A close look at the “stellar stream” known as Theia 456 finds it contains contains 468 stars born at the same time. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/theia-456-stellar-stream-468-stars-born-together…
Tag: lost
Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes
Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million. From a report: The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin. While the price…
Python Named Programming Language of the Year by ‘Somewhat Dubious’ TIOBE Index
Programming columnist Mike Melanson describes the announcement of this year’s programming language of the year: The TIOBE Index, the somewhat dubious ranking of programming language popularity according to search engine results, has announced its yearly proclamation of “language of the year,” with the award going to Python for the fourth time in its history [more than any other programming language]. The…
Chip Shortage Hits Global Automakers
A semiconductor shortage is dragging on some of the world’s biggest auto manufacturers, costing Daimler, Nissan Motor, Honda Motor and Ford Motor production of a range of cars. From a report: Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler joined its German peer Volkswagen AG in announcing it’s affected by the industrywide supply bottleneck, without quantifying the impact. Honda said it will cut domestic output by…
We’ve already blown past the warming targets set by the Paris climate agreement, study finds
A new study shows that due to pollution already released, Earth will eventually blow past Paris goals. But that doesn’t mean all is lost. Source: https://www.livescience.com/already-too-late-to-meet-paris-agreement-climate-goals.html
World’s Worst Internet Shutdowns Cost India $2.8 Billion in 2020
Internet shutdowns cost India $2.8 billion, putting the South Asian nation at the top of a list of 21 countries that curbed citizens’ web access in 2020. From a report: India — the second-worst-hit nation by the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of overall confirmed infections — accounted for about three-quarters of the $4 billion lost worldwide to internet curbs. Its losses…
Remote sensing data sheds light on when and how asteroid Ryugu lost its water
Last month, Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission brought home a cache of rocks collected from a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. While analysis of those returned samples is just getting underway, researchers are using data from the spacecraft’s other instruments to reveal new details about the asteroid’s past. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-remote-asteroid-ryugu-lost.html…
71-Year-Old Slashdot Reader Describes His ‘Moderate’ Case of Covid
71-year-old Hugh Pickens (Slashdot reader #49,171) is a physicist who explored for oil in the Amazon jungle, commissioned microwave communications systems in Saudi Arabia, and built satellite control stations for Goddard Space Flight Center around the world including Australia, Antarctica, and Guam. After retiring in 1999, he wrote over 1,400 Slashdot posts, and in the site’s 23-year history still remains one…
Are We Experiencing a Great Software Stagnation?
Long-time programmer/researcher/former MIT research fellow Jonathan Edwards writes a blog called “Alarming Development: Dispatches from the User Liberation Front.” He began the new year by arguing that software “is eating the world. But progress in software technology itself largely stalled around 1996.” Slashdot reader tonique summarizes Edwards’ argument:
In 1996 there were “LISP, Algol, Basic, APL, Unix, C, Oracle, Smalltalk, Windows, C++,…
Edmund Clarke, 2007 Winner of the Turing Award, Dies of Covid-19
“Edmund M. Clarke, the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, has died of Covid-19,” writes Slashdot reader McGruber. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Professor Clarke was best known for his work in model checking, an automated method for detecting design errors in computer hardware and software. CMU president Farnam Jahanian said the world had “lost a…