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Submission + - The highest and lowest energy signals from the Universe

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Accelerated by some unknown mechanism, the highest energy particles in the entire Universe come from all over the sky with energies exceeding 10^19 eV, or more than a million times the energies achieved at the LHC. On the flipside, the lowest energy radio waves are emitted by an ultra-rare transition of hydrogen atoms, and may provide a window into the Universe from before the first stars formed. Come learn about the highest and lowest energy signals from the Universe, and why they matter for our understanding of it all.

Submission + - NASA sets huge $5M cubesat competition (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: NASA this week opened what it called its largest ever prize purse – the Cube Quest Challenge which will offer a package worth $5 million for competitors to build unique propulsion and communications technologies for small, inexpensive satellite systems known as cubesats.
When it first talked about offering a cubesat challenge in June, NASA said it wanted to focus on building better communications and propulsion technologies for the cube-shaped satellites are typically about four inches long, have a volume of about one quart and weigh about 3 pounds.

Submission + - UK Pirate Party Slams Theresa May's Plans For Static IPs (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by Carly Page
Carly Page writes: The UK Pirate Party has unveiled plans proposed by Home Secretary Theresa May that could force ISPs to assign fixed IP addresses to individual users and machines, thus allowing authorities to identify with more certainty those responsible for cyber crimes.

Loz Kaye, Pirate Party UK leader said: "It's extraordinary that the Home Office did not consult [the] industry about these plans. To me it shows they don't care whether they will work or not. They are just interested in headlines.

"It's clear that the Liberal Democrats have completely lost the plot on mass surveillance. To suggest this is necessarily the end of this issue is fatuous. Just look what happened with DRIP."

Comment Re:How did your senator vote? (Score 2) 445

by hondo77 (#48418895) Attached to: Republicans Block Latest Attempt At Curbing NSA Power

Recall that the first Republican President waged the country's bloodiest war to prevent the central government's domain from shrinking. The war turned a federation of sovereign states into a compulsory chain of provinces.

Have you always been a southern apologist jerk-off or was it something you picked up in college?

Submission + - Electric shock study suggests we'd rather hurt ourselves than others (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: If you had the choice between hurting yourself or someone else in exchange for money, how altruistic do you think you’d be? In one infamous experiment, people were quite willing to deliver painful shocks to anonymous victims when asked by a scientist. But a new study that forced people into the dilemma of choosing between pain and profit finds that participants cared more about other people’s well-being than their own. It is hailed as the first hard evidence of altruism for the young field of behavioral economics.

Submission + - Study of gay brothers may confirm X chromosome link to homosexuality (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Dean Hamer finally feels vindicated. More than 20 years ago, in a study that triggered both scientific and cultural controversy, the molecular biologist offered the first direct evidence of a “gay gene,” by identifying a stretch on the X chromosome likely associated with homosexuality. But several subsequent studies called his finding into question. Now the largest independent replication effort so far, looking at 409 pairs of gay brothers, fingers the same region on the X. “When you first find something out of the entire genome, you’re always wondering if it was just by chance,” says Hamer, who asserts that new research “clarifies the matter absolutely.”

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: TLD Acknowledgement Issues? 3

Submitted by dr_pardee
dr_pardee writes: I recently founded a small corporation and used Holdings in my business name. Since the .holdings top level domain exists, I decided to register a domain name with the .holdings extension.

What I have found is that larger companies and service providers are not acknowledging .holdings as a valid TLD and it's been a complete hassle.
AWS ("SNS does not currently support the newer TLDs like .holdings."), Microsoft Volume Licensing (Uses InterNIC to valid domain names), Elance (".holdings for email addresses is not accepted"), HP, etc... will not accept it.

Is it reasonable to expect that companies acknowledge gTLDs allowed by ICANN? Have others been facing this?

Submission + - U.S. Navy Deploys Its First Laser Weapon in the Persian Gulf (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Beck_Neard
Beck_Neard writes: FTA: "The U.S. Navy has deployed on a command ship in the Persian Gulf its first laser weapon capable of destroying a target.

"The amphibious transport ship USS Ponce has been patrolling with a prototype 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System since late August, according to officials. The laser is mounted facing the bow, and can be fired in several modes — from a dazzling warning flash to a destructive beam — and can set a drone or small boat on fire."

Comment Re:So they patented this because....? (Score 1) 164

by hondo77 (#48303887) Attached to: Disney Patents a Piracy Free Search Engine
Not force other search engines to license it but allow them to license it, likely for free. By patenting it themselves, Disney can give it away to all search engines and make sure no one search engine has a monopoly on this anti-piracy technology. If you squint really hard, you can see a resemblance to the GPL there...if I'm right.

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