Robin Williams' wife, kids fight over his estate

At issue are his clothes, jewelry, photos and awards at one of the late actor's homes, located in Tiburon, California, including a promise ring and the tuxedo Williams wore at their wedding.
It's the same home where Williams was found dead in August. He committed suicide at the age of 63.
His wife, Susan, and his three children by previous marriages, Zachary, Zelda and Cody, will appear before a judge in Superior Court in California on Monday.
Williams wanted the Tiburon home to go to his wife, and for Susan to keep living there. Her attorney argues that it shouldn't be stripped of the things inside of it, according to court papers.

2 former federal agents charged with stealing Bitcoin during Silk Road probe

Washington (CNN)The federal government became owners of one of the biggest troves of Bitcoin, thanks to seizing millions of dollars in the digital currency from criminals associated with the online black market Silk Road.
Two federal agents who led the probe allegedly decided they wanted some of the money for themselves, according to a new federal court documents.
The two now-former agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Secret Service are charged with wire fraud, money laundering and other offenses for allegedly stealing Bitcoin during the federal investigation of Silk Road, an underground illicit black market federal prosecutors shut down last year.
The charges in a criminal complaint filed in San Francisco federal court paints a picture of corrupt federal agents trying to enrich themselves as they tried to bring down one of the Internet's top cybercriminals.

One shot dead at Fort Meade after trying to enter NSA gate

(CNN)One person is dead, and two more were hospitalized after an unauthorized vehicle tried to gain access to the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Maryland, according to the NSA, which is investigating the incident.
"Shortly before 9:00 AM today, a vehicle containing two individuals attempted an unauthorized entry at a National Security Agency gate," Jonathan Freed, NSA director of strategic communications, said in a statement. "The driver failed to obey an NSA Police officer's routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus. The vehicle failed to stop and barriers were deployed."
NSA police on the scene fired on the vehicle when it accelerated toward a police car, blocking its way, according to the NSA. One of the unauthorized vehicle's two occupants died on the scene. The other was hospitalized, as was an NSA police officer.
The two men who officials say tried to ram the main gate at NSA headquarters were dressed as women according to a federal law enforcement official.

2 being treated for injuries at gate of Fort Meade - NSA HQ

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — One person was killed in a firefight that erupted Monday after a car with two people tried to ram a gate at the Fort Meade, Md., military base near a gate to the National Security Agency, according to preliminary reports cited by two U.S. officials.
The officials said a firefight ensued after the car tried to crash the gate, and at least one of the two people in the car died. Fort Meade is home of the NSA.
Both federal officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing incident on the record.


The NSA headquarters is on the sprawling Army installation near Baltimore. An NSA spokesperson declined to comment.

Local television showed two damaged vehicles near a gate and emergency workers loading an injured uniformed man into an ambulance. LINK

Germanwings tragedy: How post-9/11 safety measures factored into crash

The Germanwings co-pilot who crashed a passenger plane in the French Alps on Tuesday — killing all 150 people onboard — locked his captain out of the cockpit, French authorities said.


This revelation has led many to question the rules and logistics surrounding access to the flight’s controls — most notably the cockpit door.
“Cockpit doors have been reinforced since 9/11. They are much more secure than the light plastic or wood doors that preceded to keep passengers out,” aviation lawyer Ladd Sanger said in an interview with Yahoo News.
The Airbus A320 has a code pad outside the door to request entry from the cockpit crew or open the reinforced door if both pilots are incapacitated, as seen in a video produced by the company.

A buzzer inside the cockpit on the rear of the overhead panel notifies the crew of the request.
A pilot can then grant or deny access using a toggle switch with three positions: unlock, normal, and lock.

Tops Spin Better In A Vacuum Chamber

How have I never seen this before? For a minute, I felt like I was watching the end of Inception.



Many Password Strength Meters Are Downright Weak

I know this may be hard to believe, but researchers say that most password strength meters suck.

Website password strength meters, like a spouse asked to assess your haircut or outfit, often tell you only what you want to hear. That’s the finding from researchers at Concordia University in Montreal, who examined the usefulness of those pesky and ubiquitous red-yellow-green password strength testers on websites run by big names such as Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Microsoft/Skype.

PayPal To Pay $7.7M Fine Over US Sanctions

It would've been hilarious if, in addition to the fine, the US Treasury Department froze all of PayPal's accounts and then refused to answer any of the company's complaints for 180 days. big grin

On Wednesday, the online payment service agreed to pay the fine after reaching a settlement with the US Treasury Department. The fine was levied against PayPal based on nearly 500 transactions totaling about $44,000 that potentially violated US sanctions, the Treasury Department said. As part of the settlement, PayPal did not admit to wrongdoing.

Amazon Workers Must Sign 18-Month Non-Compete Agreements - Insane!

I can see requiring a non-compete agreement for corporate executives, engineers or people with access to trade secrets...but warehouse workers?

The job doesn’t pay very much and is grueling, and also has high turnover. Oh, and employees are asked to sign 18-month non-compete contracts that ban them from working for any competitor of Amazon.

Microsoft Is Killing Off The Internet Explorer Brand

Microsoft is killing the IE brand to make way for Project Spartan.

Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. "We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10," said Capossela. "We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."

Governor To Decide If Tesla Can Restart Sales In New Jersey

Apparently the governor has forty five days to decide on the fate of Tesla in NJ. Any guesses on which way this will go and when?

The bill (A3216), which passed 30-2 with no debate, is now on Christie's desk. He has 45 days to act on it. "We must boost our economy with innovative industries that can help drive revenue and energy solutions while providing a cleaner environment for our residents.

The Air Force's B-3 Bomber Isn't As Secret As It Seems

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Last week Air Force officials appeared on Capitol Hill to discuss the weapons programs they want to fund in 2016.  As usual, details about one of the biggest programs, the Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), were few and far between.  The Air Force wants to keep potential adversaries guessing about the bomber’s capabilities, so all it has said is that it plans to buy 80-100 strike aircraft at a cost of $550 million each with initial fielding in 2025.  The only new information last week was that the contract to develop the bomber will be awarded to one of two competing teams this summer, and that it will not be a fixed-price contract owing to the difficulty of projecting costs for cutting-edge technology.
Despite all the secrecy, though, it’s pretty easy to figure out some of the basic features of the new bomber, based on what the Air Force has said about why it is needed.  For instance, everybody knows it will be stealthy, incorporating an array of “low observable” technologies that will prevent adversaries from tracking or targeting it with their air defenses.  Beyond that, the fact the Air Force has made cost a requirement that will drive the plane’s design dictates that some nice-to-have features won’t be affordable.  Thus, if you read through the open-source literature about what technology is likely to be available within the Air Force’s specified timeline, the outlines of this supposedly secret program come into view pretty clearly.  Here are some details you can take to the bank.

Watch a Tesla Model S Fight a Ferrari F12

Tesla Model S v Ferrari 12 photo
Two very different and very powerful cars have at it on the track to see which is the fastest in a flat out drag race. The Tesla Model S P85D has 691 horsepower, while the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta has a much higher 730 horsepower. The Tesla is also a heavier car, which stacks the deck against it even further, but the Tesla isn’t completely out of the race.

'Disgraceful' University of Oklahoma fraternity shuttered after racist chant


(CNN)Even with the national chapter shutting the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma, the school president said the university's affiliation with the fraternity is permanently done as a campus group called for the expulsion of fraternity members.
The members have until midnight Tuesday to get their things out of the house, university President David Boren said in a Monday afternoon news conference.
"The house will be closed, and as far as I'm concerned, they won't be back," he said, adding that the university is exploring what actions it can take against individual fraternity members.
A Saturday video showing party-bound fraternity members on a bus chanting a racial epithet found its way anonymously to the school newspaper and a campus organization, which both promptly publicized the nine-second clip.
The students on the bus clap and pump their fists as they boisterously chant, "There will never be a ni**** SAE. You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me."

The world's biggest aircraft: Giant airship gets closer to take-off

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(CNN)Look to the skies above London and you'll see the usual suspects -- rainclouds, planes and pigeons. But by the end of the year, you might just see something else.
Longer than a soccer pitch and filled to the brim with helium, at 302 feet long, the Airlander 10 will be the world's biggest aircraft. Part blimp, part plane, part helicopter, it was originally created by British design company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) for military surveillance by the U.S. Army.
But budget cuts doomed the project and HAV bought the airship back across the pond, where it seemed set to remain on solid ground until the company received a £3.4 million ($5.1 million) grant from the UK government. Thanks to this recent injection of financing, designers and engineers are now readying the craft for first flight tests scheduled for later this year.
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The CIA Campaign To Steal Apple’s Secrets

What secrets could Apple possibly have that the CIA would want to steal?

The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the "Jamboree," where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.

Apartment Complex Fines You $10k For Bad Review

Why do businesses even try stuff like this? It never works and they always lose in court. It's just plain stupid. confused

The Social Media Addendum, published here, is a triple-whammy. First, it explicitly bans all "negative commentary and reviews on Yelp! [sic], Apartment Ratings, Facebook, or any other website or Internet-based publication or blog." It also says any "breach" of the Social Media Addendum will result in a $10,000 fine, to be paid within ten business days. Finally, it goes ahead and assigns the renters' copyrights to the owner—not just the copyright on the negative review, but "any and all written or photographic works regarding the Owner, the Unit, the property, or the apartments." Snap a few shots of friends who come over for a dinner party? They're owned by your landlord.

Jimmy Wales To NSA: Stop Spying On Wikipedia Users

It would seem that the folks at Wikipedia are suing the NSA. More power to Jimmy Wales and the crew, it takes an enormous set of brass balls to take on the NSA. eek!

TODAY, we’re filing a lawsuit against the National Security Agency to protect the rights of the 500 million people who use Wikipedia every month. We’re doing so because a fundamental pillar of democracy is at stake: the free exchange of knowledge and ideas.