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Submission + - Scientists discover 200 pits on the moon that are always 63F/17C in the shade. (livescience.com)

fahrbot-bot writes: Lunar scientists think they've found the hottest places on the Moon, as well as some 200 Goldilocks zones that are always near the average temperature in San Francisco.

The moon has wild temperature fluctuations, with parts of the moon heating up to 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) during the day and dropping to minus 280 F (minus 173 C) at night. But the newly analyzed 200 shaded lunar pits are always always 63 F (17 C), meaning they're perfect for humans to shelter from the extreme temperatures. They could also shield astronauts from the dangers of the solar wind, micrometeorites and cosmic rays. Some of those pits may lead to similarly warm caves.

These partially-shaded pits and dark caves could be ideal for a lunar base, scientists say.

"Surviving the lunar night is incredibly difficult because it requires a lot of energy, but being in these pits and caves almost entirely removes that requirement," Tyler Horvath, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of California, Los Angeles and lead author on the NASA-funded research published online July 8 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, told Live Science.

Comment Assuming makes an ass out of u... (Score 4, Insightful) 365

...Since when does "accessing the internet" equate to "surfing the web"? They gave checking emails and surfing the web as examples of accessing the internet, but I'd like to see if "accessing the internet" was the actual question or not. Every single time I drive my phone "accesses the internet". Google play on an android smartphone? Hell yeah that's accessing the internet. Sending a text at a stop light? That's google voice for me, so accessing the internet. Fucking GPS? Yep, accessing the internet once again to get all that sweet, sweet map data. I don't know of anyone who owns a smartphone but doesn't use it for GPS in the car. The only exceptions are those with a dedicated GPS, which, again, accesses the actual internet to download map data, and get routing information.

Comment Re:HIgher defect density indicates BETTER code (Score 1) 209

Ahem.
while ( strcmp( (*dest++ = *src++), '\0') != 0 );
or, if you feel that's a bit much (personally, I do)
while ( (*dest++ = *src++) != '\0' );

Otherwise, yeah, much agreed.

Also, I'd still have a

if ( !empty($category) )
$page = $category + '.html';

just for readability's sakes. Also, if you ever need to handle a category in a custom fashion, it's easy to modify the code as such:

if ( empty($category) ) {
//Error! Mayhaps set $page to "#"?
}
else if ( strcmp($category,'value') === 0) {
//set page to something special
}
else { //default behavior
$page = $category + '.html';
}

Using a switch would be good to, but you'd still have to text for emptyness before calling the switch

Anyway, probably procrastinated too much here as is

Comment Re:Fight'n Words (Score 1) 209

It's similar in the US. OSS development is definitely something to put on your resume (and even more so on a CV). It shows you like programming enough to do it in your spare time, which means you're less likely to be applying for a job just for the paycheck, and probably have more knowledge of programming that what is simply required by your position. Also, if they really want, they have access to a real world code samples from you.

Submission + - Gunfire at MIT's Stata Center, Officer Dead 13

theodp writes: Earlier tonight, The Tech broke news that gunshots were reported at MIT near 32 Vassar Street (the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences), and one officer was shot and taken to Mass General Hospital. MIT's Emergency Information page also reports that injuries have been reported. From the midnight update, 'Police are sweeping the campus at this time, please continue to stay indoors and remain inside until further notice.' Sadly, CNN is now reporting that the university police officer has died. Look for updates on Twitter.

Submission + - EFF jumps in to defend bloggers being sued by Prenda (eff.org)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has entered the fray to defend the bloggers sued by Prenda Law Firm. Prenda, oblivious to such well known legal niceties as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the affirmative defense of truth, the difference between a defamatory statement of fact and the expression of a negative opinion, and the First Amendment, has immediately — and illegally — sought to subpoena information leading to the identities of the bloggers. I would not be surprised to see these "lawyers" get into even more hot water than they're already in. And I take my hat off to the EFF for stepping in here."
Earth

Submission + - Nuclear cuts, supported by 56% of Americans, make the world safer (thebulletin.org)

Lasrick writes: Kingston Reif of the Nukes of Hazard blog writes about nuclear arms reductions are back in the news, thanks to President Obama's State of the Union address and now also a Gallup poll that shows 56% of Americans support U.S.-Russian reductions (http://www.gallup.com/poll/161198/favor-russian-nuclear-arms-reductions.aspx). "A recent report by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that senior Obama administration officials believe the United States can reduce its arsenal of deployed strategic warheads to between 1,000 and 1,100 without harming national security. Those numbers would put the total below levels called for by New START..." Congressional Republicans of course are against those cuts; Reif lays out why the cuts would make the US and the world safer.
DRM

Submission + - Netflix streamed over HTML5 for ARM Chromebook, end of silverlight? (muktware.com)

sfcrazy writes: Netflix has pushed an update today to its Chrome Store app which brings support for the ARM-based Samsung Chromebook. This is a major change as instead of using Microsoft's Silverlight Netflix is using HTML5 video streaming (which now supports DRM for HTML5 on Chromebooks). Recently Google enabled the much controversial DRM support for HTML5 in Chrome OS to bring services like Netflix to Chromebooks using HTML5 instead of controversial Silverlight of Microsoft.

Comment Might be better for profits (Score 1) 76

So, what I'm hearing is that AMD will be releasing its new line of video cards right around Christmas season, when a lot of people get new systems anyway? I've never understood why nVidia and ATI release their first cards around spring. Sure, get the bugs out early I guess, and there's got to be a bunch of young kids who have summer jobs willing to put all their profit towards a new gaming rig, but I still find it hard to believe that it isn't more profitable to just release the cards around October-ish, maybe even in September so you can still cash in on all the kids who just finished up their summer jobs.

If they really do get that boost in sales from the new console generation, and take this extra time to put forth more powerful competition towards nVidia, this may actually turn things around for AMD. Now, if they would finally release some decent Linux drivers, I may be sold

Comment Re:Always on = !on (Score 1) 592

Look, I rarely (if ever) buy games on steam if they're not on sale either. With very few exceptions (Christmas sale for Gods and Kings to name one), the games I buy for sub 10 bucks are never under a year old. So, you're not buying a new game.

This is an issue. The whole reason these games are no longer ~$50 is because they're old. If we make it a habit of only purchasing games a year old, how the hell can developers hope to recoup their development costs? What a proposition: Spend millions of dollars on a game, and don't expect to recoup any of that until a year after you release it. Talk about shitty cash flow.

Though, there is one giant assumption in my statement-- The assumption that games have to be sold around $50 new. Personally, I reject that idea, and feel that $40 or $30 is a much better proposition, depending on the game. If you're not making a AAA game that has a huge fan-base like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassins Creed, or Halo, you probably shouldn't be charging the full $50 (well, since I mentioned console games, I guess it's really $60). This would make your game more competitive. Sure, you can get the yearly rehash of the same game you've been playing for the better part of a decade, or you could get two games from either a totally new franchise or one you haven't tried yet for the same price instead. I feel the market would be a lot more competitive if this were the case, but that's just my opinion.

Also, I'm fairly certain Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo set minimum release prices in order to be approved for release on their systems, but if so, that's their failing.

Comment Re:Xbox Subscription (Score 1) 257

You didn't have to buy a hard drive, only a network adapter. Agreed though, they were both wayyyy overpriced.
Also, while it was a lot better than anything at the time, I don't feel that xbox live gold has currently enough value to merit the 50 bucks a year membership fees. Especially considering how ad-riddled it is, and how PSN is free. Yes, playstation plus costs money, but you don't need that to game, or view the internet, or watch netflix, or download games.

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