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.
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
There's a “Slashdot Classic” link in the footer.
For reference, it goes to http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1
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"
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.
No one is willing to do that any more because it is quite clear that they do not read the emails. By all appearances, by sending an email you are sending your comments to /dev/null. As a side affect, no one else (read: the general Slashdot user base) will know that you also do not approve of the beta abomination. Emails to a dead mailbox, uncounted or analyzed for content, can easily be dismissed as a vocal minority.
In contrast, posting comments in the stories is a very public statement that everyone sees, everyone knows about, and can not be denied later when it is a complete failure. And the "editors" (I use that term very lightly) most definately do read the story comments... they themselves frequently comment on stories.
Over and over again for the last several months you will see long comment strings speaking very explicitly to the problems with the beta redesign, including:
- Massive waste of screen space. Do Slashdot readers really need to see "Latest Tech Jobs" and "Top SourceForge Downloads" taking up 1/3+ of every screen? What about the massive whitespacce this leaves down in the comment sections.... you know, the portion people actually look at? What is next in the beta, to fill these areas with massive flashing/dancing graphics 'ala a Japanese bulletin board site?
- Useless graphics that contribute nothing to content or understanding articles. Huge pictures, often taking more screen space than the story summary itself.
- Complete disruption of comment readability and flow. With the existing format one can easily scan 15-30 comments in a single pageframe and scroll for more. The new format lets you see 3-5 at most in the page frame and you continually have to click "Load More" to see additional comments... a format that completely breaks page refresh and following a link off-page and then back.
And the many, many other insightful analysis of the existing beta problems brought up by other regular readers for months. To date, as far as I can tell, Slashdot has failed to address any of these issue, give any response to complaints, or given any accounting of acceptance rates, email/click-thru/or otherwise. Slashdot has repeatedly posted blurbs about how great the new website is, and how everyone likes it. The comments in existing stories show quite the opposite. We have all seen website crash and die, and regular readers all see Slashdot pulling a Digg death-dive with this new beta.
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...