A star is rising in Uranus. That's why you can't see the obvious truth, that vaccines cause famine, pestilence, plague and death.

See? The science of Astrology explains it all!

Re-read and try again. Better still, make yourself feel better and just remove the word "Windows" from the S/A description. The statement still works both as written and as intended (because there are sysadmins out there with I.Q.'s below 90, and not all of them are Windows admins).

Feel better?

Yeah, but . . .

Are there any Windows Administrators out there with I.Q.'s > 90 that knowingly and intentionally leave ports 137, 138, 139 and/or 445 open to the Intartubes?

Well, if there had been anything more complex than unicellular life there, okay . . . environmental catastrophe. As it stands, lets just consider it a precipitous step in the not-always-gradual evolution of a solar system from collection of gas to collection of cold, dead rocks and gas.

Sorta like global warming is supposed to be nowadays. I'm pretty sure we've contributed, but I'm not so sure we caused it . . . what I do know is that we should consider adapting - quickly.

I'll grant you - it's not unlike "We've confirmed what most people might assume, that similar circumstances lead to similar results", but this lets us start discarding that word 'assume'. Also, please consider: if similar chemistries evolve due to similar conditions, it seems likely to me that we will find life as we know it. We won't have to waste time looking for Andromeda particles or talking to rocks looking for silicon-based life or even negotiating with the Tholiads or the friggin' LED's of Zetar, it'll be life that looks (more or less) familiar.

What's with the obsession with Hollywood? Just because the words "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" appear in the article, it doesn't make it /. worthy.

On the other hand, this would be a perfect thread for somebody to tell us about the many and wondrous benefits of using hostfiles instead of some insane and newfangled name service thingie.

FTFY.

I'm a fan (at least of Continues - Phase II left me a little flat), but just what part of any of this is 'News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters'?

Just askin'.

This unit must survive.

The "three laws of robotics" (please note the quotes) were nothing more than a plot device invented by I. Asimov to make a point regarding humanity and inflexible laws - even laws which are seemingly 'perfect'. Non-sentient devices (that is, robots and computers as we know them now) are not complex enough to accept the three laws as such - nor do they need them. Non-sentient devices will always behave in a predictable, controllable fashion. I suspect that sentient devices will determine for themselves if they should keep or discard the three laws, although this may or may not forever be an academic question.

I'm looking here under the lamppost because the light's better here.

Of course, it requires the computer to be compromised first . . . but once compromised it can turn lights on and off all over your house!

I'd thought there would be a way for a system's owner to import their own keys to enable UEFI booting with the OS of their choice? Also, didn't I hear that the major Linux distros have such keys available already (although I don't know about implemented)?

The clocks are hyper-accurate, world accessible and the technology is sufficiently robust and mature to be considered essentially bulletproof. It relies on a broadcast technology that scales to any number of receivers you care to connect and doesn't get bogged down by additional loading. Best of all it's managed and maintained by the US Government - but it works correctly anyway.

(You'll have to picture it in your mind - /. doesn't like ASCII art)