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Media

Lack of Manpower May Kill VLC For Mac 398

plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the Mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."
Image

Zombie Pigs First, Hibernating Soldiers Next Screenshot-sm 193

ColdWetDog writes "Wired is running a story on DARPA's effort to stave off battlefield casualties by turning injured soldiers into zombies by injecting them with a cocktail of one chemical or another (details to be announced). From the article, 'Dr. Fossum predicts that each soldier will carry a syringe into combat zones or remote areas, and medic teams will be equipped with several. A single injection will minimize metabolic needs, de-animating injured troops by shutting down brain and heart function. Once treatment can be carried out, they'll be "re-animated" and — hopefully — as good as new.' If it doesn't pan out we can at least get zombie bacon and spam."
Science

Submission + - Climate change cover-up? You better believe it (scientificamerican.com) 1

jamie writes: "Was Sen. James Inhofe right when he declared 2009 the year of the climate contrarian? A slew of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit highlight definite character flaws among some climate scientists, [but] sadly for the potential fate of human civilization, rumors of the demise of climate change have been much exaggerated. ...the opposition here is not grounded in any robust scientific theory or alternative hypotheses (all of those, in their time, have been shot down and nothing new has been offered in years)... There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action."
Space

Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21

davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."
Science

Submission + - Engaging with Climate Skeptics (nytimes.com) 1

Geoffrey.landis writes: Andrew Rivkin of the NYT blog profiles Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who-- unlike many climate scientists-- does not simply dismiss the arguments "climate skeptics," but attempts to engage them in dialogue. She can, as well, be rather pointed in criticizing her colleagues, as in a post on the skeptic site climateaudit where she argues for greater transparency for climate data and calculations (mirrored here). In this post she makes a point that tribalism in science is the main culprit here-- that when scientists "circle the wagons" to defend against what they perceive to be unfair (and unscientific) attacks, the result can be damaging to the actual science being defended.
Is it still possible to conduct a dialogue, or is there no possible common ground? Stay tuned.

Space

Submission + - Cassini Captures Saturn's Northern Lights (nasa.gov)

al0ha writes: In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known "northern lights" in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness high above the ringed planet.

The new video reveals changes in Saturn's aurora every few minutes, in high resolution, with three dimensions. The images show a previously unseen vertical profile to the auroras, which ripple in the video like tall curtains. These curtains reach more than 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) above the edge of the planet's northern hemisphere.

Comment Step by step, inch by inch... (Score 1) 601

I, too, am sole developer on two huge projects. What you describe happens to me sometimes, too. I'm assuming that you're referring to those "stalls" that can last for days, and not simply battle fatigue.

I have found that the following things help me:

1. Pick out something very small and very simple to accomplish, and do it. Don't worry if it's not on the mainstream of the effort. What's important is to move forward. That relieves some of that horrible inner pressure that builds up when stuck for too long.

2. If that fails, try creating on or more small experiments for yourself, regarding things that you're curious about or things that have been particular troublespots. These can bring great joy and release the flow for you.

3. If these things fail, be productive doing something else altogether. Don't worry about wasting time, because you weren't moving forward anyway. This, too, can start a flow.

Remember, friend, that in a time of famine, a small harvest is better than none. Do not despise small accomplishments.

Peace---

Comment It's About Conscious Choice (Score 1) 308

We should have exhausted this question when cigarette companies were caught enhancing nicotine levels in their product, in order to increase addiction, which enhances profit.

Consumers must have the opportunity to make conscious choices and give informed consent when consuming anything known (or reasonably suspected) to be habit-forming. I have no desire to form a nanny state, but folks need to know what they're getting.

Security

Social Search Reveals 700 Comcast Customer Logins 158

nandemoari writes "When educational technology specialist Kevin Andreyo recently read a report on people search engines, he decided to conduct a little 'people search' on himself. Andreyo did not expect to find much — so, imagine the surprise when he uncovered the user name and password to his Comcast Internet account, put out there for the entire online world to see. In addition to his personal information, Andreyo also discovered a list that exposed the user names and passwords of (what he believed) to be 8,000 other Comcast customers. Andreyo immediately contacted both Comcast and the FBI, hoping to find the ones responsible for divulging such personal information to the public. While the list is no longer available online, analysts fear that the document still lives on in various cache and online history services."

Comment Black Market Opportunity (Score 3, Insightful) 317

Human nature being what it is, this is an excellent opportunity for black market corruption -- drug company sells to developing country. Corrupt elements in developing country sell back to corrupt black marketeers who then resell in 'rich' countries to corrupt vendors for reduced prices and still make huge profits.
And still the people who need the drugs don't get them, but maybe some actually will, and that's a good thing.

Be

Submission + - BeOS Lives: Haiku Impresses (osnews.com)

kokito writes: "OSNews managing editor Thom Holwerda reviews Haiku, the open source successor of the Be operating system. According to the review, Haiku faithfully/successfully replicates the BeOS user experience and "personality", boasting very short boot times, the same recognizable but modernized GUI using antialiasing for fonts and all vector graphics as well as vector icons, a file system with support for metadata-based queries (OpenBFS) and support for the BeAPI, considered by some the cleanest programming API ever. The project has also recently released a native GCC 4.3.3 tool chain, clearing the way for bringing up-to-date ports of multi-platform apps such as Firefox and VLC, and making it easier to work on Haiku ports in general.

In spite of its pre-alpha status, Haiku seems to be pretty stable. If you would like to give it a try, nightly builds are available from the Haiku Files website, both as raw HDD and VMWare images. Or if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, you could also take a peek at a Haiku demo during the upcoming Southern California Linux Expo (Feb. 21 & 22), where Haiku will be exhibiting in booth #4."

Comment Re:Yet another security risk (Score 1) 111

The scenario I saw play out is admittedly far-fetched but as a Slashdot reader, I've come upon shocking articles regarding our infrastructure here in the US being targeted by hackers from inside Russia and China. Here's one such example:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2409865.ece

Now let's do a bit of extrapolation:
1. widespread adoption by NYC & LA -c class municipalities
2. traffic signal control governed by this 'network'
3. Understanding of the architecture gets into the hands of even more virulent enemies.

These three steps are not unlikely should this technology prove to be effective and become popular.

Now consider this scenario.

It's a day with fairly good weather near the Holiday shopping season. Commercial activity is at it's peak, along with tourism. A physical attack is then initiated along the lines of a medium sized chemical or biological weapon, or perhaps bombing of a central municipal structure such as Grand Central Station in NYC. Coordinated with this attack is a simultaneous assault on the traffic control network. This attack makes it impossible to
a. escape the scene
b. get first-responders to the scene

Result: complete chaos and panic.

Comment Yet another security risk (Score 1) 111

The increasing tendency to use this type of communication to support critical infrastructure is an open invitation to chaos and disaster induced by malicious hacking.

Consider for a moment all the past reports of external hacking on U.S. infrastructure and the chaos they created. Now imagine what would happen were this to be hacked after widespread adoption.

You all very well know that from the moment of its inception there will be concerted efforts to do just that.

No thanks.

Leave out the networking with private vehicles and it gets a bit better, but there's still a vulnerability.

Again, no thanks. It can't be made hacker-proof.

Data Storage

Bush's Electronic Archives Threaten To Swamp National Archives 185

ColdWetDog writes "The New York Times reports that the soon-to-be-disbanded Bush / Cheney White House threatens to overload the National Archives with close to 100 Terabytes of data. This includes the Barney Cam and even 'formats not previously dealt with.' By way of comparison, the Clinton White House dumped less than a single terabyte into the archives. Of course, Mr. Cheney, always the Good Citizen, tried to help out when he 'asserted this month in a court case that he had absolute discretion to decide which of his records are official and which are personal, and thus do not have to be transferred to the archives.' Glad to see that somebody over there is trying to clean up the cruft for posterity."

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