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NASA

Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video 266

Posted by Soulskill from the new-perspective-on-an-old-tragedy dept.
longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."
Apple

Has Apple Created the Perfect Board Game Platform? 531

Posted by kdawson from the triple-word-score dept.
andylim writes "recombu.com is running an interesting piece about how Apple has created a 'Jumanji (board game) platform.' The 9.7-inch multi-touch screen is perfect for playing board games at home, and you could use Wi-Fi or 3G to play against other people when you're on your own. What would be really interesting is if you could pair the iPad with iPhones, 'Imagine a Scrabble iPad game that used iPhones as letter holders. You could hold up your iPhone so that no one else could see your letters and when you were ready to make a word on the Scrabble iPad board, you could slide them on to the board by flicking the word tiles off your iPhone.' Now that would be cool."

Comment Re:But can you flaunt it in public . . . ? (Score 1) 461

by Abraxis (#26542989) Attached to: Sniping Could Be the Next Killer iPod App

When I was in (US Army 1977-1980), we were restricted to either standard ball(used mostly for practice), and Lake City Match ammo(recommended). We could not use the Sierra Match King bullet(my personal favorite for the .308/.30-06) since it fell in the 'dum-dum' expanding projectile category.

rts008-- Just now saw your other reply quoted above.
Sorry for the tone... I took you for one of those who watches a documentary about snipers or reads a Wikipedia article and then spouts information as if they are an expert.

Obviously, things have changed a bit since 1980. The military changed its mind on the Hague-correctness of SMK in the mid-eights, IIRC.

Comment Re:But can you flaunt it in public . . . ? (Score 1) 461

by Abraxis (#26542773) Attached to: Sniping Could Be the Next Killer iPod App

Well, for reliable sniping at 1000 yards you will want something ballistically superior to the 7.62x51 NATO (.308 Winchester) round/M110 package.
The .308 Win. bullet transitions from supersonic to subsonic around 625-700 yards, causing the bullet to become unstable and seriously degrading accuracy to unacceptable levels for a sniper/target shooter.

That's what the cartridge/rifle packages in the 7mm-8mm magnums (which includes the venerable .300 Winchester and Weatherby Magnums) are best suited for, which cover 1000 yards quite nicely. :-)

Over 1500-1600 yards is the realm of the BMG .50 caliber/rifle packages.

Stop pretending you know what you are talking about...

Try telling Palma shooters that .308 isn't reliable to 1000, they will get a good chuckle out of that. Further, my pet load, 175gr Sierra Match King + 44.5 grains of Varget is quite safely above transonic at 1k, thank you very much.

Magnums have their place, I love my .300 RUM -- but a vast majority of the time I shoot my .308 --- half as much powder, cheaper bullets, cheaper brass, and I don't have to replace the barrel after 1000 rounds. Plus, if you can hack it at 1000 with the .308, with a Magnum it is easy mode (if you can ever call 1000 easy).

And FYI, there are better rounds than the .50BMG for ELR precision shooting, assuming you aren't worried about damaging vehicles, buildings, armor, etc.
Republicans

Karl Rove's IT Guru Dies In Small Plane Crash 377

Posted by kdawson from the discuss-among-yourselves dept.
A dozen readers have submitted the story of the death in a plane crash of Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT adviser, the man who set up and ran the gwb43.com mail server, and an important figure in GOP tech circles since 1997. The closest thing to straight reporting to be found in a mainstream media outlet is a piece from KDKA in Pittsburgh giving a detailed backgrounder on Connell's work for Rove, two generations of the Bush family, and many GOP congressmen and committees. CBSNews.com is now mirroring the KDKA reporting. Almost all the early media coverage comes from the left and some of it is frankly conspiratorial. Among the milder pieces (although it could not be called balanced) is this interview with Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of two books about the 2004 election in Ohio. Connell was compelled to testify on the day before the US election in a lawsuit involving Ohio election irregularities in 2004. Connell, an experienced pilot, died on Sunday when his plane crashed two miles short of the runway of Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.
Privacy

In UK, 12M Taxpayers Lost With USB Stick 258

Posted by kdawson from the and-your-little-data-too dept.
An anonymous reader tips a piece from the UK's Daily Mail that recounts another sad tale of the careless loss of massive amounts of private user data. "Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets. An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, came to be lost."
Caldera

SCO Given NASDAQ Delisting Notice 116

Posted by Zonk from the vultures-are-circling dept.
SCO Delenda Est writes "The SEC has given SCO notice that they will be delisted from the NASDAQ if they cannot keep their share price above $1 sometime in the next 180 days. Although they may be able to avoid delisting for a while, their small market capitalization will hinder their efforts. Given their other financials, this just goes to show how desperate their current financial situation is."
Encryption

Full Disk Encryption - Xen, Windows and Linux? 49

Posted by Cliff from the protecting-your-data-across-various-OSes dept.
Bofh To asks: "I'm in an industry that, more or less, requires full disk encryption, and to accomplish this, we use Pointsec on Windows. For the past 8 years, I've been running Linux on my work laptop, and this is the first time I'm running in a Windows only environment. I am interested in changing that, because I want to use Linux as my main platform, and only drop in to Windows when necessary (and use crossover if at all possible). I'm also interested in Xen, and would like to see if I can use that to virtualize Windows under Linux. My thought is that, as long as Pointsec is in dom0 and I use virtual disks for the Windows VM, I should be covered. The problem is that I'd also like a machine that is usable, as opposed to waiting endlessly as the virtual memory, virtual machine, pointsec, and xen all thrash around while I'm working on the machine. Has anyone used Pointsec for Linux, with Xen? "

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