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Comment CCD Arrangment (Score 4, Interesting) 27

by Neuropol (#26407101) Attached to: Countdown To NASA's Kepler Mission
How cool. They matched the CCD arrangment in order to macth the most effective pattern of target stars for corevage and efficientcy:

from the article: "The squares show the FOV of each of the 21 CCD modules. Each is 5 sq deg. Note that the gaps between the CCD modules are aligned so that about half of the 15 stars in the FOV brighter than mv=6 fall in these gaps."

Comment It was a trap (Score 1) 141

by Neuropol (#26184091) Attached to: RIAA Claim of Stopping Suits "Months" Ago Is False
It was a marketting ploy, conceptualized, designed, and brought to fruition by the music industry: the same people that have the power to turn shit in to gold records.

Most likely a ploy to see who would fire up thr bittorrent clients and start going crazy. Never believe this crap until your certain the laws have been written, passed, and every one is truly in the clear.
Games

Annual Video Game Report Card Is Positive, For Once 75

Posted by Soulskill from the i-blame-the-wii dept.
Every year, the National Institute on Media and the Family releases a report card which grades various aspects of the video game industry on how well they keep "inappropriate" games out of the hands of children. This year's report was largely positive, which is surprising given the history of strong criticism by the Institute. They acknowledged that gaming is becoming a much bigger part of family life than it was in the past, and they're making an effort to shift the focus onto the parents to keep their kids' gaming habits under control. The full report is available here (PDF), and Game Daily has an interview with Entertainment Software Alliance CEO Michael Gallagher which touches on some of the same issues.
Portables

Submission + - Thinkpad X60- The Tablet Goes Ultraportable

Submitted by Rovi
Rovi writes: Lenovo had a gift for Thinkpad fans this season- they finally released the successor to the X41 Tablet. The Thinkpad X60 Tablet weighs in at about three and a half pounds and has great tablet functionality. The updates from the older model include a 2.5" hard drive (the X41 used a 1.8"), automatic screen orientation, and an Intel Core Duo processor. For performance seekers some serious upgrades are available, such as a 120GB 5400RPM hard drive, 100GB 7200RPM drive, SXGA+ monitor, or up to 4GB of RAM.
Microsoft

Microsoft Applies to Patent RSS in Vista 119

Posted by Zonk from the don't-jump-the-rails-just-yet dept.
Cyvros wrote in with a link to Wired's Monkey Bites blog, which is featuring a post on Microsoft applying for a patent on RSS. As the article points out, this isn't as crazy as it seems at first blush. From the wording of the application, post author Scott Gilbertson interprets their move as a patent on RSS only within Vista and IE7. From the article: "The big mystery is what Microsoft is planning to do with the patents if they are awarded them. The sad state of patent affairs in the United States has led to several cases of Microsoft being sued for technologies they did arguably invent simply because some else owned a generic patent on them. Of course we have no way of knowing how Microsoft intends to use these patents if they are awarded them. They could represent a defensive move, but they could be offensive as well -- [self-described RSS inventor Dave] Winer may end up being correct. It would be nice to see Microsoft release some information on what they plan to do with these patents, but for now we'll just have to wait and see whether the US Patent and Trademark Office grants them."
Networking

Submission + - "Killer" Network Card Reduces Latency

Submitted by
fatduck
fatduck writes: "HardOCP has published a review of the KillerNIC network card from Bigfoot Networks. The review examines benchmarks of the product in online gaming and a number of user experiences. The product features a "Network Processing Unit" or NPU, among other acronyms, which promise to drastically reduce latency in online games. Too good to be true? The card also sports a hefty price tag of $250."
Businesses

Understanding Burnout 289

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jobs-contoured-to-fit-your-ego dept.
Cognitive Dissident writes "New York Magazine has posted a feature story about the growing phenomenon of 'burnout' and the growing interest of both healthcare professionals and even corporate management in this problem. Probably the most surprising thing learned from reading this article is that work load is not the best predictor of burnout. Instead it has more to do with perceived 'return on investment' of effort. So work places are having to learn to adjust the work environment to reduce or prevent burnout. From the article: '"It's kind of like ergonomics," [Christina Maslach] finally says. "It used to be, 'You sit for work? Here's a chair.' But now we design furniture to fit and support the body. And we're doing the same here. The environments themselves have to say, 'We want people to thrive and grow.' There was a shift, finally, in how people understood the question."' NPR's Talk of the Nation also had a recent feature story based on this article."
Enlightenment

Journal Journal: Welcome back to those halcyon days of yesteryear! 5

Journal by Red Warrior

Ten years. Wow. Doesn't seem nearly so long ago.

Hurts different than it did then. Sharp, stabbing pain then. More of a diffuse something or the other now.

Shrug.

Nothing actually enlightened to say. Just wanted to mark the date.
Guess that's icon fraud? :-?

Oh, and I made it home in one piece. No thanks to NorthWest Airlines.
The bastards.

9 Billion-Year-Old "Dark Energy" Reported 118

Posted by Zonk from the leaving-it-there-for-safekeeping dept.
loid_void writes to mention a New York Times article about the discovery that dark energy, or antigravity, was present at the formation of the universe. A team of 'dark energy prospectors' at the Space Telescope Science Institute theorizes that this may have directed the evolution of the cosmos. By observing supernova activity almost 8 billion years in the past, the team was able to study whether or not dark energy has changed over the millennia. From the article: "The data suggest that, in fact, dark energy has changed little, if at all, over the course of cosmic history. Though hardly conclusive, that finding lends more support to what has become the conventional theory, that the source of cosmic antigravity is the cosmological constant, a sort of fudge factor that Einstein inserted into his cosmological equations in 1917 to represent a cosmic repulsion embedded in space. Although Einstein later abandoned the cosmological constant, calling it a blunder, it would not go away. It is the one theorized form of dark energy that does not change with time. Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology who was not on the team, said: 'Had they found the evolution was not constant, that would have been an incredibly earthshaking discovery. They looked where no one had been able to look before.'"
OS X

Submission + - Leopard vs Vista 4: Naked Sales

Submitted by
Rockgod
Rockgod writes: "From the article:
The vast majority of PCs come with Windows pre-installed, and actually can't be sold without it. Leading PC hardware makers can't freely advertise PCs sold without Windows, or with an alternative OS such as Linux, without having to pay Microsoft significantly more for every other OEM license they ship. That's why all name brand PCs prominently repeat their own version of the cult-like phrase "Dell recommends Windows XP Professional," as if there were a choice in the matter and they thought it would be helpful to provide some guidance.
Also from the article:
Apple's current Get a Mac advertising campaign doesn't compare Mac OS X to Windows, it compares the complete experience of a Mac with that of a PC. After all, Windows is only half of what's wrong with the PC as a product. This strategy also allows Apple to highlight Mac advantages without specifically drawing attention to Windows, avoiding the common marketing mistake of inadvertently creating brand recognition for rival products.
"

Should Google Go Nuclear? 419

Posted by Zonk from the gooboom dept.
Baldrson writes "One of the founders of the US Tokamak fusion program, Dr. Robert W. Bussard, gave a lecture at Google recently now appearing as a Google video titled 'Should Google Go Nuclear?'. In it, he presents his recent breakthrough electrostatic confinement fusion device which, he claims, produced several orders of magnitude higher fusion power than earlier electrostatic confinement devices. According to Bussard, it did so repeatably during several runs until it blew up due to mechanical stress degradation. He's looking for $200M funding, the first million or so of which goes to rebuilding a more robust demonstrator within the first year. He claims the scaling laws are so favorable that the initial full scale reactor would burn boron-11 — the cleanest fusion reaction otherwise unattainable. He has some fairly disturbing things to say in this video, as well as elsewhere, about the US fusion program which he co-founded."
Space

Submission + - 9 Billion-Year-Old 'Dark Energy' Reported

Submitted by
loid_void
loid_void writes: "From the NYTimes: A group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that billions of years before this mysterious antigravity overcame cosmic gravity and sent the galaxies scooting apart like muscle cars departing a tollbooth, it was already present in space, affecting the evolution of the cosmos. A team of "dark energy prospectors," who peered back nine billion years with the Hubble and were able to discern the nascent effects of antigravity. The group reported their observations at a news conference yesterday and in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal."
Power

Journal Journal: Real cold-fusion?

Journal by nanotubic
Again a free energy claim. Nuclear engineer, Mehran Keshe, BTW an Iranian (!) scientist living in Europe, claims that it is possible to build electric generators after a completely new concept. He says: 'Just make a constantly turning magnet powered by a small nuclear source and put this magnetic ball in a coil structure. Then you get "free electricity" for as many years as long as the nuclear source delivers soft radiation.' His claims are based on a new principle that a double magnetic field c

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