Comment Original Slashdot post on SNO Results (Score 1) 58
I think this is the original 2001 Slashdot post from SNO (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory) in Sudbury, Ontario. It did not attract much Slashdot discussion at the time.
Submission + - Gmail Recognizes Addresses Containing Non-Latin Characters
An anonymous reader writes: In response to the creation in 2012 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) of "a new email standard that supports addresses incorportating non-Latin and accented Latin characters", Google has now made it possible for its Gmail users to "send emails to, and receive emails from, people who have these characters in their email addresses." Their goal is to eventually allow its users to create Gmail addresses utilizing these characters.
Submission + - European Rosetta space craft about to rendezvous with comet (universetoday.com)
Taco Cowboy writes: After a long 10 year journey spanning some four (4) billion kilometers, Rosetta, an interplanetary space craft from the ESA (European Space Agency), is on its final approach to comet Comet 67P (or comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko)
The last in a series of 10 thruster firings over the past few months has slowed Rosetta to the pace of a person walking, about two miles per hour relative to the speed of its target at a distance of about 60 miles
Photographs have already revealed a surprisingly irregular shape for the 2.5-mile-wide comet, possibly an amalgamation of two icy bodies or a result of uneven weathering during previous flybys. From a distance, the blurry blob initially looked somewhat like a rubber duck. As the details came into the focus, it now more resembles a knob of ginger flying through space
Wednesday marks a big moment for space exploration: After a few thruster rockets fire for a little over six minutes, Rosetta will be in position to make the first-ever rendezvous with that comet nickname "Rubber Duck"
This burn, expected to start at 11 a.m. central European time, will tip Rosetta into the first leg of a series of triangular paths around the comet, according to the Paris-based European Space Agency, or ESA, which oversees the mission. Each leg will be about 100 kilometers (62 miles) long, and it will take Rosetta between three to four days to complete each leg
There will be a live streaming webcast of Rosetta’s Aug. 6 orbital arrival starting at 8 a.m. GMT via a transmission from ESA’s spacecraft operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany
The last in a series of 10 thruster firings over the past few months has slowed Rosetta to the pace of a person walking, about two miles per hour relative to the speed of its target at a distance of about 60 miles
Photographs have already revealed a surprisingly irregular shape for the 2.5-mile-wide comet, possibly an amalgamation of two icy bodies or a result of uneven weathering during previous flybys. From a distance, the blurry blob initially looked somewhat like a rubber duck. As the details came into the focus, it now more resembles a knob of ginger flying through space
Wednesday marks a big moment for space exploration: After a few thruster rockets fire for a little over six minutes, Rosetta will be in position to make the first-ever rendezvous with that comet nickname "Rubber Duck"
This burn, expected to start at 11 a.m. central European time, will tip Rosetta into the first leg of a series of triangular paths around the comet, according to the Paris-based European Space Agency, or ESA, which oversees the mission. Each leg will be about 100 kilometers (62 miles) long, and it will take Rosetta between three to four days to complete each leg
There will be a live streaming webcast of Rosetta’s Aug. 6 orbital arrival starting at 8 a.m. GMT via a transmission from ESA’s spacecraft operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany
Comment James Gosling (Score 1) 285
I am the same age as Gosling (and even went to the same university as a kid.) I have worked with and observed many world-class programmers in my career, and have never seen the likes of James. He is the Wayne Gretzky of programmers.
Comment Sounds a bit like sickle-cell anaemia (Score 1) 149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease
This is a disease (an inherited disease, perhaps like dental caries) that conveys a fitness against something else that is more serious.
Submission + - Quadrocopters throwing and catching an inverted pendulum (robohub.org)
derGoldstein writes: "We've seen some very impressive aerobatics performed by quadrocopters before, but this is getting ridiculous. Robohub points to the latest advancement from the Flying Machine Arena, which developed algorithms that allow quadrocopters to juggle an inverted pendulum."
Submission + - The Deat of Slashdot (dailycaller.com) 2
OhSoLaMeow writes: From the Daily Caller:
"A recently introduced bill in the Illinois state Senate would require anonymous website comment posters to reveal their identities if they want to keep their comments online. The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a “web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”
This could be the death of Slashdot: No more ACs.
"A recently introduced bill in the Illinois state Senate would require anonymous website comment posters to reveal their identities if they want to keep their comments online. The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a “web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”
This could be the death of Slashdot: No more ACs.
Submission + - NASA's basement nuclear reactor (gizmag.com)
cylonlover writes: If Joseph Zawodny, a senior scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, is correct, the future of energy may lie in a nuclear reactor small enough and safe enough to be installed where the home water heater once sat. Using weak nuclear forces that turn nickel and hydrogen into a new source of atomic energy, the process offers a light, portable means of producing tremendous amounts of energy for the amount of fuel used. It could conceivably power homes, revolutionize transportation and even clean the environment.
Comment tellico: a reasonably good book library manager (Score 1) 230
I own around 3000 books and have used it for several years. It may not do everything you want, but it is probably close.
Firefox Mobile 1.1 Released 57
An anonymous reader writes "Firefox Mobile 1.1 has been released for Maemo devices such as the Nokia N900. Madhava Enros has put together a field guide for Firefox Mobile 1.1 which highlights what's new and notable in this release."
Alberta Scientists Discover Largest-Ever Cache of Dinosaur Bones 154
Cryolithic writes "The largest cache of dinosaur bones ever found has been unearthed in Alberta. From the article: '... officials at the Royal Tyrrell Museum say the Hilda site provides the first solid evidence that some horned dinosaur herds were much larger than previously thought, with numbers comfortably in the high hundreds to low thousands. ... Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes. With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometers of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.'"
PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."
Proton Beams Sent Around the LHC 115
feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."
Comment Re:Like an ID for a database record (Score 1) 688
I'm with bokmann on this. But I go with both a numeric id and mnemonic. The details can be looked up. And just to get away with the crushingly boring aspect of workstation / names and to help with communication (Was that 'frodo' that died or workstation '431234'?), I've picked a large namespace from some mythology or other. The most fruitful has been Tolkien. In general I use place names for servers and people/elves/hobbits for workstations. Tolkien has a *lot* of characters.
In past incarnations of hardware, I've used Greek and Norse mythology and even names of stars ('polaris','algol', etc.)
Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 564
OpenSolaris ZFS
Free and the best.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS
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