Outcasted - Slashdot User

NASA Requests Help With Von Braun's Notes 148

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 29, 2009 @10:16AM from the yes-actually-it-is-rocket-science dept.

DynaSoar writes "NASA is soliciting ideas from the public on how best to catalog and digitize the collected notes of Wernher von Braun. 'We're looking for creative ways to get it out to the public,' said project manager Jason Crusan. 'We don't always do the best with putting out large sets of data like this.' The PDF notes are those of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, the first director of NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and are typed with copious handwritten notes in the margin. According to the official request for information, NASA needs ideas on what format to use (PDF), how to index the notes, and how to create a useful database. The unique nature and historical value of the data, literally discovered in boxes six months ago, is what motivated NASA to ask the public for ideas."

Tax Write-Offs For Free (As In Speech) Work? 198

Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 18, 2008 @03:42PM from the time-is-money-isn't-it dept.

deuist writes "Several years ago I wrote a book called The Not So Short Introduction to Getting Into Medical School (PDF) and released it online under a Creative Commons license. I have been asked several times to publish the text so that I can make money off of it. The book has become quite famous among pre-med students and is now available from the Princeton Review as a free CD that is given to pre-medical interest groups. My question to the Slashdot community involves claiming this work as volunteering for tax purposes. Have any of you had any success with releasing free software and then writing off your time when April 15 rolls around?"

Comment Re:Weren't schools were supposed to do that alread (Score 4, Interesting) 898

by Phroggy on Saturday June 28, 2008 @10:03AM (#23979197) Attached to: Anti-Evolution "Academic Freedom" Bill Passed In Louisiana

"intelligent design" is not scientific,and definitely NOT a theory. Its a philosophical construct at best, and belongs in a philosophy class.

As a Creationist, I happen to agree with you 100%.

Creation Science is built around the idea that if you start with the Bible as the source of your hypotheses, you should be able to find scientific evidence that is consistent with those hypotheses. If the evidence instead contradicts your hypothesis, then either your evidence is flawed, your interpretation of the evidence is flawed, or your interpretation of the Bible is flawed.

Intelligent Design, in contrast, does not start from the premise that the Bible is a literal historical document, because that would mean religion is involved. Instead, ID simply says that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously on its own, therefore God must have done it. On the surface this sounds similar to Creation Science (both say God did it), but ID doesn't bring anything falsifiable to the table.

The question of whether or not God (or the FSM or space aliens) caused a particular event is not testable empirically, even if it is true. Creation Science doesn't try to test God's involvement, only the actual physical events described in the Bible (for example, that there was a global Flood around 2,000 BC or so that wiped out all humans and animals that couldn't fit in a really big boat). It doesn't look at whether the events described in Genesis were really caused by God, only whether or not they occurred as described (and the mechanics behind how they occurred).

Comment Re:So what does he want? (Score 1) 1507

by Outcasted on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @08:56PM (#22074502) Attached to: Pope Cancels Speech After Scientists Protest

The physicist is Italian, not the pope. Now who's the idiot?

Pope Cancels Speech After Scientists Protest 1507

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @07:05PM from the probably-could-have-used-a-bit-of-forethought-there dept.

Reservoir Hill writes "Pope Benedict XVI canceled a speech at Rome's La Sapienza university in the face of protests led by scientists opposed to a high-profile visit to a secular setting by the head of the Catholic Church. Sixty-seven professors and researchers of the university's physics department joined in the call for the pope to stay away protesting the planned visit recalled a 1990 speech in which the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, seemed to justify the Inquisition's verdict against Galileo in 1633. In the speech, Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher who said the ruling was 'rational and just' and concluded with the remark: 'The faith does not grow from resentment and the rejection of rationality, but from its fundamental affirmation, and from being rooted in a still greater form of reason.' The protest against the visit was spearheaded by physicist Marcello Cini who wrote the rector complaining of an 'incredible violation" of the university's autonomy. Cini said of Benedict's cancellation: 'By canceling, he is playing the victim, which is very intelligent. It will be a pretext for accusing us of refusing dialogue.'"

Fake Codec is Mac OS X Trojan 473

Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 01, 2007 @03:54PM from the search-safely dept.

Kenny A. writes "Multiple news organisations are reporting on an in-the-wild Mac OS X malware attack that uses porn lures to plant phishing Trojans on Mac machines. The attack site attempts to trick users into download a disk image (.dmg) file disguised as a codec that's required for viewing the video. If the Mac machine's browser is set to to open 'Safe' files after downloading, the .dmg gets mounted and the Installer is launched. The target must click through a series of screens to become infected but once the Trojan is installed, it has full control of the machine."

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