Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Randomness, Donations, Ramp
Slashback (below) brings another round of updates and clarification to recent and continuing stories here on Slashdot. This evening, there's more video of the recent space shuttle launch, a reminder about the other 10th planet, an encouraging update about open source medical software, another approach to structure-as-PC-enclosure, and more. Read on for the details.
Shuttle launches are easier to fake than moon landings.
Rex Ridenoure writes "Shuttle External Tank RocketCam video highlights from the STS-114 'Return to Flight' launch on July 26 have been posted on Ecliptic's website. Ecliptic supplied this RocketCam system to ET builder Lockheed Martin Michoud [Louisiana] Operations. A slow-motion clip of the now-famous ET foam shedding event has been inserted at the time it occurred -- about 1:40 after liftoff.
Still on the 'things in space' front: Sedna isn't nearly as sexy a name. Martian Anthropologist writes, of the recently announced discovery of a tenth planet in our solar system, "Actually, there's good reason to say that this is really the 11th planet, not the 10th. Another large body, now named Sedna, was discovered last year. It is slightly smaller than Pluto."
(Here's some earlier coverage of Sedna on Slashdot.)
Software for the Commonwealth. Aaron writes "As a followup to a recent story about the U.S. Government giving away its Electronic Medical Record Software, a small practice of physicians describes their experience transitioning from paper to electronic charts. Not everything goes well, from training staff to use Windows XP and tablet computers to viruses that crash their system to physicians complaining about being relegated to data-entry clerk status. In the end, however, they would never go back to paper.
From the article:'"Doctor, do you find you are spending more time interacting with the computer than with your patients?" For a while, the answer was clearly yes.'"
Aw, shucks, he might have done it anyhow. David writes "Thanks to my Ask Slashdot porting query, Ryan Gordon (aka icculus), the man who ported Unreal Tournament and many other popular games to Linux, is going to be working on the Linux version of Lugaru. It should be ready soon!"
You have to watch the quiet types, and never let them near your obscure hardware. jschauma writes "About a month ago, NetBSD made a Plea for 'Cold, Hard Cash', a Call for Donations. The results were very positive: an impressive $27K were donated since then, allowing the NetBSD Foundation to purchase five new machines; three of those machines will be added to the nightly build infrastructure and two of those machines will become anonymous cvs servers. See Christos Zoulas's email for detailed specifications of the hardware, and feel free to continue the donations!"
Definitely not for snowboarding helmet cam use. The CVS one time use camcorder has now been hacked so that videos can be downloaded over USB -- no need to desolder the flash memory.
How to spot a future writer-of-Federal-grants. Jason Schroeder writes "The recent story on the guy who put a Mac Mini in the wall reminded me of something I'd seen a while back: The Parabolic Heat Transference Case Mod for his Red Hat server. Pretty good idea with lots of scientific tidbits to make it interesting."
Hey, these fakes are a bunch of phoney frauds! strib writes "Remember SCIgen, the program that randomly-generated an accepted paper at WMSCI 2005? Well, thanks in part to the generous donations of Slashdotters, we made it down to the conference and gave a session full of fake talks. And it's all on video. Thanks to everyone who helped!"
Still on the 'things in space' front: Sedna isn't nearly as sexy a name. Martian Anthropologist writes, of the recently announced discovery of a tenth planet in our solar system, "Actually, there's good reason to say that this is really the 11th planet, not the 10th. Another large body, now named Sedna, was discovered last year. It is slightly smaller than Pluto."
(Here's some earlier coverage of Sedna on Slashdot.)
Software for the Commonwealth. Aaron writes "As a followup to a recent story about the U.S. Government giving away its Electronic Medical Record Software, a small practice of physicians describes their experience transitioning from paper to electronic charts. Not everything goes well, from training staff to use Windows XP and tablet computers to viruses that crash their system to physicians complaining about being relegated to data-entry clerk status. In the end, however, they would never go back to paper.
From the article:'"Doctor, do you find you are spending more time interacting with the computer than with your patients?" For a while, the answer was clearly yes.'"
Aw, shucks, he might have done it anyhow. David writes "Thanks to my Ask Slashdot porting query, Ryan Gordon (aka icculus), the man who ported Unreal Tournament and many other popular games to Linux, is going to be working on the Linux version of Lugaru. It should be ready soon!"
You have to watch the quiet types, and never let them near your obscure hardware. jschauma writes "About a month ago, NetBSD made a Plea for 'Cold, Hard Cash', a Call for Donations. The results were very positive: an impressive $27K were donated since then, allowing the NetBSD Foundation to purchase five new machines; three of those machines will be added to the nightly build infrastructure and two of those machines will become anonymous cvs servers. See Christos Zoulas's email for detailed specifications of the hardware, and feel free to continue the donations!"
Definitely not for snowboarding helmet cam use. The CVS one time use camcorder has now been hacked so that videos can be downloaded over USB -- no need to desolder the flash memory.
How to spot a future writer-of-Federal-grants. Jason Schroeder writes "The recent story on the guy who put a Mac Mini in the wall reminded me of something I'd seen a while back: The Parabolic Heat Transference Case Mod for his Red Hat server. Pretty good idea with lots of scientific tidbits to make it interesting."
Hey, these fakes are a bunch of phoney frauds! strib writes "Remember SCIgen, the program that randomly-generated an accepted paper at WMSCI 2005? Well, thanks in part to the generous donations of Slashdotters, we made it down to the conference and gave a session full of fake talks. And it's all on video. Thanks to everyone who helped!"
A slow-downloading clip of the soon-to-be-famous halon fire extinguisher video has been inserted into the server room at the time it occurred -- about 1:40 after a link to a page with a 14-megabyte STS-114 video went live on Slashdot.
That would leave us with 9 planets, big asteroids
I meant 8 planets of course.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Rupert... You forgot Rupert...
sheesh, I'm gonna go get my towel now...
"and in conclusion, this prevents the World Wide Web."
Classic shit.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
CVS one time use camcorder has now been hacked so that videos can be downloaded over USB
Last I checked, cvs co works well enough.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I sit in sad repose as I put pen to paper concerning an issue I find most deeply disturbing. I assume you already know that Slashdot's hangers-on have been trained, organized, and motivated to calumniate helpless wonks, but I have something more important to tell you. Although I respect Slashdot's right to free speech just as I respect it for crotchety disreputable-types, demented good-for-nothings, and tyrannical euphuists, one of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people's takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that to Slashdot's mind, its remonstrations enhance performance standards, productivity, and competitiveness. So that means that it's inappropriate to teach children right from wrong, right? No, not right. The truth is that the baneful nature of Slashdot's initiatives is not just a rumor. It is a fact to which I can testify. Now, I don't mean for that to sound pessimistic, although the absurdity of Slashdot's op-ed pieces did not dawn on me until I realized that ignoring the problem of onanism will not make it go away. That's the sort of statement that some people believe is batty, but which I believe is merely a statement of fact. And it's a statement that needs to be made, because we all have a moral obligation to stand up together and forcefully oppose Slashdot's sinister propositions. Well, that's getting away from my main topic, which is that certain facts are clear. For instance, it may seem difficult at first to advance a clear, credible, and effective vision for dealing with our present dilemma and its most disgraceful manifestations. It is. But it really struck a nerve with me when it said that we should avoid personal responsibility. That lie is a painful reminder that Slashdot ignores the most basic ground rule of debate. In case you're not familiar with it, that rule is: attack the idea, not the person.
The truth hurts, doesn't it, Slashdot? Slashdot's platitudes are based on two fundamental errors. They assume that we should all bear the brunt of Slashdot's actions. And they promote the mistaken idea that "the norm" shouldn't have to worry about how the exceptions feel. I wish I could say this nicely, but I don't have much tolerance for the worst classes of foul-mouthed, pertinacious misfits I've ever seen: Slashdot holds onto power like the eunuch mandarins of the Forbidden City -- sterile obstacles to progress who impose ideology, control thought, and punish virtually any behavior it disapproves of. Slashdot maintains that the moon is made of green cheese. This is hardly the case. Rather, there is growing evidence that says, to the contrary, that it can't fool me. I've met sententious vagabonds before, so I know that if you look back over some of my older letters, you'll see that I predicted that Slashdot would rip apart causes that others feel strongly about. And, as I predicted, it did. But you know, that was not a difficult prediction to make. Anyone who has bothered to learn even a little about Slashdot could have made the same prediction.
Come on, Slashdot; I know you're capable of thoughtful social behavior. I feel that Slashdot's slogans are all too often clad in the nugatory garb of voyeurism. My views, of course, are not the issue here. The issue is that all the deals it makes are strictly one-way. Slashdot gets all the rights, and the other party gets all the obligations. Slashdot talks loudly about family values and personal responsibility, but when it comes to backing up those words with actions, all it does is pursue a twofold credo of vigilantism and anarchism. Let no one say that Slashdot has mystical powers of divination and prophecy. No, this is twisted despotism and must be regarded as an attempt to encourage young people to break all the rules, cut themselves loose from their roots, and adopt a doctrinaire, revolting lifestyle.
In case you have any doubts, if Slashdot gets its way, I might very well hide in a closet. To the fullest extent that my age and health will permit, I myself will beat S
So since this new planet is bigger than Pluto, and most likely affects Pluto's orbit, I say we call it Mickey.
Also, what happens to the moons of Pluto - IIRC, Pluto has two satellites orbiting it...Chip and Dale, I think. If Pluto becomes a non-planet, do these just become asteroids?
theres no place like 127.0.0.1
- is that it is highly likely that Pluto will be downgraded to non-planet status
OK, but I sure wouldn't want to be the one to tell the king of the underworld about it.
Chief Astronomer: Hey! Pluto, come in, have a seat. Look, let me be the first to say you've done a splended job as a planet all these years. But, ahem, you know, things change, and we all, ah, have to be ready to change with the times. Frankly there have been a lot of new discoveries lately and, well, we feel you would be happier in the role of, uh, 'object'. You know, being a full planet is such responsibility, you can leave all that with Uranus and take some time off, take it easy and enjoy things.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
if Pluto's a dog, what the hell is Goofy?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
...as Surectum, but I don't think they'll go for it given the problems with that other planet's name.
First the brontosaurus, now Pluto!
I am so sick of these modern revisionist scientists.
This is the last straw.
Vive la brontasaurus!
A blog about stuff.
I'd argue that the definition was very much up in the vacuum. Anything you see up in the air is most likely a bird.