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Space

Submission + - The nearest supernova candidate to Earth - IK Peg (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "What's the nearest star to Earth that can explode as a supernova? Spica, at 260 light years away, is the nearest massive star that can explode, but IK Pegasi — a Sirius-like binary composed of a normal star and a white dwarf — will also one day blow. At a distance of 150 light years it's truly the closest supernova candidate. Happily, that's too far away to damage the Earth when it goes off — and it won't explode for millions of years at least, by which time it'll be even farther away. Either way, we're safe... for now."
Software

Submission + - Wozniak's Original System Description of the Apple ][ (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "Opening with the line, "To me, a personal computer should be small, reliable, convenient to use and inexpensive." Stephen Wozniak gave his system description of the Apple-II in the May, 1977 issue of BYTE.
It's instructive to read what was worth bragging about back then, such as integral graphics, "A key part of the Apple-II design is an integral video display generator which diectly accesses the system's programmable memory. Screen formatting and cursor controls are realized in my design in the form of about 200 bytes of read only memory."
And it shows what the limitations were in those days, "While writing Apple BASIC, I ran into the problem of manipulating the 16 bit pointer data and its arithmetic in an 8 bit machine.
My solution to this problem of handling 16 bit data, notably pointers, with an 8 bit microprocessor was to implement a nonexistent 16 bit processor in software, interpreter fashion.""
Earth

Submission + - Apple Makes North Carolina Data Centre 100 Percent Renewable (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "Stung by continued criticism from Greenpeace and protests at Apple's headquartersover its use of electricity from non-renewable sources, Apple has promised that its data centre in Maiden, North Carolina will use 100 percent renewable electricity,, 60 percent of it generated by Apple itself. The update is possible because it is building a second giant solar array, and because its data centre only needs 20MW at full capacity, instead of the 100MW which Greenpeace had estimated."

Comment Re:If you want to impress me (Score 1) 255

THX has a technology that is available on some laptops and home tuners called Smart Dialog Plus that does that. Also if you're using surround sound the dialog usually comes from the center channel and the left and right speakers. You can enhance the clarity of the dialog by increasing the volume of the center channel and adjusting the center channel width to a lower setting.
Apple

Submission + - Judges Order Apple to Talk to Competitors Instead of Suing Them Out of Business (engadget.com)

Submitted by
ourlovecanlastforeve
ourlovecanlastforeve writes: "US judges have clearly had enough of Apple trying to build their market share by throwing phalanxes of lawyers and patent claims at competitors who might have a product that would compete and reduce their market share. After two HTC launches were delayed and and before Apple is to meet with Samsung executives Magistrate Judge Sherry R. Fallon tells Apple to sit down and talk it out with competitor Samsung instead of dragging them into yet another court battle."

Comment It's DSL (Score 1) 345

Expecting 3MBit out of copper phone lines is like expecting to reliably shove an elephant through a plastic drinking straw fifty times a second. Certainly, in time, we could develop the technology to shove an elephant through a drinking straw fifty times a second in time and given enough money and effort, but that would be stupid. If you want affordable (relatively speaking) broadband and you can't get a cable modem consider satellite.
Government

Submission + - 80 Percent of Americans Do Not Trust Their Government (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by
ourlovecanlastforeve
ourlovecanlastforeve writes: "The US Government's trust among US citizens is at an all time low according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. Factors of this distrust include extended infighting between political parties in congress, continued job loss, the recession that we are only now admitting is a recession. Trust is down 5% from 1981 to a staggering %20."

Comment It's inevitable (Score 2) 301

Stop struggling. The government will be allowed to imprison anyone for no reason and monitor everything everyone does for no reason. There's no point trying to stop it. Your vote doesn't matter because if the Government doesn't like your vote they'll just change it. We're in a sick downward spiral that will result in revolt, genocide and eventually mass destitution. Already a majority of Americans are out of jobs. The only reason government statistics don't consider a majority of people to be unemployed is because you're only considered unemployed if you can be verified as currently looking for work. According the the US government, you're not unemployed if you've given up looking for a job. Also, if you have a mortgage, the government considers you a small business owner and thus employed. We will only start to recover when the money being hoarded by the obscenely rich is no longer worth anything.
HP

Submission + - Round of massive job-cutting expected at HP (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by vencs
vencs writes: HP is considering cutting as many as 25,000 jobs, or 8 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs and help the company contend with ebbing demand for computers and services, people briefed on the plans said.
The number to be cut includes 10,000 to 15,000 from Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise services group, which sells a range of information-technology services and has been beset by declining profitability, said these people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final and may change.
Space

Submission + - Every Black Hole Contains a New Universe (insidescience.org)

Submitted by SciNye
SciNye writes: A physicist presents a solution to present-day cosmic mysteries: Our universe may exist inside a black hole. This may sound strange, but it could actually be the best explanation of how the universe began, and what we observe today. It's a theory that has been explored over the past few decades by a small group of physicists including myself.

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