Comment Re:I must be getting old (Score 5, Informative) 281
There is a port of open source Illumos / Opendiana that should work on this hardware :
http://opensxce.org
Solaris 11 will not work on this hardware, but sxce should work.
Comment OS? (Score 3, Informative) 281
For OS I personally would stay in the Solaris realm. I'd try out the the open source Ilumos/Opendiana based distribution that Martin Bochnig has been working on :
http://opensxce.org
Speaking of labours of love, Martin's one man effort to port the open source fork of Solaris back to the SPARC platform would be a good fit.
Carl Sagan Was On US Team To Nuke the Moon 206
First time accepted submitter novakom writes "Apparently during the cold war, one fall-back position the U.S. was looking at to ensure mutual assured destruction was to put nukes on the moon. This would ensure that the U.S. could retaliate against even an effective first strike by the Russians. The first step, of course, would be to detonate a nuke on the moon. And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)"
RIM Trying To Woo Customers With Porn, Gambling Apps? 157
AZA43 writes "Everybody knows that BlackBerry-maker RIM is hurting these days. But is it hurting enough to try to attract new customers with the promise of porn and/or gambling apps? A new rating system added to RIM's BlackBerry App World store suggests that it just may be that desperate. The new 'Adult' rating covers, 'graphic sexual content, graphic nudity,' 'graphic violence,' and gambling apps 'as permitted by law.' And that suggests RIM will allow this kind of content into App World, in stark contrast to Apple's no-porn-on-the-iPhone stand."
Halliburton To Dump Blackberry For iOS 188
grub writes "Halliburton has decided to drop Research In Motion's Blackberry platform in favor of Apple's iOS for its workforce. 'An internal newsletter outlined the plan for the nearly 70,000 employees who work for Halliburton in more than 70 countries. "Over the next year, we will begin expanding the use of our mobile technology by transitioning from the BlackBerry (RIM) platform that we currently use to smartphone technology via the iPhone."'"
Cringely's Lost Jobs Interview: Coming To a Theater Near You 206
A few weeks ago, Robert X. Cringely revealed that a long-lost, hour-long interview he conducted of Steve Jobs in 1995 had been found. Now, it seems the lost tape has found its calling: the movies. Says the linked Economic Times story: "The interview will be shown at Landmark theaters in 19 cities around the country beginning Nov 16."
Music Industry Pushing For BT To Block Pirate Bay 175
First time accepted submitter mariocki writes "British music industry body BPI has requested BT block access to Pirate Bay. In response, BT say they will only do so if they receive a court order. But after BT recently lost a court case forcing them to block Newzbin, it looks like it's a case of when — not if — this will happen."
Hubble Directly Images Disc Around a Black Hole 76
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the HST site:
"A team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc — a brightly glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy's central black hole. Their study makes use of a novel technique that uses gravitational lensing to give an immense boost to the power of the telescope. The incredible precision of the method has allowed astronomers to directly measure the disc's size and plot the temperature across different parts of the disc."
Climate Change Skeptic Results Released Today 776
Irishman writes "A leading climate change skeptic, Richard Muller, will release results today showing that global warming is indeed happening. He has shown that two items skeptics look to, urban heat islands and unreliable weather stations, do not skew the data. The amazing part is that this research is funded by the Koch brothers, two investors who fund climate change skeptics whenever possible."
Universities Collaborate On Air-Purifying Dress
58
ecouterran writes "From the ecouterre article: 'We have dresses to impress, for success, even to kill, but "Herself" must be the first drapery number to clear the air. A collaboration between the University of Sheffield, London College of Fashion, and the University of Ulster, the sweeping gown is part of a larger project to engage the public in the science of environmental pollution. "Catalytic Clothing" explores how textiles can improve ambient quality, and the self-described textile sculpture, is the first prototype to emerge. Highly experimental, according to the designers, "Herself" is designed to illustrate how fabrics can eliminate pollutants so we can "breathe more beautifully."'"
Comment Opt-in/out message (Score 2, Interesting) 287
I saw an opt-in/opt-out notice last night on Facebook for this change. I'm not sure why others have not. Perhaps they are rolling it out in waves or perhaps it depends on country (I'm in Canada).
Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video 266
longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."
Comment Re:IMHO solaris has a really bad userland (Score 3, Insightful) 378
OTOH, Solaris is much better at backward compatibility than Linux.
No kidding. I kept several old applications that was built on pre-Solaris machines (SunOS 4.1.4) running for many years on newer Sun OS' all the way through to Solaris 10. There were occasional blips in there that were less sucessful (Solaris 7 was a pain) but Sun takes backwards compatibility very seriously.
Comment Re:damned imperialists (Score 1) 1297
I can't believe how many of you are crying about 'what we did to Saddam'. You all need to remember what culture this man is a part of.
Huh? What culture Saddam is part of?? What exactly does that mean and why should that affect how decently the U.S. military should treat its prisoners? Should prisoners receive different levels of abuse based on their origin culture???
Comment Re:Define a successful merger. (Score 1) 292
"The company culture between Sun and IBM are too different for a successful merger."
Success: [n] Chomp, chomp, gulp.
Just ask the former employees of Sequent, Informix, or Rational.
Speaking of Rational, I've been really underwhelmed with what IBM has done with the Purify products they acquired with their annexation of Rational. The product looks like it has hardly been updated at all since I first used it way back in '95 or so. Plus it is a huge struggle to get it to work, no thanks to IBM. And if you want to change your licensing or contact information, good luck with dealing with the huge IBM bureaucracy. I for one dread seeing IBM take over Sun. It'll make HP start to look good.
