John Gordon Ross

Anyone who works as a freelancer these days has to be at least a bit familiar with techie things. But it isn’t just that. When I was a kid and those vaguely SF puppet shows were on the television and all the other kids wanted to be Greg Gogetem or Steve Savetheuniverse, I wanted to be the guy in a white coat and glasses called Doc or Brains. Here are some technology-related feeds I find useful and/or entertaining.

Mashable » Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop suggests you use coffee to clean your poop chute. Don't.

Saturday 6 January 23:17:45 UTC 2018

No matter what Gwyneth Paltrow's dubious health website tells you, please talk to your doctor before shooting coffee into your colon. In an article titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Colonics," Goop writer Dr. Alejandro Junger suggests a specific brand of enema device for people who want to use a home system and know what they're doing. Goop links out to … [Link]

Slashdot » The Orange Goo Used In Everything From Armor To Football Helmets

Saturday 6 January 23:09:00 UTC 2018

dryriver writes: CNN has a story about a slimy, gooey orange gel developed by British company D3O as far back as 1999 that is very soft and fluid-like normally, but that hardens immediately when it receives an impact: It's a gel that acts as both a liquid and a solid. When handled slowly the goo is soft and flexible but … [Link]

Slashdot » Kansas 'Swat' Perpetrator Had Already Been To Prison For Fake Bomb Threats

Saturday 6 January 22:04:00 UTC 2018

More details are emerging about an online gamer whose fake call to Kansas police led to a fatal shooting: "After phoning in a false bomb threat to a Glendale, California TV station in 2015, Tyler Barriss threatened to kill his grandmother if she reported him, according to local reports and court documents." — The Wichita Eagle "The Glendale Police Department … [Link]

Slashdot » Bill Gates Is First Guest Editor In Time Magazine's 94-Year History

Saturday 6 January 20:59:00 UTC 2018

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Time invited Bill Gates to be the first guest editor in the 94-year history of the magazine. Among the news Bill deemed fit to print in Time's first augmented-reality-enhanced issue were articles by wife Melinda and pal Bono, both of whom graced the cover of Time with Bill as the 2005 Persons of the Year… … [Link]

Mashable » Clever artist turns Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury' into a hilarious pop-up book

Saturday 6 January 20:56:24 UTC 2018

It’s common knowledge by now that Donald Trump isn't much of a reader. That fact alone suggests he probably won't get through a full read of Michael Wolff's explosive, new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Fortunately, one talented individual came up with the perfect solution. SEE ALSO: Despite bombshell book, Donald Trump wants all of you to … [Link]

Mashable » Pete Souza had the perfect reaction to Trump's 'like, really smart' tweets

Saturday 6 January 20:13:47 UTC 2018

Donald Trump had one of his most unforgettable series of tweets Saturday morning, touting his own mental stability, claiming that he's, "like, really smart," and calling himself a genius. SEE ALSO: Pete Souza throws shade at Trump for 'nuclear button' tweet Pete Souza, the former photographer for the Obama White House who has become one of the internet's foremost Trump shade-throwers, … [Link]

Slashdot » Linus Torvalds Says Intel Needs To Admit It Has Issues With CPUs

Saturday 6 January 19:54:00 UTC 2018

troublemaker_23 shares an article from ITWire: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has had some harsh words for Intel in the course of a discussion about patches for two bugs that were found to affect most of the company's processors… Torvalds was clearly unimpressed by Intel's bid to play down the crisis through its media statements, saying: "I think somebody inside of … [Link]

Mashable » $450 million lottery jackpot has a single, lucky winner in Florida

Saturday 6 January 19:02:23 UTC 2018

Just one person from Florida gets to claim a $450 million lottery jackpot. Is it you? A 7-Eleven in Port Richey, Florida sold the winning ticket, bearing the numbers 28, 30, 39, 59, and 70, and then 10 for the Mega Ball, Mega Millions announced. A lump-sum cash payout for the lucky winner would come out to $281.2 million. SEE ALSO: … [Link]

Slashdot » Bitcoin Debit Cards Suspended After Upstream Visa Rules Infraction

Saturday 6 January 18:49:00 UTC 2018

At least four pre-paid debit cards that accept cryptocurrencies abruptly suspended service on Friday. An anonymous reader quotes TheNextWeb: Speaking to their customers on Twitter, the affected companies have said the move is the result of actions from their card issuer, [WaveCrest], who was acting on behalf of Visa Europe… A statement from Visa Europe obtained by The Daily Beast … [Link]

Mashable » Eastern U.S. shivers through 'stupid cold' temperatures after the 'bomb cyclone'

Saturday 6 January 18:42:36 UTC 2018

Mashable’s Andrew Freedman warned all of you last week: "Stupid-level cold" incoming. In the aftermath of the "bomb cyclone" that slammed the eastern United States on Wednesday and Thursday, a bitter cold has descended. It's thanks to all the frigid air blowing in from the North Pole and parts of Canada, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. SEE … [Link]

Slashdot » Rust 1.23.0 Released, Community Urged To Blog Ideas For 2018 Roadmap

Saturday 6 January 17:44:00 UTC 2018

An anonymous reader quotes the official Rust blog: The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.23.0… New year, new Rust! For our first improvement today, we now avoid some unnecessary copies in certain situations. We've seen memory usage of using rustc to drop 5-10% with this change; it may be different with your programs… The … [Link]

Mashable » Norwegian Cruise Line sailed right through the nightmarish winter storm

Saturday 6 January 17:07:08 UTC 2018

As a powerful 'bomb cyclone' ravaged the U.S. East Coast with snow and high winds this week, a Norwegian Cruise Line ship sailed right into its path, giving thousands of passengers a fearsome experience they aren't likely to forget. SEE ALSO: Incredible photos from space show off the historic East Coast 'bomb cyclone' Passengers on the Norwegian Breakaway cruise were treated … [Link]

Slashdot » Lindows Resurrected! Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 Linux Distros Now Available

Saturday 6 January 16:39:00 UTC 2018

BrianFagioli writes: About 16 years ago, a for-pay Linux distribution caused quite a stir all because of its name — Lindows. Yes, someone actually thought kicking the billion dollar hornets nest that is Microsoft by playing off of the "Windows" name was a good idea. To be honest, from a marketing perspective, it was brilliant — it got tons of … [Link]

Mashable » YouTube celebrities worth following who aren't Logan Paul

Saturday 6 January 16:00:00 UTC 2018

There’s a whole world on YouTube that doesn't involve terrible people, it just doesn't feel that way right now. The first week of 2018 wasn't exactly a banner week for YouTube star Logan Paul, for example. Paul, known as the less offensive Paul brother (*&^@&#^?), kicked things off by releasing a tone-deaf video where he encounters a dead body in Japan's … [Link]

Mashable » Sarah Silverman responded to a troll with kindness and it was beautiful

Saturday 6 January 15:46:05 UTC 2018

When a troll called comedian Sarah Silverman the C-word on Twitter, she responded with level-headed kindness, finding out he was in a lot of pain and eventually helping him pay for his medical bills. SEE ALSO: Twitter's most popular tweets, accounts, and hashtags of 2017 On Dec. 28, Twitter user Jeremy Jamrozy responded rudely to one of Silverman's tweets where she … [Link]

Slashdot » 'The State of JavaScript Frameworks, 2017'

Saturday 6 January 15:34:00 UTC 2018

An anonymous reader shares some new statistics from Laurie Voss, co-founder and COO of npm (the package manager/software registry for JavaScript): The sum of all the package downloads in the npm Registry shows that the npm ecosystem continues to experience explosive, continuous growth… Right now, we estimate about 75% of all JavaScript developers use npm, and that number is rising … [Link]

Mashable » Despite bombshell book, Donald Trump wants all of you to know he's 'like, really smart'

Saturday 6 January 15:08:36 UTC 2018

2018 sure is off to a running start in Trumpland. The 45th President of the United States kicked off a busy weekend of meetings at Camp David on Saturday with a brief, fiery tweetstorm that — even at this early point in 2018 — is already a surefire candidate for the year's most memorable. SEE ALSO: Why 'Fire and Fury' could … [Link]

Mashable » Here's where you can watch all the Golden Globe Best Picture nominees

Saturday 6 January 14:38:16 UTC 2018

If there's one thing awards season is good for, it's reminding you just how many great movies you totally meant to watch, but never quite got around to. SEE ALSO: A 'Time's Up' pin is here — just in time for the Golden Globes Fortunately, there's still time to catch up. Most of the awards contenders are in still in theaters … [Link]

Mashable » Be the Excel master you've always wanted to be with this bundle

Saturday 6 January 13:00:00 UTC 2018

Heads up: All products featured here are selected by Mashable's commerce team and meet our rigorous standards for awesomeness. If you buy something, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Not all computer wizards build code. There are some who crunch tons of data using spreadsheets. In virtually every industry, understanding data is imperative to making business decisions. But before you can … [Link]

Mashable » Learning about graphic design is as easy as playing Solitaire with this card deck

Saturday 6 January 13:00:00 UTC 2018

Heads up: All products featured here are selected by Mashable's commerce team and meet our rigorous standards for awesomeness. If you buy something, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Whoever said, "Never judge a book by its cover" clearly never took a typography class. From Times New Roman to Tahoma to Proxima Nova (that's the typeface you're reading right now), a … [Link]

Mashable » Check out Roxio Toast, the one digital media tool to rule them all

Saturday 6 January 13:00:00 UTC 2018

Heads up: All products featured here are selected by Mashable's commerce team and meet our rigorous standards for awesomeness. If you buy something, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Digital media is like the Tower of Babel: there are way too many formats. Sure, you can record a video in MOV, but what if you use MPEG or DivX? Or what … [Link]

Slashdot » Intel Hit With Three Class-Action Lawsuits Over Meltdown and Spectre Bugs

Saturday 6 January 13:00:00 UTC 2018

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Intel has been hit with at least three class-action lawsuits over the major processor vulnerabilities revealed this week. Three separate class-action lawsuits have been filed by plaintiffs in California, Oregon and Indiana seeking compensation, with more expected. All three cite the security vulnerability and Intel's delay in public disclosure from when … [Link]

Slashdot » A Cryptocurrency Based On a Dog Meme Is Now Worth Over $1 Billion

Saturday 6 January 10:00:00 UTC 2018

Earlier today, the market capitlization of dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on a meme about a Shiba Inu dog, passed the $1 billion mark for the first time. VICE News reports: Dogecoin was created back in the early days of the cryptocurrency craze. Launched in December 2013 as somewhat of a joke, the meme-inspired coin was dubbed "the internet currency" and … [Link]

Slashdot » Ancient DNA Reveals a Completely Unknown Population of Native Americans

Saturday 6 January 7:00:00 UTC 2018

schwit1 shares the findings of a new study of 11,500-year-old bones: Sunrise girl-child ("Xach'itee'aanenh T'eede Gaay") lived some 11,500 years ago in what is now called Alaska, and her ancient DNA reveals not only the origins of Native American society, but reminds the world of a whole population of people forgotten by history millennia ago. "We didn't know this population … [Link]

Slashdot » Why Twitter Hasn't Banned President Trump

Saturday 6 January 3:30:00 UTC 2018

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amid vocal calls for the company to act, Twitter today offered its first explanation for why it hasn't banned President Donald Trump — without ever saying the man's name. "Elected world leaders play a critical role in that conversation because of their outsized impact on our society," the company said in … [Link]

Mashable » Faraday Future is the ultimate CES cautionary tale

Saturday 6 January 2:03:11 UTC 2018

It was the "first of a new species." It was going to change the game. It both was, and maybe was not, a car. It was the talk of CES. But that was then.  Now, almost a year after Faraday Future unveiled the FF 91 at CES in January 2017, the would-be electric car manufacturer that sought to challenge Tesla has … [Link]

Slashdot » Don't Pirate Or We'll Mess With Your Connected Thermostats, Warns East Coast ISP

Saturday 6 January 1:00:00 UTC 2018

Internet service provider Armstrong Zoom has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. and is keen to punish those it believes are using file-sharing services. According to Engadget, "the ISP's response to allegedly naughty customers is bandwidth throttling, which is when an ISP intentionally slows down your internet service based on what you're doing online. Armstrong … [Link]

New Scientist – News » How to protect yourself from the Meltdown and Spectre bugs

Saturday 6 January 0:45:22 UTC 2018

After initial rumours of an Intel bug, a massive security flaw has been revealed in most computer processors leaving personal data and passwords vulnerable [Link]

New Scientist – News » Arsonist falcons suggest birds discovered fire before humans did

Saturday 6 January 0:45:21 UTC 2018

Multiple eyewitness accounts describe Australian birds of prey deliberately setting wildfires by carrying burning sticks, in order to flush out prey [Link]

Mashable » The world banded together to heal the ozone layer, and now NASA says it's working

Saturday 6 January 0:44:25 UTC 2018

Earth’s infamous ozone hole won't fully recover for another half-century, but NASA has its best evidence yet that this massive environmental scar is slowly healing itself. In the early 1980s, scientists discovered that hair sprays, refrigerants, and other chemicals were releasing an ozone-depleting chemical into the air called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. When sunlight hits these airborne chemicals, it unleashes chlorine atoms … [Link]

Mashable » Here's how 'Meltdown' and 'Spectre' got those terrifying names

Saturday 6 January 0:40:10 UTC 2018

Meltdown and Spectre. Spectre, and Meltdown. The two vulnerabilities, both affecting computer processors across the globe, were disclosed on Jan. 3 and in the process sent manufactures scrambling to answer whether or not their operating systems, laptops, cloud computers, and smartphones are safe from hackers. But another, less technical, question presents itself: just how did the bugs get those cool names? … [Link]

New Scientist – News » Tackle UK’s killer toxic air before waging war on ocean plastic

Saturday 6 January 0:33:00 UTC 2018

If only environment secretary Michael Gove's enthusiasm to curb plastic pollution extended to more pressing environmental issues, says Olive Heffernan [Link]

Mashable » New York Times to air chilling Golden Globes ad that touts its sexual misconduct reporting

Saturday 6 January 0:20:10 UTC 2018

Read more… {"player":{"descript~ black errythang.","image":~ how women in Hollywood want to protest harassment this awards season","sources":[{~ carpet,awards ceremony,awards show,red carpet event,golden globes,awards,meryl streep,real-time,real-time video,real time,real-time-video,real time video","sec0":null,&~ carpet,awards ceremony,awards show,red carpet event,golden globes,awards,meryl streep,real-time,real-time video,real time,real-time-video,real time video","videoSeriesName&q~ More about Media, Gender, New York Times, Sexual Assault, and Hollywood [Link]

New Scientist – News » How besieged ants decide when it’s time to abandon their nests

Saturday 6 January 0:20:00 UTC 2018

Colonies of turtle ants are often attacked by competing species, and the ants understand enough military strategy to decide when certain nests should be abandoned [Link]

Slashdot » SoundCloud Refutes Decreasing Audio Quality, Cites Standard Testing

Saturday 6 January 0:20:00 UTC 2018

cordovaCon83 writes: NestHQ published an article today noting that online streaming service Soundcloud has implemented the Opus codec for its archive of music and started streaming at 64kbps instead of its prior 128kbps streams. Opus has been touted as a more efficient codec than the aging MP3 codec. Whether this will have a major effect on audio fidelity remains to … [Link]

New Scientist – News » Sex addiction is gaining medical credibility as a real thing

Saturday 6 January 0:16:00 UTC 2018

Guidelines from the World Health Organization are being drawn up that may recognise sexual compulsivity as a mental disorder [Link]

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