Month: May 2016

It's Memorial Day, all Ars staff is off, and we're grateful for it (running a site remains tough work). But on a normal Monday, inevitably we'd continue to monitor news from the world of climate change. Our John Timmer examined the claims that scientists are in it solely for the money in February 2011, and we're resurfacing his piece for your holiday reading pleasure.

One of the more unfortunate memes that makes an appearance whenever climate science is discussed is the accusation that, by hyping their results, climate scientists are ensuring themselves steady paychecks, and may even be enriching themselves. A Google search for "global warming gravy train" pulls out over 50,000 results (six of them from our forums).

It's tempting to respond with indignation; after all, researchers generally are doing something they love without a focus on compensation. But, more significantly, the accusation simply makes no sense on any level.

Americans have honored those lost in war in some shape or another since just after the Civil War. Memorial Day as we know it—a federal holiday on the last Monday in May—is more recent, dating back to 1968. But the sentiment is the same—remembering those who paid the ultimate price in defense of their country. Since a recent trip happened to take us by the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, we've decided to celebrate it here at Ars by bringing you this gallery of some fine-looking warbirds.

The museum can be found at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It's truly vast—even giants of the air like the B-36 and B-52 can seem small underneath the roof of one of its hangars. It also has some rather significant planes in its collection, notably Bockscar, one of the two B-29s that dropped atom bombs on Japan in World War II (the Enola Gay lives at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy collection in Dulles, VA).

The collections under those massive hangers are organized chronologically, from the beginning of flight through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, through to today. Sadly, we weren't able to check out one of the museum's most fascinating aircraft, the remaining North American XB-70 Valkyrie; the new hanger for research and experimental aircraft (and old Air Force Ones) doesn't open until next week.

It's Memorial Day, all Ars staff is off, and we're grateful for it (running a site remains tough work). But on a normal Monday, inevitably we'd continue to monitor the security world. Our Jon Brodkin willingly embraced a firsthand experience with low-grade scammers in April 2013, and we're resurfacing his piece for your holiday reading pleasure.

It all began with an annoying text message sent to an Ars reader. Accompanied by a Microsoft Office logo, the message came from a Yahoo e-mail address and read, "Hi, Do u want Microsoft Office 2010. I Can Remotely Install in a Computer."

The recipient promptly answered "No!" and then got in touch with us. Saying the spam text reminded him of the "'your computer has a virus' scam," the reader noted that "this seems to be something that promises the same capabilities, control of your computer and a request for your credit card info. Has anyone else seen this proposal?"

It's Memorial Day, all Ars staff is off, and we're grateful for it (running a site remains tough work). But on a normal Monday, inevitably we'd continue to monitor the world of ISPs—especially how the major players handle big data users. Our Nate Anderson looked at the economic side of the decision in July 2010, and we're resurfacing his piece for your holiday reading pleasure.

Just over a year ago, Time Warner Cable rolled out an experiment in several cities: monthly data limits for Internet usage that ranged from 5GB to 40GB. Data costs money, and consumers would need to start paying their fair share; the experiment seemed to promise an end to the all-you-can-eat Internet buffet at which contented consumers had stuffed themselves for a decade. Food analogies were embraced by the company, with COO Landel Hobbs saying at the time, "When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?"

In the middle of the controversy, TWC boss Glenn Britt told BusinessWeek something similar, though with less edible imagery. "We need a viable model to be able to support the infrastructure of the broadband business," he said. "We made a mistake early on by not defining our business based on the consumption dimension."