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Submission + - 2013 could be an exciting year for Comet watching (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by geirnord
geirnord writes: Later this year the newly discovered Comet Ison [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-biggest-star-of-2013-could-be-ison--the-comet-of-the-century-8431443.html] is expected to appear brighter than the full moon in the sky, looking like a searchlight across the sky. PanSTARRS 2014/L4 is also expected to be a good show.

As usual, fear mongering is starting, is the end nigh? http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/11/30/sun-grazing-comets-as-the-trigger-for-electromagnetic-armageddon/
Operating Systems

Submission + - FreeBSD Fundraising almost there (freebsdfoundation.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It seems that the FreeBSD Doundation fundraising is going pretty well. 461k $ funded in less that one month its a success and seems better than expected by other slashdot readers(http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/12/12/09/1726222/freebsd-project-falls-short-of-year-end-funding-target-by-nearly-50), and should not be rated as "fail". Since the FBD Foundation site have a lot of details of what is being done to improve FreeBSD and what will be done(in a non-tech description), what is the feature/subsystem/port that you thing deserves some love from FreeBSD developers?

Comment Re:around coliseum in rome streets? (Score 1) 91

by physburn (#42168057) Attached to: FIA Adds Rome To Formula E 2014 Inaugural Season
Electric Vehicles can quite simply to engineered for high speed, the higher the voltage on the motor the faster it goes, simple. The only additional consideration is cooling the motor. Batteries can easierly be made ultra thin and stacked to high voltage, enabling very high speed electric cars.

---

Motor Racing Feed @ Feed Distiller
Crime

Submission + - Meg Whitman claims HP was defrauded by Autonomy; HP stock plunges (cnbc.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: CNBC has the news (http://www.cnbc.com/id/49900639) that Meg Whitman is claiming that search engine Autonomy defrauded HP.

"We believed there is a willful effort on the part of certain members of Autonomy management to mislead shareholders when Autonomy was a publicly traded company, and to mislead potential buyers including HP, Whitman said. "We stand by the forensic review that we’ve seen," she added.
Science

Submission + - Apes Go Through Mid-Life Crisis (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that like humans, the wellbeing or happiness of chimpanzees and orangutans also follows a U shape and is high in youth, falls in middle age and rises again into old age.
Linux

Submission + - Valve's Steam License Causes Linux Packaging Concerns (phoronix.com) 2

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: With the Linux Steam beta giving Ubuntu and it's large user base all the love, other Linux gamers are understandably wanting to let in on the fun. For the beta, Valve has provided Steam as a Debian package. Many hungry Linux gamers have reported that they have have Steam running on their fav. distro, but that still leaves the legal debate. What is the legal threshold needed to get Steam in the repos of your fav. flavor of Linux? Will Valve's one-size-fits-every-OS license be flexible to work on Linux or will it kill/Delay the dream of a viable gaming world for Linux? We are so close to bridging the last major hurdle in finally realizing the year of the Linux desktop: Gaming. Lets hope the FOSS community and Valve can play together so we all win.
Science

Submission + - Man hunted with spears 200k years earlier than expected (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
AoOs
AoOs writes: "Findings published in Science indicate that man started hunting with spears 500,000 years ago. 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. This early use indicated that the early human species and Neanderthals used spears for hunting. "Although both Neanderthals and humans used stone-tipped spears, this is the first evidence that the technology originated prior to or near the divergence of these two species." says Jayne Wilkins, a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto in Canada."
Biotech

Submission + - DNA sequencers stymie spread of MRSA (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "A superbug outbreak that plagued a special-care neonatal unit in Cambridge, UK, for several months last year was brought to an end by insights gained from genome sequencing. The case, reported in Lancet Infectious Disease (abstract), marks the first time that scientists have sequenced pathogen genomes to actively control an ongoing outbreak.
Sharon Peacock, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, and her team became involved in the outbreak after three infants at nearby Rosie Hospital’s 24-cot special-care baby unit tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) within a couple days of each other.
The ward was sterilized but another baby tested positive for MRSA just days later. Confronted with an ongoing outbreak, the researchers cast their net wider, searching for the outbreak strain among the 154 workers on the baby unit. One tested positive for a matching MRSA strain, despite showing no symptoms. The employee was 'decolonized' by extensive washing with topical antibiotics and the outbreak stopped."
Transportation

Submission + - Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The WSJ reports that US airlines are facing their most serious pilot shortage since the 1960s, with federal mandates taking effect that will require all newly hired pilots to have at least 1,500 hours of prior flight experience—six times the current minimum—raising the cost and time to train new fliers in an era when pay cuts and more-demanding schedules already have made the profession less attractive. Meanwhile, thousands of senior pilots at major airlines soon will start hitting the mandatory retirement age of 65. "We are about four years from a solution, but we are only about six months away from a problem.,” says Bob Reding, recently retired executive vice president of operations at AMR Corp. A study by the University of North Dakota's aviation department indicates major airlines will need to hire 60,000 pilots by 2025 to replace departures and cover expansion over the next eight years. Meanwhile only 36,000 pilots have passed the Air Transport Pilot exam in the past eight years, which all pilots would have to pass under the congressionally imposed rules and there are limits to the ability of airlines, especially the regional carriers, to attract more pilots by raising wages. While the industry's health has improved in recent years, many carriers still operate on thin profit margins, with the airlines sandwiched between rising costs for fuel and unsteady demand from price-sensitive consumers. "It certainly will result in challenges to maintain quality," says John Marshall, an independent aviation-safety consultant who spent 26 years in the Air Force before overseeing Delta's safety. "Regional carriers will be creative and have to take shortcuts" to fill their cockpits."

Comment Newspapers (Score 1) 211

by physburn (#41968725) Attached to: The Last Thing You Read Was
Does no one read the newspaper any more. I choose newspaper, i read the Metro on the way to work and the evening standard on the way home. I probably wouldn't read a newspaper at all, but both those sheet are free, and given out on the london underground.
Science

Submission + - Supersymmetry theory dealt a blow (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Dupple
Dupple writes: Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider have detected one of the rarest particle decays seen in Nature.

The finding deals a significant blow to the theory of physics known as supersymmetry.

Many researchers had hoped the LHC would have confirmed this by now.

Supersymmetry, or SUSY, has gained popularity as a way to explain some of the inconsistencies in the traditional theory of subatomic physics known as the Standard Model.

The new observation, reported at the Hadron Collider Physics conference in Kyoto, is not consistent with many of the most likely models of SUSY.

Prof Chris Parke, who is the spokesperson for the UK Participation in the LHCb experiment, told BBC News: "Supersymmetry may not be dead but these latest results have certainly put it into hospital."

Submission + - Goatse.cx re-invented as mail provider 1

Submitted by erikkemperman
erikkemperman writes: As reported by El Reg, you can now obtain your own @goatse.cs e-mail address. As the article says, "Want absolutely NO ONE to read your mail?". While I'm pretty sure few will miss that guy, does this in some weird way mark the end of an era?

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