Slashback: Randomness, Donations, Ramp

Slashback (below) brings another round of updates and clarification to recent and continuing stories here on Slashdot. This evening, there's more video of the recent space shuttle launch, a reminder about the other 10th planet, an encouraging update about open source medical software, another approach to structure-as-PC-enclosure, and more. Read on for the details.

Shuttle launches are easier to fake than moon landings. Rex Ridenoure writes "Shuttle External Tank RocketCam video highlights from the STS-114 'Return to Flight' launch on July 26 have been posted on Ecliptic's website. Ecliptic supplied this RocketCam system to ET builder Lockheed Martin Michoud [Louisiana] Operations. A slow-motion clip of the now-famous ET foam shedding event has been inserted at the time it occurred -- about 1:40 after liftoff.

Still on the 'things in space' front: Sedna isn't nearly as sexy a name. Martian Anthropologist writes, of the recently announced discovery of a tenth planet in our solar system, "Actually, there's good reason to say that this is really the 11th planet, not the 10th. Another large body, now named Sedna, was discovered last year. It is slightly smaller than Pluto."

(Here's some earlier coverage of Sedna on Slashdot.)

Software for the Commonwealth. Aaron writes "As a followup to a recent story about the U.S. Government giving away its Electronic Medical Record Software, a small practice of physicians describes their experience transitioning from paper to electronic charts. Not everything goes well, from training staff to use Windows XP and tablet computers to viruses that crash their system to physicians complaining about being relegated to data-entry clerk status. In the end, however, they would never go back to paper.

From the article:'"Doctor, do you find you are spending more time interacting with the computer than with your patients?" For a while, the answer was clearly yes.'"

Aw, shucks, he might have done it anyhow. David writes "Thanks to my Ask Slashdot porting query, Ryan Gordon (aka icculus), the man who ported Unreal Tournament and many other popular games to Linux, is going to be working on the Linux version of Lugaru. It should be ready soon!"

You have to watch the quiet types, and never let them near your obscure hardware. jschauma writes "About a month ago, NetBSD made a Plea for 'Cold, Hard Cash', a Call for Donations. The results were very positive: an impressive $27K were donated since then, allowing the NetBSD Foundation to purchase five new machines; three of those machines will be added to the nightly build infrastructure and two of those machines will become anonymous cvs servers. See Christos Zoulas's email for detailed specifications of the hardware, and feel free to continue the donations!"

Definitely not for snowboarding helmet cam use. The CVS one time use camcorder has now been hacked so that videos can be downloaded over USB -- no need to desolder the flash memory.

How to spot a future writer-of-Federal-grants. Jason Schroeder writes "The recent story on the guy who put a Mac Mini in the wall reminded me of something I'd seen a while back: The Parabolic Heat Transference Case Mod for his Red Hat server. Pretty good idea with lots of scientific tidbits to make it interesting."

Hey, these fakes are a bunch of phoney frauds! strib writes "Remember SCIgen, the program that randomly-generated an accepted paper at WMSCI 2005? Well, thanks in part to the generous donations of Slashdotters, we made it down to the conference and gave a session full of fake talks. And it's all on video. Thanks to everyone who helped!"

About the eleventh planet mentioned in slashback

[WillAffleckUW]

I should point out most commentary - as indicated on space.com and sciencemagazine.com - is that it is highly likely that Pluto will be downgraded to non-planet status, as well as the eleventh orbital body that is larger than Pluto.

So, while I'm sure Disney may object, it looks like Pluto's just a pet and no longer a planet.

But, cheer up, since we can clone dogs now, maybe this is a good thing.

10th, 11th, what next?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

this is really the 11th planet, not the 10th. Another large body, now named Sedna, was discovered last year. It is slightly smaller than Pluto.

Or, more sensibly, they could just declassify Pluto as a planet and reclassify it as just some Kuiper belt object (which is what it is) with an classification number and a cute, historical name.

That would leave us with 9 planets, big asteroids, some of which are named Pluto, Sedna or Bernard for historical or affectionate reasons, and all the others being called XYZ-some-number. That would make much more sense, and kill the slightly silly debate over how many numbers of planet there are in the solar system once and for all.

Yeah, but...

[ShaniaTwain]

..Wouldn't it be appropriate to keep pluto's status as a planet, but a planet of a few other planets?
 
-after all, pluto the dog is the pet dog of a mouse, sometimes a duck and occasionally another dog..

Re:About the eleventh planet mentioned in slashbac

[Incadenza]

No, Disney won't object. But the family of Percival_Lowell [wikipedia.org] may:

Lowell's greatest contribution to planetary studies came during the last 8 years of his life, which he devoted to the search for Planet X, which was the designation for a planet beyond Neptune. The search continued for a number of years after his death at Flagstaff in 1916; the new planet, named Pluto, was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. The symbol for the planet is a stylized "PL", chosen in part to honor Lowell.

No linux source for CVS hack?

[sanermind]

I'm seriously tempted to go out and buy one of these right now, but for the fact that I am one of those in the minority who actually don't own or use windows at all. The code is windows only. But, since the program for the camera occupies flash memory, I would suspect that their is some facility for re-flashing the programming on the camera to avoid this hack... and I could concievably see employees at CVS's plugging in all the cameras to load them with updated software soon, thus eliminating the reusable utility of a camera purchased in the future.

I wonder how hard it would be for someone to port the code to a useable linux application?

Definition of a planet

[jd]

The definition of what is a planet is very much up in the air. I'd have argued that anything that:

• Is gravitationally self-rounding
  
• Is of non-uniform composition
  
• Has a clearly-definable core
  

could be called a planet and not have anyone argue too much about it. It would mean that in order to know if Pluto is a planet, we'd have to go there and carry out seismology experiments - but that's good, as there's a better chance of NASA getting the funds to see if Pluto is a planet than for them to get funds to see why Pluto is even there at all.

Re:Doesn't Pluto have a small moon?

[Reignking]

Don't forget Vulcan! Which, for quite a while, scientists thought was the first planet [wikipedia.org] in this solar system (but, of course, what slashdotter wouldn't know that).