An armed man looks at charred debris at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, July 20, 2014. Image: Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press As fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 remains in jeopardy as pro-Russian rebels are still in control of the area. The U.N. Security Council will vote Monday on a resolution demanding international access to the Ukraine plane crash site and a cease-fire around the area. Russia, however, is reluctant to approve it. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country, which proposed the resolution, would view a Russian veto of the resolution “very badly,” adding that “no reasonable person” could object to its wording. “This is still an absolutely shambolic situation. It does look more like a garden clean-up than a forensic investigation,” he told reporters. “Given the almost certain culpability of the Russian-backed rebels in the downing of the aircraft, having these people in control of the site is a little like leaving criminals in control of a crime scene,” Abbott added. The resolution calls for pro-Russia separatists to allow access to the site of the downed Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 298 people, including 37 Australian citizens and residents. It asks for the full cooperation of all countries in the region, including Russia. Despite international pressure for a cease-fire in Donetsk, the clashes continued between the separatists and Ukrainian forces on Monday with echoes of rocket fire and burning throughout the area. Factory burning in #Donetsk. Echoes of Grad rocket fire all around. Residents leaving en masse from area. pic.twitter.com/GVYvz56GSe — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 21, 2014 Video footage below shows army tanks rolling through the city streets as Ukrainian forces launched an assault against the rebels. The United States has presented what it called “powerful” evidence that the rebels, who have been in control of the areas for months, shot down the plane with a Russian surface-to-air missile and training. Other governments have stopped short of accusing Russia of actually causing the crash. However, Russian officials have blamed Ukraine’s government for creating the situation and atmosphere in which the plane was downed. Security Council diplomats held consultations late Sunday until past midnight to work out key differences between Australia and Russia. The diplomats emerged cautiously optimistic that a resolution would be approved, but Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin would not guarantee it, saying the draft “does not accurately reflect the need for an impartial, international investigation.” The resolution also demands that armed groups who control the crash site do not disturb debris, belongings or victims’ remains — a particularly big concern after cleanup activities this weekend. The rebels on Sunday loaded an unknown number of decaying bodies from the crash site onto three train cars in Torez, Ukraine, a mining town 10 miles south of where the jetliner is believed to have been shot down. A day earlier, Ukraine’s emergency service workers said they had removed 196 bodies of the […]
As the White House opens its gardens and grounds to the public for fall tours, some Instagram users will get an exclusive visit this weekend. Selected Instagrammers will have the chance on Sunday to tour the grounds and track their excursion on social media, the White House announced Monday. The tour is intended specifically for the White House’s Instagram followers. To apply for a spot in the meet-up, applicants must follow either @WhiteHouse or @MichelleObama on Instagram and fill out a short form on the White House’s website. Those chosen or put on the wait list will be emailed by Wednesday. In the meantime, applicants are encouraged to post their favorite nature and garden photos on Instagram with the hashtag #WHInstaMeet. The same hashtag will be used on the day of the tour, so all Instagram users can virtually follow along. So far, more than 400 photos have been tagged on Instagram with #WHInstaMeet. While the spots in Sunday’s White House Instagram tour are available through application only, the garden is free and open to the public during its fall tour season. Visitors must have tickets, which are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Image: Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/10/22/white-house-garden-instagram/
As the co-founder of Ning, Gina Bianchini was a pioneer in social networking. As the current founder and CEO of MightyBell, she is continuing to help people use social software in a way that connects them both online and off. Bianchini is passionate about developing tools that allow people to share their ideas and interests by forging unique online identities and connect in intimate setting both on the web and in the real world. It is those themes that draw her to her favorite TEDTalks. Below are five talks that intrigue Bianchini and notes on why she chose them. Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone? “I particularly enjoy this talk as [my company] Mightybell just happens to answer the problem presented!” Daphne Koller: What we’re learning from online education “I like this talk as it got me thinking that for huge online classes, people could benefit from a private space for the class to break into study group spaces. Additionally, she speaks about active learning and discusses that there is not active learning online, which I think can and should be changed.” Matt Cutts: Try something new for thirty days “I enjoyed this talk as is an example of a tool one can use to plan and then track your progress over 30 day challenges and allows you to do it with friends.” Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action “I am fond of this talk as it is focuses on how the ‘why’ of a company is more important than the ‘what’ and inspires people to take action to change lives and the world.” Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability “This particular talk was exciting to me as it gives people the opportunity to create a new social identity based upon their interests, passions, and goals, and to have an intimate community that supports one no matter what, no matter how vulnerable. It discusses how to help each member grow as everyone in the intimate community accepts him or herself and the other members, and celebrates the members’ identities shown through their interests, passions, and goals.” Image via Flickr, JD Lasica Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/11/22/gina-bianchini-ted/
A report from University of Chicago paleontologist Paul C. Sereno identifies a new species of “dwarf herbivore” dinosaur: the Pegomastax africanus. The Pegomastax, which dates from around 200 million years ago, was dug up in a red rock slab by scientists working in South Africa in the early 1960s. Less than two feet in length and probably weighing less than the average house cat, it had a short, parrot-shaped beak and a pair of fangs. This has led some scientists to speculate that Pegomastax may have eaten some meat, though Sereno thinks the sharp canines were probably used for defense. It may have looked something like a “nimble two-legged porcupine,” according to Sereno. But perhaps the most interesting part is that Sereno identified the specimen as a new species almost 30 years ago: My eyes popped, as it was clear this was a distinct species… I’m embarrassed to say how many years ago that was—1983. But I was an enterprising graduate student then at the American Museum of Natural History. All the while since then, I wondered if anyone else might spot the creature hiding among the lab drawers. Sweet beans, paleontologists! What else have you not gotten around to discovering? If there’s proof of the Abominable Snowman just lying in a drawer somewhere, we’re going to be very angry. “I am No Man” Doesn’t Cut It: The Story of Eowyn Why All Those Sexist Complaints About The New Ghostbusters Movie Are Garbage Study Says Binge-Watching Is For Lonely & Depressed People & Those Who Lack Self-Control The Pirate Bay Has Returned To the Land Of the Living After Two Months This article originally published at The Mary Sue here Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/04/new-mini-dinosaur-discovered/
John McAfee, the founder of anti-virus security firm McAfee who is currently detained as a murder suspect, is now blogging from a jail cell in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested on Wednesday night after illegally entering Guatemala from Belize. He has been on the run since last month to evade police in Belize who consider him a person of interest in relation to the murder of his neighbor. He recently started a blog called The Hinterland, which details his experience hiding from police, and is currently blogging from a computer given to him by police. “I am in jail in Guatemala. Vastly superior to Belize jails,” McAfee wrote. “I asked for a computer and one magically appeared. The coffee is also excellent.” He has been responding to reader comments and calls the people he has met at the jail “nice” and “sympathetic.” “I am using the computer of one of the wardens, or whatever title is used here,” he wrote in another post titled “Can’t Sleep.” “He is a sweet man and a gentleman. The world is heavilly populated with gentle people. He makes me coffee and tells tender stories about his life. He is a good companion. I believe I could spend weeks in the desert with him as a sole companion without once becoming irritated.” McAfee said his future is unknown as of now: “Only time will tell what will happen. No one has a crystal ball. However, I would be truly shocked if I did not conduct the press conference tomorrow as I had originally planned.” McAfee has hardly been out of the public eye while dodging police. In addition to blogging, he has been featured in video clips posted by Vice. In fact, the magazine has uploaded a video of McAfee getting detailed in Guatemala to YouTube. McAfee tells readers to “stay tuned” and “blogging from a jail cell might be a groundbreaking activity.” He also asked: “Anybody have friends in the State Department?” McAfee founded the anti-virus software company by the same name in the late 1980s. He retired in 1994. Photo via Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/mcafee-blog-jail-guatemala/
In an increasingly divisive U.S. political climate, there’s at least one cause that has found support on both sides of the aisle — computer science education. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor both stressed the importance of learning to to code, or write computer programs, in videos uploaded Sunday to YouTube by Code.org, a non-profit advocacy group. The joint call to action comes at the start of Computer Science Education Week, which began Monday. “If we want America to stay on the cutting edge, we need young Americans like you to master the tools and technology that will change how we do just about everything,” Obama says in a short video. “Don’t just buy a new video game, make one. Don’t just download the latest app, help design it. Don’t just play on your phone, program it.” Cantor, who often plays the role of political adversary to Obama, backed the President’s sentiment. “America is the land of opportunity. We have so much before us — so many challenges to overcome and problems to solve,” Cantor says. “Coding is the necessary tool of this century to best do that.” Cantor goes on to say that learning to code is as important as learning language and math: “It is the only way for you to prepare for the future.” Additionally, 2012 Republican presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appears in a Code.org video promoting the Hour of Code campaign as “a great, free, voluntary opportunity” to “make sure that every American understands a lot more about computing.” In October, Code.org announced its “Hour of Code” campaign, which aimed to “demystify computer science” for 10 million grade school students by exposing them to introductory concepts for at least an hour during Computer Science Education Week. Hadi Partovi, co-founder and CEO of Code.org, told Mashable in an email that some 35,000 teachers and 5 million students from around the world signed up to participate. “Today is when 5 million students begin learning to code, with support from athletes, celebrities, politicians, world leaders and all the top websites of the world,” Partovi wrote. In addition to the political attention, Code.org has garnered support from celebrities and tech industry leaders. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Miami Heat player Chris Bosh, actor Ashton Kutcher and pop singers Shakira and Will.I.Am are among the prominent figures who have appeared in Code.org videos endorsing computer science education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains the significance of Computer Science Education Week in another video uploaded to Code.org’s YouTube page on Sunday. The initiative is timed to correspond with the birthdate of computing pioneer Grace Murray Hopper (subject of Monday’s Google Doodle), who was born on Dec. 9, 1906, and died in 1992. Image: U.S. Navy Hopper earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University and served in the U.S. Navy, helping to develop the earliest computers and design programming languages. After joining the Naval Reserves in […]
Shannon Maureen Conley, the teenager who plead guilty to aiding the Islamic State, is pictured on the far left. Video: YouTube, TomoNews US A woman from Colorado pleaded guilty on Wednesday to providing material support to the Islamic State — months after she told the FBI she wanted to be a terrorist. Shannon Maureen Conley, who is 19 and a certified nurse’s aid, was accused of providing material support to at least one person who is allegedly a member of the Islamic State. Now the teenager from Arvada faces up to five years in prison and a potential $250,000 fine, though she won’t be sentenced until Jan. 23. In the meantime, The Denver Post reports Conley has agreed to provide information about her conspirators. U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore has ordered her to undergo a personality and psychological exam. Conley had planned to move to Syria and marry a 32-year-old Islamic State fighter from Tunisia who told her that he was battling with the Islamic State and that the extremist group needed nurses. But the FBI had kept close tabs on her ever since Conley started to spend time wandering around a local church, taking notes on everything but the sermons. The pastor notified the FBI, who told Conley her intentions were illegal. Conley was displeased with the church interrupting her plotting; she told the FBI that “if they think I’m a terrorist, I’ll give them something to think I am.” The FBI kept tabs on Conley, who had converted to Islam, and arrested her in April before she could get on a flight to Germany en route to Turkey’s Syrian border. Upon searching her home, agents found video lectures given by Islamist radicals as well as bullets and targets that showed she had spent time improving her accuracy with a gun. Here are the full details of Conley’s plea agreement: Shannon Conley Plea Agreement Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/09/10/american-teen-guilty-aiding-islamic-state/
Image: Mashable composite. NASA Meteorologists at the National Weather Service (NWS) gained a new, sharper weapon in their arsenal of computer models on Tuesday, which could result in better weather forecasts. The agency put its newly updated High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR, which is pronounced like the word “her,” except with many more Rs), into operational use after several years of experimental simulations. The model will help meteorologists pinpoint the development of damaging weather conditions that are too small-scale and short-term to be detected by other models, such as derecho events like the one that shut off the lights to hundreds of thousands of people from Ohio to Virginia on June 29, 2012. According to the NWS, the newly supercharged HRRR model, which had been in use before Tuesday but at a far coarser resolution, will allow forecasters to make better warnings of flash flooding, heavy snowfall, and the likelihood of severe thunderstorms. It could also make aviation forecasts more reliable, helping pilots steer clear of turbulence. The key to the HRRR’s upgrade is a major narrowing of its spatial resolution, which is akin from going from taking a wide shot photograph to using a zoom lens. The spatial resolution of the improved model is four times finer than what was used before, allowing it to capture smaller-scale details, such as individual thunderstorms, that it might otherwise have missed. According to a press release, the improvements made each pixel in the model go from the size of an entire city, at eight miles wide, to the size of a neighborhood within that city, at two miles wide. The new HRRR model was five years in the making from a team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. The model is now run on supercomputers in Virginia and Florida on an hourly basis, and it takes advantage of real-time radar data to produce more accurate projections of how weather systems will move and develop. Its forecasts extend out to 15 hours in advance, compared to other weather models that project up to 10 to 14 days. “This is the first in a new generation of weather prediction models designed to better represent the atmosphere and mechanics that drive high-impact weather events,” said William Lapenta, Ph.D., director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, part of the National Weather Service, in a press release. “The HRRR is a tool delivering forecasters a more accurate depiction of hazardous weather to help improve our public warnings and save lives.” How the model works The new model takes about 1,200 computer cores to run, and keeps them busy for each hour, NOAA research meteorologist Stan Benjamin told Mashable. He said the new model takes up about 12 to 15% of the operational computing capacity that NOAA has at the environmental prediction center, which is located in College Park, Maryland. According to NOAA, the computer model starts out with a three-dimensional picture of the atmosphere one hour before the […]
Have you ever heard a politician make a claim you just couldn’t believe, so you turned to Google or Wikipedia for the truth? You’re far from alone — 64% of “persuadable voters” use the Internet to fact-check political candidates, according to a recent study. The study also found that a majority of persuadable voters in several battleground states — 58% — are using the Internet to look up candidates’ voting records or stances on the important issues of the day. 49% are getting their regular fill of election news online, and 53% said the Internet provides them “with the information they need.” “The Internet is an increasingly important resource when it comes to getting information about this year’s campaigns and elections,” wrote Global Strategy Group and Public Opinion Strategies in a memo on the survey of 500 “persuadable voters.” But is the information found online trustworthy? Yes, according to most voters — 62% of “persuadable voters” trust the information they find online. That’s on par with television news (67%) and print (62%). Why the confidence? 41% of those surveyed reported it’s “generally easy” to tell the difference between truthful and inaccurate news on the Internet, more so than it is on television. And why the heavy use of the Internet to get political news and fact-check candidates? 63% of respondents said it’s important to be able to access information on their own time, and 73% said the Internet helps them do that. In aggregate, these numbers mean that persuadable voters are online — making candidates’ social media and online advertising strategies all the more necessary and important. “Persuadable voters are online. They are engaged and ready to listen. And they are looking for answers to the questions that will help them make up their minds come November 6,” reads the study, which is embedded below. Do you use the Internet to fact-check politicians? What are you favorite tools to do so? Share them in the comments. Google Voters Research Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/10/10/voters-fact-check-online/
