jblb - Slashdot User

Comment Copy Australia (Score 1) 357

by jblb on Tuesday June 05, 2012 @06:49PM (#40226473) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Reasonable Immigration Policy For Highly-Trained Workers?

The skilled migrant system in Australia, NZ and Canada seems to work well - a points system with adjustable quotas and bonus points for areas of absolute skills shortage, with a well defined path to residency and citizenship.

Submission + - Intelsat Signs Launch Contract with SpaceX (spacex.com)

Submitted by jamstar7 on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @03:55PM

jamstar7 writes: Following the success of the Falcon9/Dragon resupply test to the ISS comes the following announcement:
Washington, DC / Hawthorne, CA May 29, 2012 — Today, Intelsat, the world's leading provider of satellite services, and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the world's fastest growing space launch company, announced the first commercial contract for the Falcon Heavy rocket.

"SpaceX is very proud to have the confidence of Intelsat, a leader in the satellite communication services industry," said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer. "The Falcon Heavy has more than twice the power of the next largest rocket in the world. With this new vehicle, SpaceX launch systems now cover the entire spectrum of the launch needs for commercial, civil and national security customers."

As of yet, the Falcon Heavy hasn't flown, but all the parts have been tested. Essentially an upgunned Falcon 9 with strapon boosters, the Heavy has lift capability second only to the Saturn 5. Already scheduled for 4 Falcon Heavy launches for the US Air Force this year, the Intelsat contract represents the true dawn of the commercial space age.

Submission + - Cool space shot: Venus set to cross Sun (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @01:20PM

coondoggie writes: "You likely have been told your entire life not to stare directly at the but for an event happening next month you may want to figure out how to get a peek. NASA said on June 5th, 2012, Venus will pass in front of the sun, "producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again.""

Submission + - Homeland Battlefield Act Portion Found Unconstitutional By New York Judge (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

TheGift73

on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @08:25PM

TheGift73 writes: "NEW YORK — A judge on Wednesday struck down a portion of a law giving the government wide powers to regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists, saying it left journalists, scholars and political activists facing the prospect of indefinite detention for exercising First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan said in a written ruling that a single page of the law has a "chilling impact on First Amendment rights." She cited testimony by journalists that they feared their association with certain individuals overseas could result in their arrest because a provision of the law subjects to indefinite detention anyone who "substantially" or "directly" provides "support" to forces such as al-Qaida or the Taliban. She said the wording was too vague and encouraged Congress to change it.

"An individual could run the risk of substantially supporting or directly supporting an associated force without even being aware that he or she was doing so," the judge said.

She said the law also gave the government authority to move against individuals who engage in political speech with views that "may be extreme and unpopular as measured against views of an average individual."

Submission + - NASA counts 4,700 potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @05:56PM

coondoggie writes: "NASA continues to get a better handle on the asteroids buzzing around in space saying today that there are roughly 4,700 potentially hazardous asteroids, or as NASA calls them PHAs.
NASA says these PHAs are a subset of a larger group of near-Earth asteroids but have the closest orbits to Earth's – passing within five million miles (or about eight million kilometers) and are big enough to survive passing through Earth's atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale."

Submission + - DIY Tesla Gun (pcworld.com)

Submitted by ntijerino on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @11:43PM

ntijerino writes: Stumbled across this article on a DIY Tesla Gun. Funny timing since my interest in Mr. Tesla has recently been piqued again by, of all things, this comic

Submission + - What if intellectual property expired after five years?

Submitted by

ancientt

on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @10:15PM

ancientt writes: "As a thought experiment, what if the constitution of the US was amended so that no idea (with exceptions only for government use like currency) could be protected from copy or use beyond January 1, 2035 for more than a five year period. After a five year span, any patent, software license, copyright, software NDA or other intellectual property agreement would expire. (This is not an entirely new idea, but would have had significant recent rammifications if it had been enacted in the past.)

Specific terms are up for debate, but in this experiment businesses must have time to try to adjust to sell services and make the services good enough to compete with other businesses offering the same basic products. Microsoft can sell a five year old varient of OSX, Apple can sell Windows 2030.

Cars, computers and phones would, or at least could, still be made, but manufacturers would be free to any technology more than five years old or license new technology for a five year competitive edge. Movie, TV and book budgets would have to adjust to the potential five year profit span although staggered episode or chapter releases would be legal.

Play "What if" with me. What would be the downsides? What would be the upsides?"

Submission + - Dell Apologizes for 'Shut Up Bitch' Comments (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @08:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: Last month, Dell held a special event for Dell partners, which Michael Dell himself attended. The emcee was Mads Christensen, a Danish “inspirational speaker” who did his best to crack up the crowd of about 800 Dell partners and employees with offensive lines such as: "The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out," and "We can thank women for rolling the pin." Mads wrapped up by telling the mostly-male audience to "go home and say, ‘shut up bitch!’” Dell said nothing during the event, but has since quietly apologized via a post on Google+.

Submission + - Military Transformers: 20 Innovative Defense Technologies (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

gManZboy

on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @01:34PM

gManZboy writes: "Much of the Department of Defense's most advanced research goes on at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where work is underway on everything from a jet that shoots across the sky at Mach 20 to disaster-response robots. But DARPA's not the only source of war-fighting innovations. The Naval Research Laboratory, major defense contractors, and IBM have projects underway, too. Check out these 20 innovative defense technologies, some that are being deployed and others still on the drawing board.

Which will see the light of day? The proposed Defense budget for fiscal year 2013 would cut R&D funding by $2.2 billion, to $69.7 billion, though DARPA's budget would be spared significant cuts.

Some of the technologies in development have potential application in the commercial world. Others--including a battleground vehicle that transforms into a helicopter--rewrite the rules of war."

Submission + - AMD Trinity A10-4600M Processor Launched, Tested (hothardware.com) 3

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @12:45AM

MojoKid writes: "AMD lifted the veil on their new Trinity A-Series mobile processor architecture today. Trinity has been reported as offering much-needed CPU performance enhancements in IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) but also more of AMD's strength in gaming and multimedia horsepower, with an enhanced second generation integrated Radeon HD graphics engine. AMD's A10-4600M quad-core chip is comprised of 1.3B transistors with a CPU base core clock of 2.3GHz and Turbo Core speeds of up to 3.2GHz. The on-board Radeon HD 7660G graphics core is comprised of 384 Radeon Stream Processor cores clocked at 497MHz base and 686Mhz Turbo. In the benchmarks, AMD's new Trinity A10 chip outpaces Intel's Ivy Bridge for gamingbut can't hold a candle to it for standard compute workloads or video transcoding."

Submission + - AMD detonates Trinity: Behold Bulldozer's second coming (extremetech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @12:42AM

An anonymous reader writes: It’s been a turbulent 12 months for AMD. Since the company launched Llano, its first mainstream “Fusion” part, it has replaced its CEO, debuted a disappointing architecture, delayed its next-generation Brazos parts, and outlined a vision of the future that de-emphasizes cutting-edge process node transitions in favor of re-useable IP blocks that can be shared between multiple SoCs. But the company's Trinity architecture has arrived setting the company up for a competitive 2012, even if it doesn't compete with Ivy Bridge or position AMD for 2013 and beyond.

Slashdot Top Deals