BPPG - Slashdot User

Software Error Caused Soyuz/Galileo Failure 157

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 28, 2014 @10:02PM from the put-that-anywhere dept.

schwit1 writes An investigation into the recent failed Soyuz launch of the EU's Galileo satellites has found that the Russian Fregat upper stage fired correctly, but its software was programmed for the wrong orbit. From the article: "The failure of the European Union’s Galileo satellites to reach their intended orbital position was likely caused by software errors in the Fregat-MT rocket’s upper-stage, Russian newspaper Izvestia reported Thursday. 'The nonstandard operation of the integrated management system was likely caused by an error in the embedded software. As a result, the upper stage received an incorrect flight assignment, and, operating in full accordance with the embedded software, it has delivered the units to the wrong destination,' an unnamed source from Russian space Agency Roscosmos was quoted as saying by the newspaper."

Comment Re:Moo (Score 1) 3

by stoolpigeon on Thursday August 28, 2014 @04:35PM (#47778551) Attached to: Using VirtualBox Guest as a Server

I'm in no rush to update. I wait on that stuff and let the early adopters find the problems.

I really don't get why everyone gushes over mac as being so superior to Windows when it comes to the stability of updates. Mac fans are just willing to endure more.

Comment Re:Moo (Score 1) 5

by stoolpigeon on Thursday August 28, 2014 @04:33PM (#47778531) Attached to: The Macbook Pro

Don't know.

Comment Re:I've used VirtBox on my Dell (Score 1) 5

by stoolpigeon on Thursday August 28, 2014 @04:32PM (#47778513) Attached to: The Macbook Pro

Mine has 16GB - and the instance still gets cranky sometimes even after I've thrown a lot of resources at it. And I don't think it is Fedora - it's something to do with the virtualization. But it is good enough.

PHP 5.6.0 Released 118

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 28, 2014 @03:04PM from the still-hard-to-pronounce dept.

An anonymous reader writes The PHP team has announced the release of PHP 5.6.0. New features include constant scalar expressions, exponentiation using the ** operator, function and constant importing with the use keyword, support for file uploads larger than 2 GB, and phpdbg as an interactive integrated debugger SAPI. The team also notes important changes affecting compatibility. For example: "Array keys won't be overwritten when defining an array as a property of a class via an array literal," json_decode() is now more strict at parsing JSON syntax, and GMP resources are now objects. Here is the migration guide, the full change log, and the downloads page.

Anita Sarkeesian, Creator of "Tropes vs. Women," Driven From Home By Trolls 1262

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 28, 2014 @10:47AM from the bad-childhoods-never-end dept.

Sonny Yatsen writes: Anita Sarkeesian, the creator of Tropes vs. Women — a video series exploring negative tropes and misogynistic depictions of women in video games — reports that she has been driven from her home after a series of extremely violent sexual threats made against her. Her videos have previously drawn criticism from many male gamers, often coupled with violent imagery or threats of violence. The Verge story linked has this to say: The threats against Sarkeesian have become a nasty backdrop to her entire project — and her life. If the trolls making them hoped for attention, they've gotten it. They've also inexorably linked criticism of her work, valid or not, with semi-delusional vigilantism, and arguably propelled Tropes vs. Women to its current level of visibility. If a major plank of your platform is that misogyny is a lie propagated by Sarkeesian and other "social justice warriors," it might help to not constantly prove it wrong.

Comment Re: I like... (Score 1) 643

by sjames on Thursday August 28, 2014 @09:13AM (#47773409) Attached to: U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras

The more relevant point is that we now have the awareness and technology proven to curb the problem. It would be irresponsible NOT to use it everywhere.

Comment Re:What else can they do? (Score 1) 191

by sjames on Thursday August 28, 2014 @04:52AM (#47772571) Attached to: New NRC Rule Supports Indefinite Storage of Nuclear Waste

That could be solved with a different heat exchange design. For example, one that transfers from metal to a gas loop then to water.

Journal Journal: Using VirtualBox Guest as a Server 3

Journal by stoolpigeon on Thursday August 28, 2014 @04:39AM

So right after I wrote my last je I googled a bit and set it up so that I could access my Fedora vm from the host OS (Mavericks).

Journal Journal: The Macbook Pro 5

Journal by stoolpigeon on Thursday August 28, 2014 @03:30AM

I am getting more used to my Apple Laptop.

It still makes me crazy when I need to hook it to external displays. I wanted to show a video to some friends the other night and thought I would just connect the mac to my tv via hdmi. Couldn't get it to work. Crazy. I just switched to my PC that is always connected and downloaded the video there.

Comment Re: I like... (Score 1) 643

by sjames on Thursday August 28, 2014 @03:17AM (#47772381) Attached to: U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras

You haven't been reading the news if you don't realize that cops have been beating innocents, lying in court, claiming peaceful protesters are violent, and other such violations of rights that won't be so easy to get away with if the cop has to wear a camera.

Comment Re:Federal vs. local decision (Re:I like...) (Score 1) 643

by cduffy on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @11:12PM (#47771719) Attached to: U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras

...and Texas also has silly blue laws, so liquor stores are all closed on Sunday, and armed TABC agents rough up customers at locations accused of violations.

I rather prefer the liquor laws in Chicago -- if ever there was a city that learned its lessons from Prohibition...

Comment Re: I like... (Score 1) 643

by sjames on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @10:56PM (#47771647) Attached to: U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras

These responsibilities have been with local authorities all along. What has changed? Technology? Funding?

A combination of rampant failure to uphold that responsibility and technology becoming available to address the situation.

Comment Re: I like... (Score 1) 643

by sjames on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @08:29PM (#47770889) Attached to: U.S. Senator: All Cops Should Wear Cameras

The 4th, 1st, and 6th amendments. All of which have been regularly violated when nobody was looking.

Comment Re:What's the point? (Score 1) 511

by sjames on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @06:48PM (#47770233) Attached to: If Java Wasn't Cool 10 Years Ago, What About Now?

I could as easily pick apart your arguments. I find it hard to imagine never using code that is shared with other projects for example. Why re-invent the wheel? Are you declaring code re-use dead? What about the system libraries? Do you hack those without notice too?

And what happened to unit testing where you should easily enough shake out cases where people called a function they shouldn't have?

I have argued that the programmer who just takes the IDE's word for it will eventually end up in deep trouble.

You seem to be arguing that duck typing is bad because shoddy practices rule.

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