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Submission + - Are the world's religions ready for ET? (vanderbilt.edu) 2

Submitted by Science_afficionado
Science_afficionado writes: At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers will soon detect it. Realization that the nature of the debate about life on other worlds is about to fundamentally change lead Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub to begin thinking seriously about how people will react to such a discovery. He realized that people's reactions will be heavily influenced by their religious beliefs, so he decided to find out what theologians and leaders from the world's major religions have to say about the matter. The result is a book titled "Religions and Extraterrestrial Life" published by Springer this month. http://www.springer.com/social... He discovered that from Baptists to Buddhists, from Catholics to Mormons, from Islam to the Anglican Communion religious views differ widely.

Comment Re:What's wrong with Windows Server? (Score 4, Interesting) 613

by r_naked (#47812339) Attached to: You Got Your Windows In My Linux

I hate posting a "me too" post, but you nailed it. Who the FUCK thought that having to run a separate command to find out if your service started was a good idea?!?

I work in a shop that has ~2000 Red Hat servers / VMs, and my advice will be to switch to something else unless Red Hat gets their heads out of their asses, and gets rid of systemd. Unfortunately we don't really have the option of moving to FreeBSD (tooooo much code to port), but I am sure their will be a distro that fills the void. At least we have a few years to worry about it since 6.x is supported for a few more years -- hell I might fork the final 6.x release.

Comment Re:Finally! (Score 1) 65

by r_naked (#47637541) Attached to: Red Hat CEO: Open Source Goes Mainstream In 2014

I use OSX at work, and I haven't *HAD* to open a shell for anything when it comes to day to day use. There are some things I find quicker to fix / install from the shell, but that is my choice -- I am not forced to. I have found the same to be true with Linux Mint.

If you look at my post history, up until recently I was a die-hard Windows fan when it came to my desktop OS. Even OSX is missing little things that Windows 7 has when it comes to window management. For example, Aero peek on the superbar. I didn't realize just how much I used that until I was forced to use OSX at work. Also, clicking on an running app to minimize it. I could go on, but an OSX vs Windows vs Linux debate is not what this is about. I still love Windows 7, and if MS ever gets their head out of their ass and releases a decent OS again, I will be glad to use it if I have to. Again though, the point of my post was to let people know that if they hadn't tried Linux as a desktop OS -- maybe they should. I am a convert now, and unless The Linux Mint team decides to go full retard (like MS has), I'll stick with it.

Comment Re: Finally! (Score 1) 65

by r_naked (#47637037) Attached to: Red Hat CEO: Open Source Goes Mainstream In 2014

Linux Mint 17 - Cinnamon with the non-free tools. Yea, it isn't completely F/OSS, but I am not a fanatic like some people.

It is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: "Linux Mint 17 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2019."

I have installed it on HP desktops, and laptops (various models), and Dell desktops and laptops (various models), and everything has worked out of the box. Multi-monitor support rivals Win7 IMHO (this was one of my big beefs a few years ago). Now I could probably have just gone with Ubuntu 14.04, but the Linux Mint team has taken the time to make Cinamon / GTK2 / GTK3 look consistent -- I am really impressed. Again, *I* could have spent the time to make any Linux distro look good, and have a consistent look and feel, but why should I have to. Working with computers isn't my hobby -- it is my job. I have too many other things that I want to do when I get home. On the flip side, if I do find something I can fix, and I have the time, I like being able to share that back with the community. But the most important part of my decision was the fact that GNU/Linux has finally reached the stage where mom / pop / insert non-technically inclined person here, can use it without me constantly being on the hook for tech support.

If you would like further details on the exact hardware I have tested so far, please let me know.

Comment Re:Finally! (Score 3, Informative) 65

by r_naked (#47631765) Attached to: Red Hat CEO: Open Source Goes Mainstream In 2014

The year of Linux on the desktop has arrived!

I know this was meant to be sarcastic, but it may be more true that you think.

I have been an avid Linux supporter for use on servers for a long time, however, I refused to use it as a desktop OS for a couple of reasons:

* There was no distro that I didn't have to open a shell for SOME reason -- to get something to work. I do systems administration for a living. I don't want to have to fucking tweak my box when I get home.
* It was butt ugly. That may seem like a poor reason to not use an OS, but it is my opinion and I am entitled to it. I refuse to use Windows 8.x primarily for this reason -- it is fucking hideous. Monochrome? Really Microsoft?

Both of those issues have now been addressed, and I am now completely MS free. I will be converting my parents, and my brother, and I will be spreading the word to my friends that aren't technically inclined.
Communications

Skype Blocks Customers Using OS-X 10.5.x and Earlier 267

Posted by samzenpus from the not-for-you dept.
lurker412 writes Yesterday, and without previous warning, all Mac users running Leopard or earlier versions of OS-X have been locked out of Skype. Those customers are given instructions to update, but following them does not solve the problem. The Skype Community Forum is currently swamped with complaints. A company representative active on the forum said "Unfortunately we don't currently have a build that OS X Leopard (10.5) users could use" but did not answer the question whether they intend to provide one or not.

Comment Re:Crap Traffic (Score 1) 146

by Mathieu Lu (#47524569) Attached to: Comcast Carrying 1Tbit/s of IPv6 Internet Traffic

Would be nice to have more details about that, and the proportion with IPv4 scans/crap.

Personally, I've been pleasantly surprised when going to the US, that random places (small motels, AirBNB places) had native IPv6. In some cases, they even had weird broken NAT, but working IPv6.

This migration to IPv6 has to happen one day or another. May as well be in front of the curve, with regards to privacy, security, topology and performance.

Submission + - Potentially Immortal Single Cell Life form Eats, Breathes, Electrons (newscientist.com)

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: University of Southern California, Los Angeles researchers are studying forms of bacteria, found on the sea bed, which can feed directly on electrons from electric current. Unlike any other living thing on Earth, electric bacteria use energy in its purest form – naked electricity in the shape of electrons harvested from rocks and metals. NewScientist reports on cells which make ATP, a molecule that acts as an energy storage unit for almost all living things. This life form needs no sugar or protein, it can consume electrons, from electricity, directly.

"To grow these bacteria, the team collects sediment from the seabed, brings it back to the lab, and inserts electrodes into it. First they measure the natural voltage across the sediment, before applying a slightly different one. A slightly higher voltage offers an excess of electrons; a slightly lower voltage means the electrode will readily accept electrons from anything willing to pass them off. Bugs in the sediments can either "eat" electrons from the higher voltage, or "breathe" electrons on to the lower-voltage electrode, generating a current. That current is picked up by the researchers as a signal of the type of life they have captured."

Submission + - Magnetic Field of Earth Weakening a Sign Poles Are Flipping (guardianlv.com)

Submitted by Trachman
Trachman writes: The magnetic field of Earth is weakening more rapidly than many scientists thought it would, a sign that Earth’s magnetic poles might flip within a few hundred years as opposed to thousands of years. Data collected from Swarm, the collective name for three European Space Agency (ESA) satellites, confirms that Earth’s magnetic field is weakening, something which has led to many past switches in Earth’s magnetic poles.Deep ocean core studies have confirmed, according to NASA, that the Earth’s magnetic poles reverse on a relatively frequent basis. They usually switch anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 years. As it has been 700,000 years or so since a flip has taken place, Earth is overdue for one. The weakening magnetic field might be a sign that the switch will occur sooner, rather than later. Scientists, according to a report by LiveScience, had thought that Earth’s magnetic field was weakening by about five percent every hundred years. At that rate, they calculated that a flip in the Earth’s magnetic fields would not happen for around another 2,000 years. However, the new data from Swarm indicates that Earth’s magnetic field is actually currently weakening at a rate of five percent every decade instead of century. That rate is 10 times faster than the scientists had allowed for in their calculations about when the next flip would happen. That being said, we know that the Earth's magnetic field is primary protecting shield from cosmic particles and, consequently, is a primary factor to the Earth's temperature.

My Scoop is following: At the risk of being not popular here at Slashdot I dare to ask: can magnetic field changes and climate changes be connected and analyzed in concert?

Comment Gimme a keyboard (Score 3, Interesting) 67

by ptaff (#47348609) Attached to: Ars Takes an Early Look At the Privacy-Centric Blackphone
All fine, but can they (or someone else) release such a device with a keyboard? the point'n'grunt interface just gets so annoying for serious stuff (ssh with a soft keyboard, you're kidding me, where's the other half of my screen?). I mean this phone is not aiming for the 8-year old brat crowd, unlike most of what's on the market today.
Graphics

Apple Kills Aperture, Says New Photos App Will Replace It 214

Posted by timothy from the you-can-shop-outside-the-company-store dept.
mpicpp (3454017) writes Apple told news website The Loop that it has decided to abandon Aperture, its professional photo-editing software application. "With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture," Apple said in a statement to The Loop. "When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS." The new Photos app, which will debut with OS X Yosemite when it launches this fall, will also replace iPhoto. It promises to be more intuitive and user friendly, but as such, likely not as full featured as what Aperture currently offers.

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