Comment 7? (Score 0) 121
I don't know about anyone else, but doesn't the list of countries in the summary total seven?
Comment Orion (Score 4, Insightful) 359
Yes, because slavery definitely doesn't exist in Star Trek...there's definitely no Orion Syndicate or Orion Slavers or slave girls.
Comment Re:I call bullshit (Score 1) 393
That's true, but I'd find it truly bizarre if they were using different base lines for no apparent reason...
Comment I call bullshit (Score 1) 393
If you look at the temperature map produced, it shows the vast majority of Australia as being 1-2 degrees Celsius above the base line.
Doing some basic research by going to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, their report says overall Australia was only 0.21 degrees above the base line...that's a pretty significant difference!
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/...
I'd love to know how GISS comes up with these over-inflated figures?
Solar Powered Technology Enhances Oil Recovery 82
mdsolar writes with this story of a company that uses solar energy to recover crude oil. Royal Dutch Shell has teamed with a sovereign investment fund from Oman to invest $53 million in a company that manufactures solar power equipment designed for increasing oil production. Glasspoint Solar Inc. installs aluminum mirrors near oil fields that concentrate solar radiation on insulated tubes containing water. The steam generated from heating the water is injected into oil fields to recover heavy crude oil. This concept of enhanced oil recovery. involves high pressure injection of hot fluids to recover heavy crude oil. The use of renewable energy like solar power makes great economic sense, as the fuel cost associated with this enhanced oil recovery technology is practically zero. Shell hopes to employ this technology in its oil fields in Oman. The company hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with enhanced oil recovery operations. A large-scale successful implementation of this technology could be a game changer for major consumers like India and the U.S.. Both have substantial oil reserves, but are unable to tap them due to high costs involved in heavy oil recovery.
Comment Lemon Juice? (Score 0) 147
Am I the only one that finds the concept of lemon juice in coffee disturbing? I have never even heard of anyone doing that before - it's that bizarre!
Police Capture Second Marathon Bombing Suspect in Watertown, Mass. 773
Police have captured believed Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was "pinned down" in a boat stored behind a house in Watertown, Massachusetts. You can listen to the live police feed here.
Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies."
This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.
Comment Re:California power crisis of 2000 and 2001 (Score 1) 482
Incorrectly modded
Comment Re:Devil's Advocate (Score 1) 439
And yet for some reason all the world's ice is melting faster than the IPCC ever had the balls to predict.
You're wrong: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2216238/Now-theres-ice-South-Pole-So-global-warming-thawing-Antarctica.html
Comment Re:Devil's Advocate (Score 1) 439
Hottest summer where? One hot summer does not climate make.
And here's the citation.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220722/Global-warming-The-Mail-Sunday-answers-world-warming-not.html
Comment Devil's Advocate (Score 0, Flamebait) 439
I'm probably going to modded into oblivion, but I'm sorry I simply don't buy what this article by the World Bank is selling
Temperatures have remained steady for 16 years now in spite of computer models released by the IPCC which show that by now temperatures should be much higher. So there's likely a negative feedback effect that has been left undocumented by most models, and this should be concerning many people in the climate science game.
Honestly, this articles smacks of an attempt by the World Bank to scare people into getting on board an ETS - from which they will directly benefit in a financial manner. I really wish that anyone outside of the sphere of science would stop making unfounded claims to push their own agendas.
Comment Re:SnooSnoo (Score 1) 405
Damn it, missed it by that much! +1
Comment Exotic Matter (Score 1) 2
Now all we need is a ring of exotic matter and this could be real!
But seriously, if this is possible - I for one am very excited by the concept.
Comment Re:Something I've been watching... (Score 1) 926
Furthermore drought in Russia, Europe, and Australia means they aren't having bumper crops to offset that loss.
.
I can't speak for Russia or Europe, but Australia is definitely not in a drought and hasn't been for at least the last 2 years. In fact at the moment we are in the middle of a La Nina event, with more flooding than anything else. Most of our dams are either at 100% capacity, or close to that as well - they'd in fact all be at 100% if it wasn't for "environmental flows".
