Month: September 2017

Enlarge (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Does it make sense to build something that will almost certainly end up wrecked before its useful lifetime is over? In most contexts, the answer is clearly "no," since doing so is a waste of money and resources. But lots of people seem to have a blind spot when it comes to planning ahead for climate change. North Carolina, for example, went through a protracted debate over whether it should allow people to build on sites that were likely to be under water. And the Trump administration recently cancelled rules that were intended to prevent infrastructure from being built where the ocean would rise to meet it.

But it's not just rising oceans that put our infrastructure at risk. According to a new analysis, current engineering practices have us building some roads that are already vulnerable to our warming climate, and the problem's only going to get worse. The results are likely to be more frequent repairs and a shortened lifespan. If the road is built to tolerate cold conditions that no longer occur, then it's possible that this involved an unnecessary expense.

Hot blacktop

The problem comes down to asphalt, which is a temperature-sensitive surface. It can crack if it gets too cold or undergoes freeze/thaw cycles, and it can partially melt if temperatures get high enough. There are different formulations, however, so the starting material can sometimes be tailored to tolerate the temperatures it is likely to face. Engineering best practices involve figuring out the likely high and low temperatures a region is likely to face and choosing an asphalt blend that is rated to tolerate those.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's roundup includes several discounts on Dell desktops and laptops, including an Inspiron 3650 desktop with a Core i7 (6th-gen) chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 2TB hard drive for $600. We also have some fairly sizable savings on Sony's PlayStation VR headset, 4K TVs from LG and Sony, and some Wi-Fi and home networking equipment.

You can find the rest of the deals below.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Sen. Ron Wyden is a critic of SESTA. (credit: Ron Wyden)

The United States Senate is moving toward passage of a bill that would—for the first time—water down a landmark 1996 law that shields website operators from lawsuits and state prosecution for user-generated content. And one of the authors of that 1996 law, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), argued Tuesday that this would be a mistake.

The Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act now has 28 co-sponsors, and the breadth of that support was evident at a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. The legislation would allow state attorneys general to prosecute websites that are used to promote sex trafficking—something that's currently barred by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. It would also allow private lawsuits against sites that host sex trafficking ads.

But Wyden argued at Tuesday's hearing that weakening Section 230 would be a mistake. In Wyden's view, Section 230 has been essential for establishing the United States as a global technology leader. It freed Internet startups from worrying about getting sued for hosting user-generated content, Wyden claimed. The section also allows startups to focus their resources on hiring developers and designers instead of lawyers.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images News)

Uber has sued an advertising firm, Fetch Media, over allegations that the British firm and its Japanese parent company, Dentsu, fraudulently billed Uber tens of millions of dollars for various fake online ads.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday afternoon in federal court in San Francisco, Uber first realized that something was wrong when, earlier this year, the company began receiving complaints that its ads were appearing on Breitbart, a well-known conservative news website. Uber had specifically requested that its ads not appear on Breitbart at all.

However, when Uber looked into the matter, "the publisher-reported name of the websites and mobile applications where Uber advertisements supposedly appeared did not match the actual URL accessed. For example, one publisher retained by Fetch reported clicks on Uber ads as coming from placements such as 'Magic_Puzzles' and 'Snooker_Champion.'"

Enlarge / The gloves came off long ago. (credit: John McArthur)

Those prone to rejecting the conclusions of climate science sometimes fixate on weird things. For years, there has been a concerted effort to prove that a specific paleoclimate record—often referred to as “the hockey stick” because of the sharp rise at the end—was somehow fraudulent. It doesn't seem to matter that many other researchers have replicated and advanced those findings. These people seem to feel that all of climate science would come crashing down if you could just dig up a golden e-mail that reveals a dastardly scheme.

The original record was partly the work of Michael E. Mann, now at Penn State, and he has been hounded ever since. There have been a number of attempts to get universities to turn over his e-mails over the years. But last year, an effort targeting one of Mann’s colleagues in Arizona seemed to have finally found success.

A group called the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal Institute had turned from Mann and instead focused on Malcom Hughes and James Overpeck at the University of Arizona. E&E Legal filed a broad Freedom of Information Act request in 2011, trying to obtain 10 years’ worth of their e-mails with fellow researchers. When the university rejected the request based on legal protections for the data and communications of researchers, E&E Legal sued in 2013. Two years later, the court decided in favor of the University of Arizona.

Enlarge / A man holds a sign of Pepe the frog, an alt-right icon, during a rally in Berkeley, California in April 2017. (credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Matt Furie created the cartoon character Pepe the Frog in 2005 as a kind of peaceful stoner animal for his comic "Boys Club." By 2008, the frog had become a meme at 4chan. In the 2016 election cycle, though, Pepe became something completely different—an ever-meme of the alt-right. The Anti-Defamation League characterizes Pepe as a hate symbol and has catalogued some of the most viciously racist and anti-semitic examples.

Now Furie wants his comic frog back. After years of letting it slide, Furie has lawyered up and sent demand letters to several alt-right personalities, including white supremacist Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and the subreddit "The_Donald."

Last month, Furie took legal action against a man in Texas who created an Islamophobic version of Pepe for a children's book. That matter reached a settlement. Now, Furie's lawyers have spoken to Vice about his determination to reclaim ownership of the image and the demand letters they have sent out.