Sagittarius? Here’s your constellation

How to find Sagittarius on August evenings, plus the lore and science of this constellation. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/sagittarius-heres-your-constellation…

Steve Wozniak Turns His 70th Birthday Into a Charity Event

In 2000 Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak answered questions from Slashdot readers. More than 20 years later,
CNET writes: Party on, Woz. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak turned 70 on Tuesday, and invited the world to his virtual birthday party. The event raised funds for singer Jewel’s Inspiring Children Foundation, which provides mentorship and mental health resources for at-risk youth. And while the star-studded…

Frances E. Allen, the First Woman To Win the Turing Award, Dies At 88

Frances “Fran” Allen, a pioneer in the world of computing, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to win the Turing Award, died on August 4, 2020, the day of her 88th birthday. IBM writes in a blog post remembering Allen: As a pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms, Fran made seminal contributions to the world of computing….

Decades-Old Email Flaws Could Let Attackers Mask Their Identities

At the Black Hat security conference on Thursday, researchers will present “darn subtle” flaws in industry-wide protections used to ensure that emails come from the address they claim to. From a report: The study looked at the big three protocols used in email sender authentication — Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and…

Giant A-68 iceberg 3 years on

The colossal iceberg that split from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017 is now in the open waters of the South Atlantic, about 650 miles (1,050 km) from its birthplace. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/giant-a-68-iceberg-summer-2020…

Libra? Here’s your constellation

The zodiacal constellation Libra the Scales is a fixture of the evening sky during a Northern Hemisphere summer (Southern Hemisphere winter). Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/libra-heres-your-constellation…

Who was the 1st woman in space?

On June 16, 1963, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launched solo aboard a Soviet Vostok 6 rocket, becoming the first-ever woman in space. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-first-woman-in-space…

Bjarne Stroustrup Releases 168-Page Paper on How C++ Thrived

Bjarne Stroustrup, the 69-year-old Danish creator of C++, just released a 168-page paper (published under a Creative Commons Attributions-NoDerivatives license) in the Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, detailing the growth of C++ from its 21st birthday in 2006 up through the year 2020. It begins by noting that by 2006, C++ “contained parts that had survived unchanged since introduced…

Born in June? Here’s your birthstone

Happy birthday June babies! Your month has 3 birthstones – pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/june-birthstone-pearl-moonstone-alexandrite…

Java Programming Language Celebrates Its 25th Birthday. What’s Next?

May 23rd marks the 25th anniversary of the day Sun Microsystems introduced Java to the world, notes InfoWorld. Looking at both the present and the future, they write that currently Java remains popular “with enterprises even as a slew of rival languages, such as Python and Go, now compete for the hearts and minds of software developers.” Java continues to rank…