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Hospitals and clinics in five states are facing disruptions due to a cyberattack Thursday that forced some emergency rooms to close. The attack began at facilities operated by Prospect Medical Holdings. The company’s facilities in California, Texas, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were affected by the cyberattack. “Upon learning of this, we took our systems offline to protect them and launched an investigation with the help of third-party cybersecurity specialists,” the company said in a statement Friday.

The National Hurricane Center is monitoring two systems in the Atlantic with chances of tropical cyclone formation. In the central tropical Atlantic, one system — named Invest 96L — is expected to see favorable conditions for development as it makes its way northwest. As of its 8 a.m. update, the NHC gives the system a 70% chance to develop into a tropical depression in the next seven

Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts. In cycling through a sequence of shapes, an odd wheel propels itself up steep and bumpy terrain. In a physics lab in Amsterdam, there’s a wheel that can spontaneously roll uphill by wiggling. This “odd wheel” looks simple: just six small motors linked together by plastic arms and rubber bands to form a ring about 6 inches in diameter. When the motors are powered on, it starts writhing, executing complicated squashing and stretching motions and occasionally flinging itself into the...

“Fast Facts” About Star Systems Close to Earth Posted on Aug 3, 2021 in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, Science The closest stars to the Earth are also some of the best studied celestial objects. In Astrophysics, distance makes all the difference. The closer an object is, the more light we will be able to glean from it. Stars come in different types (masses, chemical compositions, ages), but the closest example of each type will be a critical object to study. In this article we review five fast facts about the closest systems to the Earth and what they mean for astrophysical...

Definitions. No single, universally accepted definition of LAWS is used in international discussions. However, Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, which establishes U.S. policy on autonomy in weapons systems, defines LAWS as “weapon system[s] that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator.” This definition’s principal characteristic is the role of the human operator with regard to target selection and engagement decisions. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, however, have grounded their definition of LAWS on different characteristics, in particular the technological sophistication of the weapon system, such that LAWS are considered to be...

This article in in PDF form so be aware of that. Here's a snippet that's indicative of the overall style and the points that Mickens makes: When you debug a distributed system or an OS kernel, you do it Texas-style. You gather some mean, stoic people, people who have seen things die, and you get some primitive tools, like a compass and a rucksack and a stick that’s pointed on one end, and you walk into the wilderness and you look for trouble, possibly while using chewing tobacco. As a systems hacker, you must be prepared to do savage things,...

The systems we serve. The way out. We are all a work in progress. May we have patience for one another's growth process.

"...We are doomed because there is no coherent organization and the cost of government rises under this structure as the efficiency of management declines. Our organizational skills are seriously lacking. We have far too many agencies all regulating in an overlapping manner and this increases the cost as well as the inability to actually manage anything. This was one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. It is time to understand this inherent barbaric tribal tendency...

NEW YORK The most widely used electronic-voting systems all have flaws that can be addressed relatively easily, but few states and counties have actually implemented recommended security measures, researchers concluded Tuesday. Even the printing of paper records widely seen as a countermeasure to hacking and other attacks on ATM-like touchscreen machines does little good if audits aren't routinely and automatically performed, researchers said. While California and 11 other states require audits in addition to paper trails, more than half of the 26 states requiring paper records don't do so. The report, based on interviews with elections officials and analyses of...

Astronomers announced today the discovery of a frigid extrasolar planet several times larger than Earth orbiting a small red dwarf star roughly 9,000 light years away. The finding alters astronomers' perceptions of planetary system formation and the distribution of planets in the galaxy, suggesting that large rock-ice worlds might outnumber gas giants like Jupiter. The newfound planet is about 13 times more massive than Earth and likely has an icy and rocky but barren terrestrial surface, and it is one of the coldest planets ever discovered outside of our solar system. It orbits 250 million miles away from a red...

FORT HUACHUCA - It's a small unit with a big job. That's what an Army colonel said about the Intelligence Electronic Warfare Test Directorate. As the war on terrorism continues, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers are being provided new systems, some of which have not been through he normal vetting process prior to being sent to the field. That is when the directorate's soldiers and civilians are called upon to team with others from the Operational Test Command to deploy and evaluate how well equipment is doing in actual field environments. "We do operational testing of all intelligence-related systems...

The work will also train local operators on site in the technology and maintenance of the water systems. BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 18, 2005 — Three governorates will soon see an upgrade in treated potable water, according to an announcement today by a team of Iraqi and U.S. government entities. From the $18.4 billion allocated for the total Iraq Reconstruction Program, about $3 million is budgeted to bring treated potable water to approximately 25,000 Iraqi citizens in the Dahuk, Babylon, and Wassit governorates. The projects will upgrade 15 systems each, including water wells, compact potable water treatment plants and pumps. The...

Computer worms may soon wriggle around the early warning systems that detect an impending attack, a study by US scientists has revealed. John Bethencourt and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison discovered that carefully probing network addresses can reveal the location of hidden sensor networks that alert network operators to an impending attack. Armed with this information, the creator of a computer worm could create code that bypasses these traps and infects more computers as it spreads. The researchers say the same principle could enable troublemakers to bypass other forms of network defences, including blocks against intruders probing...

System Administrator Appreciation Day - A special day, once a year, to acknowledge the worthiness and appreciation of the person occupying the role, especially as it is often this person who really keeps the wheels of your company turning.

WHAT'S the point? In the wake of the latest terrorist attacks in London, Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD announced plans to conduct random searches of packages and backpacks carried by subway riders. "Random," of course, is a synonym for blind. And we all know what it means when you put blind bureaucrats in charge of homeland security: Grannies and toddlers, prepare to be on heightened grope alert. Reassuring al Qaeda operatives everywhere, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly pledged that his officers would not engage in "racial profiling." He also emphasized that passengers would be free to "turn around and leave" instead...

A number of years ago I discovered a root cause of America's culture war. It came to me as I debated professor Alan Dershowitz about issues of Jewish concern before a 1,000 Jews at the 92nd Street "Y" in New York City. With the exception of support for Israel, Dershowitz, a Harvard liberal, and I agreed on nothing, political or religious. Toward the end of the evening I came to understand why. "Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, "the major difference between Alan Dershowitz and me is this: When professor Dershowitz differs with the Torah, he assumes that he is right...

Importance Of India Underscored By Historic Perot Systems Board Meeting Company’s Strategic Land Banking & Recruitment Focus To Provide Scalability for Future Growth March 14, 2005, Bangalore: Perot Systems (NYSE:PER), the Plano, Texas-based IT, BPO and consulting concern, is expected to underscore the importance of India and the Asia-Pacific region to its long-term growth strategy at a meeting of its Board of Directors in Bangalore later this week. The meeting is historic, as it is probably the first Board meeting of a major U.S. multinational IT corporation in India. In bringing the Board to India to review its corporate strategy,...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Dispute: A heralded linguistic deciphering of an extinct hieroglyphic script accomplished in the 1990s is under attack by two researchers. FOR LINGUISTS, it's like hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson struck that blast in 1993 when they cracked one of the planet's few remaining undeciphered writing systems - a hieroglyphic script from the mysterious Isthmian civilization, which occupied southern Mexico 2,000 years ago.

Terri's Threads on FreeRepublic.com - 18 Nov 2003 0351 PST I've got good news and I've got bad news................ THE GOOD NEWS There are now five hundred seventy-four ( 574 ) 'Terri' threads containing a total of sixty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five ( 67,525 ) posts....that could be counted...I couldn't find eight of the threads previously posted.) THE BAD NEWS The blog I used seems to have nullified the URL's I pasted to each thread. If one of you is a wizkid and can tell me how overcome this situation - without having to do the whole thing over...