Comment: Re:No managers (Score 1) 151
* And by "light on fire", I mean "make pointless and expensive acquisitions".
or just light on fire
Spaceplane Concept Receives Euro Funding 193
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the space-plane-race dept.
from the space-plane-race dept.
draevil writes "BBC News reports that the novel "Skylon" spaceplane design of British firm Reaction Engines has received funding to proceed with its proof-of-concept design for an air-breathing rocket engine.
If successful, the Sabre rocket engine will be able to take the Skylon with 12 tonnes of cargo from a runway, to orbit and then back to that runway without the need for disposable components or a piggy-back ride on a larger aircraft.
Should the design prove viable, it could see first use within ten years."
Comment: Re:It's just about everyone's policy. (Score 1) 198
Sounds fun.
Rewriting a Software Product After Quitting a Job? 604
Posted
by
kdawson
from the clean-room-white-coats dept.
from the clean-room-white-coats dept.
hi_caramba_2008 writes "We are a bunch of good friends at a large software company. The product we work on is under-budgeted and over-hyped by the sales drones. The code quality sucks, and management keeps pulling in different direction. Discussing this among ourselves, we talked about leaving the company and rebuilding the code from scratch over a few months. We are not taking any code with us. We are not taking customer lists (we probably will aim at different customers anyway). The code architecture will also be different — hosted vs. stand-alone, different modules and APIs. But at the feature level, we will imitate this product. Can we be sued for IP infringement, theft, or whatever? Are workers allowed to imitate the product they were working on? We know we have to deal with the non-compete clause in our employment contracts, but in our state this clause has been very difficult to enforce. We are more concerned with other IP legal aspects."
Hubble Finds Unidentified Object In Space 716
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the cosmic-dust-on-the-lens dept.
from the cosmic-dust-on-the-lens dept.
Gizmodo is reporting that the Hubble space telescope has found a new unidentified object in the middle of nowhere. Some are even suggesting that this could be a new class of object. Of course, without actually understanding more about it, the speculation seems a bit wild. "The object also appeared out of nowhere. It just wasn't there before. In fact, they don't even know where it is exactly located because it didn't behave like anything they know. Apparently, it can't be closer than 130 light-years but it can be as far as 11 billion light-years away. It's not in any known galaxy either. And they have ruled out a supernova too. It's something that they have never encountered before. In other words: they don't have a single clue about where or what the heck this thing is."
Scientists Find Believing Can Be Seeing 169
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the the-mind-is-quicker-than-the-eye dept.
from the the-mind-is-quicker-than-the-eye dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Scientists at University College London have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw revealing that the context surrounding what we see is all important — sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things which aren't really there. A vague background context is more influential and helps us to fill in more blanks than a bright, well-defined context. This may explain why we are prone to 'see' imaginary shapes in the shadows when the light is poor. "Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years," said Professor Zhaoping. "When you see them throw a ball into the air, followed by a second ball, and then a third ball which 'magically' disappears, you wonder how they did it. In truth, there's often no third ball — it's just our brain being deceived by the context, telling us that we really did see three balls launched into the air, one after the other." The original research paper is available on PLOS, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal."
Comment: Re:FYI: Tax Deductions on Charity Auctions (Score 1) 327
Well, a pretty good definition of an auction is "a process by which a fair market value is determined". So the amount the uid auction ends up at is the fair market value (let's face it, that's what the market is willing to pay for a unique item), and the winner will not have paid a cent over that. The mothridden old tower, on the other hand... :)
+ - Building the Interplanetary Internet
Submitted
by
sighted
sighted writes "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the "InterPlaNet" protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. For example, it can take a signal up to 20 minutes to travel between the Earth and Mars, depending on the distance between the two planets."
Piracy Stats Don't Add Up 258
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the someone-went-out-on-a-limb dept.
from the someone-went-out-on-a-limb dept.
arenam writes to tell us Australian IT is reporting that a recent briefing for the Attorney-General's Department prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology draws certain piracy statistics into question. From the article: "The draft of the institute's intellectual property crime report, sighted by The Australian shows that copyright owners 'failed to explain' how they reached financial loss statistics used in lobbying activities and court cases. Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are 'unverified and epistemologically unreliable,' the report says."