Petro123 - Slashdot User

7 of the Best Free Linux Calculators 289

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 30, 2010 @08:36PM from the open-in-tabs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."

Astronomers Discover the Coolest Known Sub-Stellar Body 60

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 30, 2010 @01:46PM from the miles-davis's-home-planet dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports that using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar system. Too small to be stars and with insufficient mass to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, 'brown dwarfs' have masses smaller than stars but larger than gas giant planets like Jupiter, with an upper limit in between 75 and 80 Jupiter masses. 'This looks like the fourth time in three years that the UKIRT has made a record breaking discovery of the coolest known brown dwarf, with an estimated temperature not far above 200 degrees Celsius,' says Dr. Philip Lucas at the University of Hertfordshire. Due to their low temperature these objects are very faint in visible light, and are detected by their glow at infrared wavelengths. The object known as SDSS1416+13B is in a wide orbit around a somewhat brighter and warmer brown dwarf, SDSS1416+13A, and the pair is located between 15 and 50 light years from the solar system, which is quite close in astronomical terms."

Microsoft Patches "Google Hack" Flaw In IE 142

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 21, 2010 @05:40PM from the you-saw-this-coming dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As expected, Microsoft has issued an out-of-band security patch to address a remote code execution hole in Internet Explorer that was used in the recent Chinese attacks disclosed by Google. Ars Technica has all the download links you need."

Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 vs. Early Fedora 13 Benchmarks 157

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 15, 2010 @06:40PM from the flavor-of-the-moment dept.

Given that early benchmarks of the Lucid Lynx were less than encouraging, Phoronix decided to take the latest alpha out for a spin and has set it side-by-side with an early look at Fedora 13. "Overall, there are both positive and negative performance changes for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 in relation to Ubuntu 9.10. Most of the negative regressions are attributed to the EXT4 file-system losing some of its performance charm. With using a pre-alpha snapshot of Fedora 13 and the benchmark results just being provided for reference purposes, we will hold off on looking into greater detail at this next Red Hat Linux update until it matures."

Comment Re:Things worse than death (Score 2, Interesting) 570

by Petro123 on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @12:44AM (#21488375) Attached to: Radiation Not As Hazardous As Once Believed

Not to mention about DNA damage that may be passed onto further generations! Interesting related story about Australian and New Zealand soldiers used as guinea pigs during nuclear testing can be see here http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s2084983.htm where they finally have proof about how messed up their DNA is.

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