We're going to need all the computer power we can muster if we are to avert this coming catastrophe. I wonder how supercomputers can be brought to bear on this problem? Los Alamos should have no problem quickly retooling from investigating outdated nuclear weapons to investigating the fusion process of the sun.
The Sun is overheating and will soon blow up . . . taking Earth and the rest of the solar system with it, scientists warn.
The alert was issued after an international satellite photographed a massive explosion on the surface of the Sun that sent a plume of fire 30 times longer than the diameter of Earth blasting into space.
"It's a sign that the Sun is ready to blow . . . I don't know if I can put it any more plainly than that," says Dutch astrophysicist Dr. Piers Van der Meer, a top expert affiliated with the European Space Agency.
"It will be like a nuclear bomb trillions of times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima going off at the center of our solar system.
"When that happens Earth will be instantly incinerated along with all life on it. It's like when a marshmallow falls into a fire, blackens and melts."
Scientists say the problem is the Sun is literally getting too hot.
The core temperature of the Sun is normally 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. But in recent years it's climbed to an alarming 49 million degrees, says Dr. Van der Meer, leader of a team of Amsterdam-based space scientists who've been tracking the changes in the Sun.
"It's quite similar to when a star goes supernova at the end of its life," Dr. Van der Meer explains. "Over the past 11 years, we've seen our Sun go through changes frighteningly like those that took place in Kepler's Star right before it was observed going supernova in 1604."
Temperatures on the surface of the Sun have been steadily climbing over the past decade, the scientists say.
"This, we believe, not man-made pollution, is responsible for global warming and the alarming effects that we've seen take place on Earth such as the melt-down of the Antarctic ice shelves," asserted Dr. Van der Meer.
The July 1 images were taken by the space-based Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a satellite designed to study the internal structure of the Sun and operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency.
"The explosion . . . known technically as an eruptive prominence . . . was colossal," said Dr. Van der Meer. "This is the final warning sign we've all been dreading."
The Dutch scientists calculate that if temperatures keep climbing at the current rate the Sun will be unable to sustain itself.
"It will blow apart like an out-of-control nuclear reactor within six years," predicts Dr. Van der Meer.
NASA refuses to confirm the Euro-pean scientists' assertions and a White House source said, "We don't need anyone spreading more panic now."
Cyber-Terrorist Training Tool?
on
Uplink
·
· Score: -1, Troll
From the FAQ: "Uplink is a simulated hacking tool, which allows you to perform various acts of high-tech computer crime. You can steal computer files, compromise government computer systems etc etc. You make money by hiring out your skills as a freelance hacker."
This, to me, sounds even worse than Microsoft Flight Simulator, as far as aiding terrorists. FlightSim has a legitimate purpose. This game does not. Instead, it seems to allow terrorists to hone their hacking skills while evading the possiblility of detection. The traditional way of learning to hack involved hacking into actual computers on the internet. That way, the government can keep tabs on hackers. This way, the hackers can become highly skilled without the government ever knowing about it until they launch a real, coordinated attack on America's network infrastructure. Not a good situation. Not good at all . . .
Until GNOME gets good support for universal cut and paste, a good web browser and office suite, and decent stability, I'll stick with WinXP.
Let's compare:
GNOME:
bad/non-existent copy/paste support
no useable web browsers
crashes every time you turn around
cost: $0, unless you want support and documentation
WinXP
universal copy/paste
the industry standard web browser
stability: I haven't had to reboot since I first installed XP; this is definitely the best Windows yet
the most widely used Office suite in the world
cost: $0, with full documentation and 1 year of support (taking 5 finger discount into account)
The information in the article is already a little old. Some new information has come to light which is not mentioned in the newsbytes article. The hole situation is even more alarming than it seemed at first. So, for the latest on the gaping hole, check out Yahoo's coverage.
I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with this revisionist history being pushed down our throats by feminists sympathizers.
Clearly, this woman was not the "original" Eniac programmer. And even if she was, which is more important--building a computer or programming it? Anyone can do software, but hardware takes brains and persistence to do right.
Why don't we give the inventor of the Eniac this kind of credit? Or what about the countless hundreds of male computer pioneers who remain anonymous while this individual steals the spotlight simply because of her sex?
I'm all for celebrating the accomplishments of pioneers in computing. But affirmative action has no place in history.
This is yet another attempt by a greedy corporation to cash-in on pseudo-Geeks. The real Geeks, though, know that for $250 you can get a 100 GB of storage and have 10x the tunes. I can't believe Slashdot is running a story like this when I've been able to order a bigger hard drive than that for cheaper than that for years. I have all the portable music storage I need (all my They Might Be Giants and Ben Folds five albums, plus lots of leftover space), without getting price-gouged by greedy corporations.
I've read the book, and Lessig does touch on the issue of domain name disputes. Sure, he doesn't go into it in real depth, but I don't think he needs to. Domain names are only one of the multitude of methods used to supress challenges.
The distinction between supression through code and supression through lawsuit is important, though. For example, Michael is supressing the parent comment through the use of code, by abusing his power and moderating it so that no one can see it. I believe supression through code is the more dangerous of the two. With supression through lawsuit, the courts at least have to okay it. Sure, you can argue that the courts are corrupt, but that's not the point. We can always clean up the courts. With supression through code, corporations and individuals like Michael can play Judge, Jury, and Executioner to maintain their positions and technologically shout down people who bring up inconvenient facts or provide competition.
This whole EU thing is getting out of hand. Remember the French Revolution? Let me refresh your memory. Peasants (well, actually, disaffected, rabble-rousing intellectuals using the peasants), overthrew the monarchy, bent on establishing a government based on ideals and standards. Instead, they ended up with decades of beheadings, the metric system, all kinds of silly laws in the name of "egalitarianism", and, finally, an emperor bent on expansion.
The parallels with the EU are obvious. We have a new government established, supposedly bent on establishing standards and protecting the citizen. Instead, we have the government limiting consumer choice. I think it's only a matter of time before the next Napoleon steps up to the plate and uses the infrastructure currently being put in place by the power-hungry EU.
Today, they take away the right to use cookies on your website. What tomorrow, gun rights?
Please Tell Me This Isn't For Real
on
Globalization
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
I just found this [slashdot.org] at the Slashdot Privacy Watch [slashdot.org] page. This article (and the others posted by Slashdot Privacy Watch) present some seriously scary possibilities. I'm posting this in order to have your comments, CmdrTaco.
What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?
Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com], line 1898.
They're Tracking WHAT?
You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.
Who Would Want my IP?
Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:
Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?
Last time I posted this, I was immediately censored. Please distribute this and other Slashdot Privacy Watch publications extensively until CmdrTaco responds satisfactorily.
. . . What are the copyright issues involved? . . .
An excellent question. I am not a lawyer (though I did attend a few years of law school before entering the seminary), but I don't think Toonami is breaking any laws. They'll have legal agreements worked out with all the parties involved. HTH. BTW, why was the parent post modded 'Troll'?
Next, you'll be telling me someone is using concentration camps and crematoria in a creative art project. Celebrating the elimination of our civil rights is never in good taste.
Plus, by creating tools that could potentially be used to circumvent our rights, these "artists" are in fact collaborators. There are no two ways about it.
We all know that Apple invented and perfected the GUI a decade before Microsoft Windows became useable. What fewer may remember is that Apple invented the PDA as well, in the form of the Newton. The Newton had everything you could want in a PDA, including handwriting recongntion, and was out a good 5 years before the Palm even began to take off. Unfortunately, Apple once again found itself ahead of the time.
Hopefully, this time the public will be smart enough to recognize Apple's genius before it's too late.
This is getting rediculous. Symmetric Multiprocessing on a single chip? That's impossible, unless you're just screwing around with semantics. I mean, think about it. You need TWO chips, at least, in order to engage in SMP, and anyone who says otherwise is putting out meaningless hype. SMP on one chip, or just vaporware?
ESR states, "One can test, debug and improve in bazaar style, but it would be very hard to originate a project in the bazaar mode." Is this true?
Oh, it's entirely true. If you weren't in on the ground floor (RMS, Linus, Taco), you don't have that much of a chance of originating a successful Open Source project. I mean, have you browsed at sourceforge lately?
Which brings me to my next point: why open source? If your idea is worth doing, it's worth doing right. Which involves drawing up a business plan, getting funding, and, if you can pull it off, cashing out with an IPO and living the rest of your life on your own tropical island, surrounded by beautiful women. (Okay, to tell you the truth, if you're anything like the typical slashbot the women just aren't going to be happening even with the money; but the island's nice.)
Besides which, we need more innovative tech startups right now to jumpstart the economy. If you look at a chart of new IPOs vs the level of DJIA, the clear trend is that the more IPOs there are, the higher the stock market goes (and therefore, the better the economy is doing). So we NEED more high-tech companies being created and taken public right now. In light of the recent terrorist attacks and their clear purpose of disrupting the American economy, I'd almost say it's your patriotic duty to start a tech-company if at all possible -- the same way it's the duty of every muslim fanatic to travel to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.
Okay, so we all knew Cue:Cat was a stupid idea. But there were plenty of stupider ideas. In the recently burst tech bubble, *everyone* was getting VC funding.
I've personally know of several even more ridiculous concepts that have received funding. Here are some of my (least) favorites:
MyExtremeFuneral.com - This was a company that planned to profit from the demises of dot-com executives involved in extreme sports. They resold life-insurance at inflated prices and custom pre-designed funerals. In addition, one of their selling points was that they'd maintain a web-page/shrine to the deceased in perpetuity. Unfortunately(ha!) they laid off their 250(!) workers and went under 1 month after their $12 million first round funding came through.
KittyLitterCorner.com - Yes, they sell (*sold*) just what you'd guess from their name -- but they did it over the internet! And they were there first, which earned them close to $20 mil in VC funding. KLC.com is no longer with us, needless to say.
PHuMAss.com - Phumass (Personal Human Assistant) catered to the busy e-business executive with real, living, human assistants -- accessible via the web. Forget your PDA, with PHuMAss, you have a real live person (stationed in a cubicle in South Texas) to assist you, take care of your schedule, do your errands, etc.; all accessible through a convenient CGI interface anywhere you have a web connection; all for $299.95/month. RIP Phumass.
VA Linux Systems - Rode the Linux bubble up with one of the biggest IPOs in history. Sold off their core money-maker (the hardware business) and instead acquired liabilities such as various linux-oriented community sites. Plans to make its money by selling a piece of software that can be downloaded free from the web. VA is currently on the verge of being delisted, and bankruptcy may soon follow.
These are just some of the cases I was personally involved in (I do due diligence for investment banks). As you can see, Cue:Cat is not that anomolous.
There are, of course, other reasons for all the bugs. IT professionals point to a whole litany of causes: bloatware, with all its useless bells and whistles; programmers working in isolation, blissfully ignorant of how people will ultimately be using their software on a daily basis; reusable components that may already contain bugs; an absence of agreed upon professional standards; and developers who take shortcuts to meet deadlines during development.
That could paragraph could describe the shoddy commercial software, but it could just as easily be describing Mozilla, KDE (or GNOME, to be fair), Emacs, TeX, or the RedHat Linux distro. Open source, by itself, can't solve shoddy software engineering practices.
This problem discussed in the article is better solved by the type of licensing model Microsoft plans to adopt: subscription software. That way, you always have the latest, least buggy version of the software you use without having to shell out for a new copy, and the corporation that writes the software is motivated to eliminate bugs, rather than leave them in so they can sell you the new version. This way, you have all the advantages of open source, yet you can take comfort in the fact that your software is written by professionals.
"Ximian, Inc., the leading open source desktop company"
Hmmmm, I wonder if TrollTech would take issue with that claim. I don't think throwing another computer industry has-been (VisiCalc? Will that even run on Win98?) on the board is going to give Gnome any edge over KDE.
Are you kidding me? If I had a submission posted, that would make me cool, and that would begin the slow unraveling of the very fabric of space-time.
Are YOU kidding me? I guess we're in for some serious space-time unraveling, dude, because you are MAD cool. You were on star trek, right? So, what was 7-of-9 like? She was one fine looking piece of ass for an alien. Did you ever like, get to, you know, with her? I was really sorry to see Voyager get cancelled, but to be honest, it was more about 7-of-9 than you. Who was your character again?
Re:RedHat 7.2 with KDE2.2.1 as default desktop
on
No GNOME For Solaris 9
·
· Score: -1, Troll
That's slick and sophisticated... it would fool anyone with an IQ of oh, say, 2? [Must... find... willpower to stop feeding trolls...]
Wow, you certainly seem to like throwing around the word 'troll'. Let me guess? You just heard about 'troll's' two days ago and are now convinced this that everyone who says something which doesn't correspond to your narrow, warped world-view is a 'troll'. I'd say the people with the IQ of 2 are the ones for whom "everything looks like a nail when they have a hammer". Or, as is the case here, "everything looks like a blank when you have a label".
Um, what? RH? Not shipping with GNOME? What crack are you on? Every review of 7.2 I've read so far mentions how nice and polished their GNOME interface is.
Of course RedHat was planning on shipping with Gnome -- UNTIL THE REMOTE EXPLOITS WERE DISCOVERED! Pay attention!
RedHat has corporate clients that would not take kindly to the lax, exploit-ridden security model Miguel has implemented in the most recent version of Gnome. And that's without even getting into the rumours about intentional, hidden backdoors.
After Redhat's recent announcement that Gnome won't be shipping with Redhot 7.2 due to security concerns, the last thing Gnome needs is to be dumped by another major OS. With the damage done to Gnome's image by the recently discovered remote exploits and concerns about possible back doors, what Gnome needs is a ground up re-write and a full audit of the code base to restore confidence. On top of that, Gnome has a long ways to go to catch up with KDE in terms of functionality. All in all, I wish Miguel the best; but I won't be using Gnome until I can be sure it won't give some kiddie an easy r00t on my box.
If you put a frog in boiling water, he'll jump right out, however if you put a frog in cold water, and heat it to boiling, the frog will unwittingly boil himself alive. How this involves the Internet, you've got me.
All you "patriots" who were arguing that technology like Carnivore and facial recognition cameras were a violation of privacy had better get used terrorism, because if we don't do something, it's going to get a lot worse in the coming months.
I would GLADLY have my communications monitored rather than having 50,000 innocent civilians slaughtered like this.
I hope you privacy activists are happy now. Because of your whining about "rights", the terrorists were able to walk right under our noses. The blood of the innocent is on YOUR hands!
Slashdot Mirror
From the FAQ: "Uplink is a simulated hacking tool, which allows you to perform various acts of high-tech computer crime. You can steal computer files, compromise government computer systems etc etc. You make money by hiring out your skills as a freelance hacker."
This, to me, sounds even worse than Microsoft Flight Simulator, as far as aiding terrorists. FlightSim has a legitimate purpose. This game does not. Instead, it seems to allow terrorists to hone their hacking skills while evading the possiblility of detection. The traditional way of learning to hack involved hacking into actual computers on the internet. That way, the government can keep tabs on hackers. This way, the hackers can become highly skilled without the government ever knowing about it until they launch a real, coordinated attack on America's network infrastructure. Not a good situation. Not good at all . . .
Until GNOME gets good support for universal cut and paste, a good web browser and office suite, and decent stability, I'll stick with WinXP.
Let's compare:
GNOME:
bad/non-existent copy/paste support
no useable web browsers
crashes every time you turn around
cost: $0, unless you want support and documentation
WinXP
universal copy/paste
the industry standard web browser
stability: I haven't had to reboot since I first installed XP; this is definitely the best Windows yet
the most widely used Office suite in the world
cost: $0, with full documentation and 1 year of support (taking 5 finger discount into account)
The information in the article is already a little old. Some new information has come to light which is not mentioned in the newsbytes article. The hole situation is even more alarming than it seemed at first. So, for the latest on the gaping hole, check out Yahoo's coverage.
I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with this revisionist history being pushed down our throats by feminists sympathizers.
Clearly, this woman was not the "original" Eniac programmer. And even if she was, which is more important--building a computer or programming it? Anyone can do software, but hardware takes brains and persistence to do right.
Why don't we give the inventor of the Eniac this kind of credit? Or what about the countless hundreds of male computer pioneers who remain anonymous while this individual steals the spotlight simply because of her sex?
I'm all for celebrating the accomplishments of pioneers in computing. But affirmative action has no place in history.
This is yet another attempt by a greedy corporation to cash-in on pseudo-Geeks. The real Geeks, though, know that for $250 you can get a 100 GB of storage and have 10x the tunes. I can't believe Slashdot is running a story like this when I've been able to order a bigger hard drive than that for cheaper than that for years. I have all the portable music storage I need (all my They Might Be Giants and Ben Folds five albums, plus lots of leftover space), without getting price-gouged by greedy corporations.
The distinction between supression through code and supression through lawsuit is important, though. For example, Michael is supressing the parent comment through the use of code, by abusing his power and moderating it so that no one can see it. I believe supression through code is the more dangerous of the two. With supression through lawsuit, the courts at least have to okay it. Sure, you can argue that the courts are corrupt, but that's not the point. We can always clean up the courts. With supression through code, corporations and individuals like Michael can play Judge, Jury, and Executioner to maintain their positions and technologically shout down people who bring up inconvenient facts or provide competition.
The parallels with the EU are obvious. We have a new government established, supposedly bent on establishing standards and protecting the citizen. Instead, we have the government limiting consumer choice. I think it's only a matter of time before the next Napoleon steps up to the plate and uses the infrastructure currently being put in place by the power-hungry EU.
Today, they take away the right to use cookies on your website. What tomorrow, gun rights?
Last time I posted this, I was immediately censored. Please distribute this and other Slashdot Privacy Watch publications extensively until CmdrTaco responds satisfactorily.
Plus, by creating tools that could potentially be used to circumvent our rights, these "artists" are in fact collaborators. There are no two ways about it.
Hopefully, this time the public will be smart enough to recognize Apple's genius before it's too late.
Check out the screenshots over at Yahoo. Does that answer your question?
This is getting rediculous. Symmetric Multiprocessing on a single chip? That's impossible, unless you're just screwing around with semantics. I mean, think about it. You need TWO chips, at least, in order to engage in SMP, and anyone who says otherwise is putting out meaningless hype. SMP on one chip, or just vaporware?
Oh, it's entirely true. If you weren't in on the ground floor (RMS, Linus, Taco), you don't have that much of a chance of originating a successful Open Source project. I mean, have you browsed at sourceforge lately?
Which brings me to my next point: why open source? If your idea is worth doing, it's worth doing right. Which involves drawing up a business plan, getting funding, and, if you can pull it off, cashing out with an IPO and living the rest of your life on your own tropical island, surrounded by beautiful women. (Okay, to tell you the truth, if you're anything like the typical slashbot the women just aren't going to be happening even with the money; but the island's nice.)
Besides which, we need more innovative tech startups right now to jumpstart the economy. If you look at a chart of new IPOs vs the level of DJIA, the clear trend is that the more IPOs there are, the higher the stock market goes (and therefore, the better the economy is doing). So we NEED more high-tech companies being created and taken public right now. In light of the recent terrorist attacks and their clear purpose of disrupting the American economy, I'd almost say it's your patriotic duty to start a tech-company if at all possible -- the same way it's the duty of every muslim fanatic to travel to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.
I've personally know of several even more ridiculous concepts that have received funding. Here are some of my (least) favorites:
These are just some of the cases I was personally involved in (I do due diligence for investment banks). As you can see, Cue:Cat is not that anomolous.
That could paragraph could describe the shoddy commercial software, but it could just as easily be describing Mozilla, KDE (or GNOME, to be fair), Emacs, TeX, or the RedHat Linux distro. Open source, by itself, can't solve shoddy software engineering practices.
This problem discussed in the article is better solved by the type of licensing model Microsoft plans to adopt: subscription software. That way, you always have the latest, least buggy version of the software you use without having to shell out for a new copy, and the corporation that writes the software is motivated to eliminate bugs, rather than leave them in so they can sell you the new version. This way, you have all the advantages of open source, yet you can take comfort in the fact that your software is written by professionals.
"Ximian, Inc., the leading open source desktop company"
Hmmmm, I wonder if TrollTech would take issue with that claim. I don't think throwing another computer industry has-been (VisiCalc? Will that even run on Win98?) on the board is going to give Gnome any edge over KDE.
To recap: this is a (bad) idea that's been around for decades. If you want a big, dark, low resolution picture, this is the way to go.
Are YOU kidding me? I guess we're in for some serious space-time unraveling, dude, because you are MAD cool. You were on star trek, right? So, what was 7-of-9 like? She was one fine looking piece of ass for an alien. Did you ever like, get to, you know, with her? I was really sorry to see Voyager get cancelled, but to be honest, it was more about 7-of-9 than you. Who was your character again?
Wow, you certainly seem to like throwing around the word 'troll'. Let me guess? You just heard about 'troll's' two days ago and are now convinced this that everyone who says something which doesn't correspond to your narrow, warped world-view is a 'troll'. I'd say the people with the IQ of 2 are the ones for whom "everything looks like a nail when they have a hammer". Or, as is the case here, "everything looks like a blank when you have a label".
Of course RedHat was planning on shipping with Gnome -- UNTIL THE REMOTE EXPLOITS WERE DISCOVERED! Pay attention!
RedHat has corporate clients that would not take kindly to the lax, exploit-ridden security model Miguel has implemented in the most recent version of Gnome. And that's without even getting into the rumours about intentional, hidden backdoors.
After Redhat's recent announcement that Gnome won't be shipping with Redhot 7.2 due to security concerns, the last thing Gnome needs is to be dumped by another major OS. With the damage done to Gnome's image by the recently discovered remote exploits and concerns about possible back doors, what Gnome needs is a ground up re-write and a full audit of the code base to restore confidence. On top of that, Gnome has a long ways to go to catch up with KDE in terms of functionality. All in all, I wish Miguel the best; but I won't be using Gnome until I can be sure it won't give some kiddie an easy r00t on my box.
If you put a frog in boiling water, he'll jump right out, however if you put a frog in cold water, and heat it to boiling, the frog will unwittingly boil himself alive. How this involves the Internet, you've got me.
All you "patriots" who were arguing that technology like Carnivore and facial recognition cameras were a violation of privacy had better get used terrorism, because if we don't do something, it's going to get a lot worse in the coming months.
I would GLADLY have my communications monitored rather than having 50,000 innocent civilians slaughtered like this.
I hope you privacy activists are happy now. Because of your whining about "rights", the terrorists were able to walk right under our noses. The blood of the innocent is on YOUR hands!