canopic jug writes:A while back, Freenet Africa had a nice background piece about software luminary and founder of the software freedom movement, Richard Stallman (aka RMS). The article covers his background starting with the GNU project and following through to the current, ongoing fight for digital freedom.
NASA releases "Starliner Propulsion System Anomalies during the Crewed Flight Test"VLM writes:https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-releases-report-on-starliner-crewed-flight-test-investigation/To quote Cheryl Warner, NASA News Chief, "At a news conference on Thursday, NASA released a report of findings from the Program Investigation Team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program."The direct link to the redacted report is:https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nasa-report-with-redactions-021926.pdf?emrc=76e561Redacted? "For the full report, which includes redactions in coordination with our commercial partner to protect proprietary and privacy-sensitive material is available online."Its 311 pages and they're not providing a summary so it is likely to be extremely juicy and spicy, as NASA historically doesn't water down press releases for many other reasons. So I know what I'll be reading with breakfast tea later this morning.So the facts are above. My separate opinions below.I'd give it a different take than the report as I've read it so far; they designed a semi-disposable cost-reduced capsule but space projects ALWAYS take longer so if backflowing oxidizer will inevitably very slowly eat the o-rings in the helium manifold, well, its going to sit around a long time before launching so its going to eat thru, thats the nature of space program delays. Or propellant residue plus CO2 will rot out thruster nozzles given enough time, and space programs being space programs they will indeed be given time to sit around and slowly rot. They still are not sure about the RCS thrusters jamming but it seems likely to be a lack of ground testing during R+D; teflon is like a viscous liquid over a long time while under stress, key being over a long time.The "Hardware Longevity and Sparing Concerns" section hints to me that the program is about to be cancelled if it doesn't cancel itself first. Reads like they're not permitted under the terms of the investigation to recommend program shutdown but they wanted to recommend it anyway.The report follows that with numerous identified management failures at NASA and Boeing. This is the new Boeing, which is no longer competent, so "NASA's hands-off contract approach limited insight" precisely when Boeing needed adult supervision as they've downsized, outsourced, refused to recruit, or otherwise eliminated their competent adults for various reasons over the years. But who knows, what do y'all think?Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
upstart writes:Researchers have described a novel mechanochemical process that can store gases safely in powders, using very little energy, in a repeatable process:
canopic jug writes:Software engineer Kevin McDonald has investigated the topology of the Internet itself before. He enjoys the open data archaeology of this nature. In this recent edition, he has used BGP routing to visualize the Internet again.
fliptop writes:Texas is suing TP-Link Systems, a California-based maker of wi-fi routers, accusing it of concealing its ties to China and potentially exposing American users' home networks to hackers:
fliptop writes:Canadian uranium developer NexGen Energy has held preliminary talks with data centre providers about securing finance for a new mine that could supply fuel for power plants needed for artificial intelligence, its CEO said on Wednesday:
fliptop writes:The quality of the education that our children are receiving in America's public schools just continues to go down. At one time, the concern was that not enough students were taking advanced courses. But now we have reached a point where a very large portion of our high school graduates cannot read effectively, cannot write effectively and cannot do basic math effectively:
edinlinux writes:Humanoid robotics has advanced incredibly in the past year.This is a robot show by Unitree, a leading Chinese maker that appeared this week during Chinese New Year celebrations on their national CCTV network.The robots breakdance, do acrobatics, fight with numbchuks [sic]... incredible. The video speaks for itself!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUmlv814aJo [4:50 -Ed]Reuters reported on the Gala a couple of days ago, saying:
hubie writes:Penn biologists and collaborators show that collective intelligence doesn't emerge by rewarding the most accurate individuals but by rewarding those who improve the group's prediction as a whole:
hubie writes:Scientists discover the brain circuit that keeps mice awake in unfamiliar environments, shedding light on why we often sleep badly on the first night in a new place:
Today is SN's birthday - we are 12 years old!The site published its first discussion on the 12 February 2014 but had to be reset a few days later on 15/16 Feb because of software problems which had not been apparent until the community grew. But after 12 years I won't quibble over a few days difference.This site would not exist without many people who wrote code, configured hardware, tested software, and squashed bugs. It would not be fair to try to name them - I would surely miss many who have been instrumental in getting us where we are today. We initially had a Board comprising of 'shareholders', but today we have a Board of volunteers. The running costs which once were around $6,000 pa are now almost zero due to the generosity of those who donate free hardware and the essential internet connection. Many others over the years have given freely of their time in various roles to keep this site running. No ads, no sponsorship, no commercial pressure.But the most important people are you - the community. There are still many accounts active that have been with us from the beginning, but those that have joined sometime over the 12 years are equally important and just as welcome. We hope that you all find something of interest in at least some of the stories that we publish. Please keep commenting in them. And if you can, please make the occasional submissions that are essential for our continued operation.Thank you - this is your site. So I raise my glass to SoylentNews, to this community and, hopefully, to the next 12 years!Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
fliptop writes:Ford Motor Company on Feb. 10 reported fourth-quarter revenue 2025 of $45.9 billion, a 5 percent year-over-year decline that led to its largest earnings miss since the same quarter in 2021:
fliptop writes:In 2023, the science fiction literary magazine Clarkesworld stopped accepting new submissions because so many were generated by artificial intelligence. Near as the editors could tell, many submitters pasted the magazine's detailed story guidelines into an AI and sent in the results. And they weren't alone:
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