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Space

Supermassive Black Hole Destroying Proto Star System 67

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the sucks-to-live-there dept.
astroengine writes "A new analysis of recent observations finds evidence for a protoplanetary disk around a red dwarf star plunging in the direction of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Ruth Murray-Clay and Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics did the theoretical work. Stefan Gillessen of the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics made the observations using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. The red dwarf star will make its closest approach in the summer of 2013, hurtling only 270 billion miles from black hole. (Or roughly 54 solar system diameters, as measured from the furthest edge of the Kuiper belt.) It won't get sucked into the black hole, but it will be flung back along its elliptical orbit out to a distance of a little more than 1/10 light-years."
Software

Canonical Announces Ubuntu App Showdown 56

Posted by Soulskill
from the pistol-based-apps-not-welcome dept.
alphadogg writes "Linux developers will soon have a chance to compete for prizes of laptops and smartphones, thanks to Canonical's announcement this week of the Ubuntu App Showdown contest. Developers will have from June 18 until July 9 — a total of three weeks — to create an app using Canonical's Quickly development tool, which combines Python and GTK into a single Ubuntu-centric package. The resulting apps will be judged by a five-member panel, with the developers of the top three receiving new Nokia N9 smartphones."
Businesses

Do Women Make Better Bosses? 403

Posted by Soulskill
from the technically-they-make-all-of-them dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "David Mielach reports on a new study which finds that women in management positions lead in a more democratic way, allowing employees to participate in decision-making and establishing interpersonal channels of communication. 'In line with known gender differences in individual leadership, we find that in workplaces with more women managers, more individualized employee feedback is carried out,' says study author Eduardo Melero. 'Likewise, we can see evidence, although weaker, that in these workplaces decisions are made more democratically and more interpersonal channels of communications are established.' The research was based on data from the Workplace Employment Relationships Survey, a survey of workplaces in the United Kingdom. Melero analyzed this data by looking at the number of women in management positions in companies and the leadership tactics employed at those companies. He found increased communication between management and employees in companies with women in management positions led to more well-informed decisions, since employee feedback will be utilized in the decision-making process. Still, correlation does not equal causation. 'One might question the direction of the relation: is it women managers who are the behind these policies, or is it that more progressive organizations are more accessible for women leaders than other workplaces (PDF)?'"

Comment: Re:I think musk lost his marbles (Score 1) 238

by spaceplanesfan (#39428243) Attached to: Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000

No, dragon is NOT yet human rated, Heck it just flew once,and that dragon didn't even had the equipment to berth with the station, lets alone give humans the life support.
Cheese is a lot easier to launch that a human, trust me.

Don't get me wrong, Musk is on the right track. His dragon sure will became soon man rated, he will eventually launch sats.
I just want to note that I think he is overly optimistic, taking all the time about how he will launch a falcon 9 every 3 months, about mars, re-usability, etc, and yet, until now he just can launch just one rocket per year,

On the other hand, he has plenty of enemies. I even witnessed one myself. Many peoples that work for pork that nasa provides are really upset by his work, and try to spread the FUD about how unsafe his rocket is and stuff like that.
So I guess here really plays it safe.

So go SpaceX, go and just suceed.

BTW, it looks like you (slashdot readers) were right when you laughed about Skylon
I actually registered here on slashdot to express my opinion about it.
Yet almost year passed since their 'precooler' test supposed to start, and its not done yet.
They indeed probably just blow dust into investor's eyes.

Software

What Does a Software Tester's Job Constitute? 228

Posted by timothy
from the darts-glue-and-ping-pong dept.
First time accepted submitter rolakyng writes "I got a call from a recruiter looking for software test engineer. I'm a software engineer and my job is development and testing. I know I mentioned testing but I'm pretty sure it's totally different from professional testing practices. Can anyone shed light on what a software test engineer's day to day responsibilities are? They said they'll call me back for a screening and I want to be ready for it. Any tips?"
Input Devices

Engelbart's Keyboard Available For Touchscreens 160

Posted by timothy
from the so-you-can-drive-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Doug Engelbart should be known to everyone on Slashdot — he did invent the mouse after all, among many other inventions all of us rely on today. There was one more obscure device he came up with that never really took off, though. It was called the Chorded Keyboard, and consisted of a system that allowed you to type using just one hand. The key to this system was finger combinations, which allowed up to 32 different characters — more than enough for the alphabet. Now that one-handed keyboard has been ported to work with touchscreens, and it could end up being quite popular. The key benefit is the fact you can type anywhere on the screen and don't even need to see where you are typing. The only difficulty is learning all the key combos, but once you have them cold you may be able to type faster than with two hands on your smartphone or tablet." Bonus: being software-only and open-source, it's much cheaper than a Twiddler.
Cellphones

The iPhone Is a Nightmare For Carriers 438

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the greed-begets-greed dept.
New submitter HungryMonkey writes "According to the latest EBITDA numbers from AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, the subsidies they have to pay Apple in order to carry the iPhone are drastically reducing their profits. From the Article: '"A logical conclusion is that the iPhone is not good for wireless carriers," says Mike McCormack, an analyst at Nomura Securities. "When we look at the direct and indirect economics that Apple has managed to extract from the carriers, the carrier-level value destruction is quite evident."' So one money sucking leech has attached itself to another money sucking leech?"

Comment: Re:MP3 Players... (Score 1) 179

by spaceplanesfan (#38867429) Attached to: Rockbox Developers Talk Open Source Firmware

I have Fuze+. Apart from the fact that it does play ogg, its crap overpriced player.
Not only it has over sensitive touchpad that reacts to every finger movement while you hold that damn thing,
but it also buggy (crashed many times),
Its interface also lags a lot.

It barely recognizes IDv3 tags (I had to convert all of my MP3 collection to use very specific version of them to make it see them).
It plays videos only is very specific format for which you have to download their crappy video converter.
Battery life is decent, but its much lower that 24 hour, they claim. It works for about 6 hours with screen turned off.

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein

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