jswanson - Slashdot User

Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 28, 2009 @01:50PM from the that's-a-big-star dept.

davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."

Comment Chicago and Los Alamos (Score 1) 435

by jswanson on Wednesday August 12, 2009 @06:29PM (#29044883) Attached to: Science, Technology, Natural History Museums?

I would also recommend the Field Museum in Chicago, but first see the Museum of Science and Industry. C'mon they have a German U505 sub! I just got a chance to visit the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos NM and would highly recommend it--if your interest extends to nuclear physics. The museum is somewhat small, but Fat Man and Little Boy replicas were interesting. Seeing the bombs in person made them seem more "real" to me. I always imagined them much bigger. Los Alamos itself is very unique in many ways.

Submission + - Amazon's Kindle Sells Out in Hours

Submitted by necro81 on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @02:54PM

necro81 writes: As reported on Engadget, Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out. According to a Charlie Rose interview with Jess Bezos, the Kindle sold out within just 5-1/2 hours of going on sale. Amazon hasn't revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so it may just be that they didn't anticipate early demand. A check of the Kindle's product page shows that more will be rolling out starting December 3rd. Additional coverage available here.

Submission + - Beer Tossing Fridge

Submitted by

cmacdona101

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @01:58PM

cmacdona101 writes: "CNN is reporting on a recent Duke grad that's engineered a remote controlled Fridge that tosses him a beer at the touch of a button. The fridge can launch the beer up to 20 feet, far enough to get to his couch. The video shows the fridge using a "beer magazine clip" and a remote firing system that let you determine angles and ballistics to get the beer to your friends anywhere in the room."

Comment Delphi for fun (Score 1) 355

by jswanson on Friday September 22, 2006 @04:50PM (#16163379) Attached to: David Brin Laments Absence of Programming For Kids

Long ago I took university level classes in Assembler, COBOL, Basic, Fortran, C and Pascal. Pascal was still common as a "teaching language" in the 1970s and 80s. I always preferred Pascal and got hooked when Borland shipped the TurboPascal compilers.
I use a variety of languages now (including Delphi) but I still think that Pascal is a great FIRST language for someone to learn. Sure, C and Perl are powerful, but its hard to claim that they are intuitive to the newbie.
http://www.delphiforfun.org/ is an absolutely awesome resource for young programmers. I don't want to slashdot the poor guy, but this obscure note in the comments shouldn't overwhelm him too much... He has tons of programs that cover a wide variety of problems and concepts. Many are visually interesting. All have source code and great documentation. I've watched the site grow in content over the years. I think it could provide the majority of content for a beginner's level programming class, but it is also great as a simple resource for a new (or young) programmer to go investigate.
So what do you use to compile these programs? http://www.turboexplorer.com/ free download

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