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"Tube Map" Created For the Milky Way 142

Posted by samzenpus from the non-stop-service-to-the-Perseus-Arm dept.
astroengine writes "Assuming you had an interstellar spaceship, how would you navigate around the galaxy? For starters, you'd probably need a map. But there's billions of stars out there — how complex would that map need to be? Actually, Samuel Arbesman, a research fellow from Harvard, has come up with a fun solution. He created the 'Milky Way Transit Authority (MWTA),' a simple transit system in the style of the iconic London Underground 'Tube Map.' (Travel Tip: Don't spend too much time loitering around the station at Carina, there's some demolition work underway.)"

Comment Two Monitors (Score 1) 460

by blendedmetaphor (#30941162) Attached to: 2 Displays and 2 Workspaces With Linux and X?
The main question is what does your video card support? I use an NVidia 9600GT and run two monitors. I have 4 workspaces where both monitors are included in each workspace. It works perfectly for what I need to do. I don't understand why you would want separate workspaces for each. It is not always trivial to get this working, I am running a PAE Kernel and had to run the experimental drivers to get it to work properly. Make a backup of /etc/X11/xorg.conf before you do anything.
Businesses

Former Exec Says Electronic Arts "Is In the Wrong Business" 180

Posted by Soulskill from the inspiring-internet-outrage-is-a-bad-business-model dept.
Mitch Lasky was the executive vice president of Mobile and Online at Electronic Arts until leaving the publisher to work at an investment firm. He now has some harsh things to say about how EA has been run over the past several years, in particular criticizing the decisions of CEO John Riccitiello. Quoting: "EA is in the wrong business, with the wrong cost structure and the wrong team, but somehow they seem to think that it is going to be a smooth, two-year transition from packaged goods to digital. Think again. ... by far the greatest failure of Riccitiello's strategy has been the EA Games division. JR bet his tenure on EA's ability to 'grow their way through the transition' to digital/online with hit packaged goods titles. They honestly believed that they had a decade to make this transition (I think it's more like 2-3 years). Since the recurring-revenue sports titles were already 'booked' (i.e., fully accounted for in the Wall Street estimates) it fell to EA Games to make hits that could move the needle. It's been a very ugly scene, indeed. From Spore, to Dead Space, to Mirror's Edge, to Need for Speed: Undercover, it's been one expensive commercial disappointment for EA Games after another. Not to mention the shut-down of Pandemic, half of the justification for EA's $850MM acquisition of Bioware-Pandemic. And don't think that Dante's Inferno, or Knights of the Old Republic, is going to make it all better. It's a bankrupt strategy."
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
Image

The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282

Posted by samzenpus from the equal-distribution-of-the-pie dept.
iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."

Comment Last time I checked ... (Score 1) 639

by blendedmetaphor (#29505963) Attached to: According to Linus, Linux Is "Bloated"
... you can still do make menuconfig on the source. The bloat is mostly optional. What do you want to use Linux for? You have the choice, figure it out and make it work for you - or deal with 'bloat.' Granted, many people throw in their favorite distro (including myself), which also comes with access to every creative piece of open source software (which is not Linux, some people still don't get it), and just use it if it works for them. I personally am very thankful to all those in the open source community who have contributed their to causes that result in a very useful set of tools. I don't necessarily avoid MS, but using Linux and all the other great open source software usually makes my day a little more productive.

Comment Re:System security is only half the rent (Score 1) 376

by blendedmetaphor (#27744839) Attached to: Europe Funds Secure Operating System Research
Easy fix. Build an operating system that offends people that should not be allowed to operate a computer. Instead of asking every time whether the user wants to do something they possibly shouldn't be doing, the OS should tell the user that they are to stupid to use it and to call their 5 year old child/grandchild for advice.

Comment What kind of distance are we talking about? (Score 2, Insightful) 837

by blendedmetaphor (#27729591) Attached to: Handmade vs. Commercially Produced Ethernet Cables
If you have a substantial distance to run, a patch cable may not be the best option. Patch cables are (or should be) made of stranded conductors to make them more flexible and reduce metal fatigue. They are not recommended for long distances. A permanent link cable is made of solid conductor wire and carries the signal better at longer distances. Keep in mind that a CAT5e/6 ethernet connection is limited to 100M/328ft. If you need to run solid conductor, installing the data jacks is much easier than installing the crimp-on RJ45 ends and much more reliable. Doing it this way would simply require two short patch cables to tie the permanent link to your devices. My $.02.

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"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." -- Bakunin [ed. note - I would say: The urge to destroy may sometimes be a creative urge.]

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