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Comment Entirely plausible (Score 1) 92

And anyone who has ever used a $2 ESP32 microcontroller should know just how plausible this could be...
Those things are scarily powerful for their price (likely a dumping strategy) and could quite easily embed a BLE or WiFi backdoor into anything from a disposable vape (which contains a microphone for your puffing convenience of course) to a car to an industrial robot, and so I would not be at all surprised to find them in Solar inverters.
Quite frankly, with its roughly 1MB of obfuscated/encrypted ROM, and radio in applications that shouldn't need radio, espressif ought to be treated with as much if not more suspicion than Huawei

Comment Re: Seriously, it's worse (Score 1) 103

by JimBowen (#62834415) Attached to: Is the Linux desktop user experience:

Definitely hasn't tried.
By default you can use Ctrl or Shift or mouse-drag to select multiple files. But what OP is looking for is the KDE-wide option (NOT a Dolphin setting because it applies to other KDE things like file open dialogs) that says "select a file on single click, open on double click" (i.e. Windows style) instead of "Open a file on single click" (i.e. Mac style, which is the default for whatever reason).
The point is, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. It's under System Settings -> Workspace settings -> General Behaviour
Science

Submission + - Scientists clone extinct frog that gives birth from its mouth (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Australian scientists have successfully revived and reactivated the genome of an extinct frog. The "Lazarus Project" team implanted cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept in a conventional deep freezer for 40 years into donor eggs from a distantly-related frog. Some of the eggs spontaneously began to divide and grow to early embryo stage with tests confirming the dividing cells contained genetic material from the extinct frog. The extinct frog in question is the Rheobatrachus silus, one of only two species of gastric-brooding frogs, or Platypus frogs, native to Queensland, Australia. Both species became extinct in the mid-1980s and were unique amongst frog species for the way in which they incubated their offspring.
Earth

Submission + - As US Cleans Its Energy Mix, It Ships Coal Problems Overseas

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Thomas K. Grose reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that greenhouse gas emissions in the US have fallen 8 percent from their 2007 peak to 6,703 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, due largely to the drop in coal-fired electricity which in 2012 generated 37.4 percent of US electricity, down from 50 percent in 2005. But don't celebrate just yet. A major side effect of that cleaner air in the US has been the further darkening of skies over Europe and Asia as US coal producers have been shipping the most carbon-intensive fuel to energy-hungry markets overseas. US coal exports to China were on track to double last year and demand for US metallurgical coal, the high-heat content coking coal that is used for steelmaking, is so great in Asia that shipments make a round-the-world journey from Appalachia as they are sent by train to the port of Baltimore, where they steam to sea through the Chesapeake Bay, then south across the Atlantic Ocean and around Africa's Cape of Good Hope to reach Asian ports. The Tyndall Center study estimates that the burning of all that exported coal could erase fully half the gains the United States has made in reducing carbon emissions and if the trend continues, the dramatic changes in energy use in the United States — in particular, the switch from coal to newly abundant natural gas for generating electricity — will have only a modest impact on global warming, observers warn. "Without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions," write Dr John Broderick and Prof Kevin Anderson. "For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground (PDF).""

Submission + - Big Eyes Using Too Much Brain Power Got Neanderthals Extinct

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bigger eyes and a corresponding greater allocation of the brain to process visual information is the most recent theory about the reasons that led to the extinction of Neanderthals, our closest relatives, brought forward in a new study. Neanderthals split from the primate line that gave rise to modern humans about 400,000 years ago. This group then moved to Eurasia and completely disappeared from the world about 30,000 years back. Other studies have shown that Neanderthals might have lived near the Arctic Circle around 31,000 to 34,000 years ago.
Beer

Submission + - How Beer Gave Us Civilization

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jeffrey P. Khan writes in the NY Times that recent anthropological research suggests that human's angst of anxiety and depression ultimately results from our transformation, over tens of thousands of years, from biologically shaped, almost herd-like prehistoric tribes, to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization and that the catalyst for suppressing the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive was fermented fruit or grain. "Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer must have become immediately apparent," writes Khan. "With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds." Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that “brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic” era. In time, humans became more expansive in their thinking, as well as more collaborative and creative. A night of modest tippling may have ushered in these feelings of freedom — though, the morning after, instincts to conform and submit would have kicked back in to restore the social order. Today, many people drink too much because they have more than average social anxiety or panic anxiety to quell — disorders that may result, in fact, from those primeval herd instincts kicking into overdrive. But beer’s place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass. As the ever rational Ben Franklin supposedly said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - The Pirate Bay's Oldest Torrent is "Revolution OS" (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "After nearly 9 years of seeding The Pirate Bay’s oldest working torrent is still very much alive. Interestingly, the torrent is not a Hollywood classic nor is it an evergreen music album. The honor goes to a pirated copy of “Revolution OS”, a documentary covering the history of Linux, GNU and the free software movement."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to abandon Windows Phone? (wmpoweruser.com)

Submitted by symbolset
symbolset writes: Microsoft has had some trouble as of late getting adoption of their mobile products. Even Bill Gates has said it was inadequate. Despite rave reviews of Windows Phone in the press it has failed to get double digit share of the smartphone market. Now comes reports from WMPoweruser that WP8 will lose mainstream support in July 2014, before even Windows Phone 7.8.

Is this evidence that Microsoft will give up their quest for mobile relevance?
Cellphones

Submission + - Lamenting the Demise of Hangups (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ian Bogost writes about a cultural tradition we've mostly lost as smartphones become ubiquitous: hanging up. While we still use the terminology (in the same way we say 'rewind' when skipping back on our DVR), the physical act of hanging up a telephone when we're done using it no longer occurs. And we don't get that satisfying crash and clatter when hanging up on somebody to make a point. 'In the context of such gravity, the hangup had a clear and forceful meaning. It offered a way of ending a conversation prematurely, sternly, aggressively. Without saying anything, the hangup said something: we're done, go away. ... Today a true hangup — one you really meant to perform out of anger or frustration or exhaustion — is only temporary and one-sided even when it is successfully executed. Even during a heated exchange, your interlocutor will first assume something went wrong in the network, and you could easily pretend such a thing was true later if you wanted. Calls aren't ever really under our control anymore, they "drop" intransitively.' It's an interesting point about the minor cultural changes that go along with evolving technology.

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