kris.montpetit - Slashdot User

Comment definitely aircraft (Score 1) 312

by kris.montpetit on Monday July 25, 2011 @03:19PM (#36874406) Attached to: I would soonest put my trust in a ...

aircraft have a less chance of collisions or other accidents than ground vehicles, and less natural obstacles that their program can misinterpret. autopilots of varying complexity have been in commercial use for decades. Even if you're physically inside the robotic aircraft the chance of failure-even if it is catastrophic-is small with respect to the robotic ground car or bus. Most of us deal with this kind of risk daily anyways. As for the chef and the spouse, so much can go wrong that would be hard to anticipate in the engineering phase. And when something goes wrong either your digestion or your genitals are on the line. Definitely not in my comfort zone.

Comment a good reason to go back to the moon first. (Score 1) 444

by kris.montpetit on Monday August 30, 2010 @10:41PM (#33422724) Attached to: The Best Near-Term Future of Space Exploration?

we could build industrial manufacturing systems and a launching point on the moon. industry would be pollution-less on the moon, and the lesser gravity couldn't hurt. launching missions from the moon would remove a lot of the problems and costs inherent in launching missions from earth. Building some infrastructure could make space exploration a lot more feasable.

Canadian Censorship Takes Down 4500 Sites 227

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 29, 2009 @04:00PM from the now-that's-what-I-call-political-science dept.

uncadonna writes "According to activist group The Yes Men, the government of Canada has shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy. The article goes on to claim that 'In response to Environment Canada's request, Serverloft immediately turned off a whole block of IP addresses, knocking out more than 4500 websites that had nothing to do with the parody sites or the activists who created them. Serverloft was shown no warrant, and never called the web hosting company about the shutdown.'"

Strange Globs Could Signal Water On Mars 186

Posted by timothy on Sunday February 22, 2009 @04:21PM from the growing-merging-dripping dept.

Joshua.Niland writes "Strange globs seen on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander could be the first proof that modern Mars hosts liquid water. Images from the robotic craft show what appear to be liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month. Just when is NASA going to fix that leaking roof on the backlot?"

Comment I wish i could work more... (Score 1) 354

by kris.montpetit on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @01:41AM (#26618253) Attached to: How Many Hours Of Work Do You Do Per Workday?

I once had a job where i sold cell phones and was expected to bust my ass the entire time, which was a bit unrealistic since the mall we were in was completely dead. As much as i loved the other staff there the owner signed all the wrong exclusivity deals and was actually scared to death of technology. Long story short, there just wasn't a lot we could do. I would sa i did 0-2 hours here, even though i honestly tried to do more. Shortly after i gave my notice the HR manager (one of the two other permanent employees) was sent over to fire me (even though i had already quit) for being late twice in two weeks, she gave me a hug. My next job was at a newspaper where i worked my ass off(6-8 hours with intermediary deadlines) but if there wasn't any work they let me do whatever. Then i got laid off because of the recession.YAAAAY!! Anyways i can definitely say i enjoy jobs where i actually work more. Slacking isn't a natural state for me.

Comment ow.. (Score 1) 218

by kris.montpetit on Thursday September 11, 2008 @07:36AM (#24959883) Attached to: Verizon Tech Accused Of Making $220K In Sex Calls On User Lines

oh man.. all I can think of is the friction burns D:

Submission + - Unknown Atari 2600 Game Found at Flea Market (gism.net) 2

Submitted by

VonGuard

on Monday April 21, 2008 @12:01PM

VonGuard writes: "I was at the flea market in Oakland, yesterday, when a pile of EPROMs caught my eye. When I got them home, I found that they were actually prototypes for Colecovision games. A few were unpublished or saw limited print runs like Video Hustler (billiards). Others were fully released, like WarGames. But the crowning jewel is what look to be a number of chips with various revisions of Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park for Atari 2600. This game was never released, and has never been seen. It was a port of the version for Colecovision, and this lot of chips also included the Coleco version. So, now I have to find someone who can dump EPROMs gently onto a PC so we can play this never-before seen game, which is almost certainly awful."

Physicist John A. Wheeler is Dead at 96 130

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 14, 2008 @03:07PM from the big-wormhole-in-the-sky dept.

reverseengineer writes "Eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler has died from pneumonia at the age of 96. The coiner of the terms 'black hole' and 'wormhole,' Wheeler popularized the study of general relativity, and advised a distinguished list of graduate students including Kip Thorne and Richard Feynman. Other work included a collaboration with Niels Bohr to develop the 'liquid drop' model of nuclear fission. Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of Dr. Wheeler, 'For me, he was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing.'"

Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Leaves Desktop Linux Behind 212

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 14, 2008 @01:41PM from the time-to-push-back-on-corporatization dept.

Linux.com's Joe Barr has an interesting commentary about the recent Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit and the astounding lack of attention for desktop Linux. Now, a great deal of the monetary support driving Linux these days comes from companies with a vested interest in "big iron" but hopefully this won't completely eclipse the rest of the community. "Before I learned that the press was not welcome in any of the working-meetings at the summit on days 2 and 3, I saw and heard rumblings of discontent from more than one ordinary Linux desktop user. One example: a top-ten list of inhibitors to Linux adoption, created by a committee of foundation members, contained nothing at all relating to desktop usage. Nothing. Everything on the list was about back-room usage. Servers. Big iron."

ISO Calls For OOXML Ceasefire 312

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 14, 2008 @12:58PM from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.

In response to the continued attacks on Microsoft's OOXML standard, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has called for a ceasefire. "Last week the ISO committee in charge of document standards, SC 34, met in Oslo to discuss the way forward for OOXML and ODF. The plenary session was marked by protests outside, largely carried out by delegates from a nearby open-source conference. The protesters were calling for OOXML to be withdrawn from ISO standardization -- something that could theoretically happen if a national standards body were to protest against its own vote within the next month or two."

How to Write 200,000 Books 4

Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 14, 2008 @12:41PM

Writing a book can be hard. You have to pick a title, cover art and compile a table of contents. If you want it in a Library it has to be assigned a numerical code (ISBN) not to mention the weeks, months or even years of actual writing. Philip M. Parker has found an easier way. He has generated over 200,000 books making him, "The most published author in the history of the planet." He has created computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject and works with a team of programmers and 60-70 computers to produce such page turners as "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India." (144 pages at a very reasonable price of $495). Philip admits that many of his "books" are only printed when a customer buys one. I can't wait for "Samzenpus's Email correspondence with his mother from 2007-2008". I hear she figured out how to change her background image all by herself.

Study Reports On Debian Governance, Social Organization 65

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 14, 2008 @10:07AM from the because-they-can dept.

andremachado writes "Two academic management researchers, Siobhán O'Mahony and Fabrizion Ferraro, performed a detailed scientific study about Debian Project governance and social organization from the management perspective. How did a big non-commercial non-paying community evolve to produce some of the most respectable Operating Systems and applications packages available? Organizations without a consensual basis of authority lack an important condition necessary for their survival. Those with directly democratic forms of participation do not tend to scale well and are noted for their difficulty managing complexity and decision-making — all of which can hasten their demise. The Debian Project community designed and evolved a solid governance system since 1993 able to establish shared conceptions of formal authority, leadership, and meritocracy, limited by defined democratic adaptive mechanisms."

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear 517

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 14, 2008 @08:06AM from the good-business-to-sue-your-customers-boy-howdy dept.

Cognitive Dissident writes "Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries. The May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair carries a major feature article on the mafiaa-like tactics of Monsanto in its pursuit of total domination of various facets of agribusiness. First in GM seeds with its 'Roundup Ready' crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, and more recently in milk production with rBGH designed to squeeze more milk out of individual cows, Monsanto has been resorting to increasingly over-the-top tactics to prevent what it sees as infringement or misrepresentation of its biotechnology. As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power. Quotes: 'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.' and '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.' Sound familiar?"

Satellite IDs Ships That Cut Cables 186

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 14, 2008 @02:25AM from the busted-from-the-sky dept.

1sockchuck writes "Undersea telecom cable operator Reliance Globalcom was able to use satellite images to identify two ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place, damaging submarine cables and knocking Middle East nations offline in early February. The company used satellite images to study the movements of the two ships, and shared the information with officials in Dubai, who impounded the two vessels. The NANOG list has a discussion of where Reliance might have obtained satellite images to provide that level of detail. Google News links more coverage of the developments."

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