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wlac tv nashville news 1962 (by Captain Geoffrey Spaulding)
(via Yahoo to acquire Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal)
That cat’s out of the bag a day early, it seems. Yahoo’s board has approved a $1.1 billion cash deal to purchase the blogging site Tumblr, according to The Wall Street Journal. We were expecting Yahoo to announce the acquisition during tomorrow’s NYC media event — CEO Marissa Mayer may instead use the last-minute gathering to detail the company’s plans for integrating the popular platform. It’s unclear how Yahoo intends to utilize its latest procurement, but with a 10-figure price tag now public, we can only imagine that Tumblr will be put to good use. We’ll be covering tomorrow afternoon’s event live, so stay tuned for more details from New York City.
Last year, the FAA went on the record with New York Times Bits Blog writer Nick Bilton and said they’d take a “fresh look” at their policies regarding electronic device usage during take-off and landing. This year Bilton is in touch with the powers that be again, and he reports everyone’s favorite flight procedure will likely change before 2014.
“According to people who work with an industry working group that the Federal Aviation Administration set up last year to study the use of portable electronics on planes, the agency hopes to announce by the end of this year that it will relax the rules for reading devices during takeoff and landing,” Bilton wrote…
(via Major glitch in Bitcoin network sparks sell-off; price temporarily falls 23% | Ars Technica)
A technical glitch in the core Bitcoin software forced developers to call for a temporary halt to Bitcoin transactions, sparking a sharp sell-off. The currency’s value briefly fell 23 percent to $37 before regaining much of its value later in the evening.
The core of the Bitcoin network is a shared transaction register known as the blockchain. Approximately every 10 minutes, a new block is created containing a record of all Bitcoin transactions that occurred since the previous block. Nodes in the network, known as miners, race to “discover” this next block by solving a cryptographic puzzle. The winner of this race announces the new block to the other nodes. The other nodes verify that it complies with all the rules of the Bitcoin protocol and then accepts it as the next official entry in the block chain, starting the race anew.
It’s essential for all miners to enforce exactly the same rules about what counts as a valid block. If a client announces a block that half the network accepts and the other half rejects, the result could be a fork in the network. Different nodes could disagree about which transactions have occurred, potentially producing chaos.
That’s what happened on Monday evening. A block was produced that the latest version of the Bitcoin software, version 0.8, recognized as valid but that nodes still running version 0.7 or earlier rejected…
fascinated by this - seems both very clever and very dangerous…
NOT THE ONION.
I’m starting to think that some of these republicans are actually huge Andy Kaufman fans that have become crazy performance artists. It’s the only logical explanation…
anon hate in 3…2…1…
(via How Java dumps useless add-ons and toolbars on PC users | Ars Technica)
Remember the Ask search engine? Oracle sure does—and by extension, so do Java users. Oracle has taken the practice of bundling useless add-ons and toolbars with legitimate software to new heights while collecting a commission each time it tricks a user into installing an Ask toolbar.
That’s what Windows expert and legendary skeptic Ed Bott of ZDNet reports after examining Java’s installation and update practices. Bott has done extensive reporting on “foistware,” previously crowning Adobe and Skype as the worst offenders. But over the past year, Adobe and Skype have reformed themselves a little bit, while Oracle’s Java now deserves the crown for “king of foistware,” he wrote today.
“The evidence against Oracle is overwhelming,” Bott wrote, continuing:
- When you use Java’s automatic updater to install crucial security updates for Windows, third-party software is always included. The two additional packages delivered to users are the Ask Toolbar and McAfee Security Scanner.
- With every Java update, you must specifically opt out of the additional software installations. If you are busy or distracted or naïve enough to trust Java’s ‘recommendation,’ you end up with unwanted software on your PC.
- IAC, which partners with Oracle to deliver the Ask toolbar, uses deceptive techniques to install its software. These techniques include social engineering that appears to be aimed at both novices and experienced computer users, behavior that may well be illegal in some jurisdictions.
- The Ask.com search page delivers inferior search results and uses misleading and possibly illegal techniques to deceive visitors into clicking paid ads instead of organic search results…
Bushfires Ravage Victoria
Firefighters prepare to defend the Glenmaggie Caravan Park in the large rural region of Gippsland January 18, 2013 near Glenmaggie, Victoria, Australia.
Record heat was making conditions ripe for wildfires throughout Australia. Australia’s largest city Sydney today posted its highest recorded temperature ever at 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
Photo by Michael Clayton-Jones/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
