50911433
submission
slashmojo writes
"A cautionary tale for those considering any kind of career in system administration. It is not as glamorous as you may have heard, there's not much jet-setting, no parties between the server racks and it involves hard work and sleep deprivation, if you can even find a decent job. Not to mention endless learning which you're often expected to pay for (if you want the certificates) and it is never cheap. It is apparently also not cool for cats. Abandon hope all ye who enter here!
What is your experience working (of looking for work) in system administration these days? What would you advise a prospective sysadmin?"Link to Original Source
352513
submission
slashmojo writes
"Armadillo Aerospace, the only team from nine original entrants to actually compete on the day, made several valiant efforts to win the Lunar Lander Challenge (Level 1) at the X Prize Cup this year and despite flying twice over two days, engine problems ultimately doomed the attempt again with the final flight ending in a fireball.
It doesn't look like the big boys are quaking at the competition just yet but will next year be the one where it all comes together for Armadillo and the other small space companies or is serious rocket science really just too hard without vast resources?"
98490
submission
slashmojo writes
"After providing presenter Richard Hammond with a near death rocket car experience, BBC car show Top Gear reached for greater heights and brought new life (briefly) to a Reliant Robin by adding wings and strapping it to a rocket to make what looks remarkably like a space shuttle.
Amazingly it actually launched quite successfully before crashing back to earth spectacularly after a malfunction prevented the car detaching from the rocket for landing. The impressive reliant rocket was constructed in Manchester (UK) and fortunately none of the Top Gear presenters were on board this time as it was flown by remote control. More about the launch here."
65448
submission
slashmojo writes
"While some islands are sinking another has just risen from the ocean, formed by volcanic activity and 'caught in the act' by a passing yacht..
"What looked like a brown stain on the South Pacific turned out to be a spectacular drift of floating pumice stones stretching more than 16 km — and an indication an island was being born nearby."
"
59472
submission
slashmojo writes
"For nearly four decades, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong has been living under the accusation of mis-stating one of of the most famous phrases in history: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Now, programmer Peter Shann Ford claims to have evidence (derived using the GoldWave software) that Armstrong did not botch the speech, but correctly included the alleged missing syllable. Armstrong, who found the evidence "persuasive", supports the findings."
49744
submission
slashmojo writes
"Google finally gets their $900M search engine on MySpace which now offers a whole array of search tabs for the various parts of myspace complete with a fancy little 'Powered by Google' icon on every search page. Although Mashable reports that already one myspace user has found a way to remove the google search box from his pages.
Strangely the one search function myspace users have long asked for is still not present — a way to search their very popular forums. Currently BoardTracker provides the only viable solution for searching myspace forums. Perhaps this gap in MySpace search will force Google to build their own forum search engine to complement their blogsearch offering or will Yahoo try to get (another) one over them?"
