Slashdot Mirror
Domain: bnl.gov
Stories and comments across the archive that link to bnl.gov.
Stories · 64
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Transporting a 15-Meter-Wide, 600-Ton Magnet Cross Country
necro81 writes "Although its Tevatron particle accelerator has gone dark, Fermi Laboratory outside Chicago is still doing physics. A new experiment, called muon g-2 will investigate quantum mechanical behavior of the electron's heavier sibling: the muon. Fermi needs a large ring chamber to store the muons it produces and investigates, and it just so happens that Brookhaven National Laboratory outside NYC has one to spare. But how do you transport a delicate, 15-m diameter, 600-ton superconducting magnet halfway across the country? Very carefully." -
Inexpensive Nanosheet Catalyst Splits Hydrogen From Water
An anonymous reader writes "Traditional methods of producing pure hydrogen are either extremely expensive or release lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed an electrocatalyst that addresses one of these problems by generating hydrogen gas from water cleanly and with drastically more affordable materials. Goodbye platinum; hello nickel and ammonia." -
Antihelium Discovered By STAR
Medevilae writes with this excerpt from ScienceBlog: "Eighteen examples of the heaviest antiparticle ever found, the nucleus of antihelium-4, have been made in the STAR experiment at RHIC, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. ... Ordinary nuclei of helium atoms consist of two protons and two neutrons. Called alpha particles when emitted in radioactive decays, they were found in this form by Ernest Rutherford well over a century ago. The nucleus of antihelium-4 (the anti-alpha) contains two antiprotons bound with two antineutrons. ... 'It’s likely that antihelium will be the heaviest antiparticle seen in an accelerator for some time to come,' says STAR Collaboration member Xiangming Sun of Berkeley Lab’s NSD. 'After antihelium the next stable antimatter nucleus would be antilithium, and the production rate for antilithium in an accelerator is expected to be well over two million times less than for antihelium.'" -
Not Transparent Aluminum, But Conductive Plastic
michaelmalak writes "Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have fabricated transparent, thin films capable of absorbing light and generating electric charge over a relatively large area. The material, described in the journal Chemistry of Materials (subscription required), could be used to develop transparent solar panels or even windows that absorb solar energy to generate electricity. The material consists of a semiconducting polymer doped with carbon-rich fullerenes." -
RHIC Finds Symmetry Transformations In Quark Soup
eldavojohn writes "Today scientists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven National Laboratory revealed new observations after creating a 'quark soup' that revealed hints of profound symmetry transformations when collisions create conditions in which temperatures reach four trillion degrees Celsius. A researcher explains the implications, 'RHIC's collisions of heavy nuclei at nearly light speed are designed to re-create, on a tiny scale, the conditions of the early universe. These new results thus suggest that RHIC may have a unique opportunity to test in the laboratory some crucial features of symmetry-altering bubbles speculated to have played important roles in the evolution of the infant universe.' These new findings hint at violations of mirror symmetry or parity by witnessing asymmetric charge separation in these collisions." -
RHIC Finds Symmetry Transformations In Quark Soup
eldavojohn writes "Today scientists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven National Laboratory revealed new observations after creating a 'quark soup' that revealed hints of profound symmetry transformations when collisions create conditions in which temperatures reach four trillion degrees Celsius. A researcher explains the implications, 'RHIC's collisions of heavy nuclei at nearly light speed are designed to re-create, on a tiny scale, the conditions of the early universe. These new results thus suggest that RHIC may have a unique opportunity to test in the laboratory some crucial features of symmetry-altering bubbles speculated to have played important roles in the evolution of the infant universe.' These new findings hint at violations of mirror symmetry or parity by witnessing asymmetric charge separation in these collisions." -
"Perfect" Mirrors Cast For LSST
eldavojohn writes "The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (which was partially funded by Gates & Co.) announced a world record casting for its single-piece primary and tertiary mirror blanks, cast at the University of Arizona. From the announcement: 'The Mirror Lab team opened the furnace for a close-up look at the cooled 51,900-pound mirror blank, which consists of an outer 27.5-foot diameter (8.4-meter) primary mirror and an inner 16.5-foot (5-meter) third mirror cast in one mold. It is the first time a combined primary and tertiary mirror has been produced on such a large scale.'" -
The Earliest Documented Video Game
AsiNisiMasa writes "The first documented video game was created in 1952 by a scientist who felt the need to give his work relevance to society. It was called 'Tennis for Two' and took up about as much room as one would expect. The article at Brookhaven History comes complete with several pictures and even video: 'A two-dimensional, side view of a tennis court was displayed on an oscilloscope, which has a cathode-ray tube similar to a black and white TV tube. In order to generate the court and net lines and the ball, it was necessary to time-share these functions. While the rest of the system used vacuum tubes and relays, the time-sharing circuit and the fast switches used transistors, which by 1958 were coming into use.'" -
Data Suggests Early Universe was Superfluid
Ted writes "Experiments at the worlds largest nuclear collider, RHIC, at Brookhaven National Laboratory reveal striking new features of the state of the early Universe. With RHICs enormous collision energy, the researchers can create matter that is composed of the fundamental building blocks of nature, quarks and gluons, in a state with temperatures of more than 1000 billion degrees. The Universe is believed to have been in this state in the first microsecond after the Big Bang. Later the quarks and gluons were trapped in the nuclear particles that the visible universe is composed of today. Until recently, researchers have thought that the quarks and gluons formed a gas. The latest results from RHIC, however, indicate that under the extreme conditions just around the phase transition from quarks and gluons to ordinary matter, the quarks and gluons behaved as a liquid - in fact an almost perfect liquid." -
Highlights from the CHEP Conference
mlp68 writes "This is from the floor of the 'Computing in High-Energy Physics' conference in Interlaken, Switzerland, which has been going on this week and closes today. Computer experts and scientists from large physics experiments around the world discussed their work and progress on various fronts. Data logging rates of 100's of MB/s and Linux farms with 100's or 1000's of machines are standard fare. Most of the talks presented, as well as today's summary talks, are available online. An interesting tidbit is that one experiment is now using P2P technology to configure their data acquisition components faster than was possible before." -
Laser Wakefield Particle Accelerator Realized
deglr6328 writes "Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's "l'OASIS" group have, for the first time, discovered a way to create high quality monochromatic beams of relativistic electrons using a 10 terawatt laser pulse focused on a specially formed plasma channel. The work is considered a landmark in new accelerator physics due to the fact that they are theoretically capable of creating extraordinarily high field accelerating gradients in the 100's of GeV per meter range; much higher than what's possible with the current gradients created by microwave frequency accelerators. The discovery could therefore open the door to far more efficient and compact staged particle accelerators utilizing next generation petawatt power lasers to achieve TeV scale particle energies and at lower energies, allow things like proton beam cancer therapy to be made affordable and widely available." -
Beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics
tanmay writes "As time moves on, the case for supersymmetry keeps getting stronger. Physicsweb is reporting about an experiment that measures the relation between the spin of the muon and its magnetic moment, called the g-factor. The latest experiment is described as the most significant deviation to date between experiment and theory in particle physics, thus offering the clearest hint so far of new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. We will know for sure if supersymmetry holds it's ground by 2007, when the Large Hadron Collider will commence operation." -
RHIC Computing Facility Crosses the 1 PB Mark
Martin writes "Brookhaven National Lab's RHIC Computing Facility (RCF) announced yesterday that the amount of data from the physics experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) crossed the 1 PetaByte mark. A mail that was sent around to the RCF users contained a GUI screen shot (which is removed from the mail archive) that showed the number of MegaBytes transferred as 1,000,400,143. The RCF web pages have some pictures of the tape silos that hold the data. RHIC and the experiments have been discussed on ./ a few times, look here, here, and here." -
RHIC Computing Facility Crosses the 1 PB Mark
Martin writes "Brookhaven National Lab's RHIC Computing Facility (RCF) announced yesterday that the amount of data from the physics experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) crossed the 1 PetaByte mark. A mail that was sent around to the RCF users contained a GUI screen shot (which is removed from the mail archive) that showed the number of MegaBytes transferred as 1,000,400,143. The RCF web pages have some pictures of the tape silos that hold the data. RHIC and the experiments have been discussed on ./ a few times, look here, here, and here." -
RHIC Computing Facility Crosses the 1 PB Mark
Martin writes "Brookhaven National Lab's RHIC Computing Facility (RCF) announced yesterday that the amount of data from the physics experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) crossed the 1 PetaByte mark. A mail that was sent around to the RCF users contained a GUI screen shot (which is removed from the mail archive) that showed the number of MegaBytes transferred as 1,000,400,143. The RCF web pages have some pictures of the tape silos that hold the data. RHIC and the experiments have been discussed on ./ a few times, look here, here, and here." -
RHIC Computing Facility Crosses the 1 PB Mark
Martin writes "Brookhaven National Lab's RHIC Computing Facility (RCF) announced yesterday that the amount of data from the physics experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) crossed the 1 PetaByte mark. A mail that was sent around to the RCF users contained a GUI screen shot (which is removed from the mail archive) that showed the number of MegaBytes transferred as 1,000,400,143. The RCF web pages have some pictures of the tape silos that hold the data. RHIC and the experiments have been discussed on ./ a few times, look here, here, and here." -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Looking for Quark-Gluon Plasma?
uctbruce writes "Following the June press release from Brookhaven National Lab, nuclear physicists from around the world are discussing the results of the 4 RHIC experiments (PHOBOS, STAR, PHENIX and BRAHMS), the New York Times ran an article on the Quark Matter conference in Oakland. Have we re-created the first microseconds of the big bang in the lab? (Have a look at the Google cluster of stories)" -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma
Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)." -
Force Field. No, Really
tqft points out news of "a working force field, using plasma. Now to scale the sucker up." Here's the Brookhaven press release. I can think of so many uses for this. -
Is This The Oldest Map of North America?
An anonymous reader writes: "Scientists from the University of Arizona, the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Smithsonian Institution have used carbon-dating technology to determine the age of a controversial parchment that might be the first-ever map of North America." Update: 07/30 03:04 GMT by T : Bill Reardon writes: "Thought you might like to know there's another story running via the AP on the map. New study says Yale University's Vinland map is a forgery. Poor Yale. First hacked by Princeton, now their map is a forgery." -
The Most Beautiful Experiments in Physics
TheMatt writes "In this month's 'Physics World', Robert P. Crease asks the question: what is the most beautiful experiment in physics? Some criteria quoted are that it must change what people thought, must not be too complicated or expensive, and, most importantly, be within the reach of students (which leaves out Stern-Gerlach or Michelson-Morley). He also has a page at BNL reprinting the article, with a place for suggestions from the community on their opinion." I'll nominate a simple one: Foucault's Pendulum. :) -
The Standard Model and USA Today
FredGray writes: "USA Today recently posted a short story titled "1+1 does not equal muon g-2" which explains that the discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental values for the muon's anomalous magnetic moment has mostly evaporated. Unfortunately, the article completely mislays the blame for the initial discrepancy; it implies that there was a mistake in the experiment, but the problem was entirely with one small component of the theoretical calculation known as the hadronic light-by-light scattering term. As a proud member of the experimental group, I would like to ask slashdot to remind the world that we still stand by our result. We are currently analyzing a much larger data set, and we hope to publish a more precise number in the months to come." -
Brookhaven Physicists Produce "Doubly Strange Nuclei"
da5id@netlimit.com writes: "Advanced physics news! Physicists have produced double "strange quarks" atoms using the biggest Proton Beam Laser on Earth... "UPTON, NY - Strange science has taken a great leap forward at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, physicists have produced a significant number of "doubly strange nuclei," or nuclei containing two strange quarks. Studies of these nuclei will help scientists explore the forces between nuclear particles, particularly within so-called strange matter, and may contribute to a better understanding of neutron stars, the super dense remains of burnt-out stars, which are thought to contain large quantities of strange quarks."" -
200GeV Collisions at RHIC
PHENIX Experiment writes: "Brookhaven Labs has produced for the first time, collisions of gold nuclei at a center of mass energy of 200GeV/nucleon. This is a new energy regime for the high energy nuclear physics relativistic heavy ion program which is now getting underway. We have put together a bunch of nice photos of event displays for some nice central collisions, the collisions where the two nuclei hit head on. Over the next 6 months or so, we are looking to collect on the order of a petabyte of data which will then be analyzed using our VA Linux farm operated by the RHIC Computing Facility." -
200GeV Collisions at RHIC
PHENIX Experiment writes: "Brookhaven Labs has produced for the first time, collisions of gold nuclei at a center of mass energy of 200GeV/nucleon. This is a new energy regime for the high energy nuclear physics relativistic heavy ion program which is now getting underway. We have put together a bunch of nice photos of event displays for some nice central collisions, the collisions where the two nuclei hit head on. Over the next 6 months or so, we are looking to collect on the order of a petabyte of data which will then be analyzed using our VA Linux farm operated by the RHIC Computing Facility." -
200GeV Collisions at RHIC
PHENIX Experiment writes: "Brookhaven Labs has produced for the first time, collisions of gold nuclei at a center of mass energy of 200GeV/nucleon. This is a new energy regime for the high energy nuclear physics relativistic heavy ion program which is now getting underway. We have put together a bunch of nice photos of event displays for some nice central collisions, the collisions where the two nuclei hit head on. Over the next 6 months or so, we are looking to collect on the order of a petabyte of data which will then be analyzed using our VA Linux farm operated by the RHIC Computing Facility." -
200GeV Collisions at RHIC
PHENIX Experiment writes: "Brookhaven Labs has produced for the first time, collisions of gold nuclei at a center of mass energy of 200GeV/nucleon. This is a new energy regime for the high energy nuclear physics relativistic heavy ion program which is now getting underway. We have put together a bunch of nice photos of event displays for some nice central collisions, the collisions where the two nuclei hit head on. Over the next 6 months or so, we are looking to collect on the order of a petabyte of data which will then be analyzed using our VA Linux farm operated by the RHIC Computing Facility." -
Standard Model Takes A Dent
Anonymous Coward writes "According to New Scientist, researchers at Brookhaven NL have put a dent in the standard model of particle physics. Looks like a big deal and just what they've been waiting for - something to get their teeth into. Read the story here" -
Super Computing 2000
Stephen Adler of Brookhaven Laboratory has written a fine account of the Super Computing 2000 conference in Dallas, Texas. He covers super computing, venture capital, some fascinating info about SETI, open source software, and even has some geek porn. -
Super Computing 2000
Stephen Adler of Brookhaven Laboratory has written a fine account of the Super Computing 2000 conference in Dallas, Texas. He covers super computing, venture capital, some fascinating info about SETI, open source software, and even has some geek porn. -
First Physics From RHIC
QuarkHead writes: "Early Wednesday morning, Wit Buzsa from the PHOBOS collaboration presented the first physics to come from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Apparently the universe as we know it will not be destroyed, and unfortunately Long Island will not be sucked into a black hole. See the talk here and the consequent paper here." -
Slashback: Secrecy, Toyware, France
Whatever happened to those drives at Los Alamos? Is my Mattell software worse than Back Orifice? Have the French courts cowed Yahoo!? Did I or didn't I buy a license for Windows? These and other ponderables have been glued in place below for your leisurely weekend perusal.Can't you just see this happening at your workplace? snowbike writes: "The missing hard drives at Los Alamos have been found. Apparently they fell behind a copy machine. It will probably be attributed to the closure and evacuation associated with the fires. Read all about it at CNN. Looks like there is still plenty of heat to go around regarding this--now the UC contract to run the lab is in danger." OK. So a little bit of data went missing. Are you perfect? Are you saying you've never misplaced a floppy, or left a few nuclear secrets behind the copy machine? More coverage can be found at ABC News, at The L.A. Times and at The Washington Post .
This is for your own good. In regards to Xday's discussion of privacy violations in Mattel software, Moses Lawn writes: "I'm an ex-Broderbund programmer that wrote all of the code for this, and I just posted a comment about exactly what it does, how, and why. It's actually pretty benign. (Hopefully my comment wound up in the right place - first-time posting and all.)"
Not a single Earth-destroying collision yet! People are pretty excited at Brookhaven National Laboratory, as RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) just saw its first collisions. There are pictures and a press release here. That page also has links to some animations and more info on how RHIC and its component systems work. RHIC is the new particle accelerator at Brookhaven. Its main goal (among many) is to look for a quark-gluon plasma. This is the result of about 18 years of work, and it will be the premiere facility for high-energy physics research until about 2008.
Tell me again how this makes things easier? snoogans writes "I just received this from my Dell account rep. As deep a hole as Microsoft has dug, do they really need to do this? How can they force all OEM's to implement this BIOS lock thing?
'The contents of the OS media kits that are shipped with Dell systems for Windows 95, Windows 98SE, and Windows NT4 will be changed as of June 1,2000 (New OS media kits are already shipping for Windows 2000 Professional) Systems impacted: All OptiPlex, Dimension, Precision, Latitude, and Inspiron systems. Implementation will be worldwide and include all languages. Why? The changes to the OS media kits are required by Microsoft in an effort to reduce software piracy What is changing (exactly) Dell-branded OS media replaces the Microsoft-generic OS media. Artwork on CD will change from "Microsoft Windows X" to "Dell Product Recovery CD -- Windows XX" In addition to a copy of the OS, the OS media will include a BIOS lock that prevents the OS media from being installed on a non-Dell system. Microsoft requires the BIOS lock to help prevent software piracy. The set-up diskettes have been removed because customers can now boot directly from the CD The functionality of the OS media remains the same -- whenever the user is asked to insert the "Microsoft Windows XX" CD, such as when they are reinstalling the OS or when they are changing the configuration of their system -- they will use the Dell Product Recovery CD The Certificate of Authentication (COA) will no longer be attached to the front of the Product documentation. Instead, it will be on a label affixed to the outside of the system chassis. The COA label should not be removed from the chassis -- the label will tear into small pieces if there is an attempt to remove it and it will become unusable. The product key located on the COA label is a mechanism used by Microsoft to ensure that the operating system loaded on the system is legal - the product key cannot be used by other users to compromise the security of the system. Your ability to re-install the OS from CD has not changed, the Dell Product Recovery CD replaces the functionality available in the Microsoft OS media kits'"
It would be great if hordes of programmers and interface designers worlwide would come up with a freely distributable alternative that was more stable than Windows and obviated the need for such presumption.;)
Blowing their nose in the general direction. MissKitty writes: "Even though I deplore Naziism and have got to wonder about the people who collect this stuff as memorabilia, I was amused that someone had the guts to tell the French Court to push off. Under French law it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones. They were wanting for Yahoo to filter France's access to these things (that came up on their auction site). "Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naive," Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! said. Score one for political incorrectness."
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Slashback: Secrecy, Toyware, France
Whatever happened to those drives at Los Alamos? Is my Mattell software worse than Back Orifice? Have the French courts cowed Yahoo!? Did I or didn't I buy a license for Windows? These and other ponderables have been glued in place below for your leisurely weekend perusal.Can't you just see this happening at your workplace? snowbike writes: "The missing hard drives at Los Alamos have been found. Apparently they fell behind a copy machine. It will probably be attributed to the closure and evacuation associated with the fires. Read all about it at CNN. Looks like there is still plenty of heat to go around regarding this--now the UC contract to run the lab is in danger." OK. So a little bit of data went missing. Are you perfect? Are you saying you've never misplaced a floppy, or left a few nuclear secrets behind the copy machine? More coverage can be found at ABC News, at The L.A. Times and at The Washington Post .
This is for your own good. In regards to Xday's discussion of privacy violations in Mattel software, Moses Lawn writes: "I'm an ex-Broderbund programmer that wrote all of the code for this, and I just posted a comment about exactly what it does, how, and why. It's actually pretty benign. (Hopefully my comment wound up in the right place - first-time posting and all.)"
Not a single Earth-destroying collision yet! People are pretty excited at Brookhaven National Laboratory, as RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) just saw its first collisions. There are pictures and a press release here. That page also has links to some animations and more info on how RHIC and its component systems work. RHIC is the new particle accelerator at Brookhaven. Its main goal (among many) is to look for a quark-gluon plasma. This is the result of about 18 years of work, and it will be the premiere facility for high-energy physics research until about 2008.
Tell me again how this makes things easier? snoogans writes "I just received this from my Dell account rep. As deep a hole as Microsoft has dug, do they really need to do this? How can they force all OEM's to implement this BIOS lock thing?
'The contents of the OS media kits that are shipped with Dell systems for Windows 95, Windows 98SE, and Windows NT4 will be changed as of June 1,2000 (New OS media kits are already shipping for Windows 2000 Professional) Systems impacted: All OptiPlex, Dimension, Precision, Latitude, and Inspiron systems. Implementation will be worldwide and include all languages. Why? The changes to the OS media kits are required by Microsoft in an effort to reduce software piracy What is changing (exactly) Dell-branded OS media replaces the Microsoft-generic OS media. Artwork on CD will change from "Microsoft Windows X" to "Dell Product Recovery CD -- Windows XX" In addition to a copy of the OS, the OS media will include a BIOS lock that prevents the OS media from being installed on a non-Dell system. Microsoft requires the BIOS lock to help prevent software piracy. The set-up diskettes have been removed because customers can now boot directly from the CD The functionality of the OS media remains the same -- whenever the user is asked to insert the "Microsoft Windows XX" CD, such as when they are reinstalling the OS or when they are changing the configuration of their system -- they will use the Dell Product Recovery CD The Certificate of Authentication (COA) will no longer be attached to the front of the Product documentation. Instead, it will be on a label affixed to the outside of the system chassis. The COA label should not be removed from the chassis -- the label will tear into small pieces if there is an attempt to remove it and it will become unusable. The product key located on the COA label is a mechanism used by Microsoft to ensure that the operating system loaded on the system is legal - the product key cannot be used by other users to compromise the security of the system. Your ability to re-install the OS from CD has not changed, the Dell Product Recovery CD replaces the functionality available in the Microsoft OS media kits'"
It would be great if hordes of programmers and interface designers worlwide would come up with a freely distributable alternative that was more stable than Windows and obviated the need for such presumption.;)
Blowing their nose in the general direction. MissKitty writes: "Even though I deplore Naziism and have got to wonder about the people who collect this stuff as memorabilia, I was amused that someone had the guts to tell the French Court to push off. Under French law it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones. They were wanting for Yahoo to filter France's access to these things (that came up on their auction site). "Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naive," Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! said. Score one for political incorrectness."
-
Slashback: Secrecy, Toyware, France
Whatever happened to those drives at Los Alamos? Is my Mattell software worse than Back Orifice? Have the French courts cowed Yahoo!? Did I or didn't I buy a license for Windows? These and other ponderables have been glued in place below for your leisurely weekend perusal.Can't you just see this happening at your workplace? snowbike writes: "The missing hard drives at Los Alamos have been found. Apparently they fell behind a copy machine. It will probably be attributed to the closure and evacuation associated with the fires. Read all about it at CNN. Looks like there is still plenty of heat to go around regarding this--now the UC contract to run the lab is in danger." OK. So a little bit of data went missing. Are you perfect? Are you saying you've never misplaced a floppy, or left a few nuclear secrets behind the copy machine? More coverage can be found at ABC News, at The L.A. Times and at The Washington Post .
This is for your own good. In regards to Xday's discussion of privacy violations in Mattel software, Moses Lawn writes: "I'm an ex-Broderbund programmer that wrote all of the code for this, and I just posted a comment about exactly what it does, how, and why. It's actually pretty benign. (Hopefully my comment wound up in the right place - first-time posting and all.)"
Not a single Earth-destroying collision yet! People are pretty excited at Brookhaven National Laboratory, as RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) just saw its first collisions. There are pictures and a press release here. That page also has links to some animations and more info on how RHIC and its component systems work. RHIC is the new particle accelerator at Brookhaven. Its main goal (among many) is to look for a quark-gluon plasma. This is the result of about 18 years of work, and it will be the premiere facility for high-energy physics research until about 2008.
Tell me again how this makes things easier? snoogans writes "I just received this from my Dell account rep. As deep a hole as Microsoft has dug, do they really need to do this? How can they force all OEM's to implement this BIOS lock thing?
'The contents of the OS media kits that are shipped with Dell systems for Windows 95, Windows 98SE, and Windows NT4 will be changed as of June 1,2000 (New OS media kits are already shipping for Windows 2000 Professional) Systems impacted: All OptiPlex, Dimension, Precision, Latitude, and Inspiron systems. Implementation will be worldwide and include all languages. Why? The changes to the OS media kits are required by Microsoft in an effort to reduce software piracy What is changing (exactly) Dell-branded OS media replaces the Microsoft-generic OS media. Artwork on CD will change from "Microsoft Windows X" to "Dell Product Recovery CD -- Windows XX" In addition to a copy of the OS, the OS media will include a BIOS lock that prevents the OS media from being installed on a non-Dell system. Microsoft requires the BIOS lock to help prevent software piracy. The set-up diskettes have been removed because customers can now boot directly from the CD The functionality of the OS media remains the same -- whenever the user is asked to insert the "Microsoft Windows XX" CD, such as when they are reinstalling the OS or when they are changing the configuration of their system -- they will use the Dell Product Recovery CD The Certificate of Authentication (COA) will no longer be attached to the front of the Product documentation. Instead, it will be on a label affixed to the outside of the system chassis. The COA label should not be removed from the chassis -- the label will tear into small pieces if there is an attempt to remove it and it will become unusable. The product key located on the COA label is a mechanism used by Microsoft to ensure that the operating system loaded on the system is legal - the product key cannot be used by other users to compromise the security of the system. Your ability to re-install the OS from CD has not changed, the Dell Product Recovery CD replaces the functionality available in the Microsoft OS media kits'"
It would be great if hordes of programmers and interface designers worlwide would come up with a freely distributable alternative that was more stable than Windows and obviated the need for such presumption.;)
Blowing their nose in the general direction. MissKitty writes: "Even though I deplore Naziism and have got to wonder about the people who collect this stuff as memorabilia, I was amused that someone had the guts to tell the French Court to push off. Under French law it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones. They were wanting for Yahoo to filter France's access to these things (that came up on their auction site). "Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naive," Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! said. Score one for political incorrectness."
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RHIC Operational
Stephen Adler/John Lajoie writes "No, the universe did not implode! Nor did we destroy the vacuum. But some very nice science will begin with the advent of collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, just completed and colliding beams, at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island NY. Check out the first nice pictures of exploding mini-bang. (And by the way, the lab is using linux boxes up the wazoo to analyze all this data. up to 60 megabytes a second over a 40 week running period each year from now until the government stops funding this collider.)" -
RHIC Operational
Stephen Adler/John Lajoie writes "No, the universe did not implode! Nor did we destroy the vacuum. But some very nice science will begin with the advent of collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, just completed and colliding beams, at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island NY. Check out the first nice pictures of exploding mini-bang. (And by the way, the lab is using linux boxes up the wazoo to analyze all this data. up to 60 megabytes a second over a 40 week running period each year from now until the government stops funding this collider.)" -
RHIC Operational
Stephen Adler/John Lajoie writes "No, the universe did not implode! Nor did we destroy the vacuum. But some very nice science will begin with the advent of collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, just completed and colliding beams, at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island NY. Check out the first nice pictures of exploding mini-bang. (And by the way, the lab is using linux boxes up the wazoo to analyze all this data. up to 60 megabytes a second over a 40 week running period each year from now until the government stops funding this collider.)" -
Quiet Jackhammer
While I was checking out the BNL site for the previous story, I saw this press release regarding a quiet jackhammer. It does some bad things to helium, shoots nails at Mach 5 to break up concrete... You're thinking what I'm thinking, right? Yep: nailed. -
National Lab Hosts Computer Security Conference
Edward McFadden sends us a conference announcement, to be held at Brookhaven National Laboratory on June 27-28, 2000, about security issues with collaborative computing. Click below for the entire announcement. It doesn't give much detail, and I don't see a Web page on the BNL site, so I guess you'll have to e-mail McFadden for complete information.Event Date: June 27 (Tue) - 28 (Wed), 2000
Location: Brookhaven National Laboratory (managed by Brookhaven Science Associates for the U.S. Department of Energy)
Purpose of the Conference - This conference will explore the issues in providing a collaborative computational environment that is both open and secure. The open, unimpeded flow of information has been a foundation of scientific research, even more so today with the trend toward increasingly large and geographically dispersed teams. This trend has been enabled by advances in IT and has increased dependence on IT, which has exacerbated potential vulnerabilities. Thus, computer security has taken on increasing importance, with the profusion of both malicious and unintended compromises to computing and communications infrastructures. These seemingly divergent considerations must be resolved into a harmonious relationship if information technology tools are to be reliable and effective.
This conference program draws on experiences and viewpoints of the university, industry, government and research laboratory sectors. It will provide a forum for collaboration tool providers, notable collaboration partners, computer security practitioners, and officials responsible for enforcing security provisions. The end objective of the conference is a clearer identification of the issues, and a roadmap that best meets the need of these constituencies.
The Conference Program - The Program will feature eminent speakers who are conversant in the conduct of collaborative science as well as those whose specialty is computer and network security. Notable collaborations in the areas such as Nuclear Physics, Genomics, and Computational Grids will be described. New trends in security threats and protection tools will be presented. The tensions between the needs of open science and the need for responsible security will be identified, and solutions that have been proposed in science and other enterprises will be described. Finally there will be a workshop session to propose next steps to achieve the appropriate balance.
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National Lab Hosts Computer Security Conference
Edward McFadden sends us a conference announcement, to be held at Brookhaven National Laboratory on June 27-28, 2000, about security issues with collaborative computing. Click below for the entire announcement. It doesn't give much detail, and I don't see a Web page on the BNL site, so I guess you'll have to e-mail McFadden for complete information.Event Date: June 27 (Tue) - 28 (Wed), 2000
Location: Brookhaven National Laboratory (managed by Brookhaven Science Associates for the U.S. Department of Energy)
Purpose of the Conference - This conference will explore the issues in providing a collaborative computational environment that is both open and secure. The open, unimpeded flow of information has been a foundation of scientific research, even more so today with the trend toward increasingly large and geographically dispersed teams. This trend has been enabled by advances in IT and has increased dependence on IT, which has exacerbated potential vulnerabilities. Thus, computer security has taken on increasing importance, with the profusion of both malicious and unintended compromises to computing and communications infrastructures. These seemingly divergent considerations must be resolved into a harmonious relationship if information technology tools are to be reliable and effective.
This conference program draws on experiences and viewpoints of the university, industry, government and research laboratory sectors. It will provide a forum for collaboration tool providers, notable collaboration partners, computer security practitioners, and officials responsible for enforcing security provisions. The end objective of the conference is a clearer identification of the issues, and a roadmap that best meets the need of these constituencies.
The Conference Program - The Program will feature eminent speakers who are conversant in the conduct of collaborative science as well as those whose specialty is computer and network security. Notable collaborations in the areas such as Nuclear Physics, Genomics, and Computational Grids will be described. New trends in security threats and protection tools will be presented. The tensions between the needs of open science and the need for responsible security will be identified, and solutions that have been proposed in science and other enterprises will be described. Finally there will be a workshop session to propose next steps to achieve the appropriate balance.
