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Comment: Faster solution (Score 1) 3

by rk (#39056503) Attached to: The Upgrade part 2

Find the length of the Mandriva 2007 distro and its SHA1SUM. Create random files of that length and SHA1SUM it. If equal, you have it, try and install. If not, try again. The sun will be a burnt out husk but there may yet be a few chunks of non-iron waiting to decay into iron left. :-)

Comment: Re:The problem with writing satire these days (Score 1) 7

by rk (#39012883) Attached to: Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon

Actually, the best article I saw post 9/11 about the motives and origins of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism was in the Onion. It talked about the writings of Sayyid Qtub, the origins of Wahabbism, and the support given to them by the west when some of these same parties when they were fighting the Soviet Union. It was nuanced, insightful and thought provoking.

What made it riotously funny was the title.

Comment: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (Score 1) 276

by rk (#38961275) Attached to: Programming Error Doomed Russian Mars Probe

Has/had (don't know if it's been patched) a nifty bug where a 4-bit group identifies the state the spacecraft is supposed to be in. The problem is when the spacecraft reboots, that value starts off uninitialized, so whatever value just happens to be sitting at that point in memory gets used. Not a huge problem, because when the spacecraft reboots (it happens) we can just telecommand it to the right state. Except for one problem: One of those states is "I'm on the launching pad and shouldn't listen to any radio telecommands, but only commands from the hardwire interface." Which means we can't remotely command it out of that state anymore, and it will at that point be a dead orbiter.

Space software is exciting!

The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop and take a rest.

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