Month: December 2016

Enlarge (credit: flickr user: William Forney)

Discussion about climate change often focuses on the future. People talk about the world we’re handing to our children and grandchildren. They worry about food, water, and physical security, and scientists work to predict what will happen to ecosystems around the globe.

But what if we talked about the past instead—about getting back to the way things used to be? Researchers Matthew Baldwin and Joris Lammers at the University of Cologne, Germany, got volunteers to do just that in a series of experiments. They found that framing discussions and messages this way may help reduce climate change skepticism among political conservatives, who tend to be less likely than liberals to accept the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.

Baldwin and Lammers took cues from previous research, which suggested that conservatives tend to be concerned with preserving the past, while liberals would like to replace current systems with ones they think would be better. As such, they hypothesized that conservatives may be resistant to environmental messaging that focuses on disrupting the status quo because of speculations about the future. This would mean that climate change skepticism may not result as much from “an inherent disbelief in scientific evidence,” they write, but rather to this difference in emphasis and perspective.

Russia-based hackers are apparently not happy with the attention they've been getting for their Olympic anti-doping agency "conspiracy" leaks.

This morning, Ars received an odd ask by Twitter direct message: "Hello, we are Fancy Bears' Hack Team. Are you interested in WADA and USADA confidential documents?"

Fancy Bears HT is the front for the hacking operation that spear-phished International Olympic Committee members to gain access to the systems of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Those records were leaked—and in some cases, according to WADA officials, modified—in an effort to discredit the Olympics' drug-testing rules. The leaks were seen by officials as retribution for the bans imposed on Russian athletes after widespread doctoring of drug tests by the Russians at multiple Olympic games was exposed by a WADA investigation.

The hack of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) e-mails was first revealed in October. A spokesperson for USADA told Ars that the e-mails were probably exposed during the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, possibly when a scientific advisor to USADA was using public Wi-Fi at the games.

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

The two lawyers said to be the masterminds behind Prenda Law, Paul Hansmeier and John Steele, have been arrested and charged with a multimillion-dollar extortion scheme.

US Attorney Andrew Luger of Minnesota announced charges against them in Minneapolis this morning shortly after both men were arrested, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Hansmeier was arrested in the Twin Cities, while Steele was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

"In order to carry out the scheme, the defendants used sham entities to obtain copyrights to pornographic movies—some of which they filmed themselves—and then uploaded those movies to file-sharing websites in order to lure people to download the movies," the indictment reads, according to the newspaper.

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere announces Binge On. (credit: T-Mobile USA)

One of the biggest selling points of AT&T's DirecTV Now service is that it streams video without counting against data caps on the AT&T mobile network. But T-Mobile USA customers will also be able to watch DirecTV Now without using up data, the carrier announced yesterday. DirecTV Now is one of the latest services added to Binge On, which exempts dozens of video services from data caps as long as customers are willing to limit mobile viewing quality to about 480p.

T-Mobile also promised to reimburse customers for DirecTV Now for 12 months if they port a phone number from the AT&T network to T-Mobile and purchase at least two lines. This offer consists of a $35 monthly bill credit, enough to cover the DirecTV Now promotional price. This is a limited-time offer and cannot be combined with other offers like "Carrier Freedom," which reimburses customers for early termination fees when they switch to T-Mobile.

Customers who want the $35 monthly credit must sign up for the new $70-per-month T-Mobile One plans, which have no data caps but impose limits on video resolution and mobile hotspot speeds unless subscribers pay extra. The Binge On data cap exemption is only necessary on other T-Mobile plans that have monthly data limits.

Enlarge / Oh, the shame! Oh, the rage! (credit: Flickr / Amy McTigue)

In its ongoing war to stop players who intentionally quit Street Fighter V matches early to avoid a loss, Capcom seems prepared to unleash a new weapon: public shaming.

Last night, a new test branch for the PC version of Street Fighter V went up on Steam briefly without password protection. Observant watchers at NeoGAF were able to trawl that update for new content, which includes some balance changes and new music settings. The beta branch also includes this screenshot, which suggests a brand-new penalty for players that quit in-progress matches too often.

"Special icons will be displayed on the Fighter Profiles of players who frequently disconnect, as well as those who never do, making it easier for players with the same icon to battle against each other," the message reads. In other words, if you ragequit too much, expect people to start actively avoiding your prominently labeled profile during the matchmaking process.

Enlarge (credit: Tom Hilton)

When in March this year Microsoft announced that it was bringing SQL Server to Linux the reaction was one of surprise, with the announcement prompting two big questions: why and how?

SQL Server is one of Microsoft's major Windows applications, helping to drive Windows sales and keep people on the Windows platform. If you can run SQL Server on Linux, well, that's one less reason to use Windows.

And while SQL Server does share heritage with Sybase SQL Server (now called SAP ASE), a Unix database server that Microsoft ported to Windows, that happened a long time ago. Since 1993, when Sybase and Microsoft went their separate ways, the products have diverged and, for the last 23 years, Microsoft SQL Server has been strictly a Windows application. That doesn't normally make for easy porting.