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New Clues About the Nature of Dark Energy

Posted by michael on from the spaced-out dept.

Jim Mansfield writes "With the Hubble space telescope no longer being serviced by NASA, it's good to see one of their hardest working and most famous satellites in the news again. According to their press release on the nature of dark energy, Einstein may have been right after all - and even if he turns out to have been wrong, it seems that dark energy is not going 'to cause an end to the universe any time soon' ... whew, that's a relief." See also a space.com story.

6 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. "I'm not handing out hydraulic penises. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's unethical!" - Dr. Quinn

  2. yeah by thoffmeyer · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    heh, your all mostly right.. but i really dont care about space and such

  3. Here's your dark energy, buddy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I do the club scene a lot, some say I am a good dancer. I enjoy having a few drinks, usually ale or mead, and I have been known to cause a scene now and then...

    Eric paused, breathing heavily. He'd never done this before and he wanted to make sure all of his best qualities were included in this email.

    I am a geek, to be frank, and I enjoy hacking UNIX and maintaining Open Source programs such as Felchmale^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HFetchmail and a bevy of FAQs regarding 386 sound internals and role-playing games. I've been doing this for 15 years though I've never held a job in my life.

    Eric wondered if this woman he had found on match.com would be impressed with his talents. He decided to put more detail into the message.

    I recently drove 24 hours straight, with but two stops for gasoline, from Eastern PA to Kansas City in an effort to destroy my two arch-nemeses. I would have succeeded except that I blew a head gasket as I was about to shoot one of them from my moving car on Route 69. I am an excellent shot and love guns in general.

    ESR pondered for a moment, wringing out his soaked handkerchief, and continued with his typing.

    So what languages do you know? I fancy myself quite an accomplished amateur linguist and know Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic inside and out. I often compose little riddles in them for fun and mental exercise. In fact, I'll include one for you now!

    Chewing on his tongue and squinting, Eric pushed his mind into overdrive and produced a beauty of a riddle on the spot:

    Windeth I towarde the skye
    I haveth eye but blinde am I

    Pleased with his linguistic talents, undoubtedly matched by no one, Eric then asked his potential love-conquest:

    Can you guess the answer to that? In case you can not, the correct answer is "my erect penis." I hope you enjoyed that; I do this sort of thing all the time.

    Eric exhaled slowly and rubbed his belly. It was growling and no doubt wanted its nightly bottle of Jgermeister. He decided to finish up the email in anticipation of the coming alcoholic stupor.

    Well I don't want to make this email too long -- I have a lot of responsibilities in real life to deal with. My role-playing group is coming over and we are spending the next week holed up in the forest near my home in character playing out a possible scenario from Beowulf. I need to get dressed up and I can not find my bear-claw mittens.

    Eric wondered how to wrap up the email, something that would hook the lady on him and make her want more...

    I hope we can meet and have sex. Despite my cerebral palsy, I am a monster in the sack! Maybe you'll get to see for yourself, LOLOLOL! ;-)

    Love,
    Eric S. Raymond

    Today was shaping up to be a great day for Eric S. Raymond, Open Source figurehead and accidental anthropologist extraordinaire. He had finally received, after two years, a reply to his Match.com love-letter. Using Open Source tools such as Perl and Jgermeister, Eric had wired his entire house to his 386 running Linux. His shack had just lit up like a Christmas tree before his eyes the instant the reply hit his inbox.

    Straining to read the dusty 13" monitor, ESR pulled out a soiled handkerchief and spat it in, eagerly wiping away the years of filth and grime. When the screen was cleared, he sat anxiously at his kitchen table waiting for his lovely's email to come up. After what seemed like minutes (and was actually closer to a half hour) of Linux swapping, Felchmale displayed he

  4. we'll be toast before even then by segment · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
    Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
    The Observer
    • Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
    • Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
    • Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
    Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

    'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.

    rest of article

    --
    MoFscker
  5. We don't know Jack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    But at least we are sorta kinda maybe learning a little to go off of until proved wrong again. There is much more to learn that what we can even see/theorize from our little speck of dust.

    But maybe this explains the idiot moderations on /.?

  6. Cereal Energy!! He's BAAAAACK!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    To Whom It May Concern (other than myself):

    Hi. I have been a huge fan of cereals of all kinds for my whole life. Sometimes I eat it for all three meals of the day, or live on it exclusively for weeks, or put it in my underpants to keep me feeling fresh (and also as an emergency back-up snack). I cereasly love it.

    I am especially fond of a lot of your cereals like Boo Berry and Trix and Chex and Lucky Charms and Cookie Crisp. My absolute favorite is Fruity Pebbles though, which I believe is a Post cereal. Maybe you guys should make something that tastes like Fruity Pebbles except manages not to have Fred Flintstone's ugly mug all over the box. Yabba Dabba Eww. Anyway, my point is that I like a lot of your cereals and so I am personally concerned with their condition. And, quite frankly, lately I've been a bit worried.

    Let's start with my favorite cereal of yours - Boo Berry. I love Boo Berry... at least I think I do... actually, I know it used to be my favorite cereal but I haven't had any in years so I've kind of forgotten what it tastes like - because it's not in any stores! No stores in my area carry it. I checked on your website and apparently you still make it; you even offer it for sale. Unfortunately I can't justify buying it for the $6.74 for a twelve ounce box price. You do offer buying it in a case instead of a four pack, which would drop the price to $4.71 a box, but that is still unreasonable and would also require me to spend an entire week's pay on a large shipment of haunted cereal. My girlfriend would kill me (if I didn't overdose on blue food coloring first).

    I think I have a solution to this dilemma. I know you can't force any businesses to carry your cereals and I know that you can't afford to sell them direct for less than $4.71 and still have money left over to pay for upkeep on Count Chocula's castle, hiring someone to build 400 mind-numbing advertisements disguised as crappy kids games for youruleschool.com, and keep your CEOs rolling in golden Kix. So here's what you should do - open up your own stores all across the country. You've already got one in Mall-of-America, now put one in every mall in America. Even if you don't sell much cereal (and you'd sell a lot, trust me) it would be great advertising. You can sell t-shirts with nifty slogans like "Frosted Wheaties: When You're Too Damn Lazy To Put Sugar On Your Own Wheaties!" or "Honey Nut Chex: It Rhymes With 'Funny Butt Sex' For A Reason!" and other stuff which is even more great advertising plus it makes money up front. I can see it now, picture a young child in the mall with its mother...

    YOUNG CHILD: Mommy! Mommy! Look at all the pretty colored cereal!

    MOTHER: Oh Honey, you know cereals like that are just a result of the global dentist/cereal/porn conspiracy, we've been through this a million times...

    YOUNG CHILD: Awww...

    MAN IN TRIX RABBIT SUIT comes out of the store.

    MAN IN TRIX RABBIT SUIT: You know Ms. Averagemother, all of our cereals are fortified with titanium plating and deflector shi... er, essential vitamins and minerals; and they are a part of this complete breakfast.

    MAN IN TRIX RABBIT SUIT whips out a complete breakfast on a tray.

    MOTHER: Well... I guess a few minutes couldn't hurt...

    YOUNG CHILD: Gee, thanks mom!

    YOUNG CHILD runs in followed slowly by MOTHER. Group of scantily clad dentists appears and drags MOTHER into back room. YOUNG CHILD transforms into a cartoon and spends eternity trying to steal Lucky's Charms and torturing the Trix Rabbit by hogging the cereal.

    Now, on to my next suggestion. You need to do something about Cheerios. Really, they're awful. Yes they are good for my heart, but this is overshadowed by the fact that they taste like my butt.

    On the other hand, a cereal that already tastes great is Lu