Slashdot Mirror
Weird Asteroid Itokawa Has a Dual Personality
astroengine writes "We care about how asteroids are made, in large part because if one were aiming to smash into us, we'd like to know what we can do about it. The structure of asteroids is also a matter of scientific curiosity, as it tells us a bit about the formation and evolution in our solar system. ... 25143 Itokawa is a relatively small near-Earth asteroid that was visited by the Japanese Habayusa spacecraft in 2005. It has also been monitored by Stephen Lowry of the University of Kent and his colleagues over a twelve year span with the 3.58 meter New Technology Telescope in La Silla, Chile. In that time span, Itokawa has made five near approaches to Earth. And what did they find? The asteroid is composed of two lobes of different densities, suggesting that Itokawa is in fact a merged binary."
ESO is hosting a preprint of the paper.
It's the Hayabusa, not Habayusa... Thank you and good bye.
If you move me to the beta slashdot abortion i'll add this place to the block list and never visit again.
Too many other news sites regurgitate the exact same storys i see here. And all of them don't look as shitty as the beta slashdot.
Stop being stupid.
MOVIN’ ON UP. You are on Slashdot Classic. We are starting to move into new digs in February by automatically redirecting greater numbers of you. The new site is a work in progress so Classic Slashdot will be available from the footer for several more months. As we migrate our audience, we want to hear from you to make sure that the redesigned page has all the features you expect. Find out more.
Sure I'm just an adblocking, no-login leach. I'll have to find somewhere else to be an adblocking, no-login leach after "several more months".
The beta version is totally lame. Get rid of it.
I had never seen the Beta site, so I was curious what all the fuss was about; it couldn't be that bad! I clicked the beta link, and now I can't get OUT! There's no un-beta link, and I'm auto-redirected back to beta every time. What the actual fuck.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Terrible, isn't it? Occasionally I get directed to it and keep reloading/pressing the back button until I don't.
The Slashdot Beta is fucking terrible, and has gone the route of Way Too Much Whitespace and looks like shit.
Whatever drunken idiots think it's a good website should be flayed, castrated, and then shot.
Our marketing department has done extensive research over the last 3 quarters and discovered that our audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. Like, 98.3% males to be precise. To correct this oversight, we have decided to subtly tweak Slashdot's design and content to widen our appeal to these less active demographics. Don't worry! We'll still continue to serve our core audience, but we hope you'll work with us as we try to find a balance that will work for all.
gee, that sounds strangely familiar...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's not just this site which decided that usefulness should be jammed down the sewer in favor of shiny, take a look at NBC's redesigned site. It looks and acts like Windows 8!
Once again, Rule #3 that should never be broken:
Never let a web designer design your web site.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's all been downhill since the first accounts with 7 digit ids started showing up.
There's a “Slashdot Classic” link in the footer.
For reference, it goes to http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1
i had been forced to move to the beta early on, when the "return to classic" button still existed. i instantly clicked it. unfortunately, they removed the option when they forced my mobile to the beta site, so now i'm unable to even read the site on the go. this place was one of the few things i kept bookmarked on my mobile, but not anymore.
I'm right there with you.
I have 20 or so news sites I visit regularly. I went to NBC and it took about 10 seconds to decide to remove it from my favorites. What the hell were they thinking??
I hope Slashdot doesn't make it a repeat, but it's looking that way.
add ?nobeta=1 after slashdot.org/ in the url
I even have it bookmarked because I get selected to test the beta site quite often.
If it ever does go live, I'm sure there will be a greasemonkey script to undo the madness, it is hated that much
More music, fewer hits
ffs just use
http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1
For everyone complaining about the beta format. They put a link right up on top of the pages now. Don't just post rants here (personally I doubt anyone in charge reads the comments here) send them emails telling them how much of an abomination it is.
feedback@slashdot.org?subject=beta_feedback
I think the correct definition would be dual properties comprised of different materials and densities. Other than that you better send like Risperdal or Prozac to the asteroid immediately and sign it up for a guest shot on Dr. Phil.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
That motorcycles are now in space?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I have no issues with Slashdot Beta's new design. It looks okay to me, and I have not encountered anything missing or broken. Performance is still the same as before. Aside from some cosmetic changes, I see no difference from the old version, except that maybe this newer one is a bit more pleasant to read with the whitespace added. (Yes, having a mountain of clustered, tiny text hurts readability IMO, but I'm not going to complain about that either for a site I can view for free.)
Slashdot is so full of whiny, self-centered people who fear the slightest change or difference, no matter how imperceptible, that it's unreal. Yes, if you hate the new site, then please leave. We should be here for the content, not a design custom-tailored to your individual fixations. If you need to share your traumatic experience with encountering a modern website for the first time, then you need to get a life (and perhaps a new computer, for those of you complaining about performance...seriously? I could care less about a couple seconds or kilobytes more).
Typical slashdot...
From the FAQ:
I want to stick with the Classic site (slashdot.org) for now. How do I go back?
If you'd rather view the Classic site for now, click on the “Slashdot Classic” link in the footer of the Beta site (beta.slashdot.org). Likewise, if you are on the Classic site and want to switch to Beta, click on the "Slashdot Beta" link in the footer of the Classic site. Both choices are persistent, and require you have cookies enabled.
And I was even nice. After I pointed out why the best site is "teh suck" I offered helpful suggestions about the commenting layout, 'cause that's a whole lotta whitespace they've got in there.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Terrible, isn't it? Occasionally I get directed to it and keep reloading/pressing the back button until I don't.
The Slashdot Beta is fucking terrible, and has gone the route of Way Too Much Whitespace and looks like shit.
Whatever drunken idiots think it's a good website should be flayed, castrated, and then shot.
You're being far too kind. The auteur of the beta Slashdot design should be torn into itty-bitty pieces and buried alive. Count me in as another long-time slashdot reader who will be adding the site to Leechblock as soon as I can no longer access class Slashdot. And given the trend topics that have been making it to the top of the pile lately (with this one as a nice exception) I'm kind of wondering why I'm waiting...
What they are hiding from us is the fact that the less demse end of the asteroid has been extensively mined, sub-surface, by space gnomes. This is, in reality, what accounts for the differing densities. Why are the gnomes mining only one end... think Cyprus but with a competing mining company.
STFU. It's not worse than the old UI, and it should scale better for mobile devices while being less cluttered for desktops.
I really hate when people cling to arbitrary design choices just because they're familiar.
I've blacklisted beta.slashdot.org to prevent redirection, works great!
I recommend something to do with testicles, honey, and fire ants.
... then go to hell and get ravaged daily by rabid Rottweilers.
The cookies are the key. Clean them and you will see back the good old interface.
I find it a bit strange that the image is of 4 Vesta, a V-type asteroid. 25143 Itokawa is an S-type asteroid.
"If you have no enemies, you have no character" -- Paul Newman
Sometimes it's the usable non-intrusive site I've known and loved for 15 years, other times it's this horrible whitespace + video atrocity that is way less pleasant to visit - and the idiotic bosses seem to think that it will be a massive improvement when it's actually shit, and everyone's telling them it's shit. All that money you wasted on the redesign isn't going to make it suck less at any point in the future, so write it off and throw this beta garbage in the trash where it belongs. Sooner rather than later.
Try and calculate how much ad revenue you got from people reading and posting about how much the awful Windows 8 interface sucked dudes, because that's a fair representation of the minimum damage that's going to happen to your own revenues if you ignore all this feedback.
There's no un-beta link
I must be imagining the big 'Slashdot Classic' link at the bottom of every page then.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Slashdot, how about in addition to doing whatever you are going to do with Beta, which is ultimately out of our control, you come up with some method for people like me who just want to read "News for nerds and stuff that matters" like always to easily filter out all of the commentary about "Fuck Beta" and all the virginal whining and buthurtedness from the kids who don't know that part of being an adult is learning to accept things as they are, how to hear no in addition to learning to say no when it counts.. Could you guys get on that? Thanks a bunch!
It wasn't there for me. As I said in other posts, I apparently got an even worse version than usual - there was no sidebar or footer, so no Slashdot Classic link. All I could see was the header and the stories.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
No, not really. I mean, gosh, who cares.
Here's an alternate "theory" . The asteroid isn't made up of two merged blobs: it's going all cellular division on us and is in the process of asexual reproduction. This takes a long time, what with rock being somewhat stiffer than amoebas and all.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw