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Science

Submission + - Fusion Anytime Now, Again, Said UK (bbc.co.uk) 1

arisvega writes: The National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US is drawing closer to producing a surplus of energy from the idea, buy beefing up the laser power needed for ignition.

The UK company AWE and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have now joined with Nif to help make laser fusion a viable commercial energy source.

Part of the problem has been that the technical ability to reach "breakeven" — the point at which more energy is produced than is consumed — has always seemed distant. Detractors of the idea have asserted that "fusion energy is 50 years away, no matter what year you ask", said David Willetts, the UK's science minister. "I think that what's going on both in the UK and in the US shows that we are now making significant progress on this technology," he said. "It can't any longer be dismissed as something on the far distant horizon."

Image

Officials Say "Capes For the Unemployed" Plan Not Super Screenshot-sm 392

After what must have been an epic marketing meeting, a Florida unemployment agency decided to give 6,000 red capes to the jobless as part of its "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" public relations campaign. The capes cost $14,000 (not a bad price for 6k capes actually) and featured a cartoon character named "Dr. Evil Unemployment." As one might imagine, officials are calling for an investigation to be launched. It's a good thing there are an abundance of caped do-gooders without jobs in the area who should be able to help.
GNU is Not Unix

FSF Asks Apple To Comply With the GPL For Clone of GNU Go 482

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Free Software Foundation has discovered that an application currently distributed in Apple's App Store is a port of GNU Go. This makes it a GPL violation, because Apple controls distribution of all such programs through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is incompatible with section 6 of the GPLv2. It's an unusual enforcement action, though, because they don't want Apple to just make the app disappear, they want Apple to grant its users the full freedoms offered by the GPL. Accordingly, they haven't sued or sent any legal threats and are instead in talks with Apple about how they can offer their users the GPLed software legally, which is difficult because it's not possible to grant users all the freedoms they're entitled to and still comply with Apple's restrictive licensing terms."
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Math Prof Uncovers Secret Chord Screenshot-sm 177

chebucto writes "The opening chord to A Hard Day's Night is famous because for 40 years, no one quite knew exactly what chord Harrison was playing. Musicians, scholars and amateur guitar players alike had all come up with their own theories, but it took a Dalhousie mathematician to figure out the exact formula. Dr. Brown used Fourier transforms to find the notes in the chord, and deduced that another George — George Martin, the Beatles producer — also played on the chord, adding a piano chord that included an F note impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar."

Comment Archipelago (Score 1) 238

I guess no Essex University topic would be complete with out mention of Archipelago a Circle 2.2 derived MUD which I ran at Essex for three years from '93-'96.

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