Comment Hackers Diet (Score 3, Interesting) 19
I lost a lot of weight after reading "The Hackers Diet" He was a real help to me.
US Space Command Releases Decades of Secret Military Data, Confirms Interstellar Meteor in 2014 (cbsnews.com) 13
"The U.S. Space Command announced this week that it determined a 2014 meteor hit that hit Earth was from outside the solar system," reports CBS News. "The meteor streaked across the sky off the coast of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea three years earlier than what was believed to be the first confirmed interstellar object detected entering our solar system."
After Oumuamua was spotted in 2017, the interstellar comet Borisov appeared in 2019 — discovered in Crimea, Ukraine at a "personal observatory" built by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov"
But CBS notes that despite their theory about a first interstellar meteor in 2014, the two Harvard astronomers — Dr. Amir Siraj and Dr. Abraham Loeb — "had trouble getting their paper published, because they used classified information from the government." Specifically, data from a classified U.S. government satellite designed to detect foreign missiles... The meteor was unusual because of its very high speed and unusual direction — which suggested it came from interstellar space.... Any space object traveling more than about 42 kilometers per second may come from interstellar space. The data showed the 2014 Manus Island fireball hit the Earth's atmosphere at about 45 kilometers per second, which was "very promising" in identifying it as interstellar, Siraj said....
After more research and help from other scientists, including classified information from the government about the accuracy or level of precision of the data, Siraj and Loeb determined with 99.999% certainty the object was interstellar. But their paper on the finding was being turned down, because the pair only had a private conversation with an anonymous U.S. government employee to confirm the accuracy of the data.
"We had thought this was a lost cause," Dr. Siraj told the New York Times — which couldn't resist adding that "it turned out, the truth was out there." Last month, the U.S. Space Command released a memo to NASA scientists that stated the data from the missile warning satellites' sensors "was sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory" for the meteor. The publication of the memo was the culmination of a three-year effort by Siraj and a well-known Harvard astronomer, Avi Loeb.
Many scientists, including those at NASA, say that the military still has not released enough data to confirm the interstellar origins of the space rock, and a spokesperson said Space Command would defer to other authorities on the question.
But it wasn't the only information about meteors to be released. The military also handed NASA decades of secret military data on the brightness of hundreds of other fireballs, or bolides. "It's an unusual degree of visibility of a set of data coming from that world," said Matt Daniels, assistant director for space security at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, who worked on the data release. "We're in this renewed period of excitement and activity in space programs generally, and in the midst of that, I think thoughtful leaders in multiple places said, 'you know, now is a good time to do this.'"
The Times notes that data from classified military satellites "could also aid NASA in its federally assigned role as defender of planet Earth from killer asteroids. And that is the goal of a new agreement with the U.S. Space Force that aims to help NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office better understand what happens when space rocks reach the atmosphere." Sharing sensitive military satellite data with astronomers has led to significant scientific discoveries in the past.
A group of satellites deployed in the 1960s by the United States to detect covert detonations of nuclear weapons on Earth accidentally became the key instruments used to make the first detection of extraterrestrial gamma ray bursts. The bursts showed up on the satellites, code-named Vela, as single bursts of energy, confusing analysts at Los Alamos who later declassified the data in a 1973 paper that spurred academic debate about the bursts' origins....
A core reason for Space Force's increasing ties with NASA has centered on the agency's congressional mandate to detect nearly all asteroids that could threaten the Earth. When NASA signed an agreement in 2020 to strengthen ties with Space Force, the agency acknowledged it had fallen behind in its asteroid-tracking efforts and would need Pentagon resources to carry out its planetary defense mission.
After Oumuamua was spotted in 2017, the interstellar comet Borisov appeared in 2019 — discovered in Crimea, Ukraine at a "personal observatory" built by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov"
But CBS notes that despite their theory about a first interstellar meteor in 2014, the two Harvard astronomers — Dr. Amir Siraj and Dr. Abraham Loeb — "had trouble getting their paper published, because they used classified information from the government." Specifically, data from a classified U.S. government satellite designed to detect foreign missiles... The meteor was unusual because of its very high speed and unusual direction — which suggested it came from interstellar space.... Any space object traveling more than about 42 kilometers per second may come from interstellar space. The data showed the 2014 Manus Island fireball hit the Earth's atmosphere at about 45 kilometers per second, which was "very promising" in identifying it as interstellar, Siraj said....
After more research and help from other scientists, including classified information from the government about the accuracy or level of precision of the data, Siraj and Loeb determined with 99.999% certainty the object was interstellar. But their paper on the finding was being turned down, because the pair only had a private conversation with an anonymous U.S. government employee to confirm the accuracy of the data.
"We had thought this was a lost cause," Dr. Siraj told the New York Times — which couldn't resist adding that "it turned out, the truth was out there." Last month, the U.S. Space Command released a memo to NASA scientists that stated the data from the missile warning satellites' sensors "was sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory" for the meteor. The publication of the memo was the culmination of a three-year effort by Siraj and a well-known Harvard astronomer, Avi Loeb.
Many scientists, including those at NASA, say that the military still has not released enough data to confirm the interstellar origins of the space rock, and a spokesperson said Space Command would defer to other authorities on the question.
But it wasn't the only information about meteors to be released. The military also handed NASA decades of secret military data on the brightness of hundreds of other fireballs, or bolides. "It's an unusual degree of visibility of a set of data coming from that world," said Matt Daniels, assistant director for space security at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, who worked on the data release. "We're in this renewed period of excitement and activity in space programs generally, and in the midst of that, I think thoughtful leaders in multiple places said, 'you know, now is a good time to do this.'"
The Times notes that data from classified military satellites "could also aid NASA in its federally assigned role as defender of planet Earth from killer asteroids. And that is the goal of a new agreement with the U.S. Space Force that aims to help NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office better understand what happens when space rocks reach the atmosphere." Sharing sensitive military satellite data with astronomers has led to significant scientific discoveries in the past.
A group of satellites deployed in the 1960s by the United States to detect covert detonations of nuclear weapons on Earth accidentally became the key instruments used to make the first detection of extraterrestrial gamma ray bursts. The bursts showed up on the satellites, code-named Vela, as single bursts of energy, confusing analysts at Los Alamos who later declassified the data in a 1973 paper that spurred academic debate about the bursts' origins....
A core reason for Space Force's increasing ties with NASA has centered on the agency's congressional mandate to detect nearly all asteroids that could threaten the Earth. When NASA signed an agreement in 2020 to strengthen ties with Space Force, the agency acknowledged it had fallen behind in its asteroid-tracking efforts and would need Pentagon resources to carry out its planetary defense mission.
Comment wow (Score 1) 2
This could get interesting. Maybe I'll start cross posting my blog here - see if we can get something going. Though I can't lie - I'm doubting it will catch on.
Comment same with ps4 (Score 1) 54
I've had this issue with controllers for as long as I've owned my ps4
Comment Arch (Score 1) 5
I like Arch based distros because those people are the ones who provide the KDE help I need when I google issues.
I'm running Fedora, have been forever so I doubt I'll change unless something crazy happens but since I don't use the default DE - it seems the Arch folks are always the ones who have my answers. So I appreciate them even if I don't use it.
Comment Hey! (Score 1) 4
Just saw this and thought I'd say hi. I'm in the last few days of a visit to the US. I'm in Phoenix until Wednesday and then I head back to Hungary.
I hope you are doing really well.
Pax
Comment Hungarian was a bad choice (Score 1) 100
I am a native English speaker living in Hungary and I can say without reservation that Google Translate is really bad at Hungarian. It can handle individual words ok sometimes but anything beyond that and it falls apart quickly. So even without sound issues, it's not really something you can use for any communication beyond the most basic.
Comment It's the freeway (Score 5, Interesting) 313
They bought the land to develop because a big freeway is supposed to go right through the middle. They'll extort the state for a ton of money, make a huge amount of profit and then exit before the community is fully done. So the long term viability of the site is irrelevant.
Comment Re:Moo (Score 1) 8
I'm glad I wrote the post just for the moo.
Comment Re:book money (Score 1) 8
I've still got 80% of a novel I did for nanowrimo that I want to finish and put out there but I never seem to get around to it.
I hope you are doing really well.
Comment Re:Good to see you! (Score 1) 8
We are still here near Budapest and doing well. My oldest graduates this year and will start university in the US next year. My second does the same the following year and our son is 2 behind that - so less than 4 years from now it will be just the 2 of us at home again. At that time we need to leave Hungary at least for 6 months due to tax reasons - so we may just end up going somewhere new. Not sure, it's 4 years away - but unless something unexpected happens we should be here for those 4.
Journal Journal: tumbleweeds 8
Mostly any more I come here because I like the summary I get of Ars from my slashbox that shows it's feed. Kind of funny. I do run down the headlines at least once a day. But I've usually already read a lot about whatever they are over at reddit.
I have a subscription to soylent but it's never really stuck for me.
Comment Slashboxes (Score 1) 5
I've always kept a custom slashbox at the top on the right with a link to writing journals - showing new journal entries by friends, etc.
But there's just not much here any more and I spend lots more time at Reddit. The signal to noise there is way worse than it was here at the dot back in the day - but in the smaller subreddits it can be ok.
pax
Comment huh (Score 1) 1
my son thought a lot of it was boring too. I thought it was the 2nd best of the sw films after esb.
Comment Re:Well then... (Score 2) 125
Most of the rest of the developed world and a decent chunk of the less developed world have better, cheaper broadband than the US. So actually a lot of people do have great internet. You just happen to live in a country that is unwilling to catch up to the rest of the world in that regard.
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