Philadelphia Tech & Business News: |
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Latest Slashdot News: Cassini's Primary Mission Ends Two-Year Extension Begins wooferhound points out recent news that the Cassini probe has completed its original four-year mission and is beginning a two-year extended mission which was authorized earlier this year. Cassini's first mission brought us a treasure trove of information about Saturn and its various moons. The new mission will target two of those moons in particular for further study: Titan and Enceladus. Quoting: "The spacecraft is extremely healthy and carries 12 instruments powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Data from Cassini's nominal and extended missions could lay the groundwork for possible future missions to Saturn Titan or Enceladus. [The two moons] are primary targets in the two-year extended mission dubbed the Cassini Equinox Mission. This time period also will allow for monitoring seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn exploring new places within Saturn's magnetosphere and observing the unique ring geometry of the Saturn equinox in August of 2009 when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the rings." read more >> Working Towards an Eco-Friendly Fireworks Display phobos13013 writes "Here's an article just in time for 4th of July fireworks shows! The ACS's Chemical and Engineering News provides a fairly technical discussion about the hazardous chemicals in modern fireworks displays. Perchlorate is currently the oxidizer of choice in fireworks but it is also known to be a thyroid blocker. Since perchlorates are water-soluble anions they dissolve into groundwater quickly. A study performed last summer over a lake in Ada Oklahoma showed that less than a day after a fireworks display the lake's chlorate levels jumped by a factor of 1000. It took weeks for the levels to drop back down to their baseline. On the other hand heavy metals are used to produce the pretty colors typically associated with the best fireworks. The trend is to start using nitrogen-based oxidizing fireworks; they produce less smoke which means a smaller amount of colorizing agents can be used in displays." read more >> Interview With Author of the First Spoof Language An anonymous reader brings us Computerworld's interview with Don Woods one of the creators of Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym (INTERCAL). INTERCAL and its documentation were created in 1972 as a parody of that era's languages and instruction manuals. Among other things Woods had this to say: "We designed the language without too much trouble. Writing the manual took a while especially for things like the circuit diagrams we included as nonsensical illustrations. The compiler itself actually wasn't too much trouble given that we weren't at all concerned with optimising the performance of either the compiler or the compiled code. I admit I'm surprised at its longevity. Some of the jokes in the original work feel rather dated at this point. It helps that the language provides a place where people can discuss oddball features missing from other languages such as the 'COME FROM' statement and operators that work in base 3." read more >> IE 8 To Include New Security Tools Trailrunner7 writes "Internet Explorer has been a security punching bag for years and rightfully so. IE 6 was arguably the least secure browser of all time. But Microsoft has been trying to get their act together on security and the new beta of IE 8 due in August will have a slew of new security features including protection against Type-1 cross-site scripting attacks a better phishing filter and better security for ActiveX controls." read more >> NC Judge Takes "A Fresh Look" At RIAA Subpoenas NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "When some North Carolina State students recently brought to the attention of the Court the apparent illegality of the RIAA's investigations by unlicensed investigators they also caught the attention of the judges. After reading these new papers District Judge Louise W. Flanagan who admits that she's been routinely signing the RIAA's ex parte discovery orders in the past has indicated that she is now going to take 'a fresh look' at the RIAA's tactics. She issued a stay of the subpoena ordering NC State not to respond to it and referred the motions to dismiss the cases to a Magistrate Judge for him to take that 'fresh look' at what has been going on." read more >> Open Source Twitter Competitor Emerges ruphus13 writes "Twitter has had a lot of public woes with Open Source technologies like Ruby on Rails and a lot of alternatives have sprung up in the micro-blogging world but no one has managed to dislodge twitter in its usage or appeal. Now an Open Source alternative by Identi.ca backed by project Laconica has emerged. From the article 'It supports OpenID for logins is completely free software and is designed to apply a Creative Commons license to all the traffic that it carries. It's also built to support the OpenMicroBlogging protocol meaning that (at least in theory) it can attack scalability issues by federating together multiple autonomous servers. The underpinnings of Laconica include PHP PEAR and XMPP. You can download a tarball of the source or check it out directly if you're using Darcs (there's also an unofficial mirror on Google Code giving you Subversion access for a read-only copy).' The community will still need to work on this if a true competitor to twitter is to be had. It is lacking APIs and SMS integration. Oh and millions of users!" read more >> Lost Footage of "Metropolis" Found ram.loss writes "According to a Reuters article a long version of Metropolis has been found at a cinema museum in Argentina by a newly appointed archivist. The reels have been authenticated by the Murnau foundation at Germany. 'Although estimates of its original length vary depending on the speed at which it is shown Possmann said "Metropolis" was conceived as a film lasting just over 2-1/2 hours. Around 20 to 25 minutes of footage that fleshes out secondary characters and sheds light on the plot would be added to the film pending restoration he added. But around 5 minutes of the original were probably still missing he said.'" read more >> eBay'er Arrested for Attempting to Sell His Vote The Associated Press reports that Max P. Sanders 19 is charged with a felony for attempting to auction off his vote in the upcoming presidential election on eBay. From the article: '"Fundamentally we believe it is wrong to sell your vote" said John Aiken a spokesman for the office. "There are people that have died for this country for our right to vote and to take something that lightly to say 'I can be bought.'" [...] "It's a real shame"' Yes that is a terrible shame isn't it. Perhaps we should arrest prosecute and imprison everyone who sells their vote. The boy says it was all a joke but prosecutors aren't laughing. Max faces up to 5 years in prison and $10000 in fines if he is convicted. read more >> Prominent Mathemathicians Rebuke Recent Riemann Hypothesis Proof Bryan writes "Xian-Jin Li's purported proof of the Riemann Hypothesis (reported on recently) has been rebuked by Fields Medalist Terence Tao. Fortunately Dr. Li's proof fails alongside a respectable graveyard of previous attempts." Relatedly jim.shilliday writes "The proof cites and appears to be based in part on the work of the leading French theorist Alain Connes. A few hours ago Connes posted a comment on his blog stating that the purported proof is so badly flawed that he stopped reading it." read more >> First Results From Messenger's Mercury Flyby Several readers noted the special section in Science published today with results from Messenger's flyby of Mercury last January. One conclusion is that volcanism has shaped the planet contrary to earlier theories that Mercury had been "dead on arrival." The LA Time's coverage highlights the finding that Mercury has shrunk by a mile in diameter over its lifetime due to shrinkage at its core. read more >>
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