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Comment Re:Interplanetary probe use? Permanent ISS unit? (Score 1) 127

by Anne Honime (#36863726) Attached to: Suggesting Innovative Uses For Retired Space Shuttles

he other idea that occurred to me, why not leave one permanently attached to the ISS? With a crew habitat module, it could have added a lot of extra space to the ISS without the cost of adding another module.

I think this one at least has been already put forward, and the answer is "not possible" because hull pressure wasn't engineered to be the same as the ISS and furthermore, the shuttle leaks air too fast (by design) compared to the ISS. It isn't a problem for 2 weeks missions, but it's a liability for becoming part of a station designed to spend years up there as air tight as possible.

Comment Re:The limits of FOSS (Score 2) 226

by Anne Honime (#36842202) Attached to: Oracle Acquires K-splice For an Undisclosed Amount
Yes, you're absolutely right. My comment was written to answer all previous people who wrote along the line "no problem, KSplice is GPL anyway, RedHat can pickup where Oracle left". Well, no, it's not that simple. It may happen, but the human factor tops by a large margin the software factor. At this rate, it's also possible Linus includes self-healing capabilities in the kernel someday - it may happen. But right now, all the people depending on KSplice are in the situation of TV sets owners when the cable company goes under : whatever your make and model of TV, no broadcast equals no image.

Comment The limits of FOSS (Score 1) 226

by Anne Honime (#36840616) Attached to: Oracle Acquires K-splice For an Undisclosed Amount
This case highlights very well the limits of GPL, and at large, Open source. The value of K-Splice isn't in the code - once you know what it does, it's not really complicated to duplicate its behavior. The value of Ksplice is in the commitment from the parent company to provide the patches to the kernel K Splice will apply. This suppose to have a team to track security advisories, study patches, test how they perform, sometimes write a bit of wrapping code around and release those patches as Kernel modules KSplice can then insmod in the kernel. In short, KSplice is more a full time security response team than a GPL software. By itself, KSplice does nothing. RedHat can fork the software, but it then needs to provide the people to feed it.

Submission + - Dying bees: a new nail in the coffin (liberation.fr)

Submitted by boule75
boule75 writes: Mr. Sylvestre Huet compiles (fr) the results of a French study (us) concerning the combined effects of parasites and insecticides on bees.

Considered alone, those insecticides are somewhat innocuous for the bees. But for bees already affected by Nosema ceranae, even a very low dose of fipronil or thiaclopride appears to be deadly. And since changing the molecule does not change the result, it may prove difficult to find suitable insecticides to save bees.

As if one bane was not enough, Asian hornets (fr) are invading south-western France and hunting bees along their path...
Displays

Submission + - DisplayPort-To-HDMI Cables Illegal, Face Recall 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "PC Magazine reports that the licensing company overseeing the HDMI specification has confirmed that existing Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapters which are designed by several cable makers and sold by several PC OEMs, are apparently illegal and could be recalled. According to Charlene Wan, director of marketing for HDMI LLC, any cable that does not include HDMI connectors on both ends violates the specification. "The HDMI specification defines an HDMI cable as having ONLY HDMI connectors on the ends," says Wan. "Anything else is not a licensed use of the specification and therefore, not allowed." That apparently includes Apple's mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapters, which are sold by Belkin on Apple's Web site. However a representative for Belkin denies that the cable it sells on Apple's Web site is illegal. "Essentially, the product you mention in your post is not out of compliance because it is just an adaptor and not a cable," the representative wrote in an email. "We do not sell a cable with a male Mini-DP and male HDMI port, which is what falls out of compliance with the spec. HDMI does recognize a product that has a Mini-DP connector and HDMI receptacle with an internal active circuitry as it falls into the definition of a source device." There may also be a glimmer of hope, in that HDMI Org understands that there is a need for this type of cable: "We do recognise that there may be a market need for a cable solution rather than a dongle solution. However, at this time, there is no way to produce these cable products in a licensed manner.""

Comment Re:Archeologic interpretation (Score 3, Interesting) 169

by Anne Honime (#36572056) Attached to: Long Now Clock Advances With Bezos Cash

Look, (puts on Gieco hat), its not hard to know when to plant. Snow melts. Ground gets warm enough to dig in with bare hands. Wild plants start growing all by themselves. Even a Cave Man could do it. The very earth under your feet tells you when its time to sow. Nobody needs an observatory.

To the contrary. For the better part of known, written history, mathematicians and astronomers fought for building better almanacs specifically to cater for the needs of farmers. Those where extremely important researches, funded by kings and worth a lot of gold for whomever came with an edge in predicting the solar cycle exact duration. The ancient chinese emperors were responsible for deciding when to plow the earth, for instance. The power of egyptians pharaohs was tied to the prediction of the flooding of the Nile. This is DOCUMENTED history. Kepler stumbled upon his famous orbital laws almost by accident, because he was building an almanac for farmers and seafarers. My grandfather bought yearly, between the 50s and 80s, a printed almanac with dates to sow various plants calculated for the coming year. Everybody in the countryside would do the same. For the longest of times, it was literally a matter of life or death.

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