Submission + - Another large Black hole in "our" Galaxy (arxiv.org)
Remember the hoopla a few years ago about radio-astronomical observations producing an "image" of our central black hole — or rather, an image of the accretion disc around the black hole — long designated by astronomers as "Sagittarius A*" (or SGR-A*)? If you remember the image published then, one thing should be striking — it's not very symmetrical. If you think about viewing a spinning object, then you'd expect to see something with a "mirror" symmetry plane where we would see the rotation axis (if someone had marked it). If anything, that published image has three bright spots on a fainter ring. And the spots are not even approximately the same brightness.
This paper suggests that the image we see is the result of the light (radio waves) from SGR-A* being "lensed" by another black hole, near (but not quite on) the line of sight between SGR-A* and us. By various modelling approaches, they then refine this idea to a "best-fit" of a black hole with mass around 1000 times the Sun, orbiting between the distance of the closest-observed star to SGR-A* ("S2" — most imaginative name, ever!), and around 10 times that distance. That's far enough to make a strong interaction with "S2" unlikely within the lifetime of S2 before it's accretion onto SGR-A*.)
The region around SGR-A* is crowded. Within 25 parsecs (~80 light years, the distance to Regulus [in the constellation Leo] or Merak [in the Great Bear]) there is around 4 times more mass in several millions of "normal" stars than in the SGR-A* black hole. Finding a large (not "super massive") black hole in such a concentration of matter shouldn't surprise anyone.
This proposed black hole is larger than anything which has been detected by gravitational waves (yet) ; but not immensely larger — only a factor of 15 or so. (The authors also anticipate the "what about these big black holes spiralling together?" question : quote "and the amplitude of gravitational waves generated by the binary black holes is negligible.")
Being so close to SGR-A*, the proposed black hole is likely to be moving rapidly across our line of sight. At the distance of "S2" it's orbital period would be around 26 years (but the "new" black hole is probably further out than than that). Which might be an explanation for some of the variability and "flickering" reported for SGR-A* ever since it's discovery.
As always, more observations are needed. Which, for SGR-A* are frequently being taken, so improving (or ruling out) this explanation should happen fairly quickly. But it's a very interesting, and fun, idea.
Submission + - Surado, formerly Slashdot Japan, is closing at the end of the month. (srad.jp) 1
Last year the site stopped posting new stories, and was subsequently unable to find a buyer. In a final story announcing the end, many users expressed their sadness and gratitude for all the years of service.
Comment 20 Years of Watching Grass Grow worth a lot?!? (Score 1) 17
Comment Re:Millions you say (Score 1) 44
The ones with actual users
These are the sort of self-generating monopolies I've seen in the past 25 years of the internet.
Effectively, everyone goes there because everyone goes there.
A bit more than herd mentality, but makes any startup something which requires large amounts of energy to succeed and then keep going. Never stop.
Twitter has self-inflicted wounds, thanks Elon, but continues to limp along. I find myself less likely to visit because -- not everyone is there any more.
Comment As a victim of Venture Capital ... (Score 2) 27
Not all Venture Capital are angels, some come in and kill the fledgling company and take it's IP, others wring it dry over months or years while skimming money off the top. Never occurs to some investors a company could be the next Alphabet or Meta.
Comment Who goes there? (Score 1) 146
This would then block the future as depicted in Minority Report.
"Hi there! Would you like to buy another [highly personal and embarrassing item]?"
There's a relief.
Comment That's a lot of samolians (Score 1) 201
I visited Activision in the mid 1980s, when it was a shoe-string operation. Games for the C64 were coming along and quite impressive, including Little Computer People, which was running on a desk over a weekend to check for stability.
Seems it's all about IP these days.
Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter
Comment Re:Portland, OR, too (Score 1) 352
insurrectionists
Amazing how quickly morons adopt the terminology propagandized by their party's political officers. "Insurrectionists" indeed.
Though I did enjoy your Beautiful Mind-level tapestry of innuendo, projection, and theorizing utilized to support it.
Comment Kiss 3.5 GHz band good-bye (Score 4, Insightful) 25
They're coming for the upper bands which were available to Ham Radio enthusiasts. FCC doesn't care about us anymore.
Comment Re:Remaining merchandise (Score 1) 305
Such a useless post and reflecting lack of actual knowledge of Fry's.
20 some years ago I bought my first laptop (still have it) at Fry's in Sunnyvale. It was still in the little grocery location, the shelves (and even former refrigerated goods) aisles has resistor and capacitor models sticking out of the floor. It's long since become some health club or other business after Fry's moved to a big store a couple blocks away.
In the hey day of the stores on E. Arques, E. Brokaw and E. Hamilton had about 40 or 60 cashiers, the queue moved pretty swiftly and they didn't take American Express. I tried to buy my first digital camera there and found that out. Went over to Wolf Camera to pick it up. Anyway, over the past few years I've visited the number of cashiers has dwindled down to only a handful. Few floor walkers, where once they were all over you, asking if you needed any help. Last visit I didn't see one at all.
At the end Fry's probably only had a dozen people working in each of their giant stores, a far cry from the hundreds they employed a decade or two before. The downsizing has been happening over time. Weep not for droves of employees losing their jobs, weep for the few who worked in desolate stores, with unstocked shelves who knew the writing was on the wall. They've been circling the drain for years.
The main hurt here is losing a chain which once carried just about everything the home hobbyist/maniac could ever want. That's been going on with the closure of Weird Stuff and Halted Specialties. I'll have to look to see if there's anyone left who sells components, wire, cable, solder, special tools, etc. I'd say they failed to plan well and we've known the eventual source of stuff is going to be our mailbox.
Comment Re: Many eyeballs out of MS have seen source, lega (Score -1) 193
Comment Re:Corporate Welfare (Score 1) 191
Gotta love these welfare queens leaching off the American tax payers.
Here is an idea - pay your fucking taxes and then we can talk about bailouts or 'incentives' or whatever you hypocrites call your corporate welfare.
Gotta love these welfare queens leaching off the American tax payers
I'm no fan of corporate welfare, but $50B is cheap.
Half of the federal budget is actual welfare, about $2T, which doesn't exactly go into the pockets of Americans either. It's a big trough where lots of other corporations feed, and millions of middlemen wet their beak.
Returning the silicon to Silicon Valley (or, more likely, Texas) is a good thing all around for America and Americans. If we can keep our chips from even having a whiff of NSA fingers, that's a competitive advantage to the rest of the world. And it makes a home for the technically inclined so they have a career path that doesn't end in yak shaving in the bowels of some high-frequency trading company to gain an extra nanosecond. Offshoring our manufacturing is 100% the worst thing our leaders, both corporate and government, has done to the country.
Comment Re:What's with the inflammatory clickbait headline (Score 1) 127
Trump Ban on Poisoned Chinese Dog Food Causes Rise in Coyote Attacks on Infants
What is the endgame of these transparently partisan articles? Do they really think that people are so gullible they'll read the headline and say, "I guess Trump is the worst thing in the entire world. Literally Hitler."?
It's all so tiresome.