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Slashback: Intentia, Ephemera, Restoration
With a baby and some makeup you can add in some aliens.
Docrobot writes "NASA is obviously tired of the recent fanatical conspiracy claims dealing with 'faked' Apollo Moon Landings, the 'Face on Mars,' and most recently EuroSeti's claim that enhanced SOHO satellite images show UFOs.
NASA debunks EuroSeti's resent image enhanced SOHO satellite UFO photos covered by us here with this snappy and smug how-to article entitled: How to Make Your Own UFO.
It looks like Euroseti should to go back to the drawing board, or up their meds..."
At least use a security envelope next time. mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, Reuters will not be prosecuted due to the alleged hack of Intentia's web server. Intentia did not clearly state that the information was secret, nor did Intentia try protecting it. Intentia stated that the report would be available at a certain time, and you only had to slightly change the URL from the report of the previous quarter in order to obtain the current report. Hence, the prosecutor will not initiate proceedings against Reuters or any of its reporters."
(Here is Slashdot's previous story on this affair.)
A happy turn in the PCI list saga. DieNadel writes "I've received an email today from PCI-SIG regarding the End of the Free PCI Device List, that says:
'Dear PCI Community,The PCI Vendor and Device Lists located at http://www.yourvote.com/pci/ have been restored. The PCI-SIG recognizes the value of Jim Boemler's Web site and our officers have worked with him to restore it.
We are committed to working with Jim and the rest of the community to ensure this service is not interrupted in the future.
Thank you for your continued support of our technologies. We will keep you informed with any other updates.
Best Regards,
Tony Pierce
PCI-SIG Chairman.'
I think it's a nice move from PCI-SIG!"
Making money with Free software, explained. Yesterday, we posted a link to an article explaining Red Hat's new EOL schedule for various versions of its operating system. Red Hat's decision drew a lot of flak in the comments attached to that story; not that it won't again, but over on NewsForge, Red Hat's Jeremy Hogan has a reaction-to-the-reaction (not just on Slashdot) which the new EOL schedule drew.
When you finish your UFO, be sure to make yourself an alien. Seriously, this is a fun read by some FX experts that really destroys that alien autopsy stuff.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Come on... we're all terribly curious. It's been slower than all get out recently. Why? How about letting everyone that hasn't befriended Taco know what he said in his journal about the site/features/updates? There's probably no more fitting place to have a meta-discussion about the site than in slashback, so let's do it.
I hate it when obviously faked UFOs are publicized and then thouroughly debunked. This leads people to assume that all UFO reports are obviously faked and there are no reports which are unexplainable.
There are, its a real phenomenon, and nobody knows what they are. 95% of the cases may be solar flares and whatnot, but there are cases where trained pilots chase things which show up on radar going at supersonic speeds making hairpin turns. There are UFO sightings with craft doing these things recorded by witnesses over large areas from many different perspectives.
They could all be fake. But this doesn't mean they do not warrant investigation. A few shitty UFO pictures which can be duplicated easily doesn't make the interesting accounts and evidence any less interesting.
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Hence, the prosecutor will not initiate proceedings against Reuters or any of its reporters.
It probably would have been better if the prosecutor had initiated proceedings, and then lost. It would set a favorable precedent.
Living in the UK, I have a duty to hate america :) :)
:)
However from a very young age the one thing I've consistently liked is NASA. Yeah I know they have problems, but they represent a lot of dreams
About half a year ago I posted a comment saying I couldn't work out how to apply to NASA. A few people posted links, but they were all for things like biochemists and managers and stuff.
How do I get to do mad-scientist kinda stuff? Work on rockets and spaceships?
I worked at BAe Systems for a while hoping to get in via that route, but only one person had done it before me, and that was through creating better missiles to kill people with - not a route I wanted to go.
...is that they assume that they *aren't* increasing their user base much, and that it's the same people always upgrading their version of linux. As their user base increases, there will be demand to keep supporting releases for longer periods. Hopefully the EOL commitment is not etched in stone.
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
[snip] there are cases where trained pilots chase things which show up on radar going at supersonic speeds making hairpin turns [snip]
You wanna know why in recent times these cases have become so rare? It's because the software for radar tracking has been improved to the point where it won't link spurious signals together and assume that these must be a continuous track. Now when such systems do find something making hairpin turns (doesn't have to be supersonic) or travelling at 10K+ MPH, then the software will filter out such tracks.
Now a true believer's reaction might be "OH!MY!GOD! THEY (MIBs, the Fed, whatever) are stopping the information at the source! How can we protect ourselves if we don't even know if the UFOs are there!"
Or you might figure that the older radar systems simply were faulty.
Companies don't want "aggressive" upgrade policy. We want to stay where things work. This is exactly why MS just had to push back the EOL of NT4. For many people it's working just fine. Windows 2000 didn't offer them enough to move their servers.
For example, I have a RH 7.2 box at the office running some network tools (MRTG, BB, etc). We use Compaq Insight Manager for hardware monitoring. The new monitoring agents released by Compaq only want RH 8.0. The installer won't run on 7.2. If I don't upgrade the agents that box is flagged as running old software in the management tool.
So, I'll either end up going to RH 8.0 to get them on, or forcing them on to a 7.2 box, which means Compaq won't support them (should I need it).
If it isn't possible then there is little chance of finding intelligent life in the universe. It's taken billions of years to develop intelligent life on this planet. Humans have been around for about a million years or so. 10 thousands years ago we started farming. 5 thousand years ago civilisations sprung up. 100 years ago the industrial age started. Now the way we are going the industrial age could last as little as 30 years and that's provided we don't wipe ourselves out with a super virus, nuclear war or Steve Irwin like disregard for dangerous animals first.
Now if we do the maths, assuming other human like species have developed in much the same way we did, the chances of any two species developing at about the same time so that they can actually detect the other one is there is very small. Each species has a window of a couple of hundred years in the billions it takes for them to develop to make enough noise to be detectable by another species on a planet far far away.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The problem comes up when a new vulnerability is found.
Right now, I just log into the Red Hat Network page, which costs $100/yr/machine, and push a few buttons to upgrade all machines. I can also install new software remotely, though I'm not sure this is going away.
Red Hat does basic QA on each package, and they keep version numbers stable by back-porting fixes from new versions. This is GREAT because it means you can drop in the new package without having to update config files, etc.
Once the system reaches end of life, this happy arrangement IS GONE. If a huge security bug is found in Apache, that $100/yr does me absolutely nothing because Red Hat will not release a new package for my 7.2 or 7.3 system.
I have to go in and compile from scratch, or port the newer RPM. Kinda tough to do with 100+ systems, or even 10+ systems. Clients are counting on me to keep the machines up to date every day.
Basically, Red Hat does nothing to help me once the product is EOL'd.
Alternatively, I can upgrade to the new version of Red Hat every year. Which means:
1) Old hardware has to be upgraded. I have a 486 running 7.0 and that's about all it can run. Come March, I have to replace it. Not a big deal, right, but the machine was working fine! Why should I replace it.
2) I have to go from machine to machine and upgrade the entire OS. This is a huge expense in terms of hours. For machines that are off-site in client's facilities, this is almost impossible without a few plane tickets or long distance phone calls. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to upgrade the entire OS from the command line as you can do in FreeBSD or Debian.
3) New OS setup has to be tested. Every year. This is simply more and more expense. For instance, we would have to switch from Apache 1.3 to 2.0, which is not stable with PHP or mod_perl last I checked.
Or alternatively: I'll just switch all those machines to another OS like Debian, and cancel all my $100/yr Red Hat subscriptions.
It's a pain in the ass no matter what. I'm here with money in hand, willing to pay a few hundred/yr (NOT $800) and Red Hat offers me nothing.
bitch, moan, etc.
The problem with your assumptions is that they are nothing more than that. If aliens are visiting us, we're not them and cannot possibly ever know for sure what their intentions and motivations are unless they tell us themselves.
The second assumption has the same problems. Perhaps they come from a world in which stealth technology, for some reason, has no purpose. Therefore, they would have not had any reason to develop it until they came here.
Unless they tell us their intents, if they are visiting, we can't even know for sure that their intentions are peaceful or hostile.
Who knows? Maybe haven't been visited. Maybe we have, and they have taken great interest in our ability to create art.
One thing I'm sure of is that humans can be rather myopic, intellectually. Science is overturning many assumptions about the human sexes that have been held on to for centuries. When viruses were discovered in the early part of the last century, people were shocked. No one could conceive of something possibly alive (or at least behaved in life-like manners) that could be smaller than bacteria.
What makes us so sure that we can intuit the intents and motivations of an intelligent species that's not our own?
I would say that if extra-terrestrials have visited us, that they would be quite afraid of us. We are quite a violent species, and I'm sure that that's something that would not escape the attention of any non-Earthly visitors.
To assume puts you between me and my...err, perhaps not...
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
--just so happens I'm in the middle of a project using apt to try and jump from a stock 7.2 from cds install to "updated" 7.3 and I've about hit a wall. Can't seem to get newer labeled kernels to take, nor initiscripts and etc. You can upgrade a lot of the packages, even fake the machine out to think it's fully upgraded, but when you get down to it you get into dependecy conflicts that are super hard to resolve. I've googled and hit irc channels looking for examples or tips, but not a lot of luck so far, although theoretically it seems like it's possible, or should be. I'm on a slow modem so downloading isos is not happening. I'd like to be able to do this a package or group of packages at a time (like at night when not surfing, etc), at my leisure, but haven't found any real good guidelines for procedure yet.