Saturday, March 7, 2009

After almost two months of delay, NASA has set March 11 as the launch date for Space Shuttle Discovery. On February 22, NASA had stated that they indefinitely delayed the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery, which was originally scheduled for takeoff on February 12. Launch was then further delayed until February 25 before being delayed indefinitely on February 22. NASA cited the need for additional time to evaluate the shuttle’s hydrogen fuel flow control valves.

Liftoff is set for nighttime on Wednesday, March 11, at approximately 9:20 p.m. (EST) from Launch Complex 39A in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The official countdown to launch will commence Sunday, March 8.

“The team came through, worked hard and was efficient. It’s time now to step back and think of everything else we need to watch before launch on the 11th. There’s no better team than this one and I thank them for putting the right analysis together,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA.

NASA wanted to perform additional tests on the valves which control the amount of hydrogen fuel pumped into the external tank when the shuttle is taking off before making a decision to launch. When Space Shuttle Endeavour went into space in November 2008, one of the valves broke. NASA fears that if one breaks off on this mission, then it could damage the outside of the shuttle.

The current scheduled mission, STS-119, is set to fly the Integrated Truss Structure segment (“S” for starboard, the right side of the station, and “6” for its place at the very end of the starboard truss) and install the final set of power-generating solar arrays to the International Space Station. The arrays consist of two 115-foot-long arrays, for a total wing span of 240 feet, including the equipment that connects the two halves and allows them to twist as they track the sun. Altogether, the four sets of arrays can generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity – enough to provide power for more than 40 average homes.

Commander Lee Archambault will lead Discovery’s crew of seven, along with Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Monday, June 27, 2005

American actor John Fiedler died at the age of 80 on June 25. Though he worked extensively on stage, film, television, and radio for over forty years, he is perhaps most remembered for two roles: the mild, fearful voice of Piglet in Disney‘s many Winnie the Pooh productions, and the role of Mr. Peterson, nervous patient on The Bob Newhart Show.

Born in 1925 in Ohio, Fiedler began his career in New York, working on the radio series The Aldrich Family as sidekick Homer Brown, and making his film debut in Twelve Angry Men (1957), as the nervous Juror #2. Most of his subsequent roles were as gentle or nervous types, though occasionally he broke out of the mold, notably in the original Star Trek episode “A Wolf in the Fold,” as an official possessed by Jack the Ripper. On Broadway he was in the original casts of A Raisin in the Sun (as housing commmittee rep Lindner) and The Odd Couple (as poker player Vinnie), reprising both roles for the film versions. Other on-camera work included roles in the films True Grit and The Cannonball Run, plus many TV guest spots from Bewitched to The Twilight Zone, and a recurring part on Kolchak: The Night Stalker as morgue attendant Gordy “The Ghoul” Spangler.

His distinctive voice kept him busiest, however. In addition to playing Piglet in many shorts, four features, several specials, and two TV series, he was heard in the Disney features The Rescuers, Robin Hood, and The Emporer’s New Groove. A cause of death has not yet been reported.

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Saturday, July 2, 2005

As an experiment in the use of wiki technology for news, CNET News has launched a web site where readers can collaborate with other readers to predict the future of India‘s technology industry, collectively supplementing a CNET report on India published on June 27, 2005.

The wiki uses Wikipedia‘s software, MediaWiki, with a custom design. Editing is not restricted. The wiki was set up by Andrew Lottmann of the technical production team at CNET News.com. “I would love to know if readers feel this wiki is a good medium for feedback or even ‘citizen journalism’ on News.com”, Lottman stated in his user profile.

As of July 2, 2005, the wiki was still relatively inactive, with only one “legitimate content page” and 176 page edits according to the site’s statistics. [1]

Friday, January 23, 2009

Wikinews has learned that the internet group known only as “Anonymous” has hacked the website of the No Cussing Club (NCC), nocussing.com, for at least two days in a row. On day one, the group hacked into the website, replacing the content with links to images of alleged e-mail conversations. The e-mails appear to be from the founder’s e-mail account, accusing organization members of forgery and using the site for their own personal financial gains. The website was also replaced with Anonymous’s logo and a message. On January 22, they again attacked the website, by means of a Distributed Denial-of-service attack (DDoS), bringing it offline periodically throughout the day. Anonymous attacked the Scientology website in 2008 with a DDoS attack, taking it off-line for at least two days.

“It has come to our attention that the creators of the no cussing club, McKay and Brent Hatch have done so at great personal gain. Their material promotes the organization as the brainchild of their 14-year-old son, when actually the material is written by his parents, who also manage his profitable career while using his speaking events to plug their own material,” said Anonymous on the hacked website. On Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satire Wiki, they claim further responsibility for the hack and exposition saying they managed to break into McKay and Brent Hatch’s email accounts. “[the accounts got] haxx0rd and via this astonishing development passwords were got and a certain website got its shit ruined.”

According to the NCC’s website, it has 20,000 members worldwide, was founded in 2007 by McKay Hatch, a 14-year-old boy, and aims at discouraging swearing in public places such as schools. In 2008, McKay even succeeded in making cussing illegal in his hometown of South Pasadena, California and has appeared on various talk shows such as that of Doctor Phil. However, according to e-mails leaked to Wikinews, allegedly written by the boy’s father Brent, a motivational speaker also owning Dawson Publishing, the parents are allegedly using the site and their son’s material for their own personal financial gain. Anonymous also claims that the parents have forged some of their son’s writings and claim it to be his.

The e-mails allege that Brent along with his publishing company, the name which “nocussing.com” is also registered under, were trying to set up assemblies in the No Cussing Club’s name at schools across the United States for US$1,500.00 per show and would then pocket the money, doing the same for postcards they created for churches and schools.

“McKay spoke last night to a group of 40 people, and at the end of his presentation, there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. I know this is going to work because the message is so important. Thanks for all you do and I hope we can work together for a long time, and of course make money in the process,” said Brent in an alleged e-mail conversation on November 25, 2008. Earlier in August 2008, Brent spoke about hoping to reach a “goal” of “2.5 million dollars” by selling thousands of postcards to “schools and churches”.

On January 19, 2009, ABC News.com reported that McKay claimed Anonymous was sending him and his family hate e-mail and death threats, nearly 50,000 per day, “almost all of them filled with obscenities” and spam. On the NCC’s website, McKay calls himself the “most cyberbullied kid on the planet” because of Anonymous’s attacks.

“A lot of people were saying I was taking away their freedom of speech,” said McKay to ABC News on January 16. “All I was trying to do was raise awareness.” He says he formed the club because his schoolmates were sick of hearing people swear in public. Wikinews contacted the NCC to confirm or deny the reports, but would only say that “the FBI is [working] on it [the case]” including “our attorney and we will press charges” against those who are responsible for the crimes.

Anonymous is known to prank and hack websites and e-mail accounts. In September 2008, the group hacked into BillOreilly.com, the official website of Fox News Channel commentator Bill O’Reilly, exposing personal information of the site’s users in a document posted on the internet.

The NCC is located in South Pasadena. According to the California Penal Code §502 part C of the computer hacking laws, depending on the offense if caught, punishments could be a “fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or two or three years, or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment”.

On October 20, 2008, Dmitriy Guzner, aged 18 from New Jersey, admitted to the charges related to carrying out the DDoS attack on Scientology’s website. He was subsequently charged with computer hacking crimes and faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A thirteen-month-old Canadian infant dying from a unknown neurological condition was transferred Sunday night from a Canadian hospital, where he had received treatment since October 2010, to a U.S. hospital. In January, a Canadian Superior Court judge had ruled that the Canadian hospital could remove the infant’s breathing tube against the parents’ wishes and issued a do-not-resuscitate order.

According to court documents, Joseph Maraachli, known as “Baby Joseph”, has been repeatedly diagnosed as in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery after suffering an episode of “seizure activity” at age six months. At that time, an MRI showed “a reduction in brain size associated with cells dying from metabolic stress.” He stopped breathing in October and was hospitalized at Ontario’s London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) where he remained until Sunday. A panel of five pediatric clinic and three neurology physicians subsequently concluded that “there will be no recovery and no treatment options exist for this progressive neurodegenerative disorder.”

The infant’s parents, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader, wanted Joseph to receive a tracheotomy, which combined with mechanical breathing devices, would allow him to be transferred home, his family acting as care givers. Several years previously, the Maraachli’s daughter had died of a similar neuro-degenerative condition. They used their daughter, Zina, as an example. After doctors performed a tracheotomy on her, she returned home for several months before returning to die at the hospital. This time hospital refused to perform a tracheotomy on Joseph because there was no hope of recovery. After the judge ruled in the hospital’s favor in January, pressure against the hospital intensified and the hospital received threats.

The case has generated controversy primarily from groups such as the Terri Schiavo organization, Priests for Life (PFL), and the American Center for Law & Justice who represents the parents. The parents transferred the infant to the Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri to obtain a second opinion. PFL nation director, Father Pavone, traveled to Canada Sunday night to aid in the transfer. He said in a press release: “After around-the-clock negotiations, this really became a race against time.”

After successfully moving Joseph to the St. Louis hospital, Father Pavena said, “Now that we have won the battle against the medical bureaucracy in Canada, the real work of saving Baby Joseph can begin.”

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Fourteen have died and four more have been injured after a bus and a truck collided near Moscow, Russia. The bus caught fire in the accident.

“According to our latest information, 14 people died — the driver of the truck and 13 people on the bus,” said a spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry. The crash occurred in Petushinsky, a district 100 kilometres (60 miles) to Moscow’s east.

The crash occurred on the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod-Ufa highway, and the death toll may yet rise as the burnt-out wreckage makes identifications difficult. The death toll has already been revised from 25. A criminal investigation has been launched regarding possible violations of traffic laws.

It is unclear where the vehicles were going. Reports suggest both were headed towards Moscow. It is thought that the truck left its lane and crossed into the path of the bus.