Nobody Cares! (Science & Tech Edition)

danielravennest

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That article is terribly out of date. There are several outer system bodies that fall into the "Dwarf Planet" size range (big enough their gravity makes them round), and the one they mention, 2014 UZ224, is probably a little too small to fit that category. That makes it just another asteroid/comet, though a large one. Haumea is elliptical because it rotates very fast, but it is still big enough its gravity makes it a smooth ellipse, so it qualifies. The grey half circles on some of the objects show the range of possible sizes, when that is not well known.

 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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Coming back to the HDDs: if you really want to get a deeper understanding in their lifetime expectancy, and MTBFs - Backblaze is always regularly publishing statistics on that topic, like here: Backblaze Hard Drive Stats Q1 2019

Google wrote a paper about it in 2007.

And here's a real big iron IBM HDD from 1980:

 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Tan acknowledged that this may be a difficult truth for some. “We earthlings,” as she put it, tend to anthropomorphize robots. Many studies have shown that people can have feelings of attachment and protectiveness toward robots as they would for humans. The more “alive” a robot appears, the more likely people are to react to it in ways usually reserved for living beings. In various scenarios, people have felt empathy for Roombas, dinosaur toys, and bomb-disposal robots. All three are nothing more than boxes of wires, circuits, and sensors, but they exhibit enough autonomy, enough signs of “aliveness,” to trigger emotional responses. Scientists and astronomy fans are currently slogging through a weeks-long public mourning period for the Cassini spacecraft, which will end its mission next month. One planetary scientist recently told me she feels like she should be sipping vodka the day Cassini burns up in Saturn’s atmosphere, in a somber tribute to a brave pioneer.

So it’s no surprise that the idea of a space robot “celebrating” its birthday—the very thing that makes something alive—makes people feel all the feels, even if they know it doesn’t make sense. As one user wrote back in 2013, “It’s literally an inanimate object why am I still crying.”
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Physicists studying unusual radiation spike over Europe in 2017 conclude Russia has likely covered up a serious nuclear accident in the Ural Mountains.

After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, scientists in Europe realized that a network of radiation monitoring stations was the best way to detect and alert the public to fallout from nuclear accidents. Scientists in five countries, Finland, Sweden, the Federal Republic of Germany, Denmark and Norway, set up such a network, which they called the Ro5. Scientists from other European countries have joined the network over the years, but the name has remained. Two years ago, members of the network began reporting higher-than-normal levels of ruthenium 106 (106Ru). The levels were not high enough to be considered dangerous, but the area of detection was large enough to suggest something unusual had happened—some suspected a nuclear accident at a facility in Russia. But Russian officials insisted the levels were due to a release from a disintegrating satellite. In this new effort, 69 researchers from across Europe together found evidence that very strongly suggests the radioactivity they observed came from a Russian nuclear power plant in a southern part of the Urals—likely Majak.

Research by the team consisted of combining and compiling 1,100 atmospheric readings and 200 readings taken on the ground. The researchers were able to conclude that the radioactivity was not from a satellite. They further report that levels of radioactivity varied widely, from tenths of µBq·m−3 to over 150 mBq·m−3. They also found that the widespread nature of the readings suggested an unprecedented release of 106Ru. By looking at the data placed over a map, they were able to trace it back to its source—in the Southern Urals in Russia. The researchers suggest the evidence indicates that there was likely an unreported nuclear plant accident.
You can read the full report here.
 

Tigar

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If you're in the US right now, Jupiter is looking quite pretty right next to the Moon at the moment.
I was just taking the trash out and it still looks pretty awesome. *


* Jupiter and the moon I mean, not the trash. Ya dun’ wanna see mai trash 🗑
 
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Dakota Tebaldi

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Time for an update?

 
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Soen Eber

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Could someone with more knowledge of French history than I have and even just a passing knowledge of editing Wikipedia articles wander over to the English page of La Marseillaise and throw some edit love at it? The current page is, well, quite unique in regards to English spelling and grammar rules.
 
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Argent Stonecutter

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It's the Core Explosion.
 

Dakota Tebaldi

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Dakota Tebaldi

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ATTENTION: Updoot your Windows

Today Microsoft released a set of fixes for Remote Desktop Services that include two critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, CVE-2019-1181 and CVE-2019-1182. Like the previously-fixed ‘BlueKeep’ vulnerability (CVE-2019-0708), these two vulnerabilities are also ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits these could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer without user interaction.

The affected versions of Windows are Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and all supported versions of Windows 10, including server versions.

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 are not affected, nor is the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself affected.

These vulnerabilities were discovered by Microsoft during hardening of Remote Desktop Services as part of our continual focus on strengthening the security of our products. At this time, we have no evidence that these vulnerabilities were known to any third party.

It is important that affected systems are patched as quickly as possible because of the elevated risks associated with wormable vulnerabilities like these, and downloads for these can be found in the Microsoft Security Update Guide. Customers who have automatic updates enabled are automatically protected by these fixes.
 

Katheryne Helendale

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