who knows what they're doing would say this doesn't sound good."

http://gizmodo.com/5853495/yes...

Apollo 6 had two engines shut down early, but the upper stage burned longer to compensate, so the vehicle still made orbit.
The S-IVB didn't restart in orbit-- but since that was after it already made orbit, that counts as an in-space propulsion failure, not a launch vehicle failure.

Apollo 13 had a second-stage engine shut down early, but, again, the other engines burned longer to compensate, and the launch was a success. Launch wasn't the problem with Apollo 13.

So, I'd rate Saturn-V at 100% success rate as a launch vehicle, if the criteria for success is "getting the payload successfully into orbit".

Of course, with only 13 launches, it's not had as long a record as many other vehicles.

Nice video here: http://gizmodo.com/watch-all-1...

Yes, I know there's a 2.5" 2TB HDD out there. But it's a 12mm height

You're at least 1.5 years out of touch: 2TB hard drive 9.5mm thick

Weight plays a lot into our perception for how solid and well built things are, even when they're not. Lightweight is great, but go too far and things feel like a fragile toy.

This is almost too good a problem to have with a laptop -- too lightweight? Put more battery in it.

Outdoor growing remains the most efficient.

Except that GP just cited an example of an indoor farm using led lighting where "Produce waste has been cut from 50 percent of a harvest to just 10, productivity per square foot has increased 100 fold, and water usage has been slashed to just 1 percent of what a conventional farm would consume." You must have a very strange notion of the meaning of "efficient".

I know you're not big on reading things that don't conform to your per-conceived notions, bet here's another example of the undeniable success of Philips' led tech. Guess what? It's in Chicago.

"This LED grow light concept?... no." i think you'll find the answer is YES - http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-...

You need to read the article - https://www.youtube.com/user/P... is worth checking out and so is this http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-... - produces 10,000 heads of lettuce a day in a 25,000 square foot (roughly half a football field) indoor farm. just in case you don't want to go to this page about the farm, here is a quote from it.

"To that end, the farm uses 17,500 LED lights spread across 18 cultivation racks, each towering 16 levels high. Combined with tightly modulated temperature and humidity levels within the grow room, this system has already shown significant advantages over outdoor farms since coming online earlier this year: Produce waste has been cut from 50 percent of a harvest to just 10, productivity per square foot has increased 100 fold, and water usage has been slashed to just 1 percent of what a conventional farm would consume."

There is plenty of evidence that most bitcoin mines are moving to use hydroelectric power and geothermal. They aren't doing so out of a sense of environmental altruism , but simply because "greener" power is less expensive. http://gizmodo.com/why-bitcoin... http://www.datacenterknowledge... https://www.cryptocoinsnews.co... http://dealbook.nytimes.com/20... http://www.coindesk.com/my-lif...

Quick! Google's fucked up, find some subtle segue to change the subject to Microsoft!

Honestly you people are pathetic with your "I dont mind being fucked in the ass, at least Im not being fucked in the ass twice" like "not at all" is just not an option for you, just bend over and keep taking it then because just like Microsoft Google has a whole lot of involvement in making sure your data ends up safely in the hands of the NSA.