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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 36 declined, 14 accepted (50 total, 28.00% accepted)

Submission + - SPAM: The Aftermath of the Coruscant Celebration Scene

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: You may remember it — at the end of 'Return of the Jedi: Special Edition', a rare glimpse of Coruscant — the seat of the galactic empire — is shown in a celebratory state as news of the empire's defeat at Endor reverberated throughout the patchwork of worlds that make up the Star Wars universe. One might imagine that most viewers at that time might have thought — "Oh, cool, so that's what Coruscant looks like" — then went on with their lives rarely to think about that scene ever again. In a recent ScreenRant article ,they take a deeper dive into what happened on Coruscant as explored in the various book series that expanded on that moment:

Although Palpatine died during the Battle of Endor, Coruscant remained the capital of his Empire. This meant that the citizens who set off fireworks, toppled statues of The Empire, and attacked Stormtroopers were met with violent retaliation from Imperial forces, resulting in numerous extrajudicial killings and executions of civilians. Coruscant continued to serve as an Imperial stronghold until its liberation by the New Republic, which happened a year later in canon and two years later in Legends.

Depending on which book source you use, the Empire's grasp on Coruscant lasted two years in the Legends books and only one year in the canon Aftermath trilogy. With all of the new Star Wars spinoffs being created lately, perhaps this transitory period for Coruscant would be a subplot worth exploring as its own mini-series.


Link to Original Source

Submission + - US science advisors desperately want to probe Uranus Again (msn.com) 2

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Is it time we gave Uranus a closer look again?:

"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have released their newest decadal survey. Apparently, at the top of the list of priorities is a goal to probe Uranus. The report, which was published this year, calls for a spacecraft to orbit Uranus. That spacecraft would then map its gravitational and magnetic fields. It would circle the planet for multiple years. During that time, it could deliver an atmospheric probe to the planet to study it."

Scientists would also like to learn more about the various moons and the ring system surrounding the planet. Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab wrote a white paper outlining their goals. Another target would include Enceladus, Saturn's icy moon that could be a candidate for being the host of microbial life.

Time is of the essence for inserting the Probe into Uranus's orbit, however, as a mission would need to be launched by 2031 to take advantage of a gravity assist from Jupiter.


Submission + - The Exotic Legend of the Dark Knight Alien Satellite Meets Mundane Reality (space.com)

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In what has become a stubborn sibling to the 'Face on Mars' phenomenon, the legend of the Dark Knight alien satellite has persisted for years and is the fascinating story of a seemingly mundane NASA photo tied together with reports of seemingly mysterious radio waves captured in the early days of radio, all combining to make the ultimate space conspiracy theory.

It goes something like this — an ancient alien space probe, dubbed the 'Dark Knight, has been long orbiting Earth and covertly monitoring its blissfully unaware inhabitants for mysterious purposes for roughly 10,000 years. Flash forward to the 1899, where technological pioneer Nikola Tesla, while experimenting with radio technology in his Colorado laboratory supposedly captured mysterious emanations from an unearthly object. Later in the 1920's, Norwegian engineer Jørgen Hals found that radio signals he transmitted were being echoed back to him a few seconds later, something called 'long delayed echoes' — still unexplained to this day. It has been proposed that these echoes were signals being relayed back to earth by something called a 'Bracewell Probe', a hypothetical automated spacecraft sent out with the goal of making contact with other intelligent species.

Flash forward to 1998, an unassuming photo from the STS-88 mission in 1998 to attach the U.S. module to the Russian portion of the ISS captured a tantalizing glimpse of an unnaturally geometric shape menacingly loitering toward the bottom of the frame. To true believers, this was evidence of an ancient probe keeping tabs on the earthly locals. Combined, these disparate events swirl together to create the stuff of dreams for the ardent conspiracy theorist and even the causal sci-fi buff. Ultimately, the object in the STS photo was most likely a thermal cover. The radio waves Tesla heard? Likely natural radio emisions of a natural or terestial source.

Space.com took a deep dive into this myth and explored how it — and the - dark knight myth has taken a hold on the imaginations of those who find themselves peering out into the inky blackness of the night and wonder to themselves "are we being watched from above"?

Submission + - Reexamining Windows ME: A brief look at what it got wrong, and what it got right 2

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Released on September 14, 2000, Windows ME is beyond the memory of many computer users today but yet retains its place in computing history as a curious anomaly in the saga of Microsoft's Operation System releases, joining the ranks of other unfortunate Microsoft releases such as Windows Vista and Windows 8.

Windows ME was the last Microsoft OS to use the Windows 95 codebase. While rightly being panned as a buggy and crash-prone OS — indeed it was labelled as the worst version of Windows ever released by Computer World — it did introduce a number of features that continue on to this very day. Those features include:

-Windows Movie Maker and Windows Media Player 7, allowing home users to create, edit and burn their own digital home movies. While seemingly pedestrian in today's times, these were groundbreaking features for home users in the year 2000.
-The first iteration of System Restore — imagine a modern version of Windows not having the ability to conveniently restore to a working configuration — before Windows ME, this was simply not a possibility for the average home user unless you had a rigorous backup routine.
-The removal of real-mode DOS. While very controversial at the time, this change arguably improved the speed and reliability of the boot process.
-Software support for DVD playback. Previously one needed a dedicated card to playback DVDs.
-A personalized start menu that would show your most recently accessed programs, today a common feature in the Windows landscape.

Love it or hate it (well, lets face it, if you were a computer user at that point you probably hated it) — Windows ME did make several important contributions to the modern OS landscape that are often overlooked to this day. Do you have any stories from the heady days of late 2000 when Windows ME was first released?

Submission + - Oumuamua May Not Be A Frozen Nitrogen Chunk After All (livescience.com) 1

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In the latest move in the war on who gets to define what exactly OuMuaMua is, Harvard astrophysicists Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb have countered the prevailing hypothesis that it is a frozen chunk of nitrogen with their own — that it is simply not possible:

"According to Siraj and his co-author, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, Jackson and Desch's conclusion that 'Oumuamua is a nitrogen iceberg is flawed because there isn't enough nitrogen in the universe to make an object like 'Oumuamua, which is somewhere between 1,300 and 2,600 feet (400 and 800 meters) long and between 115 and 548 feet (35 and 167 m) wide. Pure nitrogen is rare, Siraj said, and has been found only on Pluto, where it makes up about 0.5% of the total mass. Even if all of the nitrogen ice in the universe was scraped off every Pluto-like planet that's predicted to exist, there still wouldn't be enough nitrogen to make 'Oumuamua."

Although Oumuamua probably isn't some probe looking for humpbacked whales, it does continue to deliver plenty of intrigue — and controversy — for those astronomy buffs out there.

Submission + - The Man Behind The 'Tic-Tac' UFO Videos Claim They've Been Here Since The 1950s

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In a recent GQ magazine interview with Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Department of Defense’s ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)’, he claims that the much publicized 'Tic-Tac' UAPs observed by the U.S. Navy have been flying in our skies for many decades:

“I have in my possession official US government documentation that describes the exact same vehicle that we now call the Tic Tac [seen by the Nimitz pilots in 2004] being described in the early 1950s and early 1960s and performing in ways that, frankly, can outperform anything we have in our inventory."

He then goes on to state that he's even heard from pilots who sufferered real-world health issues as a consequence of getting to close to the objects:

"I’ve got to be careful, I can’t speak too specifically, but one might imagine that you get a report from a pilot who says, “Lue, it’s really weird. I was flying and I got close to this thing and I came back home and it was like I got a sunburn. I was red for four days.” Well, that’s a sign of radiation. That’s not a sunburn; it’s a radiation burn." Perhaps most bizarre is a revelation that those who got closest to the UAPs experienced a form of time dilation: "“You know, Lue, it’s really bizarre. It felt like I was there for only five minutes, but when I looked at my watch 30 minutes went by, but I only used five minutes’ worth of fuel. How is that possible?” Well, there’s a reason for that, we believe, and it probably has to do with warping of space time. And the closer you get to one of these vehicles, the more you may begin to experience space time relative to the vehicle and the environment."

As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence — but if these claims can be corroborated with evidence it would suggest that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of information that has yet to be revealed on these things. Perhaps the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) will drive future efforts to get a better idea of what this phenomenon actually is.

Submission + - Newly Leaked US Navy Video Shows UFO Sinking Into The Water (cnn.com)

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In a newly leaked video, ship based US Navy personnel appear to be tracking an orb-shaped UFO as it tracks closely above the water, eventually appearing to dip beneath water's surface. Last month, a still from this video was teased along with another video showing a triangular UFO transit the sky along with photos of three strange objects at high altitudes captured within minutes of each other by Navy pilots in 2019.

These photos and videos all come on the eve of a highly anticipated unclassified report due to be released sometime in June for the intelligence and armed services committees in Congress. Referring to this report, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe states: "There are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen".

Not everyone is convinced that these objects are being piloted by grey aliens. In an exhaustive report by the site "The War Zone", a plausible theory is laid out that purports that these objects are nothing more than cleverly disguised blimps or drones launched by US adversaries, using nothing more than the social stigma of taking UFOS/UAPS seriously as a means to dissuade any serious attempts by the US Military to treat these as conventional domestic threats.

Submission + - Pentagon confirms video of pyramid shaped UFO is real, taken by US Navy pilot (cnn.com)

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: CNN is reporting that a recently leaked video of a pyramid-shaped UFO (or UAP in military parlance) was confirmed as authentic by the Pentagon. The short video appears to show a triangular, strobing object moving on a constant trajectory through the sky. It's unclear if the video was taken at night or rather in some sort of infrared or low-light mode.

Along with this video were several black and white photos (also confirmed by the Pentagon) of what looks like an orb shaped object sinking into the sea over the course of several photos.

These photos and videos are only the latest in a series of documented instances of unidentified aerial phenomena cruising through our skies and sometimes harassing or otherwise toying with US military interests.

Submission + - What's Your 'Worst Damaged Hardware' Horror Story? 8

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Everyone has 'that' story — you know, the one where you spilled a Big Gulp sized cup of sugary Coke all over your laptop and it somehow still works to this day — although the space bar is permanently glued in place. Or that time you left your iPhone out in a pouring thunderstorm, stuck it in a bag of rice and after a few days it miraculously turned back on. Yes, we've all been there, maybe cried a little and then went on with life — a little wiser for the wear.

So, fellow Slashdotters, what's your worst tale of hardware horrors?

Submission + - Multiple NAVY Destroyers Harassed By Mysterious Drones In July Of 2019 (thedrive.com)

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In a recently released investigative piece at the site 'The War Zone', official US Navy ship logs were obtained by multiple FOIA requests that reveal US Navy Warships were the apparent target of mysterious drone-like UAPs in 2019 off the coast of California:

"In July of 2019, a truly bizarre series of events unfolded around California's Channel Islands. Over a number of days, groups of unidentified aircraft, which the U.S. Navy simply refers to as 'drones' or 'UAVs,' pursued that service's vessels, prompting a high-level investigation. During the evening encounters, as many as six aircraft were reported swarming around the ships at once. The drones were described as flying for prolonged periods in low-visibility conditions, and performing brazen maneuvers over the Navy warships near a sensitive military training range less than 100 miles off Los Angeles."

Ship logs reveal that visual sightings of the objects were described as hovering "white lights" or "red flashing lights". During some of these events, 'SNOOPIE' (essentially specialized Navy recon) teams were deployed to conduct more detailed observations.

In a tangential development, photos and videos, also from 2019, were recently obtained by investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell that claim to show unclassified Navy photos and a video of UAPs (including a bizarre glowing triangle) taken from US Navy ships. They can be seen here.

Submission + - Maximum PC Editor Accurately Predicts Apple TV-Like Device In 2001 1

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: In the February 2001 issue of Maximum PC, technical editor Will Smith described in his column what he would like to see in the "perfect set-top box". At a time when arguably the best 'PVR' experience was being provided by the first iterations of the Tivo (with no HDTV or LAN connectivity), Will's description of what a set-top box could and should be comes eerily close to what we now know as the Apple TV and other 'set-top' boxes such as Roku and Amazon Firestick.

On networking: "My set-top box will have to have a high-speed broadband connection...sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house via standard Ethernet, Wi-Fi compatible wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth". On gaming: "...will include state-of-the-art 3D acceleration and gaming support" and "will include Bluetooth-style wireless connections for all your controllers". On media playback: "...will also serve as a media store, handing the duties of both my high-def personal video recorder (HD-PVR) and digital audio jukebox".On device collaberation: "integrating the ability to automatically synchronize with Bluetooth-enabled PDAs" (think iPhones in today's world).

To be fair, not every feature on his list would come to pass. For example, he envisioned this device as essentially serving as the main "broadband router of a household, sharing your Internet connection with any networkable device in your house". Also, he envisions the media box as providing a "robust web experience" for the whole family, something that today's set-top boxes aren't especially good at (anyone remember WebTV?). Still, in wanting an "elusive magical box" that "will set on top of our HDTV's and do everything our computers, game consoles, and VCRs do, only better", he was prescient in his descriptions of what would eventually materialize as the Apple TV and other like-minded set-top boxes, impressive for a denizen of the year 2001.

The column, in all it's dead-tree glory, can be read here.

*Note: I have no affiliation with the author of this article or with Maximum PC*

Submission + - UFO Disclosure Group Releases Newest Navy F/A-18 Superhornet UFO Encounter Video (cnn.com)

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: CNN and other media outlets are reporting that 'To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science' group has released the third in a series of videos purportedly showing an encounter between Navy F/A-18 Superhornet pilots and an object moving at seemingly impossible speeds off the East Coast of the United States. The video was captured by the Raytheon Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) pod and includes audio of the pilots excitedly observing this object from far above as it zooms over the ocean surface. The ATFLIR system has trouble getting a lock on the object at first but then gets a lock on it eventually demonstrating that whatever this this was it wasn't a figment of the pilots imaginations.

If the video is authentic there are indeed some strange things flying in our skies. The video can be viewed here

Submission + - Why Windows Vista Ended Up Being A Mess

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Ben Fathi — formerly a manager of various teams at Microsoft responsible for storage, file systems, high availability/clustering, file level network protocols, distributed file systems, and related technologies and later security — recounts the heady days of Windows Longhorn and, consequently, Vista and what led to the inevitable 'shit show' that Vista eventually became.

To roughly sum the article up (an excellent read, by the way), the development of Vista was essentially doomed from the start in part due to the staggering array of bit players (no pun intended) with competing interest both inside and out of the halls of Microsoft. This led to the emergence of teams that were either perpetually ahead or, more often than not, perpetually behind the development schedule. In addition to that there were pressures to push a product out the door to an incredibly vast audience all with differing needs, in increasingly unrealistic timelines ultimately resulting in buggy and crash-prone code. Throw into that mix a new high security model that Vista was trying to implement that flew in the face of established practices from third party security vendors and it set the stage for a jumbled mess of a an OS that could never quite find it's footing.

From the article:

"I personally spent many years explaining to antivirus vendors why we would no longer allow them to “patch” kernel instructions and data structures in memory, why this was a security risk, and why they needed to use approved APIs going forward, that we would no longer support their legacy apps with deep hooks in the Windows kernel — the same ones that hackers were using to attack consumer systems. Our “friends”, the antivirus vendors, turned around and sued us, claiming we were blocking their livelihood and abusing our monopoly power! With friends like that, who needs enemies?"

Needless to say the business of Operating System development is still one of the most complex feats of engineering attempted by humans and the fact that anything can be pushed out the door is still pretty amazing — but there were plenty of lessons to be learned from the development of Longhorn/Vista that no doubt was absorbed by many of those involved.

You can read the whole post here.
Earth

Submission + - Alaska's Mt. Redoubt has erupted (alaska.edu) 1

Submitted by
alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: "Alaska's Mt. Redoubt volcano has erupted 3 times, with the first event starting at 10:38 PM Alaska standard time. The ash cloud is estimated to be higher than 50,000 feet. So far, only light ash fall is predicted for areas north of Anchorage. http://avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.ph You can catch the latest updates at the Alaska Volcano Observatory's site at http://avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php."

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