Submission + - Los Alamos Labs to possibly lay off 2,500 staff (blogspot.com)
DougDot writes: "It was announced today that the current Congressional mark could result in 2,500 layoffs at Los Alamos National Laboratory."
Submission Summary: 0 pending, 56 declined, 4 accepted (60 total, 6.67% accepted)
Submission + - And Tango Makes Three
DougDot writes: "I almost hate to bring this story to SlashDot's attention, but...
No, who am I kidding: it is with ill-suppressed mirth that I point out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20480366/
— Doug"
No, who am I kidding: it is with ill-suppressed mirth that I point out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20480366/
— Doug"
Submission + - DOE Declares RFP Environmental Restoration 'Done' (blogspot.com)
DougDot writes: "The US Department of Energy has declared that the environmental restoration of the Rocky Flats Plutonium bomb trigger plant northwest of Denver is 'done' — 50 years ahead of schedule!
Actually, upon closer reading it looks like they just stopped working on the restoration project 50 years early, probably so that they could focus on building the Rocky Flats-South Plant (aka Los Alamos National Laboratory).
DOE plans to spend $$ billions in the coming years to build a replacement Plutonium 'trigger' plant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, now languishing after years of well-publicised security and safety episodes. DOE would like to see 200 — 300 Plutonium 'pits' per year eventually being fabricated at the new pit fab facility. Needless to say, the neighbors in nearby Santa Fe, New Mexico are not thrilled at the prospects of further Plutonium contamination in the Los Alamos groundwater, since that groundwater flows into the Rio Grande, which Santa Fe is planning to draw drinking water from soon."
Actually, upon closer reading it looks like they just stopped working on the restoration project 50 years early, probably so that they could focus on building the Rocky Flats-South Plant (aka Los Alamos National Laboratory).
DOE plans to spend $$ billions in the coming years to build a replacement Plutonium 'trigger' plant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, now languishing after years of well-publicised security and safety episodes. DOE would like to see 200 — 300 Plutonium 'pits' per year eventually being fabricated at the new pit fab facility. Needless to say, the neighbors in nearby Santa Fe, New Mexico are not thrilled at the prospects of further Plutonium contamination in the Los Alamos groundwater, since that groundwater flows into the Rio Grande, which Santa Fe is planning to draw drinking water from soon."
Submission + - The universe will destroy the evidence of (arstechnica.com)
Douglas Roberts writes: "Nothing to do with Linux whatsoever. You really need to add a "Cosmology" topic for /. story submissions.
First couple of paragraphs from the article:
The universe will destroy the evidence of its origin
By John Timmer | Published: June 29, 2007 — 12:49PM CT
Back around the early 1900s, the universe was a fairly simple place. It was static, had always been there, and largely consisted of our own galaxy and a few neighboring bits of matter. Over the course of the 20th century, that view collapsed. Many sources of light were revealed not be stars, but rather galaxies like (and, in many cases, unlike) our own. Distant galaxies were found to be rocketing away from us, propelled by the unfolding of the universe itself, which has accelerated since the big bang. Modern cosmology has revealed a universe teeming with dark matter and unseen energy, entering a new stage of inflation.
According to a paper that will appear in October (arXiv link), we're lucky to be able to reach this understanding — literally. The authors of the paper run the clock forward 100 billion years and reveal that it's going back to the future, a conclusion clear in the paper's title: The Return of a Static universe and the End of Cosmology."
First couple of paragraphs from the article:
The universe will destroy the evidence of its origin
By John Timmer | Published: June 29, 2007 — 12:49PM CT
Back around the early 1900s, the universe was a fairly simple place. It was static, had always been there, and largely consisted of our own galaxy and a few neighboring bits of matter. Over the course of the 20th century, that view collapsed. Many sources of light were revealed not be stars, but rather galaxies like (and, in many cases, unlike) our own. Distant galaxies were found to be rocketing away from us, propelled by the unfolding of the universe itself, which has accelerated since the big bang. Modern cosmology has revealed a universe teeming with dark matter and unseen energy, entering a new stage of inflation.
According to a paper that will appear in October (arXiv link), we're lucky to be able to reach this understanding — literally. The authors of the paper run the clock forward 100 billion years and reveal that it's going back to the future, a conclusion clear in the paper's title: The Return of a Static universe and the End of Cosmology."
Submission + - Cnn.com has a new Linux unfriendly layout (cnn.com) 1
Douglas Roberts writes: "Cnn.com unveiled their latest in what has been a series of re-invented layouts for their news site yesterday. The video content is now flash-based, and no longer works with Linux clients (Kubuntu Feisty 7.04, Firefox latest, Flash 9). Perhaps they need some viewer feedback.
— Doug"
— Doug"
Submission + - Giant Penguins May Have Roamed Peru
Douglas Roberts writes: "Obvious Linux fodder:
From: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PVUQF81& show_article=1
WASHINGTON (AP) — Giant penguins roamed what is now Peru more than 40 million years ago, much earlier than scientists thought the flightless birds had spread to warmer climes. [...]"
Submission + - Ad for Dell Inspiron E1405 on CNN.com
Douglas Roberts writes: "While browsing CNN.com's home page this morning, I noticed a prominently-placed add for Dell's new Inspiron E1405 dual core laptop, attractively priced at $799 (offer ends 4/11)
Clicking the add took me to Dell's on-line configurator for that product (which doesn't render properly in Firefox 2.0.0.3, btw. Must be an IE-only config tool):
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx ?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DNDQFA1&s=dhs&fb=1
I immediately noticed that there were no non-MS OS options. There was, however, a link to a Dell customer support chat page. Clicking that brought up a chat page where you entered your question. Here's what I asked:
"I'm interested in buying an Inspiron E1405 Dual Core, but I don't want Microsoft (Vista, XP). I plan to run Ubuntu, but I don't see a non-MS option."
The following then appeared:
Thank you for choosing Dell Chat!
A representative will be with you shortly. Wait times can vary so stay tuned.....
I probably could have "stayed tuned" all day, because a chat person never came on the line..."
Clicking the add took me to Dell's on-line configurator for that product (which doesn't render properly in Firefox 2.0.0.3, btw. Must be an IE-only config tool):
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp
I immediately noticed that there were no non-MS OS options. There was, however, a link to a Dell customer support chat page. Clicking that brought up a chat page where you entered your question. Here's what I asked:
"I'm interested in buying an Inspiron E1405 Dual Core, but I don't want Microsoft (Vista, XP). I plan to run Ubuntu, but I don't see a non-MS option."
The following then appeared:
Thank you for choosing Dell Chat!
A representative will be with you shortly. Wait times can vary so stay tuned.....
I probably could have "stayed tuned" all day, because a chat person never came on the line..."
Submission + - Google Mail, Constantly Blacklisted
Doug Roberts writes: "Those of you who are considering switching to Google's gmail need to be aware of an issue with that service: Google can't seem to keep it's mail servers off of the the blacklists that are maintained by www.mail-abuse.com.
Why should that be a concern? Many corporate mail servers use spam control services like those provided by mail-abuse.com. If a server on the blacklist is attempts to deliver a message to a mail server that subscribes to these spam control services, the message is is silently rejected. The sender of the message will only learn about the rejection a few days later when an "undelivered message" warning is sent back to him.
Compounding the problem is the fact that Google's mail support system is a shambles. If you go to the gmail help page and search hard enough, you will eventually find a link (four clicks away) that takes you to an on-line problem report form.
You really have to want to find that problem report form — it is very well hidden. It is almost as if the Google mail support team doesn't want to be bothered with reports of problems with their product. I'll save some of you the trouble of hunting it down — here's the link:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py
The persistent few who do find their way to this link will be rewarded with an auto response email message that says something to the effect that the Google mail support team is immensely happy that you took the time to report a problem, and that they are terribly sorry you were experiencing difficulties with gmail, but that they are horribly overworked and can't be bothered to give you any more attention now, thank you very much.
Now, I personally happen to think that the gmail application is pretty slick. However, if it won't deliver my mail reliably it's of little use to me, and I won't be recommending it to anybody else.
— Doug Roberts"
Why should that be a concern? Many corporate mail servers use spam control services like those provided by mail-abuse.com. If a server on the blacklist is attempts to deliver a message to a mail server that subscribes to these spam control services, the message is is silently rejected. The sender of the message will only learn about the rejection a few days later when an "undelivered message" warning is sent back to him.
Compounding the problem is the fact that Google's mail support system is a shambles. If you go to the gmail help page and search hard enough, you will eventually find a link (four clicks away) that takes you to an on-line problem report form.
You really have to want to find that problem report form — it is very well hidden. It is almost as if the Google mail support team doesn't want to be bothered with reports of problems with their product. I'll save some of you the trouble of hunting it down — here's the link:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py
The persistent few who do find their way to this link will be rewarded with an auto response email message that says something to the effect that the Google mail support team is immensely happy that you took the time to report a problem, and that they are terribly sorry you were experiencing difficulties with gmail, but that they are horribly overworked and can't be bothered to give you any more attention now, thank you very much.
Now, I personally happen to think that the gmail application is pretty slick. However, if it won't deliver my mail reliably it's of little use to me, and I won't be recommending it to anybody else.
— Doug Roberts"
Submission + - Google Mail, Blacklisted Again
Douglas Roberts writes: "So, it happened again. Monday morning rolled around, I opened my Gmail Firefox tab and sent my first email of the day, to a work colleague. Attached to the message was a document he had requested. An hour later, the colleague called me to ask where the doc was.
Damn. Google's mail servers were blacklisted again by mail-abuse.com, a spam service my company's mail servers use. Mail from any server on mail-abuse.com's list of spam mail servers is dropped. Not delivered. This has happened so many times in that past year that I knew the drill. Go to Google's Gmail help page, hunt around until I find the link that let's you report a problem, and then fill out the form to tell them that their servers are again blacklisted by mail-abuse.com. Then I switch to Thunderbird and a non-gmail outgoing smtp server to send any mail that needs to get to my work colleagues.
This was the eighth time in the last 12 months that I've had to do this. This time, as with all previous times, a full work week has gone by, and the Google mail team has apparently done nothing to get themselves unblacklisted. I always get an auto reply to the problem report that indicates how extremely thankful the Gmail team was that I took the effort to tell them about a problem, but weeks sometimes go by before unblacklisting occurs.
Here's the question, a two-parter: how many others experience this with Gmail, and why do you suppose Google is so uncaring that their mail servers are so unreliable to the point of being unusable where the recipient's server uses spam services like mail-abuse.com?
— Doug"
Damn. Google's mail servers were blacklisted again by mail-abuse.com, a spam service my company's mail servers use. Mail from any server on mail-abuse.com's list of spam mail servers is dropped. Not delivered. This has happened so many times in that past year that I knew the drill. Go to Google's Gmail help page, hunt around until I find the link that let's you report a problem, and then fill out the form to tell them that their servers are again blacklisted by mail-abuse.com. Then I switch to Thunderbird and a non-gmail outgoing smtp server to send any mail that needs to get to my work colleagues.
This was the eighth time in the last 12 months that I've had to do this. This time, as with all previous times, a full work week has gone by, and the Google mail team has apparently done nothing to get themselves unblacklisted. I always get an auto reply to the problem report that indicates how extremely thankful the Gmail team was that I took the effort to tell them about a problem, but weeks sometimes go by before unblacklisting occurs.
Here's the question, a two-parter: how many others experience this with Gmail, and why do you suppose Google is so uncaring that their mail servers are so unreliable to the point of being unusable where the recipient's server uses spam services like mail-abuse.com?
— Doug"
