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Space

Workable Fusion Starship Proposed 260

Posted by Soulskill from the for-sufficiently-difficult-values-of-workable dept.
Adam Korbitz writes "A former colleague of Edward Teller — father of the hydrogen bomb — has published a new paper proposing a design for what could be the first practical fusion-powered spacecraft (PDF). As described at Centauri Dreams, the design has certain similarities to MagOrion, a 1990s-era proposal for a nuclear-powered spaceship with a magnetic sail and propelled by small-yield fission devices. The proposal's author also has links to the British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus, a 1970s proposal for an unmanned fusion-powered interstellar probe designed to reach 12% of the speed of light on its way to Barnard's Star."

Best Buy API Aims To Expand Store's Reach Online 99

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the right-way-to-encourage-business dept.
surely_you_cant_be_serious writes "Best Buy has opened up proprietary product catalog data in its online store through an open API. Through the Remix API, Best Buy can track how many people are using its information, while users can check to see where a certain product is available without visiting Best Buy's site. Web developers and bloggers can also sign up to become an official Best Buy affiliate. If approved, they can get a small percentage of a sale if someone makes a Best Buy purchase through their site."
Transportation

FAA Greenlights Satellite-Based Air Traffic Control System 138

Posted by samzenpus from the no-clouds-in-the-sky dept.
coondoggie writes "As one of the massive flying seasons gets underway the government today took a step further in radically changing the way aircraft are tracked and moved around the country. Specifically the FAA gave the green light to deploy satellite tracking systems nationwide, replacing the current radar-based approach. The new, sometimes controversial system would let air traffic controllers track aircraft using a satellite network using a system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which is ten times more accurate than today's radar technology. ADS-B is part of the FAA's wide-reaching plan known as NextGen to revamp every component of the flight control system to meet future demands and avoid gridlock in the sky."
It's funny. Laugh.

Unix Dict/grep Solves Left-Side-of-Keyboard Puzzle 423

Posted by timothy from the mysteries-of-the-ages dept.
destinyland writes "For decades, people have been asking this brain teaser: 'What's the longest word you can type with only the left-hand letters on a keyboard?' The answer is supposed to be 'stewardesses,' but grepping the standard dictionary that ships with Unix reveals a much better answer. There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand — including one word that's even longer. (The article also quotes a failed novel attempt using nothing but words typed on the keyboard's left side.)"
Television

Unhappy People Watch More TV 193

Posted by kdawson from the cause-or-effect-or-both dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as 'very happy' spend more time reading and socializing. 'TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,' says researcher John P. Robinson. 'It's more passive and may provide escape — especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.' Unhappy people also liked their TV more: 'What viewers seem to be saying is that while TV in general is a waste of time and not particularly enjoyable, "the shows I saw tonight were pretty good."' The researchers analyzed two sets of data spanning nearly 30 years (PDF), gathered from nearly 30,000 adults, and found that unhappy people watch an estimated 20 percent more television than very happy people, after taking into account their education, income, age, and marital status — as well as other demographic predictors of both viewing and happiness. 'TV can become a kind of opiate in a way. It's habitual, and tuning in can be an easy way of tuning out.'"

Is Windows 7 Faster Or Just Smarter? 619

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the perception-is-reality dept.
Barence writes "The Windows 7 unveiling garnered largely positive coverage, with many hands-on testers praising it for being faster than Vista. But is it actually? To find out, this blogger ran a suite of benchmarks to see just how much quicker Windows 7 really is — and the results weren't quite what he expected. 'The actual performance gap between Vista and Windows 7 is ... nada. Absolutely nothing. Our Office benchmarks and video encoding tests complete in precisely the same time regardless of which OS is installed. [...] It's tempting to see this as a bit of a con. They've sped up the front end so it feels like you're getting more done, but in terms of real productivity it's no better than Vista."

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