Comment Re:Spice (Score 1) 878
It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain! Best episode ever from the best show ever.
Submission + - Boeing 787 makes US Debut (cnn.com)
thomas.kane writes: After years of delays, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is set to take off from Bush Intercontinental Airport this morning bound for O'Hare. Designed to make the flying experience "revolutionary" it is constructed from composite materials, has larger windows, and high efficiency engines. United Airlines became the first US carrier to take delivery, they've ordered 50, but due to processing delays, they only have 2 right now, start looking for more to take to the skys early next year.
Comment Gentoo (Score 1) 283
Just slap Gentoo on it...?
Comment Broadband internet (Score 1) 572
Bring back the 56K!!! KKKKKRRRAAAAAk EEEP EEEP EEP SCREEEEECH
Submission + - Quarter sized Arduino Compatible board adds GPS and Wifi (kickstarter.com)
TinyCircuits writes: "The TinyDuino Project — an Open Source Hardware project on Kickstarter to create Arduino clones smaller than a Quarter (and another version smaller than a dime!), just announced five new add on boards to add WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, motor control and microSD functionality. What's cool about this is that it lets everyone (not just engineers) create extremely powerful, quarter sized (or smaller) electronic projects very easily, by using the standard Arduino libraries and tools. So now you can take over the world with your swarm of tiny robots, or make tiny UAVs, wireless sensors, fitness gear (embed in a shoe!), or whatever else you want to make.
The project currently has exceeded it's initial goal by 6x, and if the next goal is met, there will be additional new boards developed and released."
The project currently has exceeded it's initial goal by 6x, and if the next goal is met, there will be additional new boards developed and released."
Submission + - Small Telescopes Make Big Discoveries
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Hakeem Oluseyi, an astronomer at the Florida Institute of Technology and president of the African Astronomical Society, says his goal is to put one research telescope in every country, starting with African and Southern Hemisphere nations because there is now an amazing opportunity for small telescopes to discover and characterize new planetary systems, as well as measure the structure of the Milky Way. "Astronomers are no longer looking at high-definition pictures but at HD movies, scanning for objects that change and for transient ones," says Oluseyi. "A 4-inch telescope was used to discover the first exoplanet by the transit method, where you watch the brightness vary." Small telescopes capable to doing real science are a lot cheaper than people think. A 1-meter telescope costs $300,000 but reduce the size by 60 percent, and it falls to just $30,000. For example the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) uses hardware costing less than $75,000 to look at millions of very bright stars at once, over broad sections of sky, and at low resolution to see if the starlight dims just a little — an indication that a planet has crossed in front of the star. The KELT team has already discovered the existence of a very unusual faraway planet — KELT-1b, a super hot, super dense ball of metallic hydrogen so massive that it may better be described as a 'failed star' and located so close to its star that it whips through an entire "yearly" orbit in a little over a day."
Submission + - New NASA robot could help paraplegics walk (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "NASA said today it has helped develop a 57-lb robotic exoskeleton that a person could wear over his or her body either to assist or inhibit movement in leg joints. The X1 was derived from NASA and General Motors Robonaut 2 project and the could find applications as an in-space exercise machine to supply resistance against leg movement more importantly as a way to help some individuals walk for the first time."
Submission + - The half-life of DNA - seems that Jurassic Park was impossible (nature.com)
another random user writes: Few researchers have given credence to claims that samples of dinosaur DNA have survived to the present day, but no one knew just how long it would take for genetic material to fall apart. Now, a study of fossils found in New Zealand is laying the matter to rest — and putting paid to hopes of cloning a Tyrannosaurus rex.
After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate.
Determining that rate has been difficult because it is rare to find large sets of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons. To make matters worse, variable environmental conditions such as temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation alter the speed of the decay process.
By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.
After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate.
Determining that rate has been difficult because it is rare to find large sets of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons. To make matters worse, variable environmental conditions such as temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation alter the speed of the decay process.
By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.
Submission + - Google+ deletes WNBA champion team page, says "start over" (marketingland.com)
__roo writes: "Marketingland.com reports that on Sunday, the 2011 WNBA Champions Minnesota Lynx found that their page, along with their 30,000+ fans, disappeared from Google+ just after winning the Western Conference championship and advancing to the finals. According to the Bob Stanke, the team's Director of Interactive Services, Google+ told them to "start over," despite the fact that they were early Google+ adopters. An update to the article points out that the page seems to be back, but the followers may have been lost."
Comment Re:Who cares? (Score 0) 305
Dark Age of Camelot.... FOREVAH!
Submission + - Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Functionally Illiterate (tor.com)
iluvcapra writes: Ryan Britt at Tor.com makes a bit of analysis that I think we'd have some fun with, in agreement or otherwise:
Not once in any Star Wars movie does someone pick up a book or newspaper, magazine, literary journal, or chapbook handmade by an aspiring Jawa poet. [...]As early as the 1990s-era expanded Star Wars books and comic books, we’re introduced to ancient Jedi “texts” called holocrons, which are basically talking holographic video recordings. Just how long has the Star Wars universe been reliant on fancy technology to transfer information as opposed to the written word? Is it possible that a good number of people in Star Wars are completely illiterate?
Read the whole thing,
Submission + - Tomb of Maya Holy Snake Lord Found in Guatemala
An anonymous reader writes: Archaeologists have discovered a seventh century tomb of a Maya queen in Guatemala. The tomb belongs to the Maya Holy Snake Lord, Lady K'abel, one of the most powerful queens in her kingdom during the Classic Maya civilization. A team of archaeologists led by David Freidel, co-director of the expedition from the Washington University in St. Louis, found the tomb during an excavation of the royal Maya city of El Perú-Waka' in northwestern Petén, Guatemala, based on artifacts suggesting that a higher-ranked queen is buried there.
Submission + - Steam for Linux to Arrive 'In a Few Days' (omgubuntu.co.uk)
sharksfan98 writes: "Steam’s arrival on Linux isn’t a secret – and even when it was it was a poorly kept one.
The company have been internally testing the Linux client for a while, and recently announced that an ‘external’ beta Linux users would be coming out ‘sometime in October’. No specific date was given.
But, today, a request from Canonical’s Bryce H. to Ubuntu developers has offered up a more definite time-frame – one that seems to be happening this week
He wrote in his request:
“Could an archive or SRU admin accept nvidia-common and jockey from the upload queue?
These are needed for the Valve Steam release that happens in a few days.”
The bad-ish news is that only 1000 people will have access to the external beta to begin with. So as close as its release is it won’t be landing in the laps of everyone quite yet.
But it’s still exciting, no?"
The company have been internally testing the Linux client for a while, and recently announced that an ‘external’ beta Linux users would be coming out ‘sometime in October’. No specific date was given.
But, today, a request from Canonical’s Bryce H. to Ubuntu developers has offered up a more definite time-frame – one that seems to be happening this week
He wrote in his request:
“Could an archive or SRU admin accept nvidia-common and jockey from the upload queue?
These are needed for the Valve Steam release that happens in a few days.”
The bad-ish news is that only 1000 people will have access to the external beta to begin with. So as close as its release is it won’t be landing in the laps of everyone quite yet.
But it’s still exciting, no?"
Comment Re:Armory link (Score 1) 381
She never raided Ony... What if she cant STFO OF THE FIRE?!
Comment Re:The Sword of a Thousand Truths (Score 1) 381
The Maine Republicans are stuck with the age old question: how do you kill that which has no life?
