eco-backpacker.com

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Mount Stromlo, Canberra — This Easter weekend, elite mountain bike riders competed in the Australian 24-hour solo championships at Canberra’s Stromlo Forest Park. Jason English from Port MacQuarie rode 33 laps and won the men’s race. Liz Smith from Wollongong rode 25 laps and won the women’s race.

Races are won by riding the most laps. If two riders complete the same number of laps in 24-hours, the winner is the one who has ridden them in the shortest time.

Riders wear lights on their helmets and bicycles during night laps. Due to the time of year, there is roughly twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness each day.

The event is a curtain raiser for the WEMBO World Solo 24 hour Mountain Bike Championships, which will be held at Stromlo Forest Park on 12 and 13 October 2013. The race was for solo riders only.

The weekend before, the teams of riders took to the track at the Mont 24 hour race at Canberra’s Kowen forest. With over 3,000 riders participating, it is now Australia’s largest cycling race.

The team version of the race was favoured by the weekend warriors, but also attracted more than a few elite athletes. Laps were ridden in relay fashion: each rider handed over the baton (which looked like a credit card) to another member of the team after riding one or more laps.

The track was in excellent condition, running through the trees. Without steep climbs or overly difficult technical sections, it permitted fast lap times.

No injuries were reported.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Following the Pilkhana massacre which occurred February 25 and 26 leaving 74 dead and the inferno at the Bashundhara City shopping mall complex March 13 leaving seven dead, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said security measures are being tightened countrywide across Bangladesh.

Fire drills will be enacted at all key-point installations (KPI). Fire fighting systems will be examined by the fire brigade and the public works department (PWD) to ensure functionality. Security measures will be enhanced supplementing areas under private security such as at the Bashundhara City Complex.

The Fire Service and Civil Defence Department requires modernization and needs new equipment to fight fires past the sixth floor of buildings. The Fire Brigade says it needs turntable ladders, snorkels, foam-tenders, lighting units, emergency tenders, fireproof uniforms, and rescue ropes for fire fighting and rescue operations. Transportation to fires is also an issue due to narrow roads, low electrical wires and congestion.

The Bangladesh National Building Code requires fire fighting equipment installed in buildings over seven floors. This code is to be monitored by authorities to ensure compliance with the new guidelines and to make sure buildings are being maintained.

The Bashundhara City Complex opened Monday for shoppers two days after Friday’s blaze. A probe is underway to determine the cause of the fire and to assess structural damage.

Loss of life was minimized as the blaze broke out on a Friday, the beginning of the weekend in Bangladesh, so offices in the upper floors were empty. The lower eight floors are used for shopping and the upper floors are all Bashundhara Group offices.

The mall is valued at Tk 7.0 billion (US$100 million). It is not known if the complex is covered by fire insurance.

It is estimated that it will take over two years to rebuild the area damaged by flames which were burned down to a skeleton. Bashundhara City’s technical advisor, Latifur Rahman, estimated damages at Tk 2.0 billion (US$29m).

Only one television cameraman has been allowed in to film the burnt area. None of the 2,500 shops, cinemas or cafes were burnt by the inferno. The seventh and eighth floors still experience smoke damage, and there was water damage to merchandise.

A three member committee is currently investigating the cause of the fire which will consist of Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, joint secretary of the ministry, representatives of the police, IGP Noor Muhammad, and fire brigade, Director General Abu Nayeem Md Shahidullah. The committee is required to report within the week with their findings. The forensics department is also sifting through the burnt remains.

The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries has also formed a committee which has begun interviewing witnesses and recording their testimony alongside the government committee.

It has been discovered that 150 closed circuit cameras were not being used when the fire started. Another mystery is why the mall fire fighting system has been found unused.

“In the shopping mall there is an ultra-technology elevator which runs even without electricity but we have found that locked,” Iqbal Khan Chowdhury, joint secretary (Police) of the home ministry, said. “Why the fire burnt so fiercely is a matter to think. We have to see if there was any incendiary substance there. These matters seem to be mysterious.”

Mall management has been asked to submit substances and items which would have been in the upper floors when the fire started. The fire erupted on the 17th floor and spread quickly to the two floors above and engulfed the three floors below. The aerial ladders belonging to the Fire Service and Civil Defence reached as high as the 13th floor of the 21-storey building.

Videos have been sent to the United States (US) for examination to assist in determining the cause of the fire and to help in the damage assessment. Experts from the US are expected to arrive soon.

Firefighters were brought to the rooftop of the 20-storey tower by helicopter. The only fatality in this operation was Baki Billa, a firefighter of Bashundhara City firefighting department, who fell when climbing down a rope from a helicopter to the roof of the building. Three other firefighters made the transition safely. At this same time, the chief security officer was safely rescued by the Bangladesh Air Force helicopter, a Bell 212. Six security officers of the complex also lost their lives.

Monday, September 19, 2005

NASA has announced plans for sending humans back to the Moon, as a first step to Mars.

A 2018 lunar mission is proposed, where a crew of four would remain on the Moon for as long as a week. A minimum of two lunar missions a year is planned, with astronauts remaining as long as six months.

Some of the technology had previously been proposed for replacement of the Space Shuttle.

• Astronauts will be launched in a capsule, similar in concept to that used for the Project Apollo but three times larger. The top part of an Exploration Transportation System (ETS), the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be a capsule attached to a service module which contains supplies, power, and propulsion units. The CEV is designed for use in Earth orbit.
• On lunar missions, crew or cargo versions of a Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) would be used with a CEV. The LSAM will have design concepts related to the Apollo Lunar Module, with a four-legged landing unit carrying an ascent stage.
• An Earth Departure Stage (EDS), a powerful propulsion unit, will be used to move CEV and LSAM units out of Earth orbit, such as on lunar missions.
• Heavy Launcher unmanned cargo rockets will be used for heavy loads of equipment.
• The launch rockets, Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles, will use engines developed for the Shuttle program.
  • CEV will be launched atop a Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), a single solid fuel booster with a second stage using a shuttle main engine. The CLV can carry a payload of 25 metric tons into low Earth orbit.
  • The heavy-lift system uses a pair of longer solid rocket boosters and five shuttle main engines to put up to 125 metric tons in orbit — about one and a half times the weight of a shuttle orbiter.
• The use of a Launch Escape System (LES) will improve safety. A LES is a top-mounted rocket that can quickly remove the crew capsule away from an exploding or otherwise dangerous rocket.

For a lunar mission, the LSAM and EDS would be placed in orbit by a cargo launcher, then a CEV would dock with the assembly before leaving Earth orbit.

The goal is to begin production of the new spacecraft by 2011.

• Robotic missions will be sent, probably the first one in 2008.
• Past experience with lunar dust is being used in designing equipment and spacesuits which may encounter it.
• Surface mobility with open and pressurized rovers for use in such missions is also being developed.
• The CEV can be reused up to ten times.
• Crew capsule, upon return to Earth, will set down on dry land. It can also land on water.
• The CEV and lunar lander ascent stage use methane as fuel, as methane may be available on Mars.
• Eventually the designs could be expanded to support six astronauts for a trip to Mars.

The plans are a means to implement President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration” program. Goals include:

• Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond;
• Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
• Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
• Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

On Monday Daimler AG announced a deal to buy a 75.1% stake in Brawn GP.

As a result, the team who won both the 2009 Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships this year with Mercedes-engined cars, would be rebranded as Mercedes Grand Prix from 2010 Formula One Season onwards. The team could possibly use its legendary ‘Silver Arrows’ livery again since a crash at Le Mans in 1955, ending Mercedes’ 55 year absence in the sport as a sole team.

Daimler purchase went in partnership with Aabar Investments, who now own 30% of the shares. The rest of the shares will stay for Ross Brawn, who will remain as team principal, and Nick Fry.

The team still will be headquartered in Brackley (United Kingdom) which is close to Mercedes F1 engine plant at Brixworth, led by Norbert Haug, Vice-President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.

Mercedes will also continue to supply McLaren with engines until at least 2015, but sell its 40% stake in two years.

Mercedes is now up to decide their drivers for the next season as Rubens Barrichello already signed a contract with Williams and Jenson Button could run for McLaren together with Lewis Hamilton.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

The name Robert Cailliau may not ring a bell to the general public, but his invention is the reason why you are reading this: Dr. Cailliau together with his colleague Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, making the internet accessible so it could grow from an academic tool to a mass communication medium. Last January Dr. Cailliau retired from CERN, the European particle physics lab where the WWW emerged.

Wikinews offered the engineer a virtual beer from his native country Belgium, and conducted an e-mail interview with him (which started about three weeks ago) about the history and the future of the web and his life and work.

Wikinews: At the start of this interview, we would like to offer you a fresh pint on a terrace, but since this is an e-mail interview, we will limit ourselves to a virtual beer, which you can enjoy here.

Robert Cailliau: Yes, I myself once (at the 2nd international WWW Conference, Chicago) said that there is no such thing as a virtual beer: people will still want to sit together. Anyway, here we go.

Monday, December 14, 2020

On Tuesday, US-based software company Red Hat announced their plans to shift their focus away from CentOS in favour of CentOS Stream.

In the blog post Chris Wright, the Chief Technological Officer of Red Hat said Red Hat had informed the CentOS governing board that Red Hat was “shifting our investment fully from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream”. At least five of the nine CentOS Governing Board listed on the project are Red Hat employees.

Started in 2004, CentOS has been a free-of-cost free/libre open source software which provided binary-code compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) — Red Hat’s GNU General Public Licensed paid operating system. CentOS was absorbed into Red Hat in 2014, with Red Hat gaining the trademark rights of “CentOS”.

Red Hat also sponsors the Fedora operating system. Red Hat even gives the software engineering interns laptops with Fedora on it. Till now, software development took place on Fedora, which was later adopted in RHEL, which the Red Hat maintained and provided support for, for those customers who had RHEL subscription. CentOS would then follow RHEL to provide the same features free of cost, but without the support.

Stream was announced in September 2019, just two months after Red Hat was acquired by IBM. CentOS Stream’s development cycle had new features added to it before the features became a part of RHEL. Stream receives more frequent updates, however, it does not follow RHEL’s release cycle.

With CentOS Stream, developments from the community and the Red Hat emplyees would take place beforehand on both Fedora, and Stream as a rolling release, before those features are absorbed into RHEL. CentOS followed the release cycle of RHEL and therefore it was a stable distribution. Features available in CentOS were tried and tested by Fedora, and then RHEL maintainers. Stream, on the other hand, has features added to it before those features become a part of RHEL. That implies Stream would be ahead of RHEL’s development, containing new features which are not yet tried and tested by RHEL developers, and not be binary code-compatible with RHEL.

Writing “The future of CentOS Linux is CentOS Stream”, Wright further wrote in the announcement, CentOS Stream “provides a platform for rapid innovation at the community level but with a stable enough base to understand production dynamics.” Wright also said, “CentOS Stream isn’t a replacement for CentOS Linux; rather, it’s a natural, inevitable next step intended to fulfill the project’s goal of furthering enterprise Linux innovation.”

Since the announcement was made, many people expressed their anger on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Reddit and CentOS project’s mailing list. CentOS 8’s End of Life (EOL) has been moved up from May 2029 to December 31, 2021, while CentOS 7 is expected to receive maintenance updates through June 2024, outliving CentOS 8.

Gregory Kurtzer, who had started the CentOS project, announced a new operating system, Rocky Linux. Rocky Linux describes itself as “a community enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux”. The project said “Rocky Linux aims to function as a downstream build as CentOS had done previously, building releases after they have been added to the upstream vendor, not before.” The project maintainers have not decided a date for when the operating system will be released.

Kurtzer explained the reason to call the OS as Rocky Linux: “Thinking back to early CentOS days… My cofounder was Rocky McGaugh. He is no longer with us, so as a H/T [hat tip] to him, who never got to see the success that CentOS came to be, I introduce to you…Rocky Linux”.

Wikinews reached out to the members of the CentOS project, Pablo Greco and Rich Bowen, to discuss this move, its implications as well as the future of CentOS. Greco is a maintainer of armhfp (32-bit processors) and is a part of the CentOS’ quality assurance team. Bowen — who unlike Greco, works for Red Hat — is the community manager of the CentOS project.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

On Tuesday, NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was upgraded to fair condition at Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital. The extent of his injuries is now known. Roethlisberger lost two teeth and chipped others, suffered a concussion, a broken upper and lower jaw, a broken nose, broken facial bone, a 9 inch laceration to the back of his head, and road rash injuries to his knees which thankfully do not extend to the joints. Police confirmed that Roethlisberger was riding without a helmet and additionally, did not have a Pennsylvania motorcycle license; he had a learner’s permit, which expired March 29, 2006. Given this fact, Roethlisberger was in fact legally obligated to wear a helmet in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Steelers officials and Roethlisberger’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, confirmed that Ben had received a letter last year from team representatives warning him that parts of his contract might be affected if he were to be injured while riding a motorcycle. The letter was apparently sent in order to both put the team on solid legal footing were a major accident to occur, and apprise Ben of the risks he is taking by riding a motorcycle.

Records kept by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation indicate that 180 helmet-wearing motorcyclists died in wrecks in 2004 and 2005 in Pennsylvania. In the same period, 157 helmet-free bikers died in wrecks.

Pennsylvania’s 35-year-old law requiring helmets to be worn was amended in 2003 to make helmets optional under certain circumstances. According to the amended law, a motorcyclist will no longer be required to wear a helmet if the rider is:

• A person 21 years of age or older who has been licensed to operate a motorcycle for not less than two full calendar years.
• A person 21 years of age or older who has completed a motorcycle rider safety course approved by the department or the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
• A passenger 21 years of age or older if the motorcycle driver meets one of the qualifications for not wearing a helmet.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

On Monday, two US Republican Party legislators, Greg Walden and Frank Pallone Jr., respectively the chairman and the ranking member of the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, co-wrote a public letter to Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, about open-source software (OSS) and improving its security. They requested Zemlin to answer their questions by no later than April 16.

The letter contained the following four questions; each of the first two has a further two follow-up questions.

1. Has the CII [Core Infrastructure Initiative] performed a comprehensive study of which pieces of OSS are most crucial to the “global information infrastructure”?
1. If not, does the CII plan to perform such a study?
2. What would the CII need in order to do so?
2. Has the CII, or any other organizations, compiled any statistics on OSS usage?
1. If not, does the CII plan to perform such a study?
2. What would the CII need in order to do so?
3. In your estimation, how sustainable and stable is the OSS ecosystem?
4. Based on your response to the previous question, how can the OSS ecosystem be made more sustainable and stable?

Walden and Pallone exemplified Heartbleed, a “critical cybersecurity vulnerability” that allowed the hacking of websites and passwords, and millions of medical records in 2014. They also wrote that, in response to that vulnerability, The Linux Foundation established a multi-million dollar project, the Core Infrastructure Initiative, intended to improve the global infrastucture of such software.

The politicians noted large tech companies like Microsoft, Apple Inc., and Adobe Systems respond more quickly to such critical vulnerabilities than distributors and developers of open-source software.

Open-source software is “publicly accessible” and usually freely-licensed for a wide range of use, such as modification and commercial uses. Walden and Pallone also expressed praise toward open-source software and cited a 2015 survey conducted by Black Duck Software saying 78% of companies used such software.