More Lethal Navy Guns

Mach 3 Ammo Will Make Navy Guns Much More Lethal

Five-inch guns on cruisers, destroyers will destroy everything from ballistic missiles to enemy ships.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Nathan K. Serpico.
 
By Kyle Mizokami

• The Navy built super-fast ammo to use in futuristic railguns.

• But the railguns aren't on ships yet, so the Navy is adapting the ammo for traditional guns.

• It could make destroyers much more lethal.

The Navy is adapting a projectile originally developed for railguns to fit guns on existing destroyers and cruisers. The projectile, which tear through through the skies at Mach 3, opens up entirely new possibilities for standard Navy deck guns, including shooting down missiles.

During the early 2010s, the Navy and defense contractor BAE Systems began work on hypervelocity projectiles (HVPs) for railguns. Fired from guns that used magnetism to accelerate objects to speeds of up to 5,600 miles per hour, the projectiles didn't even have explosive warheads. The kinetic energy punch from an object moving at Mach 7 could cause enough damage.

Both the Navy and BAE originally thought they would field HVPs for railguns first and then adapt them for other uses.Now it's 2017 and there are zero railguns in the fleet. On the other hand, there are several hundred 5-inch (127-millimeter) Mark 45 deck guns in the fleet, one per destroyer and cruiser. Each Mark 45 has a range of 14 miles and is typically used to engage targets on land. In a pinch the gun can engage other ships or even aircraft, although cruisers and destroyers have other, better weapon systems to target both.


Hyper Velocity Projectile depiction.
BAE Systems.

HVPs designed for the 5-inch guns travel faster and farther than conventional 5-inch projectiles. While a conventional Mark 45 has an effective range of 14 miles, HVP rounds will hit targets at up to 40 miles. They are not only fast but also guided, capable of homing in on precise targets. Throw in a maximum rate of fire of 20 rounds a minute and a single destroyer can destroy up to 20 targets in just one minute.

The addition of a guidance system and steering fins to the HVP opens up the Mark 45 to new missions other than shore bombardment. Tying the HVP to the ship's fire control systems, a Mark 45 could engage incoming missiles, both cruise missiles and high altitude ballistic missiles, aircraft, and other ships. The HVP will likely come in multiple flavors, including a high explosive round for land attack, a dart-like round for anti-ship work, and a high explosive round with a proximity fuse that explodes once it nears enemy aircraft and missiles, showering the enemy with lethal bits of shrapnel.

According to Scout Warrior, several defense contractors including Raytheon and BAE Systems are developing projectiles for the Mark 45, and a test demonstration is anticipated for 2018.

Pizza Ordering Tech

Domino’s Pizza Sucks, So Why Can’t Anyone Else Top Their Tech?

by Eric Ravenscraft

For years, I’ve dreamed of having an Emergency Pizza Button that will automatically order a pizza for me with a single tap. I’m not the only one with this dream. There have been countless innovations in pizza ordering technology in recent years…but they’ve all been from Domino’s. Which sucks, because they have the worst pizza. Why can’t other pizza companies catch up?

Ordering pizza is a time-honored tradition among college students and tired parents everywhere. To keep up with today’s fast-paced hungry people, pizza chains like Domino’s, Papa John’s, and Pizza Hut have added convenient features like online ordering and progress tracking so you can order your pizza quickly and know exactly when it’s going to get to your house. The latter two chains, unfortunately, have stopped there.

Pictured: pizza, allegedly.

Domino’s, on the other hand, decided years ago that the best way to compete isn’t by making better pizza (contrary to their claims, but we’ll come back to that). Instead, they’ve been leading the industry in innovative new ways to order pizza. Thanks in part to an unofficial API, and Domino’s own tech, here are some of the myriad ways you can order a Domino’s pizza:

• The Unofficial PiePal Emergency Pizza Button: This device, made by marketing company ISL (though Domino’s was not their client and didn’t commission the project) uses a 3D printed button and dial rig, connected to a Raspberry Pi that plugs into the Domino’s API to order pizza immediately with the push of a button.
• The Official Domino’s Emergency Pizza Button: Not content to be outdone, Domino’s introduced their own pizza button. Just set up your favorite pizza on your Domino’s profile and this little button can send it to you without a second thought.
• Domino’s Official IFTTT Channel: You can use automation tool IFTTT to send your photos to Instagram, turn on your TV when you get home, and apparently track your pizza order. Want to make your smart lights change color or send a message to your Slack team when pizza is on the way? For some reason, you can!
• Domino’s Alexa and Google Home Voice Apps: If you have one of these voice assistants in your home, you can order a pizza just by talking to yourself in the living room! Amazingly, Pizza Hut has managed to jump into this game with its own (less functional) Alexa skill, but if you’re a Google Home user, you better get used to Domino’s pizza. Or ordering with a phone.
• Domino’s Facebook Messenger Bot: Facebook’s messenger bots may not have caught on as much as the company would like, but if you’re one of the few people using them, you can order Domino’s pizza with one, too! Just message your order to the Domino’s bot and your pizza will be delivered shortly.
• The Zero-Click Domino’s App: The ultimate in pizza laziness, this app for Androidand iOS exists for one purpose: open the app and it will order your favorite pizza for you. To make sure you don’t order pocket pizza, it will wait ten seconds before placing the order. It’s like an emergency pizza button, but for your phone.

That’s just some of the many ways you can order Domino’s pizza. You can also order via text, tweet, Samsung TVs, Ford cars, and friggin’ smart watches. Domino’s has cornered the market on modern, innovative ways to order pizza. Other chains like Pizza Hut or Papa John’s might have one or two of these, but none of them cover even half these bases. And this would be awesome, except for one glaring problem.

Domino’s pizza sucks.

Don’t just take my word for it. The above is an ad from late 2009 wherein Domino’s spends the bulk of a four minute, twenty second ad talking about how awful their pizza used to be. Of course, the pitch here is that they’re changing their recipe (and to be fair, they did make some dramatic changes since then), but even the company itself knows that people just didn’t like their pizza.

In the interest of fairness, I ordered a medium pepperoni pizza and cheese sticks to see if this promise of better pizza was really legit. The results were…not very good. Domino’s crust has indeed been upgraded from dry cardboard to soggy cardboard. The cheese blend tasted more of ricotta than any other cheese, which leaves your mouth tasting like creamy glue. Overall, the pizza tasted like an evenly cooked Hot Pocket at the best of times.

The sauce cup on my cheese sticks left a noticeable depression that matched my own after eating them.

For roughly $20 after delivery charge and tip (hey, it’s not the driver’s fault my body physically rejected its first bite of pizza), it’s a tall order to stomach such sub-par pizza. Perhaps you can make the argument that good pizza is a matter of taste—and plenty of people I talked to while researching this article made sure to do just that—but even fans of Domino’s have a hard time arguing that its pizza is the best pizza around.

Despite what we can generously call a polarizing taste palette, Domino’s is still the #2 best selling pizza chain. Even in its most tumultuous times, Domino’s has nipped at Pizza Hut’s heels as the biggest pizza chain in the U.S.. Between 2014 and 2015, Domino’s sales grew by over 14%, while Pizza Hut’s grew by a measly 0.18%. Effectively a stand still.

Whatever you think of how Domino’s pizza tastes, Domino’s has still achieved something great: it’s incredibly easy to order it. The easier it is to order something, the more likely people are going to buy it. Yet most pizza chains that aren’t Domino’s are leaving most ordering opportunities on the table. Sure, you don’t need to build an ordering system for every smart watch in existence, but a functional Alexa bot or even a Dash button-like gadget would make it slightly easier to order a Pizza Hut or Papa John’s pizza. And erasing that small moment of doubt can be the difference between getting an order, or your customer deciding they don’t want to regret what they ate tomorrow. Even Domino’s itself acknowledges that people buy more pizza when it’s easier. (Not to mention all these silly gadgets act as marketing tools, too.)

So please, other pizza chains, make your way into the future. Make it easier for people to give you money. Otherwise, we’ll have to start leaving our houses and going to local, brick oven pizza joints where they make food that isn’t mass produced and tastes way better than anything the big chains can offer. And no one wants that, now do we?

Microsoft Paint Won't Die

Microsoft Paint Was Never Going to Die, But It Made for Good Headlines

by Justin Pot

Some stories are simply too good not to be true. It’s an old adage in the media, something reporters knowingly say to each other when something is too fun, too good of a story, and too likely to go viral for anyone to fact check. You don’t want to be that guy, killing everyone’s buzz.

This week gave us an illustrative example of this (albeit one that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of anything). Microsoft, you see, was going to kill Paint. The horror! Several dozen tech blogs reported this as fact: Microsoft hates fun! They’re going to take away your pixel art! The mainstream media gleefully hopped onto the bandwagon.

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R.I.P. MS Paint (1985-2017)http://bzfd.it/2v1fL1C 

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I’m sure it was a click bonanza. Pity it wasn’t true.

Microsoft listed the iconic program as deprecated as of the (terribly named) Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, meaning the company would not be pouring further resources into maintaining it. It would, for the record, still be there, deep in the bowels of the Windows system, like so many features that haven’t been useful since Bill Clinton’s first term. Hit Start, type “mspaint,” and there it would be, likely until Armageddon or the Year of the Linux Desktop (whichever comes first.)

Yet because it was deprecated, everyone reported that it was marked for death. Never mind that nothing ever seems to die in Windows land: Internet Explorer still comes pre-installed in Windows 10, the old “Windows 7 Backup” works just fine, and you can still use the 30-year old SMB1 file sharing protocol, even though it’s insecure and inefficient.

Microsoft never said they were going to kill mspaint.exe: they were merely going to stop updating it. Which to me, a Paint fan, is perfect: Paint is charming precisely because it is outdated. Anything you do to bring it up to date only makes Paint less obsolete, and as such less charming.

Opening the program in 2002, when it was included with Windows XP, was like traveling back in time to the mid-90s. Microsoft added the Ribbon™ at some point, but for the most part Paint is still the same crappy program fifteen years later.

Which is awesome! The entire charm of Paint is built on its obsolescence. You like Paint pictures on Twitter and Reddit because they look bad, because making things in Paint in an age when everyone has access to better editing tools is just innately hilarious.

Which is why this whole story bums me out. We should be celebrating Microsoft’s decision to leave well enough alone, not begging them to continue “updating” what was already perfect.

But the stories were printed, the tweets spread far, and Microsoft cleverly decided to not even try to correct the record, instead spinning it their own way by announcing Paint would live on in the Windows Store. It’s a pretty naked attempt to exploit the whole narrative in order to bring attention to Windows Store, which users have been happily ignoring since 2012. Tech blogs everywhere obediently reported that they’d done it, their revolt worked, mspaint is saved, and the mainstream media once again followed suite.

I’m sure the “new” version of paint will use the Metro/Modern/Universal/WindowsStore/WhateverNewNameTheyHaveThisWeek design Microsoft keeps unsuccessfully trying to replace actual desktop applications with. I’m also sure that when it’s released you’ll see lots of blog posts about how Microsoft “saved” Paint, linking the otherwise unloved and unused Store.

To which all I can say is “well played, Microsoft."

Ban of Diesel & Gas Sales

U.K. To Ban Sales of Diesel and Gas Cars by 2040

The decision follows similar moves in France and Norway.

By Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Britain's government says it will ban the sale of new cars and vans using diesel and gasoline starting in 2040 as authorities move to tackle air pollution.

The decision announced Wednesday by Environment Secretary Michael Gove follows similar moves in France and Norway. It also comes as the technology for electrical cars improves.

Gove told the BBC that "there is no alternative to embracing new technology."

Britain's government is expected to announce a 255 million pound ($326 million) fund to help local communities address diesel pollution. The measures are part of a clean air strategy authorities are due to publish Wednesday, only days before a deadline mandated by the High Court.

Campaigners want the final plans to have government-funded and mandated clean air zones, together with a diesel scrappage scheme.

Quantum Cryptography

China Announces Quantum Leap in Encryption

Soon-to-launch communications network said to be 'unhackable'

By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a rocket carrying the world's first quantum satellite lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan in China's Gansu province on Aug....   (Jin Liwang/Xinhua via AP)

(NEWSER) – Communications just got tighter between Alice and Bob, leaving Eve out in the cold. These aren't real people, but rather the names commonly used in scenarios describing quantum cryptography, a type of technology surpassing traditional encryption in terms of keeping communications networks safe from hackers. It's a technology that China is now announcing has been incorporated into an "unhackable" system it's about to launch, the BBC reports. About 200 military, government, finance, and electricity users will have access to the system in Jinan, which the South China Morning Post reports is expected to be operational by next month, per local media. China Daily notes the system, which cost about $17.8 million, can encrypt over 4,000 pieces of data per second.

In regular encryption, a message can only be opened with a "key"—usually a complex math problem—that only the sender and receiver have access to. But as computers become more powerful, they're increasingly able to crack these codes, making encryption not as secure. In quantum cryptography, the key is sent ahead of the message, "embedded in particles of light," per the BBC; if a hacker tries to grab those particles, they're destroyed, and the sender and receiver will realize someone's trying to access their info—meaning they won't send the message. With this type of system, the BBC notes, China will be among the first to make this quantum leap, even as the West lags behind. It's not the first quantum-based communications network for China: The country has tested the technology in a satellite and via a link between Beijing and Shanghai.

Internet Privacy Policies

What You Should Know About Internet Privacy Policies and Tracking

If you use any type of social media or a variety of mobile apps, you sometimes receive notices about changes in the website’s privacy policies. And if you’re a very smart citizen of the internet, you read those notices and keep track of privacy settings for your browsers and social media accounts. But, in case you missed it, Twitter and Hulu have recently changed their policies about tracking your on-line behavior, and they are not alone. More and more companies are updating their privacy policies to track more of your behavior, so you have to be even more vigilant to protect yourself.

The issue is that many sites no longer respect Do Not Track (DNT), a browser privacy setting meant to prevent websites from placing code snippets called “cookies” on your device. Cookies can be used to track your browsing patterns and deliver personalized ads. (Online criminals can also use cookies to track your interests and tailor scams to fool you.) Unfortunately, Do Not Track is basically an honor system, and many websites ignore it, putting the ones that respect it at a disadvantage in winning advertising dollars.

As fewer websites honor browser DNT settings, you will have to work harder to protect your privacy. First, periodically read privacy notices on websites you frequent and applications. They won’t always send you a notification if their terms change, but many states have laws requiring websites to state publicly whether they honor DNT settings and how. For example, some gather tracking data for themselves, even if they don’t offer it to advertisers. You can also set your browser to block cookies or to ask you before accepting cookies. You give up some convenience, because cookies are also used for functions such as auto-filling name and address fields on websites, but you will have control. You can also use tools in your browser to review and delete cookies on your machine.

Watch for new privacy features coming from the browser software companies. In 2018, Google’s Chrome browser will begin blocking ads, such as pop-ups and autoplay videos, that don’t meet the standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads (CBA) industry group. Soon Apple’s Safari browser will use technology called “intelligent tracking prevention” to identify cookies that present a tracking threat and stop them. And you can already get Privacy Badger, a Chrome extension that automatically blocks third-party trackers that follow you around the web and spy on you.

Finally, you can vote with your actions or, in this case, your keyboard, and not participate in sites that don’t respect DNT. (This article in Marketing Land has an interactive graphic showing the DNT policies of major websites.) As a potential customer of online advertisers, you have more power than you think. If violating people’s privacy hurts companies on the bottom line, things are a lot more likely to change.

Entertainment News

'Curb Your Enthusiasm' returns this fall -- and you can expect a 'Pirates of the Caribbean' vibe?

By Yvonne Villarreal

Actor-creator-executive producer Larry David speaks at the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" panel during the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour at the Beverly Hilton. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP)

Larry David revealed the real reason "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is at last returning after a six-year hiatus: People wouldn't stop bugging him about it.

The "Seinfeld" co-creator took the stage Wednesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills -- joined by his "Curb" cohorts Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin and J.B. Smoove and executive producer Jeff Schaffer -- to discuss the show's coming ninth season. So, why bring back the show now after all these years?

"I'm not a misser," David told reporters. "I don't really miss things, people that much, but I was missing it. I thought, yeah, what the hell. And I got tired of people asking me if the show was coming back. I couldn't get asked that question anymore and I wasn't ready to say, 'No, never.'"

The often madcap and sometimes hilariously perplexing 30-minute panel -- led by David's gruff wit and deadpans -- kicked off with a teaser for the season. There was David in a shower, David talking about constipation, David enduring the displeasure of middle-seat status on a flight.

"The amount of uncomfortable situations [real Larry David] has been in these last six years," Schaffer said, "you're going to see it all. It's like we're sitting in the Ft. Knox of awkward."

As for TV Larry David, Schaffer said viewers will learn very quickly what he's been up to during the years that have passed.

"Once the show starts to air, it will be self-evident," he said. "It goes to this really strange, fun, crazy place.... And you will never expect where it ends."

The trip to that ending begins Oct. 1 when the comedy returns to HBO. The 10-episode season brings back "Curb" favorites like Cheryl Hines, as well as frequent faces Richard Lewis, Bob Einstein, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen.

And what would a long-awaited return be without some guest stars? Elizabeth Banks, Ed Begley Jr., Carrie Brownstein, Bryan Cranston, Lauren Graham, Jimmy Kimmel, Nick Offerman, Nasim Pedrad and Elizabeth Perkins will get in on the fun.

For those who still need something to pin their hopes on about what this season will entail, Garlin offered this absurdly brilliant comparison.

"It really thematically follows 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' ... It’s more like the last one than the first few."

It Is Settled

It Is Settled

By Touching Lives 

“’Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the LORD.  ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’”  Isaiah 1:18

I love how God begins this prophecy regarding forgiveness with the phrase, “Come now, and let us settle the matter.”  Christ’s blood, once and for all, settled the matter of man’s separation from God because of sin.  In Christ’s death and resurrection lies the only hope of a restored relationship with God.  What sin destroyed, Christ redeemed on the cross.  Only His blood could settle the matter.

The picture God paints of forgiveness in Isaiah 1:18 is striking and profound.  At first glance, we might only notice the imagery of colors.  Sin, scarlet red, being made white as snow…crimson like wool.  While these are beautiful words that evoke magnificent images in our minds, I want us to dig a little deeper.

The description here is not of crimson stains being covered over with white snow.  Rather, the language describes crimson dye being purified and changed into something as white as snow.  This is a subtle yet important distinction.  Often we think of Christ’s blood flowing over us, covering our sins.  But Christ’s blood doesn’t paint over our sin…He takes it away, removing it’s stains.  The change is a purifying that happens from the inside out, making us into something new and totally different.

At the time God spoke these words through Isaiah, the people of God offered the blood of animals as atonement for sin.  This blood covered over their sin, but it could not take it away.  Only the blood of One to come would purify and change.  And when that day came, the matter of sin and it’s friend death would be forever settled.  Hundreds of years later, Jesus settled the matter once for all on Calvary’s hill.  His life offered, blood spilled, so that we might be fully forgiven.

Go Ahead, Shine

Go Ahead. Shine.
by John UpChurch, Crosswalk.com Contributor

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life" Philippians 2:14-16a 

The quick burning desire to be an astronomer came during year three of my college experience. That was after philosopher, writer (the first time), and English professor, but before anthropologist, high school teacher, and writer (the second time). You can’t blame a guy for wanting to wring every cent out of his scholarships.

So, in year three, I became convinced that I would study space because… well… because I loved planets and stuff. With the same gusto that had carried me through my philosophy phase, I charged into star charts and calculated orbits with fury and fine-tipped lead pencils. I pored over research on black holes and quasars and stared intently into the night sky trying to figure out how in the world someone could think that a certain cluster of stars could look anything like a person or a goat or whatever.

Then, reality hit in the way of astrophysics. The funny thing about studying the stars is that you have to be able to calculate distances, luminosity, parallaxes, and more fancy terms. I could crunch equations just fine, but that doesn’t mean I found it more satisfying than, say, ripping off a bandage from my legs.

Before I came to know Christ, all that nadir gazing did produce one substantial result in me: deep, deep emptiness. You can’t help but feel how small you are when you peer into the infinite-seeming inkiness of space. The more you see how incomprehensibly expansive everything really is, the more you feel speck-like in the cosmic order. The weight of eternity came crushing in on me.

And in that darkness, I needed light. This “crooked and depraved” man groped about for anything that would shine, some embers of hope. Not finding them in philosophy or books or even astronomy, the pressure just got worse. I kept feeling my way through the darkness into whatever classes the university offered, but through each of my potential career paths, I found nothing that could illuminate the road around me.

Of course, I wouldn’t have put it in those terms back then. At that point, I just knew something was messed up, and I couldn’t figure out what. I needed the “word of life.” But I didn’t know I needed it, and I didn’t know where to find it.

Intersecting Faith & Life: That’s where we come in as Christians. People like the old me don't always even know what gnaws at them. Some have so subverted the pain that it plays out in pursuits of passion: They mute it with noise, clutter, medicine, or flesh. They prefer to find ways to ignore the crushing weight.

And then they see the stars. At least, they should see the stars. I don't necessarily mean the stars in the night, since city lights drown them out for most of us now days. I mean, they need to see the stars around them who shine through their Jesus-emulating behavior. That light has the power to both expose their blindness and help them see.

So, shine. People like the old me are counting on it.

For Further Reading
Philippians 2
Matthew 5

Definition of Love

Understanding God’s Definition of Love

Understanding God’s Definition of Love
By Rick Warren

“Love means doing what God has commanded us” (2 John 1:6a NLT).

If we’re going to do a whole devotional series on love — and, more importantly, if the Bible says it needs to be so central to our lives — let’s take a few moments to consider what love really is.

1. The Bible says love is a command.

God commands that we love each other: “Love means doing what God has commanded us” (2 John 1:6a NLT).

You can’t always control an emotion, and God would never command you to do something that he doesn’t give you the power and the ability to do. That means that love is not a feeling. Imagine seeing a little kid who’s crying and upset, and saying: “I command you to be happy! I command you to stop crying!” You simply can’t command someone to feel a certain way.

2. The Bible says love is a choice.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14:1, “Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it — because it does” (The Message).If you “go after” something, that means you make a choice. Love is a choice. We choose to love or not to love.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had men or women who are trying to justify a separation or divorce say, “I just don’t love my spouse anymore” — as if that’s totally out of their control. But acting in love when you don’t feel like it is actually a higher level of love than when you do feel like it. It’s one thing to love when the flowers are in bloom, but the real test of love is in the winter, when things are not going great in your life. You choose to love in spite of how you feel and give the other person what she needs, not what she deserves. You choose to love others like God loves us.

3. The Bible says love is a conduct.

Love is something you do. The Bible says, “Let us stop just saying we love people; let us reallylove them, and show itby our actions” (1 John 3:18 TLB).

Every day God puts opportunities around us to demonstrate love. The problem is most of the time we’re too busy. How many times have you thought, “I need to make a call; I need to encourage that person at work; I need to help my neighbor,” but then you missed the opportunity because something else came up? Love takes advantage of opportunities to serve others.

4. The Bible says love is a commitment.

The Bible says in 1 John 4:16b, “God is love. If we keep on loving others, we will stay one in our hearts with God, and he will stay one with us” (CEV).Our relationship with God is largely affected by our relationship with other people. If we commit to love and stay in love, then we will keep in one with our hearts with God, and he’ll stay one with us — because God is love.

Sun Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

I would encourage you to keep prayer list. I keep a list and I pray a different list every day. There are two things I pray for every day. I pray for my family and personal needs and I pray for my schedule every day. I keep a list for the sick and the suffering. I keep a list for political and spiritual leaders. I keep a list for special friends and marriages who are in trouble. I keep a list for people who are far from God. I don’t care how you pray. Just pray!

God wants to speak to you. If you draw near to God you will hear from God. There is a great benefit from doing it and it is not just for you.

The closer you are to Jesus the more others will want to get close to you. The better your relationship is with God the better it will be with other people. I know that to be true for this reason.

Adobe Finally Killing Flash

Adobe is finally, finally, killing Flash

BY KARISSA BELL


Adobe has finally acknowledged what the rest of us have known for years: Flash needs to die.

The software giant plans to stop supporting and updating Flash Player by 2020, according to a  statement from the company. Sites that use Flash will continue to work through 2020, but will no longer work once Adobe "end-of-lifes" the software.

Once a standard tool for web development, Flash Player has become something of a pariah in recent years. The software slowed down browsers and posed a near-constant security risk, as vulnerability after vulnerability was discovered.

The problems were so bad, Steve Jobs  famously wrote a scathing 1,688-word screed titled "Thoughts on Flash," outlining the many reasons why Flash didn't belong on the iPhone back in 2009.

Steve Jobs also famously despised the software

Moreover, modern browsers have made Flash Player largely unnecessary. Major browsers now support a variety of open web standards, like HTML5, that enable the same kinds of experiences that once depended on Flash. Browser makers have also been disabling Flash Player by default.

Unsurprisingly, all this has lead to significantly decreased usage. Google notes that today, only 17 percent of Chrome users visit a site that depends on Flash each day, compared with 80 percent three years ago.

Still, there are many sites out there that, unfortunately, still use Flash. Adobe, along with partners like Facebook, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google, will spend the next three years working with content creators to adopt new standards. Facebook is also stepping in to help game developers move to HTML5 and other newer standards.

Prototype Moon Habitat

Lockheed Martin Is Building a Prototype Moon Habitat From Old Space Shuttle Parts

There's no word on when the real thing will be built, but we hope it will be soon.

Lockheed Martin
 
By Avery Thompson

Fifty years ago humans walked on the moon. Twenty years ago humans started living in orbit for months at a time. Where will we go next? For NASA, one of the most promising proposals is to build a space habitat for astronauts that will orbit the moon.

To help NASA achieve such a complicated endeavor, Lockheed Martin, one of the contractors for the habitat, is building a full-scale prototype out of an old cargo container designed to fly on the Space Shuttle.

An orbiting moon station has a number of unique challenges that the International Space Station doesn't have. Chief among them is that a moon habitat would be much farther away. The crew of such a station would have to operate much more independently than the ISS crew, and supply missions would be less frequent, meaning astronauts could only stay on the moon station for about a month or two.

It's also unlikely that astronauts would be able to man aboard the lunar station all the time, which means the base must be able to manage some of its functions autonomously. Solving this problem isn't as simple as just putting a computer on the station—it will require a completely new design from the ground up.

Lockheed Martin engineers are building their prototype here on Earth using the Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the Space Shuttle. The engineers will also incorporate new technologies like mixed-reality headsets and 3D printing to speed up the prototyping process.

The aerospace contractor predicts an 18-month-long development time, at the end of which Lockheed Martin will have a clear understanding of the challenges involved when building a moon station. Then, if NASA gives them the green light, they can begin designing and building the real thing.

If everything goes according to plan, astronauts might be living in orbit around the moon by the end of the next decade.

What Is Wake-on-LAN

What Is Wake-on-LAN, and How Do I Enable It?

by YatriTrivedi 

Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.

What Is Wake-on-LAN?

Wake-on-LAN (sometimes abbreviated WoL) is an industry standard protocol for waking computers up from a very low power mode remotely. The definition of “low power mode” has changed a bit over time, but we can take it to mean while the computer is “off” and has access to a power source. The protocol also allows for a supplementary Wake-on-Wireless-LAN ability as well.

This is useful if you plan to access your computer remotely for any reason: it allows you to retain access to your files and programs, while keeping the PC in a low-power state to save electricity (and of course, money). Anyone who uses a program like VNC or TeamViewer, or keeps a file server or game server program available, should probably have the option enabled for the sake of convenience.

Wake-on-LAN is dependent on two things: your motherboard and your network card. Your motherboard must be hooked up to an ATX-compatible power supply, as most computers in the past decade or so are. Your Ethernet or wireless card must also support this functionality. Because it is set either through the BIOS or through your network card’s firmware, you don’t need specific software to enable it. Support for Wake-on-LAN is pretty universal nowadays, even when it’s not advertised as a feature, so if you have a computer built in the past decade or so, you’re covered.

For those of you who build your own rigs, take care when buying an Ethernet card. While most built-in cards on motherboards don’t need this step, discrete network cards often need a 3-pin cable attached to the motherboard to support Wake on LAN. Do your research online before you buy, so you’re not disappointed later on down the line.

The Magic Packet: How Wake-on-LAN Works

Wake-on-LAN-enabled computers essentially wait for a “magic packet” to arrive that includes the network card’s MAC address in it. These magic packets are sent out by professional software made for any platform, but can also be sent by routers and internet-based websites. The typical ports used for WoL magic packets are UDP 7 and 9. Because your computer is actively listening for a packet, some power is feeding your network card which will result in your laptop’s battery draining faster, so road warriors should take care to turn this off when you need to eke out some extra juice.

Magic packets are usually sent over the entirety of a network and contain the subnet information, network broadcast address, and the MAC address of the target computer’s network card, whether Ethernet or wireless. The above image shows the results of a packet sniffer tool used on magic packet, which brings into question exactly how secure they are when used in unsafe networks and over the internet. On a secure network, or for basic home use, there shouldn’t be any practical reason to worry. Many motherboard manufacturers often implement software along with Wake-on-LAN capabilities to offer hassle-free or largely configuration-free usage scenarios.

How to Enable Wake-on-LAN on Your System

To get started using Wake-on-LAN, you’ll have to enable it in a few places—usually your BIOS and from within Windows. Let’s start with the BIOS.

In the BIOS

Most older computers and many modern ones have their Wake-on-LAN settings buried in the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, you’ll need to press a key as you boot your computer—usually Delete, Escape, F2, or something else (your boot screen will give you instructions on what key to press to enter setup). Once you’re in, check under Power Management or Advanced Options or something of that sort.

On this HP computer’s BIOS, the setting is found near the “resume after power failure” option. Some aren’t so obvious: on my ASUS motherboard (below), the Wake on LAN option is buried two layers deep in the menu system, under “Power on by PCIE/PCI”, because the built-in network controller is behind the PCI controller—it’s only visible that this is the right option in the description text.

The point is, it isn’t always easy or obvious to find the relevant option, since BIOS menu systems vary so widely. If you’re having trouble, check your computer or motherboard’s manual or do a quick Google search. Remember that most manufacturers offer PDF versions of documentation online.

In Windows

You’ll also need to enable Wake-on-LAN in your operating system. Here’s how it goes in Windows. Open the Start menu and type “Device Manager”. Open the Device Manager and expand the “Network Adapters” section. Right click on your network card and go to Properties, then click on the Advanced tab.

Scroll down in the list to find “Wake on Magic Packet” and change the Value to “Enabled.” You can leave the other “Wake on” settings alone. (Note: one of our test rigs didn’t have this option, but Wake-on-LAN still worked fine with the other settings in this guide enabled properly—so don’t fret if it isn’t there.)

Now click the Power Management tab, and make sure the “Allow this device to wake the computer” and “Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer” boxes are enabled. Click OK when you’re done.

In macOS

Open up your System Preferences and choose Energy Saver. You should see “Wake for Network Access” or something similar. This enables Wake-on-LAN.

In Linux

Ubuntu has a great tool that can check to see if your machine supports Wake-on-LAN, and can enable it. Open up a terminal and install ethtool with the following command:

sudo apt-get install ethtool

You can check your compatibility by running:

sudo ethtool eth0

If your default interface is something else, substitute it for eth0 .

Look for the “Supports Wake-on” section. As long as one of the letters listed is g , you can use magic packets for Wake-on-LAN. To enable this option, use the following command.

sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g

This should take care of it. You can run the command to check and see if it’s enabled now. Look for the “Wake on” section. You should see a g instead of a d now.

How to Wake Your Computer with Wake-on-LAN Magic Packets

To send out Wake-on-LAN requests, you have a cornucopia of options available.

Depicus has an excellent series of lightweight tools to get the job done, including a GUI-based one for Windows and command-line-based one for both Windows and macOS. Wiki.tcl.tk has a great cross-platform lightweight script that handles the requests as well.

DD-WRT has great WoL support, so if you don’t feel like downloading software to do it, you really don’t have to. Or, if you’re out and about, you can use your Android device to wake your computers.

In addition, many applications support Wake-on-LAN within them. For example, if you’re trying to access your computer from afar with a remote desktop program, you can wake the sleeping computer with TeamViewer’s built-in “Wake Up” button, which uses Wake-on-LAN.

You may need to tweak other settings in that program for it to work, so refer to the program’s manual for more info on Wake-on-LAN.

In addition, depending on the program, Wake-on-LAN may only work if you send the magic packet from a computer on your existing network. If your program doesn’t automatically handle the network connections for Wake-on-LAN, you’ll need to set up your router to forward UDP ports number 7 and 9, specifically for the MAC address of the PC you’re connecting to. If you’re not sure how to do this, check out our guide on forwarding ports from the router. You may also want to set up a dynamic DNS address so you don’t need to check your remote computer’s IP address every time.