feed on feeds - 2014/12/26 - items 0 to 15

Memorial services held in Indonesia, Thailand and other countries a decade after massive waves killed 220,000 people.

Omkring 118 000 personer har tvingats fly sina hem efter svåra översvämningar i norra Malaysia och minst fem har avlidit. Även Sri Lanka har drabbats av mycket regn och där har minst 14 mist livet. De kraftiga regnen väntas fortsätta över helgen.

Offren för flodvågen i Sydostasien kan snart, över tio år efter katastrofen, få ett officiellt minnesmonument i Sverige. Det säger Åsa Regnér (S), som var med under den svenska minnesceremonin i thailändska Khao Lak på annandag jul. Runt om i Asien högtidlighölls minnet av offren och i Sverige hölls en nationell minnesgudstjänst i Uppsala domkyrka.

mrflash818 sends word that Tesla Motors has announced an upgrade for their Roadster vehicles that boosts the range from about 240 miles to almost 400. In addition to the battery improvements made since the Roadster launched in 2008, Tesla has a kit to retrofit the body to reduce its drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.31. They also have new tires, which improve the rolling resistance coefficient by about 20%. They say, "Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 40-50% improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles. We will be demonstrating this in the real world during a non-stop drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the early weeks of 2015." Tesla stopped producing the Roadster in 2012.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Myndigheter i Azerbajdzjan har gjort en räd mot den amerikanskt finansierade radion Radio Azadliq, som är den lokala avdelningen av Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, uppger radiostationens chef. Radiochefen sade att åklagare genomsökte kontoret på fredagen, i vad han hävdade var en del av regeringens nedslag mot pressfriheten.

Ett hus eldhärjades i Söndrum i Halmstad på juldagskvällen.

An anonymous reader writes: Y Combinator's Paul Graham has posted an essay arguing in favor of relaxed immigration rules. His argument is straight-forward: with only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. can only expect about 5% of great programmers to be born here. He says, "What the anti-immigration people don't understand is that there is a huge variation in ability between competent programmers and exceptional ones, and while you can train people to be competent, you can't train them to be exceptional. Exceptional programmers have an aptitude for and interest in programming that is not merely the product of training." Graham says even a dramatic boost to the training of programmers within the U.S. can't hope to match the resources available elsewhere. "We have the potential to ensure that the U.S. remains a technology superpower just by letting in a few thousand great programmers a year. What a colossal mistake it would be to let that opportunity slip. It could easily be the defining mistake this generation of American politicians later become famous for."