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Space

Spitzer Telescope Witnesses Star Being Born 34

Posted by Soulskill from the get-off-my-cosmic-lawn dept.
Arvisp tips news of a discovery by astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii of the youngest known star in a nearby star-forming region. From the Yale press release: "Astronomers think L1448-IRS2E is in between the prestellar phase, when a particularly dense region of a molecular cloud first begins to clump together, and the protostar phase, when gravity has pulled enough material together to form a dense, hot core out of the surrounding envelope. ... Most protostars are between one to 10 times as luminous as the Sun, with large dust envelopes that glow at infrared wavelengths. Because L1448-IRS2E is less than one tenth as luminous as the Sun, the team believes the object is too dim to be considered a true protostar. Yet they also discovered that the object is ejecting streams of high-velocity gas from its center, confirming that some sort of preliminary mass has already formed and the object has developed beyond the prestellar phase. This kind of outflow is seen in protostars (as a result of the magnetic field surrounding the forming star), but has not been seen at such an early stage until now."
Image

Japanese Astronaut Gets Designer "Space Suit" 110

Posted by samzenpus from the look-good-anywhere dept.
Naoko Yamazaki knows you have to look good at work even if your work is in outer space. Japanese fashion designer Tae Ashida has created a designer suit for the female astronaut to wear during her stay on the International Space Station. "As a female designer, I chose a design and colour with a sense of grace ... so that she can feel at ease as she carries out a tough mission in a male-dominated, bleak atmosphere. It's like a dream come true to see my clothes worn in space," said Ashida. "I'm looking forward to seeing her wear my design."
Games

Decrying the Excessive Emulation of Reality In Games 187

Posted by Soulskill from the plumbers-with-shrooms dept.
An editorial at GameSetWatch makes the case that game developers' relentless drive to make games more real has led to missed opportunities for creating unique fictional universes that are perhaps more interesting than our own. Quoting: "Remember when the norm for a video game was a blue hedgehog that ran fast and collected rings and emeralds? Or a plumber that took mushrooms to become large, and grabbed a flower to throw fireballs? In reality they do none of those things, but in the name of a game, they make sense, inspire wonder, and create a new universe. ... We’ve seen time and time again that the closer you try to emulate reality, the more the 'game' aspects begin to stick out. Invisible walls in Final Fantasy, or grenades spawning at your feet when you go the wrong way in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are examples of kicking the player out of that illusion of reality, and letting them know that yes, this is a game, and yes, the rules are designed to keep you in the space of this world, not the real world. In reality, as a soldier I could disobey my orders and go exploring around the other side. I could be cowardly and turn back to base. Games shouldn’t have to plan for every eventuality, of course, but it’s not so hard to create universes that are compelling but where the unusual, or even simple backtracking, is not so unfeasible."

Comment Re:dear libertarians and tea baggers: (Score 3, Informative) 2044

by jbabco (#31541342) Attached to: Health Care Reform

socialized heath care is everything but good heath care.

Canadian here.

I've been following this all pretty closely. And as soon as the public option is off the table, I just have to sit back and laugh. Conservatives/Libertarians/name-your-right-wing-group-member just don't get it, and never will. I almost understand. It's baked into the fabric of America. Take advantage by any means necessary to gain wealth no matter what the ramifications. Case in point - insurance-based healthcare.

What is good health care and what is bad heath care? Go ask these four people: A poor American, a poor Canadian, a rich American, and a rich Canadian.

  • Rich American: I have the best heath care in the world. We have the best doctors, no wait times, and access to the latest technology. Why, I had a triple bypass last year and I feel great! Only cost me $90,000, but worth every penny!
  • Rich Canadian: I have great health care! Doctors are always available and treatment is top-notch. I get to choose my physicians and everything! I went in for a triple bypass last year. Didn't have to wait for it. Cost? What do you mean?
  • Poor Canadian: (see above)
  • Poor American: I have a heart condition and need a triple bypass. I can't afford that and my employer-provided insurance doesn't cover it. They do cover the heart medication I'm on though, which is expensive. Unfortunately, I have to keep this shitty job at Meijers to keep it, even though I'm tired all the time and should probably be at home resting. Hopefully, things will get better. Oh shit... I just died.

And for all those who think socialized medicine is evil, well I guess the rest of the world is just evil and America is, as it always was, the epitome of "good".

Oh, and BTW, since you already have socialized postal, fire, school and police services, you should return those. They are evil.

Just imagine a society where someone's house is burning down and the fire dept. checked to see if you had insurance before dispatching a truck. It boggles the mind.
Earth

Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought 451

Posted by timothy from the even-superer dept.
drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."
Idle

Hand Written Clock 86

Posted by samzenpus from the up-to-the-minute dept.
a3buster writes "This clock does not actually have a man inside, but a flatscreen that plays a 24-hour loop of this video by the artist watching his own clock somewhere and painstakingly erasing and re-writing each minute. This video was taken at Design Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009."
Biotech

Hawking Says Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution 398

Posted by Soulskill from the already-banned-in-kansas dept.
movesguy sends us to The Daily Galaxy for comments by Stephen Hawking about how humans are evolving in a different way than any species before us. Quoting: "'At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race,' Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, 'an external transmission phase,' where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. 'But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage,' Hawking says, 'has grown enormously. Some people would use the term evolution only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes.'"

Comment Re:Anyone even using VS 2008 yet? (Score 1) 236

by jbabco (#28229255) Attached to: First Look At Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1

How about being able to target .NET 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5? I thought that was pretty significant. Before, if you wanted to target .NET 1.1, you had to use VS 2003. If you wanted to target 2.0, you had to use 2005. With 2008, you can target any of them.

Not exactly. You can't target any pre-2.0 framework with VS 2005/08/10. It's unfortunate, and is the reason our developers still have to keep a copy of VS 2002 around. There was a community attempt to write a MSBuild extension that could target fw 1.1, but I'm not sure what the status of it is.
PC Games (Games)

Does Professional Gaming Have a Future? 116

Posted by Soulskill from the fatal-one-thank-you dept.
mr_sifter writes "Three years ago, celebrity gamers such as Fatal1ty were bagging millions in prizes, and TV channels were queuing up to broadcast games on TV. Professional gaming looked set for the big time. It never happened, and in the current economic crisis, sponsors and media organizations are cutting costs, resulting in the closure of many pro gaming competitions (as we recently discussed) and a down-scaling in prize money. This feature looks at whether pro gaming can bounce back, and whether it will always be a PC sport, or if pro gaming on consoles is the future."
Games

GameStop Selling Games Played By Employees As New 243

Posted by Soulskill from the for-sufficiently-played-values-of-new dept.
Kotaku reports on a practice by GameStop which allows employees to "check out" new copies of video games, play them, then return them to be sold as new. Quoting: "When a shipment of video games initially arrives at a store, managers are told to 'gut' several copies of the game, removing the disc or cartridge from the packaging so it can be displayed on the shelf without concern of theft, according to our sources. The games are then placed in protective sleeves or cases under the counter. If a customer asks why the game is not sealed they are typically told the the game is a display copy. The game is still sold as new. When check-out games are returned, we were told, they are placed with the gutted display copies. If a customer asks about these, they are typically told they are display copies, not that they have been played before. Since the copies are often placed with display copies, even managers and employees typically don't know which of these games have been played and which haven't."
Image

Norfolk Police Officers To Be Tagged To Improve Response Times 150

Posted by samzenpus from the car-54-I-know-exactly-where-you-are dept.
Police in Norfolk, England already have tracking units, The Automatic Vehicle Location System, installed in their cars that allow a control room to track their exact locations. Later this year a similar system will be attached to individual police radios to allow controllers to monitor the position of every frontline officer. Combined with equipment that can pinpoint the locations of 999 callers, the system will allow the force to home in on "shouts" to within yards. The system also lets operators filter a map showing the location of its vehicles and constables to reveal only those with the skills needed for a specific incident, like the closest officer with silver bullets during a werewolf attack.
Games

Tabula Rasa Goes Free, Brings New Content 87

Posted by Soulskill from the as-in-beer-with-lots-of-guns dept.
Last month we discussed NCSoft's announcement that Tabula Rasa would be closing its doors at the end of February, and their plans to remove the subscription fee for all players in January. Well, they've decided to go completely free a month early, alongside the release of a variety of new content. The game has finally gotten a first-person camera view, something many players have been asking for since launch. A new instance and several other bits of additional content are available as well. NCSoft also previewed player-controlled Mechs and PAUs, which will go live in the next major patch. Ten Ton Hammer has an interview with Net Devil's Scott Brown about the closure of Tabula Rasa.
Government

FCC Commissioner Lauds DRM, ISP Filtering 217

Posted by kdawson from the by-some-definition-of-"effective" dept.
snydeq writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson and InfoWorld's Paul Venezia provide worthwhile commentary on a recent speech by FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate (PDF), in which she praised DRM as 'very effective' and raised a flag in favor of ISP filtering. Anderson: 'Having commissioners who feel that the government has a duty to partner with and back educational classroom content from the RIAA; who really believe that ISP filtering is so unproblematic we can stop considering objections; and who think that universities worry about file-swapping because tuition might be raised to pay for the needed "expansion of storage capabilities" (huh?) isn't good for the FCC and isn't good for America.' Venezia: 'Leave the ISPs out of it — it's not their job to protect a failing business model, and a movement toward a tiered and filtered Internet will do nothing to stem the tide of piracy, but will result in great restrictions on innovation, freedoms, and the general use of the Internet. There's nothing to be gained down that path other than possibly to expand the wallets of a few companies.'"

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