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Submission + - Sun's 'quiet period' explained (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Arvisp on Monday August 16, 2010 @05:52AM

Arvisp writes: Solar physicists may have discovered why the Sun recently experienced a prolonged period of weak activity.
The most recent so-called "solar minimum" occurred in December 2008.
Its drawn-out nature extended the total length of the last solar cycle — the repeating cycle of the Sun's activity — to 12.6 years, making it the longest in almost 200 years. The new research suggests that the longer-than-expected period of weak activity may have been linked to changes in the way a hot soup of charged particles called plasma circulated in the Sun.

Australia Gets Its First Female Prime Minister 419

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 24, 2010 @12:27AM from the sheila-in-chief dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed to the Labor leadership, seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decided not to contest this morning's leadership ballot. Ms. Gillard will now be sworn in as Australia's first female prime minister. Emerging from this morning's meeting, she said she felt 'very honored' and said she would be making a statement shortly. Treasurer Wayne Swan now steps up as deputy prime minister. He was also elected unopposed."

OpenTTD 1.0.0 Released 107

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 06, 2010 @02:51AM from the and-so-soon dept.

Gmer writes "Eming.com reports that OpenTTD, the open source clone of the Microprose game Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has reached a milestone. OpenTTD 1.0.0 has been released 6 years after work started on the first version, with the help of hundreds of contributors and thousands of testers/players. Over 30 language translations are considered complete, and OpenTTD is available for *BSD, Linux, Solaris and Windows. OpenTTD is a business simulation game in which the player is in control of a transport company and can compete against rival companies to make as much profit as possible by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea or air."

Graph-View of Collaborative Development At GitHub 14

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 31, 2010 @03:49PM from the better-art-than-most-coffee-shops dept.

VindictivePantz writes "In an interesting graphical view on collaborative development, FlowingData writes: 'GitHub is a large community where coders can collaborate on software development projects. People check code in and out, make edits, etc. Franck Cuny maps this community (with Gephi), based on information in thousands of user profiles.'"

Microsoft Giving Away Vista Ultimate, With a Catch 495

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @12:48AM from the no-free-lunch dept.

Opinari writes "In case you haven't heard, Microsoft is giving away copies of Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit DVD), Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, Microsoft Money Plus Premium, Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008, or Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 — you can choose any one. The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program."

Submission + - Best Buy threatens to sue for blog about uniforms. (improveverywhere.com)

Submitted by arrenlex on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @09:45PM

arrenlex writes: Improv Everywhere (http://improveverywhere.com/), a NY-based comedy group, was served a Cease & Desist notice by Best Boy for selling "improv everywhere" shirts modelled after the blue BB uniform. But that's not the interesting part. From the blog post: "Here's where the story gets interesting. Today, Best Buy sent a C&D to our friend Scott Beale over at laughingsquid.com threatening legal action unless he removes the blog post referencing our shirts! They're threatening to sue someone for just covering the news story of the shirts!" First rule of Best Buy: don't talk about Best Buy?

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