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Second New Glenn Launch Slips Toward Fall As Program Leadership Departs

Slashdot.org - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 02:00
Blue Origin is falling far short of its goal to launch the New Glenn rocket eight times in 2025, with its second flight now delayed until at least mid-August. Key leadership changes were also announced, including the departure of the New Glenn program head, as the company faces pressure to increase launch cadence and compete with SpaceX for federal contracts and Amazon's Project Kuiper deployments. Ars Technica reports: The mission, with an undesignated payload, will be named "Never Tell Me the Odds," due to the attempt to land the booster. "One of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster," [chief executive of Blue Origin, Dave Limp] wrote. "This will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We're on track to produce eight GS2s this year, and the one we'll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April." In this comment, GS2 stands for "Glenn stage 2," or the second stage of the large rocket. It is telling that Limp commented on the company tracking toward producing eight second stages, which would match the original launch cadence planned for this year. This likely is a fig leaf offered to Bezos, who, two sources said, was rather upset that Blue Origin would not meet (or even approach) its original target of eight launches this year. One person familiar with the progress on the vehicle told Ars that even a launch date in August is unrealistic -- this too may have been set aggressively to appease Bezos -- and that September is probably the earliest the rocket is likely to be ready for launch. Blue Origin has not publicly stated what the payload will be, but this second flight is expected to carry the ESCAPADE mission for NASA. On May 28, a couple of days after Limp's all-hands meeting, the chief executive emailed his entire team to announce an "organizational update." As part of this, the company's senior vice president of engines, Linda Cova, was retiring. Multiple sources confirmed this retiring was expected and that the company's program to produce BE-4 rocket engines is going well. However, the other name in the email raised some eyebrows, coming so soon after the announcement that New Glenn's cadence would be significantly slower than expected. Jarrett Jones, the senior vice president running the New Glenn program, was said to be "stepping away from his role and taking a well deserved year off" starting on August 15. It is unclear whether this departure was linked to Bezos' displeasure with the rocket program. One company official said Jones' sabbatical had been planned, but the timing is curious. A search for internal and external candidates to fill his role is ongoing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Explore the modern and contemporary art of GreeceExplore the modern and contemporary art of GreeceMinister of Culture for the Hellenic Republic

GoogleBlog - Tue, 06/10/2025 - 01:00
Discover the modern and contemporary art in Greece with Greek Art Now, a collaboration between seven prestigious Greek national museums and Google Arts & Culture.Discover the modern and contemporary art in Greece with Greek Art Now, a collaboration between seven prestigious Greek national museums and Google Arts & Culture.
Categories: Technology

FAA To Eliminate Floppy Disks Used In Air Traffic Control Systems

Slashdot.org - Mon, 06/09/2025 - 22:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: The head of the Federal Aviation Administration just outlined an ambitious goal to upgrade the U.S.'s air traffic control (ATC) system and bring it into the 21st century. According to NPR, most ATC towers and other facilities today feel like they're stuck in the 20th century, with controllers using paper strips and floppy disks to transfer data, while their computers run Windows 95. While this likely saved them from the disastrous CrowdStrike outage that had a massive global impact, their age is a major risk to the nation's critical infrastructure, with the FAA itself saying that the current state of its hardware is unsustainable. "The whole idea is to replace the system. No more floppy disks or paper strips," acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau told the House Appropriations Committee last Wednesday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said earlier this week," This is the most important infrastructure project that we've had in this country for decades. Everyone agrees -- this is non-partisan. Everyone knows we have to do it." The aviation industry put up a coalition pushing for ATC modernization called Modern Skies, and it even ran an ad telling us that ATC is still using floppy disks and several older technologies to keep our skies safe. [...] Currently, the White House hasn't said what this update will cost. The FAA has already put out a Request For Information to gather data from companies willing to take on the challenge of upgrading the entire system. It also announced several 'Industry Days' so companies can pitch their tech and ideas to the Transportation Department. Duffy said that the Transportation Department aims to complete the project within four years. However, industry experts say this timeline is unrealistic. No matter how long it takes, it's high time that the FAA upgrades the U.S.'s ATC system today after decades of neglect.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What’s KernelCare?

LinuxJournal.com - Wed, 03/30/2022 - 11:00
by Suparna Ganguly

This article explains all that you need to know about KernelCare. But before studying about KernelCare, let’s do a quick recap of the Linux kernel. It’ll help you understand KernelCare better. The Linux kernel is the core part of Linux OS. It resides in memory and prompts the CPU what to do.

Now let’s begin with today’s topic which is KernelCare. And if you’re a system administrator this article is going to present valuable information for you.

What is KernelCare?

So, what’s KernelCare? KernelCare is a patching service that offers live security updates for Linux kernels, shared libraries, and embedded devices. It patches security vulnerabilities inside the Linux kernel without creating service interruptions or any downtime. Once you install KernelCare on the server, security updates automatically get applied every 4 hours on your server. It dismisses the need for rebooting your server after making updates.

It is a commercial product and is licensed under GNU GPL version 2. Cloud Linux, Inc developed this product. The first beta version of KernelCare was released in March 2014 and its commercial launch was in May 2014. Since then they have added various useful integrations for automation tools, vulnerability scanners, and others. 

Operating systems supported by KernelCare include CentOS/RHEL 5, 6, 7; Cloud Linux 5, 6; OpenVZ, PCS, Virtuozzo, Debian 6, 7; and Ubuntu 14.04.

Is KernelCare Important?

Are you wondering if KernelCare is important for you or not? Find out here. By installing the latest kernel security patches, you are able to minimize potential risks. When you try to update the Linux kernel manually, it may take hours. Apart from the server downtime, it can be a stressful job for the system admins and also for the clients.

Once the kernel updates are applied, the server needs a reboot. This is usually done during off-peak work hours. And this causes some additional stress. However, ignoring server reboots can cause a whole lot of security issues. It’s seen that, even after rebooting, the server experiences issues and doesn’t easily come back up. Fixing such issues is a trouble for the system admins. Often the system admin needs to roll back all the applied updates to get the server up quickly.

With KernelCare, you can avoid such issues.

How Does KernelCare Work?

KernelCare eliminates non-compliance and service interruptions caused by system reboots. KernelCare agent resides on your server. It periodically checks for new updates. In case it finds any, the agent downloads those and applies them to the running kernel. A KernelCare patch can be defined as a piece of code that’s used to substitute buggy code in the kernel. 

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Categories: Linux

Getting Started with Docker Semi-Self-Hosting on Linode

LinuxJournal.com - Tue, 03/29/2022 - 11:00
by David Burgess

With the evolution of technology, we find ourselves needing to be even more vigilant with our online security every day. Our browsing and shopping behaviors are also being continuously tracked online via tracking cookies being dropped on our browsers that we allow by clicking the “I Accept” button next to deliberately long agreements on websites before we can get the full benefit of said site.

Watch this article:

Additionally, hackers are always looking for a target and it's common for even big companies to have their servers compromised in any number of ways and have sensitive data leaked, often to the highest bidder.

These are just some of the reasons that I started looking into self-hosting as much of my own data as I could.

Because not everyone has the option to self-host on their own, private hardware, whether it's for lack of hardware, or because their ISP makes it difficult or impossible to do so, I want to show you what I believe to be the next best step, and that's a semi-self-hosted solution on Linode.

Let's jump right in!

Setting up a Linode

First things first, you’ll need a Docker server set up. Linode has made that process very simple and you can set one up for just a few bucks a month and can add a private IP address (for free) and backups for just a couple bucks more per month.

Get logged into your Linode account click on "Create Linode".

Don't have a Linode account?  Get $100 in credit clicking here

On the "Create" page, click on the "Marketplace" tab and scroll down to the "Docker" option. Click it.

With Docker selected, scroll down and close the "Advanced Options" as we won't be using them.

Below that, we'll select the most recent version of Debian (version 10 at the time of writing).

In order to get the the lowest latency for your setup, select a Region nearest you.

When we get to the "Linode Plan" area, find an option that fits your budget. You can always start with a small plan and upgrade later as your needs grow.

Next, enter a "Linode Label" as an identifier for you. You can enter tags if you want.

Enter a Root Password and import an SSH key if you have one. If you don't that's fine, you don't need to use an SSH key. If you'd like to generate one and use it, you can find more information about how to do so here "Creating an SSH Key Pair and Configuring Public Key Authentication on a Server").

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Categories: Linux

Manage Java versions with SDKMan

OpenSource.com - Tue, 03/15/2022 - 01:01
Manage Java versions with SDKMan Seth Kenlon Tue, 03/15/2022 - 02:01 Up Register or Login to like.

Java is more than just a programming language: It's also a runtime.

Applications written in Java are compiled to Java bytecode then interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which is why you can write Java on one platform and have it run on all other platforms.

A challenge can arise, however, when a programming language and an application develop at different rates. It's possible for Java (the language) to increment its version number at the same time your favorite application continues to use an older version, at least for a while.

If you have two must-have applications, each of which uses a different version of Java, you may want to install both an old version and a new version of Java on the same system. If you're a Java developer, this is particularly common, because you might contribute code to several projects, each of which requires a different version of Java.

The SDKMan project makes it easy to manage different versions of Java and related languages, including Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, and more.

SDKMan is like a package manager just for versions of Java.

More on Java What is enterprise Java programming? Red Hat build of OpenJDK Java cheat sheet Free online course: Developing cloud-native applications with microservices arc… Fresh Java articles Install SDKMan

SDKMan requires these commands to be present on your system:

  • zip
  • unzip
  • curl
  • sed

On Linux, you can install these using your package manager. On Fedora, CentOS Stream, Mageia, and similar:

$ sudo dnf install zip unzip curl sed

On Debian-based distributions, use apt instead of dnf. On macOS, use MacPorts or Homebrew. On Windows, you can use SDKMan through Cygwin or WSL.

Once you've satisfied those requirements, download the SDKMan install script:

$ curl "https://get.sdkman.io" --output sdkman.sh

Take a look at the script to see what it does, and then make it executable and run it:

$ chmod +x sdkman.sh
$ ./sdkman.shConfigure

When the installation has finished, open a new terminal, or run the following in the existing one:

source "~/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

Confirm that it's installed:

$ sdk versionInstall Java with SDKMan

Now when you want to install a version of Java, you can do it using SDKMan.

First, list the candidates for Java available:

$ sdk list java
=================================================
Available Java Versions for Linux 64bit
=================================================
Vendor   | Version      | Dist | Identifier
-------------------------------------------------
Gluon    | 22.0.0.3.r17 | gln  | 22.0.0.3.r17-gln
         | 22.0.0.3.r11 | gln  | 22.0.0.3.r11-gln
GraalVM  | 22.0.0.2.r17 | grl  | 22.0.0.2.r17-grl
         | 21.3.1.r17   | grl  | 21.3.1.r17-grl
         | 20.3.5.r11   | grl  | 20.3.5.r11-grl
         | 19.3.6.r11   | grl  | 19.3.6.r11-grl
Java.net | 19.ea.10     | open | 19.ea.10-open
         | 18           | open | 18-open
         | 17.0.2       | open | 17.0.2-open
         | 11.0.12      | open | 11.0.12-open
         | 8.0.302      | open | 8.0.302-open
[...]

This provides a list of different Java distributions available across several popular vendors, including Gluon, GraalVM, OpenJDK from Java.net, and many others.

You can install a specific version of Java using the value in the Identifier column:

$ sdk install java 11.0.12-open

The sdk command uses tabbed completion, so you don't need to view a list. Instead you can type sdk install java 11 and then press Tab a few times to get the options.

Alternately, you can just install the default latest version:

$ sdk install javaSet your current version of Java

Set the version of Java for a terminal session with the use subcommand:

$ sdk use java 17.0.2-open

To set a version as default, use the default subcommand:

$ sdk default java 17.0.2-open

Get the current version in effect using the current subcommand:

$ sdk current java Using java version 17.0.2-openRemoving Java with SDKMan

You can remove an installed version of Java using the uninstall subcommand:

$ sdk uninstall java 11.0.12-openMore SDKMan

You can do more customization with SDKMan, including updating and upgrading Java versions and creating project-based environments. It's a useful command for any developer or user who wants the ability to switch between versions of Java quickly and easily.

If you love Java, or use Java, give SDKMan a try. It makes Java easier than ever!

The SDKMan project makes it easy to manage different versions of Java and related languages, including Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, and more.

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Image by WOCinTech ChatCC BY 2.0

Java What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 6482 points (Correspondent) Vancouver, Canada

Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.

On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.

Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.

Open Sourcerer People's Choice Award 100+ Contributions Club Emerging Contributor Award 2016 Correspondent Columnist Contributor Club Author Comment Gardener Register or Login to post a comment.
Categories: OpenSource

Open exchange, open doors, open minds: A recipe for global progress

OpenSource.com - Tue, 03/15/2022 - 01:00
Open exchange, open doors, open minds: A recipe for global progress Ron McFarland Tue, 03/15/2022 - 02:00 Up Register or Login to like.

Could open organization principles successfully apply to entire societies?

That's the question I asked as I read the book Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg, which aims to examine the relative success of "open societies" throughout global history.

Learn about open organizations Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization?

In this review—the first article in an extended discussion of the work from Open Organization community members—I will summarize more precisely what Norberg means when he uses the term "open" and offer an initial assessment of his arguments. Ultimately, however, our discussion will explore more expansive themes, like:

  1. the importance of open societies,
  2. what the future could (or should) look like in a more open world, and
  3. how these principles impact our collective understanding of how organizations operate in service of "the greater good"
Four dimensions of openness

Essentially, Norberg is looking at four dimensions of "open," which he calls:

  1. "open exchange" (global goods and service flows across borders),
  2. "open doors" (global movement of people),
  3. "open minds" (global receptivity to new and different ideas), and
  4. "open societies" (how cultures should be governed to benefit from the above three)

Let me discuss each one more extensively.

Open exchange

Norberg uses the phrase "open exchange" to refer to the movement of goods and services not just across borders but within them as well. Simply put, he believes that people across the world prosper when trade increases, because increased trade leads to increased cooperation and sharing.

His argument goes like this: when a nation (and to be sure, Norberg aims his advice at contemporary nation-states) allows and includes foreign goods into their market, in general they also gain expertise, skills, and knowledge, too. Surplus goods/services that one may have should be sold anywhere they might provide value and add benefit for someone else—and those benefits might include, for example, favors, ideas, knowledge, not just goods and services themselves. Reciprocity and relatively equal exchange is for Norberg an unavoidable aspect of human nature, as it builds binding relationships that promote more generosity. Generosity in turn promotes more trade, creating a cycle of prosperity for all involved.

This view holds for organizations working with uncommon trade partners as well. Greater organizational specificity leads to the need for more cooperation and sharing, which leads to even more specialization. So here we can see a link between open societies and open organizations regarding trade issues.

Open doors

For Norberg, "open doors" refers to people's ability to move across national borders, for one reason or another. He believes the gradual inclusion of foreigners into a society leads to more novel and productive interactions, which leads to greater innovation, more ideas, and more rapid discoveries. For a society to be productive, it must get the right talent performing the right tasks. Norberg argues that there should be no barriers to that match-up, and people should be mobile, even across borders, so they can achieve it.

Norberg outlines how, throughout history, diverse groups of people solve problems more effectively—even if they create more friction as they do so, as members have their assumptions questioned. This kind of open environment must be promoted, supported, and managed, however, in order to avoid groupthink, the predominance of voices that are merely the loudest, and the outsized influence of niche interests.

Critical to the success of "open doors" are recognition, respect, understanding, acceptance, and inclusivity toward others. Norberg discusses the importance of these qualities, citing the World Values Survey, which measures some of them. Done well, open doors can allow societies to cross-fertilize, borrowing ideas and technology from each other and multiplying that which works best.

We could say that's equally true for an organization wanting to develop a new product or market, too.

Open minds

"Open economies stimulate open-mindedness," Norberg writes. For him, "open minds" are those receptive to thoughts and belief systems that may seem different, foreign, or alien to them—those that both offer and receive different perspectives. Open minds, Norberg claims, lead to more rapid progress.

Open minds flourish when given the space to encounter new ideas and explore them freely—rather than, say, simply accept the given dogma of an age. According to Norberg, people from a wide range of disciplines, specialties, and skills coming together and sharing their perspectives stimulates growth and progress. But this is only possible when they exist in an environment where they feel free to question the status quo and possibly overturn long-standing beliefs. Barriers to creating those environments certainly exist (in fact, the entire second half of Norberg's book offers a deeper analysis of them).

Open minds flourish when given the space to encounter new ideas and explore them freely—rather than, say, simply accept the given dogma of an age.

Of course this is true in organizations as well. The more people (and the more different people) who look at a problem, the better. This not only leads to faster solutions but helps overcome anyone's individual biases. Serendipitous solutions to problems can seemingly come out of nowhere more often, as there will be better and more peer review of strongly held positions. And yet differences create friction, so standards of protocol and behavior are required to ensure progress.

For Norberg, the world benefits when scientists, philosophers, industrialists, and craftspeople can influence one another's thinking (and are receptive to having their thinking changed!). The same is true in open organizations when people with different roles and functions can work together and enrich one another's thinking. More experiments and greater collaboration among disciplines lead to richer discoveries.

Open Organization resources Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization? Open societies

Combining open minds, open exchange, and open doors can lead to fully open societies globally, Norberg argues, and "the result is discoveries and achievements." Governments, he asserts, should work to foster those kinds of societies across the globe. In this way, societies can tap into the greatest talent from the entire global community.

According to Norberg, more inclusive societies based on these open policies can lead to material gains for people—fewer hours working, the ability to launch careers earlier (or retire earlier), longer lives in general, and more. This is not to mention reductions in extreme poverty, child and maternal mortality, and illiteracy globally. On top of that, for Norberg global cultural collaboration leads to better utilization of ecological, natural, and environmental resources. All this can be achieved through specific specialties that advance societies at an exponential rate though openness.

Open makes a historical argument. Norberg believes that throughout the ages it was not defenders of tradition that prospered most. Instead, those thinkers, engineers, and philosophers that challenged the status quo made the greatest contribution to global prosperity. Those figures benefitted from societies that were more open to improvements because they governed their own experiments, fostered rapid feedback loops, and built systems that quickly self-correct during setbacks.

Yet like any history, Norberg's is partial and selective, presenting isolated cases and examples. And some of those include even the most brutal empires, whose violence Norberg tends to overlook. In future parts of this review, we'll dive more deeply into various aspects of Norberg's analysis—and discuss its implications for thinking about a more open future.

Openness, this new book argues, has always been a necessary cornerstone of human civilization.

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Opensource.com

The Open Organization What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.
Categories: OpenSource

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