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Mars

Submission + - Mars Rover Solves Metalic Object Mystery, Unearths Another (newscientist.com)

Submitted by
SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: "Last week the Mars Curiosity Rover spotted a shiny metallic-looking object in the martian soil. This week scientists have confirmed that it is plastic that has fallen off the 1-ton rover. However, the discovery of this trans-planetary littering has opened up another mystery for the science team. On October 12th the rover took a sample of soil from the ground, feeding it into its Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments for analysis, and a picture of the hole dug by the rover's claw revealed metallic particles in the dirt. The sample was subsequently dropped due to fears that particles from the rover had made it into the dirt. Further study now suggests that the metallic particles are actually native to Mars, as the photo reveals that they are imbedded in the soil in clumps. In 2007 the older rover Spirit found evidence of silica for the first time, more testing will occur over the next few days to determine truly if this is again just Curiosity's littler, or something more profound."

Comment Body Language (Score 2) 698

by Idetuxs (#41626417) Attached to: US Election's Only VP Debate Tonight: Weigh In With Your Reactions

What does it mean in body language terms to repeatedly tick the table whit the index finger, Biden is over doing it. Like reaffirming what he is saying. May be there is something else with that gesture, this is /. so I'm assuming someone will know (and that someone will answer to FTFG).

Ryan looks really calm about everything, he for sure know about non-verbal communication.

Comment Tag (Score 1) 286

by Idetuxs (#41595993) Attached to: The Case That Apple Should Buy Nokia

No comments. Fix it.

[...] doing maps 'for a long time now, and they a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/194130/why-apple-should-buy-nokia-to-fix-their-mapping-disaster/">have access to even more data than Google." Next, Nokia has a treasure [...]

Comment Re:There is not even a way to remove it! (Score 1) 346

by Idetuxs (#40471835) Attached to: Facebook Says Your Email Is @Facebook

It happens to me all the time... when I'm on my smartphone. But it's understandable the webpage to redirect to m.webpage because it can't read my thoughts, right?
THE real problem is my web browser that doesn't have the option to change the User Agent.

So the solutions are to tell Facebook to not redirect to m.facebook when accessed from tablet or change the user agent. The latter cover up both.
Hardware

Submission + - An 8,000 Ton Giant Made the Jet Age Possible

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Tim Heffernan writes that when "The Fifty," as it’s known in company circles, broke down three years ago, there was talk of retiring it for good. Instead, Alcoa decided to overhaul their 50,000-ton, 6-story high forging press, now scheduled to resume service early this year. "What sets the Fifty apart is its extraordinary scale," writes Heffernan. "Its 14 major structural components, cast in ductile iron, weigh as much as 250 tons each; those yard-thick steel bolts are also 78 feet long; all told, the machine weighs 16 million pounds, and when activated its eight main hydraulic cylinders deliver up to 50,000 tons of compressive force." The Fifty could bench-press the battleship Iowa, with 860 tons to spare but it's the Fifty's amazing precision—its tolerances are measured in thousandths of an inch—that gives it such far-reaching utility. Every manned US military aircraft now flying uses parts forged by the Fifty as does every commercial aircraft made by Airbus and Boeing making the Jet Age possible. "On a plane, a pound of weight saved is a pound of thrust gained—or a pound of lift, or a pound of cargo," writes Heffernan. "Without the ultra-strong, ultra-light components that only forging can produce, they’d all be pushing much smaller envelopes." The now-forgotten Heavy Press Program (PDF), inaugurated in 1950 and completed in 1957, resulted in four presses (including the Fifty) and six extruders—giant toothpaste tubes squeezing out long, complex metal structures such as wing ribs and missile bodies. "Today, America lacks the ability to make anything like the Heavy Press Program machines," concludes Heffernan adding that "The Fifty" will be supplying bulkheads through 2034 for the Joint Strike Fighter. "Big machines are the product of big visions, and they make big visions real. How about a Heavy Fusion Program?""

Comment Re:Elephant in the room (Score 1) 182

by Idetuxs (#39872225) Attached to: Facebook To Go Public On Friday, May 18

TFA mentions ,as a demonstration for investors that the company is growing, the new Timeline thing, the suicide prevent service and buying Instagram for 1 billion.
I don't really think that's appropriate achievement for a company with supposedly millions of dollars in it's pocket.

It mentions also some risks that could happen and 'hurt' the company, so investors should take notes on that. Some of them are interesting and are usually commented on /..

Last paragraph of TFA says that nobody has to worry on the risks because Zuckeberg is a genius. Isn't that amusing?
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Sun Cooling, Soon to Have Four Poles, Say Japanese Astrophysicists (asahi.com) 1

Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius
Jeremiah Cornelius writes: Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century. Known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century. The researchers also found signs of unusual magnetic changes in the sun. Normally, the sun’s magnetic field flips about once every 11 years. The solar observation satellite Hinode found that the north pole of the sun had started flipping about a year earlier than expected, with no noticeable change in the south pole. It's possible the north pole could complete its flip in May 2012 but create a four-pole magnetic structure in the sun, with two new poles created in the vicinity of the equator of our closest star.
Programming

Submission + - EU Court: Programming Languages Not Copyrightable (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that the functionality of a computer program and the programming language it is written in cannot be protected by copyright. In its ruling on a a case brought by SAS Institute against World Programming Limited (WPL), the court said that 'the purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.'"
Network

Submission + - 1Gbps wireless network made with red and green laser pointers (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Back in the olden days, when WiFi and Bluetooth were just a glimmer in the eye of IEEE, another short-range wireless communications technology ruled supreme: Infrared Data Association, or IrDA for short. IrDA was awful; early versions were only capable of kilobit-per-second speeds, and only over a distance of a few feet. Trying to get my laptop and mobile phone to link up via IrDA was, to date, one of the worst tech experiences I’ve ever had. There’s a lot to be said for light-based communications, though. For a start, visible (and invisible) light has a frequency of between 400 and 800THz (800 and 375nm), which is unlicensed spectrum worldwide. Second, in cases where you really don’t want radio interference, such as hospitals, airplanes, and other sensitive environments, visible light communication (VLC), or free-space optical communication, is really rather desirable. Now, I think for the first time ever, researchers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan have transmitted data using lasers — not high-powered, laboratory-dwelling lasers; handheld, AAA-battery laser pointers. A red and green laser pointer were used, each transmitting a stream of data at 500Mbps, which is then multiplexed at the receiver for a grand total of 1Gbps."

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