This was cool - it also led me to download Celestia

Google helps you kill time with 100,000 Stars experiment

Intel is quite clearly serious about offering competition to ARM in the embedded market, and has just announced a new Atom processor series that offers a unique selling point: an integral FPGA processor. Billed as 'the first configurable Intel Atom-based processor,' the Atom E600C series combines an Intel Atom 'Tunnel Creek' chip with an Altera Field Programmable Gate Array — offering, the company claims, significantly more flexibility for ODMs and OEMs.

By adding in the FPGA, customers are able to make fundamental changes at a hardware level without having to go through a hardware revision cycle - which means lowered development costs and faster time to market.

I've been waiting for this for 10 years. I think this kind of solution may be useful in PCs for accelerating graphics work and other math intensive PC tasks.

Intel Launches Atom CPU With Integrated FPGA

] We got it, we played it, we love it. Polyphony Digital's
] latest-generation Gran Turismo introduces a toolbox full
] of new features that'll have you playing for hours,
] sometimes without even driving a single lap. Ever want to
] race in the Grand Canyon? On ice? Around New York City,
] Hong Kong, The Cote D'Azure? How about a drag race down
] the Las Vegas Strip? Now you can take your pick--all over
] the world, on any track, on any surface.

Damnit. I just solved San Andreas and they go and release this. I need a life man. I don't want to be a gamer!

Gran Turismo 4 - First Drive - Motor Trend

] Friends say the roots of his success lie in his lateral
] thinking - finding the true appeal of an object, often
] ignoring the traditional approach to design. Inspiration
] comes from almost anywhere. The original candy-coloured
] iMac had its roots in gumdrops. The popular transparent
] Apple mouse came from thinking about how drops of water
] sit on a flat surface. An angle-poise desk lamp helped
] inspire the new iMac. The see-through outer casing of
] recent iBooks came from the look that food has when
] wrapped in clingfilm. The iPod is like a cigarette pack
] for those addicted to music instead of tobacco.

Jonathan Ive is a bad ass.

Who is Jonathan Ive and what kind of car does he drive

Track SARs on OSX!

SARS 1.0b4 - VersionTracker

"I'm Steve, and I'm a Supervillain..."

Switch to Linux

] Government officials and communications experts are
] assessing the public safety and security implications of
] a newly posted online article that provides directions
] for making cheap devices that can jam Global Positioning
] System (GPS) signals.

Classic Bill Joy moment here. The availability of that article is not what creates the risk associated with relying on GPS. Its the insecurity of the system that creates the risk. If that article was published in scientific american instead of phrack the wording of this article would be tremendously different.

Notice how the author goes around to different subject matter experts searching for someone who is willing to say "this is bad." Each expert says "this has no effect on my space, but it might cause problems in that space over there." The author then asks someone who works in that space, and is told the same thing over again. Basically, yes the authorities know this is a risk and they mitigate it like any other risk.

Homemade GPS jammers raise concerns - Computerworld

] "Sun Microsystems Inc. (NasdaqNM:SUNW - news) won a major
] antitrust victory against Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT
] - news) on Monday when a federal judge ordered Microsoft
] to distribute Sun's Java programming language in its
] Windows operating system.

While definitely good, this is just a prelim injunction, which primarily means that the damage done to Sun if they ultimately win by not having Java included during the trial process would be worse then the damage done to Microsoft if THEY ultimately win by having to include it. Given that the trial process is going to last several years, this much should be obvious.

Sun Wins, Microsoft Ordered to Carry Java

"Roomba dancing robot vacuums and sweeps automatically -- even when you're asleep or out of the house."

Roomba Floor Vac Robot

"In practical terms, this means encrypting all information that passes over the network and equipping every computer with its own host-based firewall."

This is an anti-recommendation. Besides the obvious observation that Garfinkel's friend's network probably doesn't work too well if his whole company is connected by *hubs,* there is a serious flaw in this logic. If all security is host based, then control is in the hands of each individual employee. This doesn't make sense in a corporation, where policy needs to be in the control of the people who own the network. If policy is in the control of the individual, then this requires an organizational struture where everyone is an independent contractor who is responsible for his own personal business. Despite how attractive this idea might seem, business organization should be designed around what helps people work better, rather then what helps computers work better.

Do firewalls really give protection?