Finally, a Chess variant board has been developed that accommodates three players, without compromising ANY of the rules, strategies, or competitive challenges that make Chess the best board game in the world.  The only changes from conventional chess are some protocol issues that must be followed to maintain order where the teams border each other, which is simple and necessary.  Also, please notice that the trajectory lines orienting from the outer rank, are simply visual aids to help guide diagonal moves passing through the center.

If the path is clear, a diagonal move starting from the outer rank can pass through the center and sweep back around to where it originated.  The complexities of the third player are infinite.  Your threatened piece may be allowed to maintain occupancy as your position is beneficial to the threatening player.  But how long can it last?  This scenario may exist all over the board.

There are multiple trust and doubt situations between all players.  An unexpected move might well result in a cascading massacre.  Defense is crucial since a diagonal move through the center, or a horizontal move around the center can sneak up behind you.  A player can be checkmated by a combination of both other players or ultimately one player can checkmate both other players at the same time.

In a dismissal that underlines his firm rejection of religious comforts, Britain’s most eminent scientist said there was nothing beyond the moment when the brain flickers for the final time. Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, shares his thoughts on death, human purpose and our chance existence in an exclusive interview with the Guardian today.

The incurable illness was expected to kill Hawking within a few years of its symptoms arising, an outlook that turned the young scientist to Wagner, but ultimately led him to enjoy life more, he has said, despite the cloud hanging over his future.

“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,” he said. ”I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he added.

Hawking’s latest comments go beyond those laid out in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he asserted that there is no need for a creator to explain the existence of the universe. The book provoked a backlash from some religious leaders, including the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, who accused Hawking of committing an “elementary fallacy” of logic.

Full Article at Guardian Science

Google is borrowing $3 billion in its first ever debt offering, according to a filing with the SEC.

In the filing Google says it will use the money to “repay outstanding commercial paper and for general corporate purposes.”

Money is cheap to borrow now, so they might as well take it. It’s very plausible that the company will use proceeds to buy back stock.

Google has ~$37 billion in cash on hand, pre-debt offering.

The news comes directly from wired, I thought it was too funny to let it pass under the radar.

Four helicopters swooped in early Monday and killed Osama bin Laden in a fiery American raid on his fortress-like compound in a Pakistani town that is home to three army regiments. (May 2)

President Obama praises those Americans who carried out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, tells the families of the victims of September 11, 2001 that they have never been forgotten, and calls on Americans to remember the unity of that tragic day.

Further to this story, there was news about leaked photos of Osama Bin Laden’s dead body:

Somehow this looks a bit fake to me though, let the conspiracy start I guess.

Gambling online just got significantly less convenient Friday when the U.S. Government shut down the three largest Internet gambling sites operating in the United States. Now it’s time for a showdown, where courts will determine if this kind of gambling is legal or not.

Federal prosecutors accused the three founders of the gambling sites and eight others with illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering, according to the Financial Times [paywall].

The government also filed a $3 billion civil suit to recover profits from the operations, the Financial Times reported. Gambling sites Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker allegedly disguised billions of dollars of gambling payments as online store purchases of items such as golf balls, jewelry and flowers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

If you’re in the U.S., when you go to any of these three gambling sites, you see a scary thing: the U.S. government has seized the domain names of the three sites, preventing gambling transactions and anything else:

The indictment says many of the banks that processed payments for these gambling companies were unaware they were handling gambling funds, which is against a 2006 law prohibiting gambling operations from accepting payments in the United States. In addition, it says the three gambling companies found smaller, financially ailing banks to bribe, making investments in those banks that were willing to look the other way when processing gambling funds.

The problem gets a bit dicey when you realize that these three online gambling organizations are not based in the U.S. For instance, PokerStars is a self-governed British Crown Dependency based on the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. One of our readers sent a picture of its headquarters to us today:

Will the Isle of Man or other countries where these gambling organizations are based comply with U.S. extradition requests? So far, that’s unknown.

There’s disagreement about whether online gambling is even a crime or not. Of course, the gambling organizations don’t think it should be. For example, former Senator Alphonse D’Amato of New York, who is now the chairman of a gambling group that calls itself the Poker Player’s Alliance, told The New York Times, “We are shocked at the action. Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such.”

Report from: Mashable

Not sure if all of you have been getting this today, but I have been getting this for an hour or so, I wonder what is going on?

Something is technically wrong.

Thanks for noticing—we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.

Update: All fixed now

If regulators squelch AT&T’s $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile, the company will have more than just its frustrations to deal with.

As part of the deal, AT&T has agreed to pay T-Mobile $3 billion and promised valuable spectrum and a roaming agreement should the deal fail to garner approval.

“In the event the transaction does not receive regulatory approval satisfactory to AT&T and the transaction does not close, AT&T will be required to pay a breakup fee of $3 (billion), transfer to T-Mobile certain AWS spectrum that is not needed by AT&T for its initial LTE roll out, and provide a roaming agreement to T-Mobile on terms favorable to both parties,” the company said in a fact sheet posted on Sunday.

AT&T has said it thinks the deal should pass muster.

“Today when you look across the top 20 markets in the country, 18 of those markets have five or more competitors, and when you look across the entire country, the majority of the country’s markets have five or more competitors,” AT&T President and mobile unit CEO Ralph De La Vega told Mobilized on Sunday. “I think if the criteria that has been used in the past is used against this merger, I think the appropriate authorities will find there will still be plenty of competition left.”

However, not everyone is so convinced. Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia on Sunday urged regulators to “leave no stone unturned” in their examination of the proposed merger.

“With every passing day, wireless services are becoming more and more important to the way we communicate,” Rockefeller said in a statement. “So it is absolutely essential that both the Department of Justice and the FCC leave no stone unturned in determining what the impact of this combination is on the American people.”

There are also some other interesting financial details in the deal. For example, AT&T has the right to increase the cash versus stock part of the deal by up to $4.2 billion. There is also a collar on the AT&T stock price used to determine that part of the deal, meaning that no matter what happens to the stock, the price of AT&T shares used to calculate the deal won’t be less than $26.0165 per share and no more than $30.2354.

News Source: Allthings Digital

It looks like a man in Heathrow Terminal 5 is threatening to blow himself up, this was just after the police was able to track down a suspect package in the terminal.

Update: The man has now been arrested.

Update: Passangers will not be able to re-enter the terminal until further notice, also no new passangers are allowed into the terminal.