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Comment: Hey, I did that! (Score 4, Interesting) 421

by apsmith (#22744132) Attached to: A Congressman Who Can Code Assembly
My one experience "coding assembly" was 20 years ago as an undergrad visiting one of the experiments at Fermilab. They had electronic detectors triggered various ways sending data to an old Digital PHP system that was supposed to analyze each event as quickly as possible, decide whether it was interesting enough to save to magnetic tape, and then go on to the next event a few microseconds later. The data acquisition code was, naturally, in assembly - and boy they had that pared down to the absolute essentials, not a wasted instruction. My job was to try to, instead of recording to tape, to send the data over a wire to a new VAX machine that had just arrived.

Not sure I ever ran into Foster though - I wonder what experiments he was on? Actually, I have met him since then, but that's another story...
Space

+ - DoD NSSO on Space Based Solar Power->

Submitted by
apsmith
apsmith writes "About a year ago some of the people at the US National Security Space Office began looking into space-based solar power (SBSP) as a technology in the near-term strategic interests of the United States. At first the participants were skeptical, and the "phase 0 study" went along with no official funding. In a rather innovative move, they organized the study as a series of internet-based (bulletin-board and email) discussions, with the wordpress site open to the public, and a closed experts-only discussion using Google Groups. Initially expecting only a dozen or so interested parties, the discussion grew to include over 170 people with past expertise and interest in the issues. The final report was released Wednesday morning; it provides an excellent broad-brush review of the status of SBSP, showing immense potential, but also a number of challenges that appear only surmountable with a strong government commitment to the project. The big question is where it goes from here — NASA? DARPA? The new ARPA-E? Or something new? I was able to attend the press conference, which included Buzz Aldrin in an announcement of a new alliance to push for implementing the recommendations of the report."
Link to Original Source
Space

+ - Killer Electrons From Outer Space

Submitted by JrOldPhart
JrOldPhart writes "The IEEE Spectrum is reporting http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep07/5498 That: Electrons in the Van Allen belts are normally not dangerous to spacecraft, but every month or so radiation levels spike to as much as a thousand times their usual intensity — surges called geomagnetic storms. Now, scientists believe they understand how some particles get accelerated to become "killer electrons." readmore"
Sun Microsystems

+ - NetApp hits Sun with patent-infringement lawsuit->

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports: "Network Appliance Inc. today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction that would prohibit Sun from developing or distributing products based on its ZFS file system technology. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Texas, charges that the Sun ZFS technology infringes on seven NetApp patents pertaining to data processing systems and related software.""
Link to Original Source
Announcements

+ - Apple slashes iPhone price->

Submitted by beef curtains
beef curtains writes "Most likely in a move to reinvigorate iPhone sales, Apple has announced that the 8GB iPhone will now go for $399. The 4GB model, which experienced poor sales, has been discontinued.

This can't possible sit well with the 1 million early adopters who shelled out $599 for the 8GB model or $499 for the 4GB model."
Link to Original Source
Space

+ - X Prize Foundation to Announce New Space Prize

Submitted by
Reality Master 101
Reality Master 101 writes "Wired has announced that a new space prize will be announced September 13th at Wired's NextFest. According to the invitation, it will be the largest space prize ever, and, "The challenge is extreme, the destination is extraordinary, the prize purse is exceptional." Teaser video here. So what will it be? Orbit? Payload on the moon?"
Power

+ - High altitude wind farms?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Why plant a rotor on the ground to generate electricity in fickle, turbulent surface winds? Here is a possible green-friendly solution that is far above any other in reality as well as in concept:

From the site: "Here we are with very high gasoline prices, now starting to pay real attention to global warming, and seriously considering nuclear fission, with all its dangers from both accident and terrorist attack, as the best potential solution. And yet the energy we need is only a few miles above us in tremendous quantity, it is clean, non global warming energy, potentially more economical than nuclear, and we are ignoring it."

A flying wind farm might just be the way to go to lower our reliance such energy producing staples as fossil fuels and their immediate pollution, the admittedly intermittent production from solar or ground-level winds, and the long-term storage concerns of nuclear waste."
Privacy

+ - Re-shipping scams skyrocketting

Submitted by sorry-scammed-loser
sorry-scammed-loser writes "A new online threat, reshipping fraud, is emerging in the form of a massive organized crime ring that is recruiting people in the US and Europe as "shipment handlers", and having them re-ship items to Russia. The criminals are using stolen Visa card details to pay for shipments from many large retail and auction sites (including ebay.com and amazon.com), and having the items shipped to their recruits who re-ship them to addresses they have been provided with. I personally lost a laptop this way that I had auctioned on ebay — I shipped the laptop after verifying that the funds had been deposited into my PayPal account, and two days later was contacted by PayPal who said that the account holder had not authorized the transaction. Now I have no money and no laptop. In my case, the scammers had recruited my re-shipper through an online job posting site, which pointed her to a legit-looking website called expertdelivery.biz that claims to operate offices in Minnesota and the UK (but is hosted in Belize). This reads like an episode of "24"... Please get the word out about this scam, at this point consumer education is the best protection against perpetuation of these scams."
The Internet

+ - Wanna be another youtube....

Submitted by
PrettySleek
PrettySleek writes "Prettysleek.com — A Pretty sleek Website Hi Everybody, Prettysleek.com wishes you and your family A PrettySleek New Year! PrettySleek.com is a consumer resource site dedicated to the provision of news, reviews, ratings and recommendations on thousands of products and services in various categories including appliances, cars, electronics and computers, home and garden, health and fitness, babies and kids, food, personal finance, and travel. All site visitors have free access to news, reviews, videos, recommendations add ratings; and much more. Only Registered members can post news, reviews, product videos, recommendations and add ratings for a service or a product. Please visit us at http://www.prettysleek.com/ and let me know what you think? Your feedback will be greatly appreciated."
Space

+ - How a Pulsar gets its Spin

Submitted by
brian0918
brian0918 writes "Until now, the assumption has been that the rapid spin of a pulsar comes from the spin of the original star. The problem was that this only explained the fastest observed pulsars. Now, researchers at Oak Ridge have shown that the spin of a pulsar is determined by the shock wave created when the star's massive iron core collapses. From the article: 'That shock wave is inherently unstable, and eventually becomes cigar-shaped instead of spherical. The instability creates two rotating flows — one in one direction directly below the shock wave and another, inner flow, that travels in the opposite direction and spins up the core. The asymmetrical flows establish a 'sloshing' motion that accounts for the pulsars' observed spin velocities from once every 15 to 300 milliseconds.'"
Space

+ - black hole found inside globular cluster

Submitted by acidrain
acidrain writes "Contrary to the prediction of some computer models, scientists have found a black hole resting peacefully in a dense nest of stars called a globular cluster. Previously discovered black holes are either similar in size to a large star, or super massive holes which are millions of times bigger than a star is able to remain stable. This finding indicates there may be an intermediate size range of holes residing within these star clusters."

All generalizations are false, including this one. -- Mark Twain

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