March 2014

2012 VP113 movements recorded on November 5, 2012 (Image Scott Sheppard/Carnegie Institution for Science)

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The astronomers Chadwick Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and Scott Shepherd, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, have announced the discovery of what is probably a dwarf planet. Called for now only 2012 VP113, it has a diameter around 450 kilometers (about 280 miles). Its uniqueness is that its orbit is remarkably far from the Sun as it does not get closer than 80 astronomical units, about twice Pluto’s average distance from the Sun.

Sergey Orlovskiy testing Oculus Rift

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Facebook has announced it has reached an agreement for the purchase of Oculus VR, Inc., producer of the virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift, for a total of about $2 billion. The figure includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock. The agreement also includes an additional $300 million in cash and shares based on the achievement of certain goals that weren’t specified in the press release.

Brendan Eich Mozilla Foundation official photo

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The Mozilla Foundation board of directors announced that Brendan Eich has been appointed Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect. Eich is one of the co-founders of the foundation and in recent years has been working as Chief Technology Officer. He replaces Gary Kovacs, who almost a year ago announced his intention to leave his office.

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The novel “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” by Douglas Adams was published for the first time in 1988. It’s the sequel to “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”.

Kate Schechter has to catch a plane but when she’s at the check-in an explosion disrupts her life. She’s taken to a hospital, where luckily the doctors find nothing serious but she ends up involved in a story that becomes stranger and stranger, mainly because of Thor, the god of Norse mythology.

Dirk Gently, the holistic detective who operates under the assumption that there’s a fundamental interconnectedness of all things, was hired by a wealthy client haunted by a monster. Unconvinced by this and other details of the his client’s claims, he ends up being involved in a much more complex story in which he meets Kate Schechter and the gods of Valhalla.

H. Beam Piper

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Henry Beam Piper was born on March 23, 1904 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA. Some sources report his name as Horace, a confusion he generated himself. It seems that Piper didn’t like his first name so he wrote under the name H. Beam Piper and said the H. stood for Horace. During his life, tragically ended with his suicide, he wrote many science fiction stories in the Terro-Human and the Paratime cycles.