They reckon it's a massive black hole because it's bright. Black holes that give off a lot of light have to be massive, because of something called the Eddington Limit.
However, it's just a dot in the sky, you can't tell how much energy in total is being given out just by measuring how much is coming in the direction of Earth - you don't know if it's a 60W lightbulb shining in all directions or a 5W torch pointing at you. For instance, black holes can have jets (rather like pulsars) and a smaller black hole with a jet pointing at Earth could explain their observation.
Discovering that it has a star orbiting it every two months doesn't change any of that, as far as I can tell.
The ultraluminous x-ray source (ULX) in M82 has been identified as a possible intermediate mass black hole formed in stellar collisions in the super star cluster MGG 11. We find that the x-ray flux from M82 is modulated with a peak to peak amplitude corresponding to an isotropic luminosity of 2.4 x 10^40 erg s-1 in M82 and a period of 62.0 ± 2.5 days, which we interpret as the orbital period of the ULX binary. This orbital period implies that the mass donor star must be a giant or supergiant. Large mass transfer rates, sufficient to fuel the ULX, are expected for a giant phase mass donor in an x-ray binary. The giant phase has a short life time, indicating that we see the ULX in M82 in a brief and unusual period of its evolution.
---
Reading this and the article, I'm not sure if the claim is necessarily valid. What's to stop this being a smaller black hole, a smaller star orbiting closer (with the same period), and beamed emission? An intermediate black hole is still the simplest explanation, but doesn't seem unique.
Is Mario even a 'character'? As far as the Mario games I've played go, his entire personality can be expressed as a desire to say "It'sa me, Mario!" and collect stars and coins. When I accidentally drown him or something, I don't feel sorry (or laugh). He's just a label which means 'Nintendo says this is a good platform/kart/tennis game', and a way to save some effort making player models. Fair enough by me.
And I have no idea how you could ever think windows-style program installation is better than synaptic or aptitude. Sure, the descriptions need work, but being able to queue up 10 pieces of software and have them automatically downloaded and installed beats clicking through 10 EULAs, dialogs about directories and shortcuts, and probably having to reboot a couple of times. It's not like linux can't do that anyway if you were crazy enough to want it.
p.s. what was the model number of that router I was thinking of buying again?
It's one line in Basic, and in Visual Basic - you even get a GUI dialog box with the VB one liner. MS isn't always so bad. Well, the box is one of those nonsensical ones that just has an OK button and a cross to quit, maybe they are that bad.
No. I play games for the gameplay, not what they "say". If a game is good and left me wanting more, then bring on a sequel, please! Hell, if a game is bad then make a sequel where what's wrong is fixed and the game is good. Still, it would be nice if developers priced sequels in a way that reflects the amount of work that's gone into them, i.e. new levels with the same gameplay and graphics should be a budget game. This is something that PC gaming is more likely to get right - expansion packs are better than sequels.
So, how about some experiments in the name of journalism? Put the power brick on carpet and see how it lasts. Try again in an enclosed space. The heat issue may very well be overblown, but you're writing the review and we'd like to know that it is. If these things are going to spend summer rebooting every hour then they aren't a good purchase.
Actually TFA in this case isn't complaining about sequels. It's saying there are no blockbusters, unlike Half-life 2, Halo 2 and GTA:SA from last year. All of which were sequels. A good game which is a sequel to a good game is quite likely to be a blockbuster.
Besides, 2005 has seen a lot of new and interesting games released. Many of them are on the DS, so you may have missed them. None of them were really blockbusters - new and interesting doesn't sell that well.
I think the basic idea is sound, but there's no reason to take it so far. I'm pretty sure the bits involving more standing up than a traditional interface won't get too far - but I really like the idea of sitting at my desk scribbing equations on a touchpad, then tapping an icon in the corner whilst glancing at the wall to send them to a virtual whiteboard. Same for the virtual bookshelf - why bother? An interface similar to an MP3 player app. would be a lot faster and take up less "world space" (like screen space). And the titles won't be at a 90 degree angle. No need to copy the bad things about real life.
I'm very interested in your explaination of dark matter as a plasma physics phenomenon. Is it in your newsletter?:P
From what I've seen, astronomical press releases are pretty funny to astronomers too. I don't think any scientists are actually as clueless or whimsical as they're usually portrayed (well, caricatured).
I don't see the problem. One hour of the Big Brother contestents drinking Coke (tm), sitting on Ikea (tm) sofas and wearing Gap (tm) hoodies could pay enough to fill the remaining 23 hours with fresh Simpsons episdoes.
"The nice thing will be the ability to not only reach very low pricepoints with this system but the ability to integrate it into television sets with minimal costs. This is the holy grail of console game systems, and something Sony/MS couldn't even dream of with their offerings."
It'd be trivially easy and very cheap (under 50 dollars, perhaps far under) to do this with the PS1 or GBA, both systems which are still selling and have new game releases, and are a lot of fun. But no-one seems to be interested, despite the fact that Sony even makes (or maybe re-badges) TVs. I wouldn't buy one, TVs break and consoles need to be portable so I can take them to a friend's house or use them on the main TV instead of the one in my room.
Also, don't forget all the sensors in the controller, I'd expect them to be relatively expensive. On the plus side, I recently read that the system will have 96 Mb of main memory (here), so it should be pretty cheap.
No. About half the people on the net use dial-up, and are therefore really unlikely to buy a router. Plus, I think it's a safe bet that wanting your own wireless network correlates with being technically savvy, i.e. people who know what linux is and why you'd want it on a router.
Advance Wars contains all kinds of moralising about behaving honourably, friends coming through for each other, etc. The message being that if you act like a good person you'll overcome adversity. It's puerile to the point that you probably filter it out, but by your definition it is art.
Now, the feeling I'd like to convey is that this is a pointless argument. Labels only matter to shallow people.
What happens when my ACADEMIC PAPER or REVIEW(BOOK) includes ART(EROTIC)? Or someone on the FORUM has PORNOGRAPHY for an avatar icon? Pages have more than one type of content, so using this as a porn filter won't work. Back to square one...
Incidentally, if you want only academic papers you can search on a paper indexing service (google scholar, etc.). Likewise there are porn search engines. Other content types need their own searches.
In all fairness, there are plenty of rough nightspots where pulling out a GBA would get you beaten up. You should try some of the squaddie pubs in my home town. Of course, sidetalkin' or playing on your n-gage would be equally provocative to the local insecure hard men.
Slashdot Mirror
They reckon it's a massive black hole because it's bright. Black holes that give off a lot of light have to be massive, because of something called the Eddington Limit.
However, it's just a dot in the sky, you can't tell how much energy in total is being given out just by measuring how much is coming in the direction of Earth - you don't know if it's a 60W lightbulb shining in all directions or a 5W torch pointing at you. For instance, black holes can have jets (rather like pulsars) and a smaller black hole with a jet pointing at Earth could explain their observation.
Discovering that it has a star orbiting it every two months doesn't change any of that, as far as I can tell.
The ultraluminous x-ray source (ULX) in M82 has been identified as a possible intermediate mass black hole formed in stellar collisions in the super star cluster MGG 11. We find that the x-ray flux from M82 is modulated with a peak to peak amplitude corresponding to an isotropic luminosity of 2.4 x 10^40 erg s-1 in M82 and a period of 62.0 ± 2.5 days, which we interpret as the orbital period of the ULX binary. This orbital period implies that the mass donor star must be a giant or supergiant. Large mass transfer rates, sufficient to fuel the ULX, are expected for a giant phase mass donor in an x-ray binary. The giant phase has a short life time, indicating that we see the ULX in M82 in a brief and unusual period of its evolution.
---
Reading this and the article, I'm not sure if the claim is necessarily valid. What's to stop this being a smaller black hole, a smaller star orbiting closer (with the same period), and beamed emission? An intermediate black hole is still the simplest explanation, but doesn't seem unique.
"but giving them some kind of boring chore to perform to teach them a lesson would be nice."
You mean like levelling up?
Is Mario even a 'character'? As far as the Mario games I've played go, his entire personality can be expressed as a desire to say "It'sa me, Mario!" and collect stars and coins. When I accidentally drown him or something, I don't feel sorry (or laugh).
He's just a label which means 'Nintendo says this is a good platform/kart/tennis game', and a way to save some effort making player models. Fair enough by me.
Yeah dude, you're hurting my head.
And I have no idea how you could ever think windows-style program installation is better than synaptic or aptitude. Sure, the descriptions need work, but being able to queue up 10 pieces of software and have them automatically downloaded and installed beats clicking through 10 EULAs, dialogs about directories and shortcuts, and probably having to reboot a couple of times. It's not like linux can't do that anyway if you were crazy enough to want it.
p.s. what was the model number of that router I was thinking of buying again?
It's one line in Basic, and in Visual Basic - you even get a GUI dialog box with the VB one liner. MS isn't always so bad.
Well, the box is one of those nonsensical ones that just has an OK button and a cross to quit, maybe they are that bad.
No. I play games for the gameplay, not what they "say". If a game is good and left me wanting more, then bring on a sequel, please! Hell, if a game is bad then make a sequel where what's wrong is fixed and the game is good.
Still, it would be nice if developers priced sequels in a way that reflects the amount of work that's gone into them, i.e. new levels with the same gameplay and graphics should be a budget game. This is something that PC gaming is more likely to get right - expansion packs are better than sequels.
They're called DVD writers...
So, how about some experiments in the name of journalism?
Put the power brick on carpet and see how it lasts. Try again in an enclosed space. The heat issue may very well be overblown, but you're writing the review and we'd like to know that it is. If these things are going to spend summer rebooting every hour then they aren't a good purchase.
Ask Santa to warm up his DVD-boxset gun and we might get some new episodes.
Actually TFA in this case isn't complaining about sequels. It's saying there are no blockbusters, unlike Half-life 2, Halo 2 and GTA:SA from last year. All of which were sequels. A good game which is a sequel to a good game is quite likely to be a blockbuster.
Besides, 2005 has seen a lot of new and interesting games released. Many of them are on the DS, so you may have missed them. None of them were really blockbusters - new and interesting doesn't sell that well.
Episode scripts.
Series 7, episode 709, search in the page for "shark".
I think the basic idea is sound, but there's no reason to take it so far. I'm pretty sure the bits involving more standing up than a traditional interface won't get too far - but I really like the idea of sitting at my desk scribbing equations on a touchpad, then tapping an icon in the corner whilst glancing at the wall to send them to a virtual whiteboard. Same for the virtual bookshelf - why bother? An interface similar to an MP3 player app. would be a lot faster and take up less "world space" (like screen space). And the titles won't be at a 90 degree angle. No need to copy the bad things about real life.
Putting a web browser on your tablecloth would be more efficient, so long as e-paper's washable.
I'm very interested in your explaination of dark matter as a plasma physics phenomenon. Is it in your newsletter? :P
From what I've seen, astronomical press releases are pretty funny to astronomers too. I don't think any scientists are actually as clueless or whimsical as they're usually portrayed (well, caricatured).
I'm not so sure. Maybe someone knows the numbers to answer this question:
Would the money saved by abandoning the shuttle (explosion or otherwise) be enough to outright buy the Russian manned spaceflight program?
"so now you are a waiter barely making the poverty line, growing older and sadder every day..."
I'm doing the job I wanted in high school, and I still get older every day. What am I doing wrong?
I don't see the problem. One hour of the Big Brother contestents drinking Coke (tm), sitting on Ikea (tm) sofas and wearing Gap (tm) hoodies could pay enough to fill the remaining 23 hours with fresh Simpsons episdoes.
"The nice thing will be the ability to not only reach very low pricepoints with this system but the ability to integrate it into television sets with minimal costs. This is the holy grail of console game systems, and something Sony/MS couldn't even dream of with their offerings."
It'd be trivially easy and very cheap (under 50 dollars, perhaps far under) to do this with the PS1 or GBA, both systems which are still selling and have new game releases, and are a lot of fun. But no-one seems to be interested, despite the fact that Sony even makes (or maybe re-badges) TVs. I wouldn't buy one, TVs break and consoles need to be portable so I can take them to a friend's house or use them on the main TV instead of the one in my room.
Also, don't forget all the sensors in the controller, I'd expect them to be relatively expensive. On the plus side, I recently read that the system will have 96 Mb of main memory (here), so it should be pretty cheap.
Whoa! Then what was I watching?
Oh yeah, it was the Lexx TV series.
No, thin clients need a screen. A keyboard is nice too.
As for a word processor, I'm sure it could run a light text editor like pico.
No. About half the people on the net use dial-up, and are therefore really unlikely to buy a router. Plus, I think it's a safe bet that wanting your own wireless network correlates with being technically savvy, i.e. people who know what linux is and why you'd want it on a router.
Advance Wars contains all kinds of moralising about behaving honourably, friends coming through for each other, etc. The message being that if you act like a good person you'll overcome adversity. It's puerile to the point that you probably filter it out, but by your definition it is art.
Now, the feeling I'd like to convey is that this is a pointless argument. Labels only matter to shallow people.
What happens when my ACADEMIC PAPER or REVIEW(BOOK) includes ART(EROTIC)? Or someone on the FORUM has PORNOGRAPHY for an avatar icon? Pages have more than one type of content, so using this as a porn filter won't work. Back to square one...
Incidentally, if you want only academic papers you can search on a paper indexing service (google scholar, etc.). Likewise there are porn search engines. Other content types need their own searches.
In all fairness, there are plenty of rough nightspots where pulling out a GBA would get you beaten up. You should try some of the squaddie pubs in my home town.
Of course, sidetalkin' or playing on your n-gage would be equally provocative to the local insecure hard men.