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Submission + - Subversion project migrates to Git (apache.org)

Submitted by gitficionado
gitficionado writes: The Apache Subversion project has begun migrating its source code from the ASF Subversion repo to git. Last week, the Subversion PMC (project management committee) voted to to migrate, and the migration has already begun.

Although there was strong opposition to the move from the older and more conservative SVN devs, and reportedly a lot of grumbling and ranting when the vote was tallied, a member of the PMC (who asked to remain anonymous) told the author that "this [migration] will finally let us get rid of the current broken design to a decentralized source control model [and we'll get] merge and rename done right after all this time."

Comment Re:Projections (Score 1) 987

by rwa2 (#46624575) Attached to: UN Report: Climate Changes Overwhelming

Nah, that can't be the point of it... no one (nation, not person) would actually listen (or more importantly, act by passing and enforcing meaningful regulations) based on reports or projections.

It's pretty much a given that people are going to have to die on a fairly large scale for anyone to come to their senses.

These reports are pretty much just a CYA so the agencies don't get sued for not predicting this stuff later.

The people that matter, like insurance brokers, have already acted to stop covering low-lying areas. Hasn't stopped people from building on that property anyway, like those neighborhoods in Oso buried in the landslide.

So just prepare to set your thresholds by how many lives are enough to take action, and have your catalog of bandaids ready when nations are finally ready to #panicbuy.

Submission + - Geologists Warned of Washington State Mudslides for Decades

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The Seattle Times reports that since the 1950s, geological reports on the hill that buckled last weekend killing at least 17 residents in Snohomish County in Washington State have included pessimistic analyses and the occasional dire prediction. But no language seems more prescient than what appears in a 1999 report filed warning of “the potential for a large catastrophic failure.” Daniel Miller, a geomorphologist, documented the hill’s landslide conditions in a report written in 1997 for the Washington Department of Ecology and the Tulalip Tribes. Miller knows the hill’s history, having collected reports and memos from the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s and has a half-dozen manila folders stuffed with maps, slides, models and drawings, all telling the story of an unstable hillside that has defied efforts to shore it up. That’s why he could not believe what he saw in 2006, when he returned to the hill within weeks of a landslide that crashed into and plugged the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, creating a new channel that threatened homes on a street called Steelhead Drive. Instead of seeing homes being vacated, he saw carpenters building new ones. “Frankly, I was shocked that the county permitted any building across from the river,” says Miller. “We’ve known that it’s been failing. It’s not unknown that this hazard exists.”

The hill that collapsed is referred to by geologists with different names, including Hazel Landslide and Steelhead Haven Landslide, a reference to the hillside’s constant movement. After the hill gave away in 1949, in '51, in '67, in '88, in 2006, residents referred to it simply as “Slide Hill.” “People knew that this was a landslide-prone area,” says John Pennington. Geomorphologist Tracy Drury said there were discussions over the years about whether to buy out the property owners in the area, but those talks never developed into serious proposals. "“I think we did the best that we could under the constraints that nobody wanted to sell their property and move."

Comment Quine-Relay (Score 1) 373

by rwa2 (#46583643) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Consider Elegant Code?

To me, elegance at code level means succinct and readable code. Optimizing for performance usually comes at a lower level of readability.

Therefore, first write the code in the most elegant way.

Then, write an optimizer that optimizes that code. Of course, the optimizer itself should be elegant, but it need not be efficient.

For some reason, your comment reminds me of this:
https://github.com/mame/quine-...

Code doesn't get much more beautiful than:
https://github.com/mame/quine-...

Submission + - Drone Catches Incredible Video Footage of Mount Yasur Volcano Spewing Lava (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Drone operator Shaun O'Callaghan sent his DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter drone armed with a GoPro camera to the crater at the top of Mount Yasur, an active volcano that stands 361 metres above sea level and is considered to be one of the most easily accessible live volcanos in the world.

The drone was able to dodge scorching debris and lava at temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees Celsius, record the footage and still return safely to its owner.

Comment Linux Mint on a USB stick (Score 1) 287

by rwa2 (#46428921) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Linux For Grandma?

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Running a recent version of Linux Mint with the MATE desktop
http://linuxmint.com/

Create a big 4GB casper file on the USB stick.

Have it mount the existing hard disk and create shortcuts so they can get to their photos and stuff.
Maybe put on http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ to help get some of the old Windows software working under Wine

Bring a new stick with you over the holidays with upgrades.

They may or may not use it (they can just remove the USB stick and reboot to go back to their old getup), but at least you feel good that you've done "your part" without spending more than a few hours downloading and twiddling while you're there, and they don't go running off to all their friends complaining about how you came and now their computer is all different.

Comment Re:Ringing in my Ears (Score 1) 268

by rwa2 (#46422701) Attached to: It's True: Some People Just Don't Like Music

Meh, I get that when I start hyperventilating. You should just have your blood pressure checked.

I kinda thought that I didn't like music either, then some slashdot post recommended one of the streams at http://somafm.com/ . Since then I've actually spent some money on an album or two. Though I still don't have an "entertainment" budget set aside to speak of.

Also want to put in a plug for http://sleepbot.com/ambience/b... , which is generally "not music", at least not as you know it.

Submission + - Ancient Giant Virus Brought Back to Life, Still Infective (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have brought a giant virus dating back to the days of the mammoths and the last Neandertals back to life. Others had resurrected ancient viruses before by reconstructing their genomes from old DNA, but this may be the first time that the ancient virus itself has proved viable: The researchers simply dissolved 32,000-year-old frozen soil from Siberia and mixed in amoebas, known hosts for giant viruses. The giant virus was still able to kill the amoebas after all this time, suggesting other pathogens can last thousands of years in frozen soil and, as the planet warms, may be let loose.

Submission + - Why Can't Fish Swim Deeper than 8000 Meters? Their Brains Explode

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Ocean-going fish can’t live any deeper than 8200 meters, according to a new study. A team of biologists say the threshold is set by two competing effects of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a chemical in fish cells that prevents proteins from collapsing under high pressure. While fish should need more and more TMAO to survive ever greater depths, higher concentrations of the compound also draw in more and more seawater through osmosis, the process by which cells regulate their water content. In the deepest waters, high TMAO levels reverse osmosis pressure, swelling brain cells to the point that they stop working and, in principle, bursting red blood cells open.

Submission + - Birds Bend Light to Woo Females (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Living in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, males of the species wear a coat of velvety black feathers, with the exception of a colorful, shimmering spot on their breast. For their mating display, they head to a patch of sunlight and strut their stuff in a so-called ballerina dance, spreading their feathers like a tutu and shaking their body to shimmer their breast plumage. The striking breast feathers get their iridescent properties from tiny boomerang-shaped structures called barbules. The barbules act like three-sided mirrors, shining blue-green or orange-yellow light depending on the position of the observer. Now, a team of computational physicists has used cutting-edge photosensors and computer modeling to analyze the barbules’ light-bending properties in real time. The team discovered that the vibrant light from the breast feathers selectively activates different photoreceptors in the female birds’ eyes as the colors change. When the male birds dance quickly, the females are treated to a barrage of shiny colors as their visual receptors activate in quick succession.

Comment Re:However.. (Score 2) 247

by rwa2 (#46352927) Attached to: The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle <em>Columbia</em>

Seems like they could have launched some kind of lifeboat or three up to dock with them within 30 days.
How long would it have taken the Russians to prep a Proton rocket to deliver unmanned Soyuz capsules (and an airlock adapter) to them?

Eh, it would have looked bad to ask for help from the Russians. Nevermind.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...
http://historicspacecraft.com/...

Comment Re:I thought this had been settled long ago. (Score 1) 491

by rwa2 (#46349567) Attached to: Do We Really Have a Shortage of STEM Workers?

Mod parent up!

This is exactly what is going on. There isn't a shortage of STEM workers at all. There is a shortage of STEM workers willing to work for minimum wage. What companies want is H1-B factories. Cheap foreign labor. I don't know who will buy their products when nobody has a high enough paying job to afford them though.

Eh, wealth is power... concentrating the wealth into the hands of a few means they get to tell everyone else what to do.

But wealth is also mostly on paper... the people who do the work and generate the productivity should still be able to get by once everyone realizes all that paper wealth/power is imaginary (or more likely, collapses under its own accord from all of the wealth multiplication schemes / scams).

But in the near term, globalization will sweep away the power of nations to be replaced with corporate multinationals. Which might be OK, since the concept of national sovereignty is merely some sort of institutionalized quasi-racism anyway.

http://economixcomix.com/home/...

Comment Re:I just went through this... (Score 4, Interesting) 263

by rwa2 (#46337129) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is a Better Career Opportunity Worth a Pay Cut?

Good story. I essentially did this too about 2 years ago, under similar conditions.

Grew up in the DC area most of my life, and had some good jobs there working for various "Beltway Bandit" engineering firms, with the security clearance, unlimited overtime, occasional 2 week travel... it felt like a scam. Despite all of the perks, I was certain I didn't want to live that way the rest of my life. Plus, vitamin D deficiency from working in SCIFs all day was starting to eat my bones. But I saved up enough money to move the family out to the west coast to finally live a little.

It was a pretty substantial pay cut, but the cost of living out here West ended up being lower too. We now rent a house 3x the size of our old 2br condo. We're on a strict budget now that the wife stays home to tend to the kids, but everyone is a lot less stressed and doing better in school, and we eat better now than when we hit restaurants half the time. People out here are workaholics in comparison to DC ("Southern Efficiency; Northern Charm"). But they play much harder too. First week at the new job and my boss hands me a beer from his mini-fridge, which would never happen back East. And we have a whole bevy of new places to explore on weekends after having exhausted most of our old haunts.

So yeah, "follow your heart", but be sure to think it through... you don't want to be changing jobs every year, but you don't want to stagnate at one place for more than 5-10 years without growth either. See the good parts of whatever you end up doing, be prepared to make the sacrifices you're willing to take to make the changes you want in your life, and consider what is your "path of least regret".

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