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Star Wars Prequels

Submission + - Star Wars Fans Fix Up Luke Skywalker's Home (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: How far would a Star Wars fan go to preserve a relic from the iconic film series? One devoted fan traveled to Tunisia to rescue Luke Skywalker's boyhood home, also known as The Lars Homestead, as seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. On a trip to Tunisia in 2010, Belgian traveler Mark Dermul came upon the modest dome-shaped hut that George Lucas built in the mid-1970s to serve as Luke Skywalker's home. The structure was falling apart when Dermul found it, so he hatched a scheme to restore it. After two years and a lot of cement and plaster, Luke's house is looking better than ever.
Linux

Submission + - Gamers asking GOG to sell games for Linux (steamforlinux.com)

Submitted by
FutureSuture
FutureSuture writes: "The story is that GOG has a community wishlist where users can submit suggestions for either games or website features and vote on these suggestions. One such suggestion submitted by a user called JudasIscariot (who just happens to be an employee of GOG) was to add Linux versions of games that GOG already sold for Windows to their catalog i.e. games like Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Neverwinter Nights. With Linux getting more support and attention thanks to the likes of Kickstarter, the Humble Bundle, Desura, and soon Steam as well, GOG may not be that far off themselves.

JudasIscariot wrote: "If a game has a Linux version and it is made and supported by the developer please allow the option to download the Linux version if at all possible."

This entry in the GOG Community Wishlist was always to be found around the top and has collected over 4 500 votes to date. This shows that there are gamers using Linux and that they are ravenous for support. With GOG selling indie games these days where many of which have Linux and Mac versions as well, there is an increasing pressure to offer the full package. It is only a matter of time before our votes reach the folks at GOG and they begin to add Linux versions of the games they already sell for Windows. If things go well, they might even hit Linux before Steam does due to the infamous concept of Valve Time, although hopefully both of them come around sooner rather than later!

Other relevant links:

Other requests that have to do with Linux.

GOG's view on the matter so far"
Idle

Submission + - Rolls-Royce Unveils World's First LEGO Jet Engine Made from 152,455 Bricks (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by
Elliot Chang
Elliot Chang writes: "Rolls-Royce debuted the world’s first ever LEGO Jet Engine at the Farnborough International Airshow this week in England. The model is a half-size replica of the enormous Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 that powers the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It took 152,455 LEGO bricks, eight weeks, and a team of four fulltime employees to assemble the model. While the real engine weighs in at 1.25 tons, the LEGO replica still weighs a hefty 676 pounds and measures 4.9 feet long and 6.5 feet wide."
Software

Submission + - Overclocked Raspberry Pi runs optimized Raspbian OS (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Raspberry Pi owners will soon be enjoying a much faster operating system thanks to the efforts of the developers behind Raspbian.

Raspbian Linux is a distro based on Debian, but with all the packages optimized specifically for the Raspberry Pi. While multiple flavors of ARM-friendly Linux are already available for the tiny machine, Raspbian is the first to target it specifically and focus on performance. The new OS also takes full advantage of the floating point hardware the board’s processor contains–something previous distributions haven’t been able to do.

One of the Raspberry Pi developers has been experimenting with Raspbian and the performance improvements it brings. He’s also managed to successfully overclock the board to run at 1GHz instead of the stock 700Mhz the ARM11 chip ships at. And the results are very encouraging.
Space

Submission + - Virgin Galactic announces new satellite launch vehicle (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Virgin Galactic has announced a new craft called LauncherOne which it will use to put satellites and other small spacecraft into orbit. 'It appears to leverage some of the hardware already developed for SpaceShipTwo, Virgin's suborbital tourist vehicle. Like SpaceShipTwo, the new rocket rides up underneath Virgin's big carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, to about 50,000 feet. After release, the rocket drops for approximately four seconds before the first stage ignites. After the first stage burns out, a second stage takes the satellite to orbit.' Launching from a moving airplane eliminates many cost and scheduling concerns inherent to ground-based launches, and it's much easier to reach a broad range of trajectories for putting objects into orbit. According to the press release LauncherOne will get objects up to 225kg into orbit for less than $10 million.
Science

Submission + - Aerographite Claims Title of World's Lightest Solid Material (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: While they were each once hailed as the lightest solid material ever made, metallic microlattice and aerogel have now been moved back to second and third place (respectively), with aerographite taking the crown. Developed by a team from the Technical University of Hamburg and Germany’s University of Kiel, the material is composed of 99.99 percent air, along with a three-dimensional network of porous carbon nanotubes that were grown into each other.
Space

Submission + - Raspberry Pi: Putting the Linux device into orbit (zdnet.com)

Submitted by
Jack Spine
Jack Spine writes: "The Raspberry Pi is likely to be blasted into space, according to project founder Eben Upton.

The $35/$25 credit-card-sized single-board educational computer could be used in sounding rockets, satellites, and high altitude balloon tests, according to Upton.

Raspberry Pi has proved wildly popular since its launch, with one developer planning to build into a model boat to sail it across the Atlantic."
Open Source

Submission + - Issue-wise crowdfunding for Open Source (freedomsponsors.com) 1

Submitted by casals
casals writes: Another crowdfunding site came up, this time using a bounty-based approach: it's called Freedom Sponsors (www.freedomsponsors.com). Individuals (developers) register and are paid to solve tasks — issues related to open-source projects. Seems a nice way to get paid for short-term projects and at the same time to speed up issue solving on open source projects (since there are already a lot of companies that already use open source libraries/frameworks).
Businesses

Submission + - Facebook "Like" system devalued by fake users

Submitted by k(wi)r(kipedia)
k(wi)r(kipedia) writes: A BBC investigation has found evidence of fake users skewing the results of Facebook's "Like" recommendation system. The BBC set up a Facebook page for a fake business called VirtualBagel and invited users to "like" it. The page reportedly attracted "over 1,600 likes" within twenty-four hours. The test appeared to confirm the claims of a social media marketing consultant who contacted the BBC after he noticed a disparity in the distribution of users "liking" the products of his clients. "While they had been targeting Facebook users around the world, all their 'likes' appeared to be coming from countries such as the Philippines and Egypt."
Science

Submission + - Natural fluorine does exist...in smelly rocks (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: Chemists have proved that a smelly rock is the only known place on Earth where fluorine exists in its elemental form, F2 (Abstract). The rock is antozonite, a calcium fluoride (fluorite) mineral that is dark violet or even black in colour, also known as fetid fluorite or stinkspar. Needless to say, this rock stinks. The pungent smell is given off when antozonite is crushed, and chemists and mineralogists have argued over the origin of the stench since the early nineteenth century. It turns out French chemist Henri Moissan, who first isolated fluorine in 1886, was right. The rock contains pockets of fluorine that are released on crushing.
Technology

Submission + - Your phone may soon know where you're going before you do (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Phones obviously already know where we are and where we have been, thanks to GPS and other clever positioning technologies. Now, thanks to an algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham, your smartphone may soon be able to make accurate educated guesses as to where you’re going to be in 24 hours time. And here’s the dirty trick responsible for the algorithm’s future-telling powers: it spies on your friends and connects the dots where necessary. In a sample of 200 people, the system was on average less than 20 meters (66 feet) off when trying to predict where a person is going to be in 24 hours time. When the same system was stripped of the social component, the average error grew to 1 km (0.6 miles).
Medicine

Submission + - Study identifies how muscles are paralyzed during sleep (gizmocrazed.com)

Submitted by Diggester
Diggester writes: With all this constant stream of tech news, it's a wonder how anyone gets any sleep in the world, and for some people this can be a serious problem. REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, sleep is the deep sleep in which people tend to dream and get actual rest, and the lack of this type of sleep can cause some serious problems down the road.
Luckily, a group of neuroscientists at the University of Toronto have discovered what makes people literally tick while they sleep.
Debian

Submission + - New Debian Theme Brings Lots of "Joy" (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The theme for the upcoming Debian 7.0 has been selected and it has been dubbed Joy. Adrien Aubourg, the artist of the Joy theme says that it "is intended to appeal by being efficient with a light and simple theme."
Google

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Asks Google To Stop Google+ Event Spam (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Earlier there was no way to decline an event, so when I was invited to Ubuntu 12.10 event I could not decline it and now it is showing up in my calender. So every time you are invited to an event it will be showing up in your calender. That's fine but only those events must show in my calender which I have 'accepted'. I must not see the undecided or rejected events.

I am not the single one, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, also feels the same and considers this a spam. He posted on his Google+ page:
The Internet

Submission + - Penny Arcade takes to Kickstarter to go ad-free (eurogamer.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Web comic entrepreneurs, convention throwers and charity organisers Penny Arcade have jumped into the Kickstarter pool with the goal of making its publication completely ad free.

The Kickstarter does not mean Penny Arcade is in trouble. "Honestly if this Kickstarter doesn't work nothing here will change," said Mike "Gabe" Krahulik on the official site.

"The reality is that we can continue working for advertisers but if we can, we'd rather work for you."

The first Kickstarter goal is to hit $250,000, at which point the leaderboard ad on the homepage will be removed. At $525,000 all ads on the homepage will vanish, and at $999,999 Penny Arcade promises it will go ad free for an entire year.

Penny Arcade explains on the Kickstarter page that being freed from advertisers would have a trickle down effect allowing the company to produce more conten

Submission + - NVIDIA Developer Zone Hacked

Submitted by Memroid
Memroid writes: During the same day that Yahoo announced that their servers were hacked, NVIDIA is now announcing to their Developer Zone members that they too may have been the target of an attack:

"July 12, 2012
Dear DevZone User,

NVIDIA suspended operations today of the NVIDIA Developer Zone website. We did this in response to attacks on the site by unauthorized third parties who may have gained access to hashed passwords.

We are investigating this matter and working around the clock to ensure that secure operations can be restored.

As a precautionary measure, we strongly recommend that you change any identical passwords that you may be using elsewhere.

NVIDIA does not request sensitive information by email. Do not provide personal, financial or sensitive information (including new passwords) in response to any email purporting to be sent by an NVIDIA employee or representative.

Check back on NVIDIA Developer Zone for updates."

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