ब्रायनसँगै झुम्यो काठमाडौं

काठमाडौ, फाल्गुन ७ -
'नेपाल ! मेरो नाम ब्रायन हो' भन्दै स्टेजमा उत्रेका विख्यात क्यानडेली गायक ब्रायन एडम्सले शनिबार साँझ दशरथ रंगशालामा झन्डै २० हजार दर्शकलाई 'लेट्स मेक अ नाइट टु रिमेम्बर' -यो रातलाई स्मरणीय बनाऔं) सहित डेढ दर्जन बढी गीतमार्फत अविस्मरणीय मनोरन्जन दिलाए । उनको ऐतिहासिक प्रस्तुतिले काठमाडौं निकैबेर झुमिरह्यो । सर्वाधिक सफल अंग्रेजी गायकले नेपालमा आएर बृहत् सांगीतिक प्रस्तुति दिएको यो पहिलो हो । आफ्नो काठमाडौं आगमनलाई 'नेपाली समाज बाँकी विश्वसँग खुलिरहेको' टिप्पणी गर्ने गायकले भने, 'संसार आपसमा खुलिरहेको छ । आशा छ, तपाईंहरूले पश्चिमा गीतहरू अझ बढी सुन्न पाउनुहुनेछ ।'

Read more »

Climate-Change is as real as evolution and the Big Bang

With snows ravaging most of the USA we thought it appropraite not to forget that in 2010, members of the National Academy of Sciences warned that “The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
Climate change is a theory as certain as the theory of the Earth’s age (4.5 billion years), the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution."
This headed a list of “fundamental conclusions about climate change” provided by the National Academy of Sciences, signed by 255 prominent climate scientists, and published in Science Magazine in response to Sen. James M. Inhofe's denunciation of climate change as a “hoax,” and the increasingly politicized debate on whether human caused climate change is really occurring.

According to the letter, whose lead signer is Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Calif., there is no debate. "Climate change is a theory as certain as the theory of the Earth’s age (4.5 billion years), the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution. Those who disagree “are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence,” the scientists write.

The letter, which was rejected by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, uses language more incendiary than is typically heard from the scientific community. In many ways it resembles the aggressive rhetoric spoken by the three-term Oklahoma Senator who likened the environmental movement to Hitler’s Third Reich in 2006, and cited “Climategate” as proof that human influenced climate change has been “debunked” in December 2009.

“We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association,” the letter continues, apparently referring to Sen. Inhofe’s efforts to prosecute the scientists involved in Climategate, and to the litigation put forth by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccineli to subpoena a University of Virginia climate scientist under scrutiny for defrauding taxpayers.

“Society has two choices,” conclude the 255 signatories. “We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.”

Jason McManus

Read more »

What Is a Hacker?

What Is a Hacker?
The Jargon File contains a bunch of definitions of the term ‘hacker’, most having to do with technical adeptness and a delight in solving problems and overcoming limits. If you want to know how to become a hacker, though, only two are really relevant.

There is a community, a shared culture, of expert programmers and networking wizards that traces its history back through decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the earliest ARPAnet experiments. The members of this culture originated the term ‘hacker’. Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. If you are part of this culture, if you have contributed to it and other people in it know who you are and call you a hacker, you're a hacker.

The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.

There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.

The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.

If you want to be a hacker, keep reading. If you want to be a cracker, go read the alt.2600 newsgroup and get ready to do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't as smart as you think you are. And that's all I'm going to say about crackers.

Read more »