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Education

Gulf Oil Spill Disaster — Spawn of the Living Dead 228

Posted by timothy from the less-on-your-plate dept.
grrlscientist writes "A recently published study, intended to provide data to commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico so they maximize their catch of Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, whilst avoiding bycatch of critically endangered Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, suggests that the Deepwater Horizon oil leak may devastate the endangered Atlantic bluefin population, causing it to completely collapse or possibly go extinct."
Earth

Giant Guatemalan 'Sinkhole' Is Worse Than We Thought 357

Posted by kdawson from the series-of-pipes dept.
reillymj writes "Despite hundreds of media reports to the contrary, Sam Bonis, a geologist whose life work has been studying Guatemalan geology, has plainly said that the dramatic 'sinkhole' in Guatemala City that opened over the weekend isn't a sinkhole at all. Instead, he called it a 'piping feature' and warned that because the country's capital city sits on a pile of loose volcanic ash, the over one million people living on top of the pile are in danger. 'I'd hate to have to be in the government right now,' Bonis, who worked for the Guatemalan government's Instituto Geografico Nacional for 16 years, said. 'There is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city.'"

Comment Re:Love my 2048x1152 Dell SP2309W monitor (Score 1) 952

by Radish03 (#31950212) Attached to: HDTV Has Ruined the LCD Market

I've been looking at upgrading to either that or the Acer B233HUbmidhz 23" 2048x1152 screen. I'm coming from a dying 24" 1920x1200, and 1920x1080 just seems like a downgrade. And I guess as they're phasing them out for 16:9s, all the current 1920x1200 screens cost more than I paid two years ago ($300), so ~$200 for that Dell or the Acer seems like a steal. Samsung also makes one at this resolution, but these are the only three monitors with this size/resolution that I'm aware of. They seem like a step in the right direction for screen size vs. pixel density, and I'm really disappointed that I haven't seen any other monitors like this.
Australia

Google Gives the US Government Access To Gmail 445

Posted by CmdrTaco from the of-course-they-do dept.
schliz writes "Google condemns the Chinese Government for censoring its results, and Australia for planning to do the same. Meanwhile, its lawyers and security experts have told employees to 'be intentionally vague about whether or not we've given access to end-user accounts,' according to engineer James Tarquin, hinting that Google may be sharing its data with the US government. Perhaps Australia's most hated communications minister, Steven Conroy, could be right in his criticism of Google's privacy record after all."

Comment Re:Video Games (Score 3, Interesting) 447

by Radish03 (#31386012) Attached to: Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s

They even do this with games like World of Warcraft, where the CD key itself is what's worth the price on the box, and removing the discs from the sealed box lets anyone with access to the discs to see the key. I bought a copy like this, and while it worked out OK, I was rather suspicious and considered going elsewhere to get it.

Comment WTF? (Score 4, Interesting) 134

by Radish03 (#31370526) Attached to: New <em>Call of Duty</em> Titles Announced, Fired Devs Sue For Name
According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit.'

What? Blizzard has put out seven titles (four of which are expansions) in the last decade. Activision has put out nine titles in the Guitar/Whatever Hero line in just the last three years (not counting portable titles), and it sounds like they have similar plans for the Call of Duty line. I think what they mean to say is "We think we can turn Call of Duty into a subscription based FPS that prints money for us like World of Warcraft. And if we farm out five more shovelware titles in the same line, they'll sell based on brand recognition alone."
Image

Using Classical Music As a Form of Social Control Screenshot-sm 721

Posted by samzenpus from the feeling-of-dread-in-f-minor dept.
cyberfringe writes "Classical music is being used increasingly in Great Britain as a tool for social control and a deterrent to bad behavior. One school district subjects badly behaving children to hours of Mozart in special detention. Unsurprisingly, some of these youth now find classical music unbearable. Recorded classical music is blared through speakers at bus stops, outside stores, train stations and elsewhere to drive away loitering youth. Apparently it works. Detentions are down, graffiti is reduced, and naughty youth flee because they find classical music repugnant."
Image

Space Exploration Needs Extraterrestrial Ethics Screenshot-sm 162

Posted by samzenpus from the fly-softly-and-carry-a-big-laser dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Professor Andy Miah notes there's already international government policies taking hold on outer space — and a need for new ethical guidelines. 'For instance, what obligations do we owe to the various life forms we send there, or those we might discover? Can we develop a more considerate approach to colonizing outer space than we were able to achieve for various sectors of Earth?' And what rights do astronauts have? 'Could our inevitable public surveillance of their behavior become too much of an infringement on their personal privacy?' But more importantly, professor Miah notes that 'the goods of space exploration far exceed the symbolic value,' pointing out that 'A vast amount of research and development derives from space exploration ... For example, the United Kingdom's 2007 Space Policy inquiry indicated that the creation of space products contributes two to three times their value in GDP.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

Anti Terror Honor System 74

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yeah-that'll-work-out-fine dept.
Fortunately for us, the FAA has imposed the honor system as our next best defense against terrorism. Hopefully this will allow them to increase the volume of non-bladder liquid I'm allowed to take on planes.
Robotics

Armed Robot Drones To Join UK Police Force 311

Posted by samzenpus from the you-have-30-seconds-to-comply dept.
Lanxon writes "British criminals should soon prepare to be shot at from unmanned airborne police robots. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers. But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired. The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System's new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan."
Power

Laser Fusion Passes Major Hurdle 354

Posted by kdawson from the twenty-years-out-and-always-will-be dept.
chill writes "The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has performed their first controlled fusion experiments using all 192 lasers. While still not ramped up to full power, the first experiments proved very fruitful. The lasers create a lot of plasma in the target container and researchers worried that the plasma would interfere with the ability of the target to absorb enough energy to ignite. These experiments show that not only does enough energy make it through, the plasma can be manipulated to increase the uniformity of compression. Ramping up of power is due to start in May." The project lead, Dr. Sigfried Glenzer, is "confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon. He added, quite simply, 'It's going to happen this year.'"
Apple

iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward" 1634

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-needs-rights-anyway dept.
An anonymous reader writes "FSF's John Sullivan launches the Defective by Design campaign and petition to rain on Steve's parade, barely minutes out of the starting gate. 'This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,' said FSF's Holmes Wilson, 'If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad.' The iPad has DRM writ large: you can only install what Apple says you may, and 'computing' goes consumer mainstream — no more twiddling, just sit back, spend your money, and watch the show — while we allow you to." What is clear is that the rise of the App Store removes control of the computer from the user. It makes me wonder what the next generation of OS X will look like.

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