whackeroony - Slashdot User

Do We Live In a Giant Cosmic Bubble? 344

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 01, 2008 @10:20AM from the i-live-in-my-own-universe dept.

Khemisty writes "Earth may be trapped in an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly void of matter. Scientists say this condition could account for the apparent acceleration of the universe's expansion, for which dark energy currently is the leading explanation. Until now, there has been no good way to choose between dark energy or the void explanation, but a new study outlines a potential test of the bubble scenario. If we were in an unusually sparse area of the universe, then things could look farther away than they really are and there would be no need to rely on dark energy as an explanation for certain astronomical observations. 'If we lived in a very large under-density, then the space-time itself wouldn't be accelerating,' said researcher Timothy Clifton of Oxford University in England. 'It would just be that the observations, if interpreted in the usual way, would look like they were.'"

Comment CERN pioneered grid computing ? WTF ? (Score 1) 169

by whackeroony on Thursday September 11, 2008 @08:35PM (#24972713) Attached to: CERN, the Big Bang and Impact On the IT Industry

LHC was a motivation for Grids in the same way that CERN's problem of sharing files was a motivation for Sir TBL to create the Web. But, being a motivation does not mean you invented or "pioneered" the freaking stuff. Grids were around in many forms waaaay before CERN decided to go for it.

If anything CERN has achieved in Grids, it is to stunt its growth. It sucked a huge amount of funding from EU for the LCG (LHC Computing Grid) is huge. The LCG is a grid designed by and for control freaks. Many sensible design features (distributed control, proper resource allocation and scheduling, transaction safety, fairness among users) for distributed systems were left out of the LCG. Why? Because it was primarily designed by fucking physicists with a lot of money and who thought they knew waaaay more than computer scientists.

It's no wonder that the industry lost its patience with the grid community and went on to clouds. That's what grids could've been.

Hey CERN, here's a message. Why don't you limit yourselves to claiming credit for physics stuff while computer scientists take distributed systems forward. Fucking morons taking credit for inventing the Web and pioneering Grids. Bah!

Google News Launches Facebook Application 82

Posted by Zonk on Saturday October 20, 2007 @04:33PM from the so-...-goobook-huh dept.

NewsCloud writes "Eight days after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Zeitgeist conference attendees that social networks account for an 'enormous proportion [of Internet usage]...it's a very real phenomenon,' Google News has launched its own Facebook application. Says Google News: 'This experimental application enables users to create custom sections or select from a set of pre-defined topics, then browse and share stories with their friends on Facebook. We are trying a couple things differently with this application, and it is still in beta, but we think that it adds value to the Facebook experience and to users' overall news experience.' Check out Google News on Facebook (requires registration) — or view screenshots."

SETI Finally Finds Something 416

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @09:21PM from the laptop-phone-home dept.

QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"

Why the Novell / MS Deal Is Very Bad 367

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 05, 2006 @11:35PM from the laying-it-out dept.

jamienk writes "PJ from Groklaw has taken the time to really explain the big picture of the Novell/MS deal and how it all fits into the SCO case and the strategy some have employed to attack Free Software. If you thought PJ was becoming too shrill before, or if you haven't understood what the big deal is with Novell's agreement, it's really worth a read." From the article: "This is Groklaw's 2,838th article. We now have 10,545 members, who have worked very hard to disprove SCO's scurrilous claims, and we did. We succeeded, beyond my hopes when we started. But here's the sad part. As victory is in sight, Novell signs a patent agreement with Microsoft..."

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