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Comment Re:There is no known physical process? (Score 1) 289

The problem with this argument is that said blocking object would need to somehow remain in between us and the star... and given how much we move (the earth’s revolution as well as the sun’s own movement) makes this unlikely unless it’s an enormously large object.

Also, while a few thousand missing stars were due to dust or imperfections on the old images, there are now over 100 stars whose disappearance cannot be explained. This is not an isolated incident.

Graphics

Nvidia Unveils Powerful New RTX 2070 and 2080 Graphics Cards (polygon.com) 195

During a pre-Gamescom 2018 livestream from Cologne, Germany, Nvidia on Monday unveiled new GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti high-end graphics cards. These new 20-series cards will succeed Nvidia's current top-of-the-line GPUs, the GeForce GTX 1070, GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti. While the company usually waits to launch the more powerful Ti version of a GPU, this time around, it's releasing the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti at once. Polygon adds: They won't come cheap. The Nvidia-manufactured Founders Edition versions will cost $599 for the RTX 2070, $799 for the RTX 2080 and $1,199 for the RTX 2080 Ti. The latter two cards are expected to ship "on or around" Sept. 20, while there is no estimated release date for the RTX 2070. Pre-orders are currently available for the RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced different "starting at" prices during the keynote presentation. Huang's presentation said the RTX 2070 will start at $499, the RTX 2080 at $699 and the RTX 2080 Ti at $999. Asked for clarification, an Nvidia representative told Polygon that these amounts reflect retail prices for third-party manufacturers' cards.

The RTX 2070, 2080 and 2080 Ti will be the first consumer-level graphics cards based on Nvidia's next-generation Turing architecture, which the company announced earlier this month at the SIGGRAPH computing conference. At that time, Nvidia also revealed its first Turing-based products: three GPUs in the company's Quadro line, which is geared toward professional applications. All three of the new RTX cards will feature built-in support for real-time ray tracing, a rendering and lighting technique for photorealistic graphics that gaming companies are starting to introduce this year

China

Microsoft Sells 1,500 Patents To Xiaomi To Build 'Long-Term Partnership' (reuters.com) 66

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Software maker Microsoft Corp is selling about 1,500 of its patents to Chinese device maker Xiaomi, a rare departure for the U.S. company and part of what the two companies say is the start of a long-term partnership. The deal, announced on Wednesday, also includes a patent cross-licensing arrangement and a commitment by Xiaomi to install copies of Microsoft software, including Office and Skype, on its phones and tablets. Wang said the acquisition of Microsoft patents, which included voice communications, multimedia and cloud computing, on top of some 3,700 patents the Chinese company filed last year, were "an important step forwards to support our expansion internationally." Florian Mueller, a patents expert who consulted for Microsoft in the past, said it was rare for Microsoft to actually sell its patents, adding "it's possible Microsoft found it easier to impose its Android patent tax on Xiaomi as part of a broader deal that also involved a transfer of patents."

Comment Re:What's the benefit (Score 1) 291

Try driving one... not for a block or two, I mean really drive one, and you'll see why they're so freaking awesome. Very few cars come close to being as responsive and communicative -- I bought mine 10 years ago and it still keeps impressing me. This is coming from a *driver* point of view... badge-whores need not apply.

Comment Re:The water will be gone (Score 1) 183

Sure it does.

If I'm reading this then:

a) I exist b) The event happened in my recent past.

That narrows it down to within a couple of dozen years from my point of view. That makes perfect sense to me.

So you don't understand cosmological terminology, then. "Now" means that whatever we see currently, regardless of how long ago it happened (i.e., regardless of distance), is occurring now.

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