Anonymous Replaced MIT Website with Memorial for Aaron Swartz

Overnight, the "Hacktivist" group Anonymous, hacked MIT's website, replacing their normal home page with  a memorial to Aaron Swartz who was found dead this last weekend from an apparent suicide. The image of the hacked MIT home page (below) speaks volumes:

Aaron was a political activist and known for helping create the popular forum, commenting site Reddit. Aaron, to his credit, was a stern advocate of a free and open internet as am I.

Moreover, Anonymous speaks of the possibility that this wasn't a suicide but a clever (or not so clever) government action. While I don't know about that nor do I want to speculate, stranger things have happened.

Now MIT is announcing it's own internal investigation into any role they may have had in his death and has tweeted, along with other academics copyrighted journal articles in an effort to honor Aaron Swartz.

More on this as news develops...

Dawg

IT Work on the Weekends

As most IT Professionals know, there is no rest for the wicked. One of the things I like and, at the same time hate, about being in IT is knowing that I alone am responsible for all of the issues, projects and preventative maintenance of the facilities under my care.

 This weekend we are doing a server rack move from a floor rack to a wall-mounted rack high above the floor. I guess Koreans (my employer) don't like to see much on the floor, but, in their defense, it does already look better. I was here until about 11:30 pm last night until we finally the move completed and the network back up. A 17 hour day yesterday and a projected 12 hour day today.

Today will be another long day of running cable drops to our control room to expand capability for future equipment. 

Having very little sleep and a pregnant wife home alone, I can't wait for this to be done and I can get home and relax for the remainder of the weekend.

Here's hoping that we all do what we love, even when we don't love it all the time.

Dawg

NASA's Curiosity Rover Checks in On Mars Using Foursquare

From the Science Daily article:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2012) — NASA's Curiosity Mars rover checked in on Mars Wednesday using the mobile application Foursquare. This marks the first check-in on another planet. Users on Foursquare can keep up with Curiosity as the rover checks in at key locations and posts photos and tips, all while exploring the Red Planet.

After landing in Gale Crater last month, Curiosity began a planned 23-month mission that includes some of Mars' most intriguing scientific destinations. Curiosity is roving toward Mount Sharp, a mountain about 3 miles (5 kilometers) tall. The rover is conducting experiments along the way, seeking clues in the rocks and soil that would indicate whether Mars ever was capable of supporting microbial life. It is taking and sharing pictures of the trip."NASA is using Foursquare as a tool to share the rover's new locations while exploring Mars," said David Weaver, associate administrator for communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This will help to involve the public with the mission and give them a sense of the rover's travels through Gale Crater."

Back here on Earth, Foursquare users will be able to earn a Curiosity-themed badge on the social media platform for check-ins at locations that generate an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Available late this year, this new badge will encourage Foursquare users to explore science centers, laboratories and museums that pique scientific curiosity.

NASA has been on Foursquare since 2010 through a strategic partnership with the platform. This partnership, launched with astronaut Doug Wheelock's first-ever check-in from the International Space Station, has allowed users to connect with NASA and enabled them to explore the universe and re-discover Earth.

The partnership launched the NASA Explorer badge for Foursquare users, encouraging them to explore NASA-related locations across the country. It also included the launch of a NASA Foursquare page, where the agency provides official tips and information about the nation's space program.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission and its Curiosity rover for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

To find out more about Mars Curiosity and NASA on Foursquare, visit: http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosityand http://www.foursquare.com/NASA

For information about NASA's partnership with Foursquare, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html

For more information about NASA's Curiosity mission, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

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This artist's 

BLACK HOLE TWINS?

Found this article on Discovery News:

From the article:

Globular star clusters like M22, located about 10,600 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, may start out with hundreds of black holes, but gravity soon slingshots all but one of them away.

Or so scientists thought.

Newly discovered radio waves coming from M22 indicate the massive cluster has at least two -- and possibly as many as 100 -- black holes, each about 10 to 20 times the mass of the sun.

"This suggests that while some black holes might be ejected from globular clusters, this process may not be as efficient as some have thought. Globular clusters might actually turn out to be good places to look for black holes, rather than poor ones," Michigan State University astronomer Jay Strader told Discovery News.

Black holes are objects so densely packed with matter that not even photons of light can escape their gravitational grip. They are found by studying their impact on orbiting partner stars and surrounding material.

Each of M22's black holes has a companion object that is being cannibalized -- not good for the objects, but fortuitous for astronomers who were able to pick up telltale radio signals of the phenomenon.

Analysis shows there may be many more stellar-mass black holes, perhaps as many as 100, lurking inside the cluster, a spherical collection of stars orbiting around the galactic center.

"That many black holes will have an effect on the structure and evolution of M22," noted astronomer Stefan Umbreit with Northwestern University.

The black holes likely would keep the cluster's core from contracting and slow the evolution of the cluster as a whole.

M22's black holes are estimated to be about 1.6 light years from one another. Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second.

Strader and his colleagues actually were hunting for larger black holes, those with 100- to 1,000 times the mass of the sun, when they stumbled upon M22's pair.

"The stellar-mass black holes we found were a surprise," Strader wrote in an email.

The research is published in this week's Nature.