Month: May 2016

Microsoft's developer documentation used to be the model that all others should follow. The documentation itself was thorough, combining reference material with usage guides and sample code. Its use of, at the time, novel JavaScript and XML techniques (known in those days as dynamic HTML, or DHTML) made it easy to browse through the documentation and quickly switch between related portions. But successive "updates" to MSDN Library have made it harder and harder to use, obscuring the consistent structure and organization and becoming much less useful to developers as a result. These updates had other side effects, often breaking URLs, so that both internal and external links to the documentation broke or bounced you through numerous redirects.

After years of ad hoc changes to its documentation system, Microsoft has announced a new plan to overhaul both its TechNet and MSDN documentation to make it fit for the purpose. Documentation will have a new site, docs.microsoft.com, with a new consistent look and features.

Some teams within Microsoft, such as those developing ASP.NET and .NET Core, had already open sourced their documentation. On the new site, all documentation will be handled similarly. Every article will have an "edit" button enabling changes and fixes to be proposed. These changes will be handled as pull requests on GitHub, with the documentation itself using the popular Markdown markup language. All pages will also have both commenting and annotating using LiveFyre, putting an end to the ugly commenting system currently used.

A small town in Ohio is pleading with its residents to halt calls to an alleged drug dealer’s seized phone—the volume of calls are disrupting investigators’ ability to search the phone.

According to a Tuesday evening Facebook post by the City of Alliance Police Department, local authorities are now in possession of Steve Notman’s phone after he was arrested “for ALLEGEDLY (on video) selling crystal meth here in Alliance.”

While we at Ars often report on questionable police searches, there is no Fourth Amendment violation here, as the cops have the suspect's permission.

Driving a car is risky business. It's true that deaths on our roads continue to decrease over time, but it's a good thing our cars are getting safer to drive because it looks like we're crashing them more often. In 2014, more than 2.3 million people were injured on the roads in the US, a slight bump from the year before. In total, vehicle crashes actually increased by almost eight percent compared to 2013.

That's because people continue to do stupid things behind the wheel, like Snapchatting their top speed. In fact, drivers who repeatedly engage in stupid behavior behind the wheel—whether that's drinking, speeding, or tweeting—are over-represented in car crashes, suggesting that there's a minority of irresponsible people who are a menace behind the wheel. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, have attempted to discern why these subsets of risky drivers continue to misbehave.

The research, published in PLOS ONE, suggests this trend might be a classic case of Dunning-Kruger in action. Or in the words of lead author Thomas Brown, "surprisingly, these drivers usually don't consider themselves as risk takers. If drivers don't believe they are risky, they will not accept the need to change. On the other hand, if we and they don't understand their behaviour, how can they be expected to change it effectively?"

Clinical depression is a devastating disease that is made worse by the lack of effective treatment. Several drugs can treat the disease, but they take months to become effective, often causes side effects, and only work in a subset of the patient population. Treatment often begins with an extended period of trial and error, sometimes taking over a year.

Ketamine provides a shortcut. The drug can often lift symptoms of depression in under 24 hours, and the effects persist for roughly a week after a single administration. So why isn't everybody using it?

Well, ketamine comes with some pretty dramatic side effects. At high concentrations, it creates a combination of sedation and pain relief, while blocking memory use, making it an effective anesthetic. At lower concentrations, it produces a dissociative state, which has led to the drug being used recreationally. In either case, coming down from these states tends to produce disorientation and sometimes more severe problems. So, ketamine is not quite ready for widespread use.

The old adage, "it's best not to ask how laws and sausages are made," doesn't apply here. Consider that the US surveillance state was greatly expanded, and yet not a single member of Congress voted for the Justice Department's proposal last week.

That's because of a quirk in US law that allows so-called "procedural rules" of court to be written by unelected advisory committees under the umbrella of the Administrative Office of the US Courts. From there, they are generally rubber stamped by the Supreme Court. The only way these rules don't become law is if Congress takes action to thwart them.

So what happened here? The Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure was amended to allow judges to sign warrants to allow the authorities to hack into computers outside a judge's jurisdiction as part of a criminal investigation. What's more, Rule 41 would allow judges to use one warrant to search multiple computers anywhere instead of having to get warrants for each computer. Without Rule 41, judges could authorize electronic searches only within their own judicial district. Although this is an amendment to courthouse procedure rules, it has a huge impact in practice and on the Fourth Amendment. The Justice Department even said so as early as last week.

On Monday, Craig Wright published "proof" that he is Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, but experts debunked the claim within hours.

That led to Wright publishing a second blog post yesterday, entitled "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Wright says he'll show just such proof—soon:

Over the coming days, I will be posting a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim, which will include posting independently-verifiable documents and evidence addressing some of the false allegations that have been levelled, and transferring bitcoin from an early block.

For some there is no burden of proof high enough, no evidence that cannot be dismissed as fabrication or manipulation... You should be sceptical. You should question. I would. I will present what I believe to be 'extraordinary proof' and ask only that it be independently verified. Ultimately, I can do no more than that.

The post promises more, but it doesn't address the damning facts of Wright's initial disclosure. It isn't just that his proof wasn't sufficient—experts like Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist at White Ops, called it out as an intentional fraud, with Wright trying to pass off a 2009 Satoshi signature as something new.

Electronic Arts' full control of the Star Wars gaming universe began in 2013, and at that time, EA confirmed that three of its major studios would be pumping out games based on the series' past and future. Now, thanks to a Wednesday announcement, we can add another major developer to that list: Respawn Entertainment, the ex-Infinity Ward studio that is currently best known for the Titanfall shooter series.

Though the news didn't include a release window, game title, or gameplay footage, it did confirm the reason why Respawn has been hiring a slew of programmers and animators for a new "third-person action-adventure" series for nearly two years—meaning, a project other than a new Titanfall sequel. Around the same time in 2014, Respawn hired game director Stig Asmussen, who made a name for himself directing God of War 3.

What should we expect, then? Boba Fett with chain swords? Titanfall-styled battles with super-soldiers who operate bipedal AT-ATs AT-STs? Neither Asmussen, EA, nor Respawn are saying much at this point, beyond describing the game to come as "a whole new adventure to the galaxy" and repeating the call that Respawn is still hiring for the project. Still, with nearly two years under the "small" team's belt, we'd be shocked not to at least see teaser footage at this year's E3, if not more details on another title: the long-teased adventure game helmed by former Uncharted chief Amy Hennig.