After the closure of Tabula Rasa over the weekend, the Opposable Thumbs blog asks if that's what it takes for a game to have an actual ending these days. Quoting: "It's no surprise that most games hope for a sequel, as it's the easiest way to get some of that money back while taking advantage of the staff, engine, assets, and other advantages you've banked while creating the first title. The problem? This has lead to a generation of cliff-hangers at worst, and endings that hedge their bets at best. ... As all the game's characters die, as the servers are shut down, as the data is erased or backed up and then boxed or whatever happens to MMO data once the game is done, it's hard not to be a little sad. The sights and sounds of the world of Tabula Rasa are gone, forever. All the memories written into those ones and zeroes will quickly be forgotten, and no one will walk those grounds again." Massively put together a few screenshots and videos to commemorate the ending of the game.

nandemoari writes "It seems the world's most popular social networking site was just moments away from acquiring another — and few of us ever knew about it. A Facebook executive has revealed that a planned takeover of Twitter only fell apart because of a disagreement over stock valuations. Despite the rather miserable economy, Facebook is still looking to buy out other firms and says it could make a billion dollars a year from advertising. Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist who put up some of the money behind Facebook, discussed the deal in a Business Week interview. Thiel says the two sides agreed a $500 million purchase price and that Twitter would receive the payment in Facebook stock rather than cash — which is a common solution in large takeovers where there simply isn't the money available for a buyout."

theodp writes "A 2004 study found some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests. Only problem is, a Pap test screens for cervical cancer — no cervix, no cancer. With this tale, Newsweek's Sharon Begley makes her case for comparative-effectiveness research (CER), which is receiving $1 billion under the stimulus bill for studies to determine which treatments, including drugs, are more medically sound and cost-effective than others for a given ailment. Physicians, Begley says, must stop treatments that are rooted more in local medical culture than in medical science, embrace practices that have been shown scientifically to be superior to others, and ignore critics who paint CER as government control of doctors' decision-making."

ddelmonte writes in to tell us about a small near-earth object, discovered just 2 days ago, that is expected to pass within 64,000 km of our planet on March 2, 13:44 UT. NEO 2009 DD45 will be well inside the Moon's orbit and just under twice the altitude of geosynchronous satellites. According to Sky and Telescope, 2009 DD45's closest approach will be over the Pacific west of Tahiti, so observers in Australia, Japan, and perhaps Hawaii will have the best chance of spotting it with, say, an 8-in. telescope. Here's where you can generate an ephemeris of the object for your location. At closest approach NEO 2009 DD45 will be moving half a degree per minute and peaking around magnitude 10.5. It will be brighter than 13th magnitude for only a few hours.

adeelarshad82 writes "CNet reports on a bizarre comment from Sony's Computer Entertainment CEO in response to complaints from developers on how hard it is to develop games for the Playstation 3. 'We don't provide the "easy to program for" console that (developers) want, because "easy to program for" means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?' Given that games heavily drive console sales, and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360, I think making a developer's job harder is the last thing Sony needs."