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Astronomers Discover 33 Pairs of Waltzing Black Holes 101

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the teach-them-to-foxtrot dept.
Astronomers from UC Berkeley have identified 33 pairs of waltzing black holes, closing the gap somewhat between the observed population of super-massive black hole pairs and what had been predicted by theory. "Astronomical observations have shown that 1) nearly every galaxy has a central super-massive black hole (with a mass of a million to a billion times the mass of the Sun), and 2) galaxies commonly collide and merge to form new, more massive galaxies. As a consequence of these two observations, a merger between two galaxies should bring two super-massive black holes to the new, more massive galaxy formed from the merger. The two black holes gradually in-spiral toward the center of this galaxy, engaging in a gravitational tug-of-war with the surrounding stars. The result is a black hole dance, choreographed by Newton himself. Such a dance is expected to occur in our own Milky Way Galaxy in about 3 billion years, when it collides with the Andromeda Galaxy."
Idle

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus from the type-A-negative-personality dept.
trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."

Comment Pure window dressing. (Score 1) 185

by cwsulliv (#26648291) Attached to: "Do Not Call" Violators Fined $1.2M

I doubt that more than one in a thousand (or ten thousand) complaints will result in any FCC action unless the FCC is specially funded to support these actions (which in this economic climate is highly unlikely). The telemarketers are just playing the odds.

I had an old FAX machine which used coated paper on fairly small rolls. For a while I regularly submitted complaints about SPAM faxes, probably about 20 in all, supplying all requested information and enclosing a copy of the fax. I heard nothing until 3 or 4 months later when I received an envelope from the FCC with a single sheet titled "How to submit a complaint to the FCC" which had nothing at all to do with SPAM faxes.
The Almighty Buck

Economic Crisis Will Eliminate Open Source 753

Posted by CmdrTaco from the why-so-gloomy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The economic crisis will ultimately eliminate open source projects and the 'Web 2.0 free economy,' says Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur. Along with the economic downturn and record job loss, he says, we will see the elimination of projects including Wikipedia, CNN's iReport, and much of the blogosphere. Instead of users offering their services 'for free,' he says, we're about to see a 'sharp cultural shift in our attitude toward the economic value of our labor' and a rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with cash. Companies that will survive, he says, include Hulu, iTunes, and Mahalo. 'The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue,' says Keen."
Space

SpaceX Flight 4 Launch Postponed 59

Posted by CmdrTaco from the better-safe-than-exploded dept.
Matt_dk noted that yesterday's launch plans for SpaceX have hit some turbulence. He says "SpaceX Flight 4 Launch has been postponed. The static fire took place on Saturday [20 Sep 2008, CA time], as expected, and no major issues came up. However, after a detailed analysis of data, we decided to replace a component in the 2nd stage engine LOX supply line. There is a good chance we would be ok flying as is, but we are being extremely cautious. This adds a few extra days to the schedule, so the updated launch window estimate is now Sept 28th through Oct 1st [CA time]."
Media

Submission + - Microsoft can evade GPL 3 ..

Submitted by
rs232
rs232 writes: ""Microsoft should be able to extricate itself from the implications of the new GPL 3, according to a leading Australian intellectual property lawyer"

"Unless there is something more specific in the certificate or the collaboration agreement between Novell and Microsoft, I would be very surprised to see this upheld. It was a nice try on the part of (the FSF), but at this stage, I'd say it's not going to be an effective strategy. It will be tough to hold up in court."

'In this case, she said, Microsoft never acted — never 'entered' into the agreement, and the terms and conditions can only apply to new actions by Microsoft, not older ones. She said: "Their actions so far are not enough to say that they are bound."'

http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39167957 ,00.htm"

Feed Science Daily: Technology To Monitor Bridge Safety Is Available (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
North Carolina A&T State University has developed a technology that could have possibly prevented the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minn. The technology involves using commercially available sensors deployed in a unique configuration to acoustically monitor structural integrity to remotely detect and address standard flaws via acoustic emission signals.

Feed Techdirt: EFF Sues Universal Music For Getting Home Video Of Kid Dancing Pulled From YouTu (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Earlier this year, the EFF sued Viacom for being overly aggressive in trying to police its copyrighted content on YouTube. Specifically, Viacom had sent a DMCA takedown notice for a parody clip of The Colbert Report that was clearly protected by fair use. After first denying it had sent the takedown notice, Viacom eventually 'fessed up and then settled the case, promising to be much more mindful of not pulling clips that have a clear fair use defense, and also making it easier for those whose videos were wrongly pulled to get them back online. If you thought that others in the entertainment industry might take notice of this and be a bit more careful about things, you'd be wrong apparently.

The EFF has felt the need to step in again, this time suing Universal Music for getting a home video of a little kid dancing pulled from YouTube. The video is only 29-seconds long and is clearly fair use. More importantly, there is simply no way that anyone would claim that this somehow hurt the commercial value of the song (well, I guess Universal Music implicitly was claiming exactly that). No one is going to use this 29-second clip as a substitute for getting the actual song. In fact, if anything, the video might encourage people to go out and find the song to purchase. Also amusing, of course, is that the song in question is by Prince, who's been in the news quite a bit lately for having a much better understanding of how the music industry works than those who run the record labels. Either way, it appears that the EFF is building up a number of such DMCA-abuse cases -- and it seems likely that they'll eventually use these to demonstrate the problems of the DMCA.
Microsoft

Submission + - $500 million dollar piracy ring busted in China

Submitted by Blahbooboo3
Blahbooboo3 writes: Reported by several news organizations, pirated software worth more than $500 million has been seized by authorities in China as part of a joint operation run by Chinese police and the FBI. Microsoft estimates that the software piracy of an international counterfeiting syndicate, over the past six years, cost the company at least $2 billion in lost software revenue. Microsoft said that key information in the investigation came from its Windows Genuine Advantage program, an antipiracy system that can check whether an OS is legit. It's generally accepted that Microsoft has done well out of software piracy: it helps products become widely used, and as the market matures, people start to pay for their software. And this has been a major factor in Windows beating Linux in China, as Bill Gates admits.

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