37358223
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
The official unemployment rate is 8.1 percent. This lower number is misleading. In actuality the number of people able to continue receiving unemployment benefits has decreased because they've received the maximum amount of unemployment aid, but still can't find work. According to wireupdate and a host of others reporting on this issue, not only is unemployment far worse than what the official line is is, but now millions are beyond the term for obtaining aid and are now uncounted, unemployed, and part of a growing segment of the population that isn't registered in jobs reports because it isn't politically expediant to do so.
37356411
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
Take the sun and compact it down to the size of Manhattan. Then allow it to rupture and it blows out a flare which then blasts destruction into space. A moment in which more energy is released by a magnetar in the whole history of our sun is over in seconds. We would have no warning if this were to happen close to Earth? Should we worry?
36097251
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
This will be fun.
35577031
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
It seems that Iran has joined the seven nation consortium in building the ITER reactor that is currently under construction in France. Scheduled to be producing power in 2019, the reactor is a 'hot' fusion reactor that is theoretically capable of producing 500 megawatts from 50 megawatts of input power. The project has faced technical and monetary challenges since it's inception and the choice of France as its location. The inclusion of Iran in this international group is quite striking as sanctions against Iran have been ramped up and even talk of war as Iran maintains development of its own enrichment program ostensibly for domestic energy production. It seems a bit strange in the face of such vitriol from all sides over Iran's enrichment programs that the consortium would welcome them into the fusion fold. On the other hand it's nice to see at least some level of partnership amongst nations that in general seem to have poor relationships.
25883292
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
User of Facebook have been besieged by graphic pornography and violent images on their walls for at least the last 24 hours.
25779916
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
When Google Plus debuted their pages a short time ago, many of us were very excited to have them. Their layout is clean, and fast. In short, G+ Plus Pages work. Many of us however noted that animated gifs are handled quite well in Google Plus, but on the header for a G'+ Page, well gifs don't work. However RedBull created an amazing page for their product and that had an animated header. I'm going to quickly explain how to do it in Gimp, so you too can have an interactive and engaging G+ Page (and hopefully stylish). In short animations do work, but the gif has to have jpg attributes!
1: Fire up Gimp!
2: Open a .jpg image and scale it to 150 x 150.
3: Copy that image.
4: Open a new project and set it for 150 x 150.
5: Paste your scaled jpg image into your new project.
6: Open your layers menu and rename the floating selection (pasted image layer to 'Background' and delete the old Background layer.
*Your project should now have the pasted .jpg as the background layer*
7: Create a new layer with layer tool and put whatever you'd like in there, drawing or what not. :)
8: Make as many layers as you'd like, then render the .gif, what really is important is having the .jpg attributes in the Background image layer.
9: Profit? :)
23857844
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
The narrative over the last five years in the U.S. has been rife with an increasing number of attacks on NASA, its funding, how it arrives at its funds, and the governments role in space exploration. The detractors would have us believe that privatization is the only way forward, short of a erstwhile and fully cognizant federal plan. Yet, during this time as we have dallied and preferred to argue over the best course of action, other countries have continued to fund both manned and unmanned platforms on a governmental basis. The result is that Russia is preparing to launch a Soyuz from South America. The Chinese are busy preparing to launch a trial space station in September, and India just overtook Canada's place in space competiviness. Does anyone else care that we are being owned by all these other countries. Isn't it time we get our space program in gear?
23569718
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
The cinematic release today of Apollo 18 begs the question of what would have become our collective space faring history had the program not been tragically canceled. It is in fact a historical truth that Apollo 18 did fly, as a joint flight between Russia and the United States. Apollo 18 did in fact fly, but not to the moon. However had the Apollo missions continued, where would be now. It is likely that we would have landed on Mars, have a permanent presence on Luna, have mutiple space observatories that were larger, and more powerful. Conceivably the Saturn V rockets could have lofted platforms for fuel depots, and components for a larger space station further out into orbit. The loss of the Saturn V's represents a loss od America's frontier spirit, and from the great technological victory we achieved we now sit moribound in low Earth orbit. Though the movie may be fiction, it still begs the question, what if?
23472174
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
My wife is an Exceptional Educator in an inner city school. As an exceptional educator she does a lot of progress monitoring and there isn't a web-based or computer based program that we've found that is Open Source. After did a bit of searching we found a closed, and proprietary RTI Progress Monitoring suite that seems to be just what teachers need, however it is pricey, and only runs on Windows. I was wondering if anyone out there has seen a multiple platform open source program that RtI Progress Monitoring Charts, Documentation of Observations, Interventions for Academic, Behavioral and Speech Goals and Assessments, plus Benchmarking and is Open Source, free and efficient?
23424904
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal agents again raided guitar maker Gibson this past week seizing several pallets of wood and computer documents. At heart of the issue is the wood that is being used in guitars and whether or not it comes from sustainable sources. The company insists it is being harassed and made to 'cry uncle' to the governments enforcement laws. While, as the article notes, wonderful woods like Madagascar Ebony, Brazilian Rosewood and other fret and tone woods are protected in order to prevent the equivalent of 'blood diamond like trade' in sought after tone woods, the ramafications now extend to guitar sowners. Owners and players are next in sights of this enforcement. If you play a vintage guitar, or a hand built guitar made of old stock woods that were legally obtained years ago, but only recently crafted into an ax, you best not fly with it. John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar." That's right. Recent revisions to various laws and the Lacey Act mean if you carry your guitar across the border and don't have your paperwork and certification in hand, they will seize the guitar and fine you 250.00. So if your planning that dream vacation to France and want to play your acoustic in the air of France (or anywhere else) be forewarned. They are gunning for you.
23381170
submission
tetrahedrassface writes:
In 2000, being newly married and very interested in Linux, I installed Linux on a machine that my wife was using. Well, the install went worse than expected and besides the winmodem not being supported, the Xfree86 didn't like the video card too much. Also, in attempting to manually partition the harddrive I wiped and deleted all my wife's resumes and documents on accident (Sorry honey). She almost divorced me over that one. Anyway in the ensuing years I put Linux on almost any machine my friends and family would dare let me touch. Mostly dual boot configurations, and my friends and family would always complain about having it installed. Yesterday my father borrowed my laptop running linux. I let him start the machine, login with the password and he was amazed. Whereas he always before never liked or was attracted to the look and feel of any distro I foisted on him, this time it was different. He browsed the web, checked his email. I let him go through the screensavers. I showed him how my digital camera is easily mounted. Gimp blew him away, as did LibreOffice. In aby event, I used to be derided by him for my Healthy Linux Addiction (tm). After he worked for an hour two, he said 'Son if I bring my laptop down here tomorrow will you put that on there'. My jaw hit the floor and it just reminded me of how far this whole thing has come. Imagine that, my dad asking for me to install Linux because he likes it. Maybe the world truly is ending, and pigs are about to start flying. We've come a long way.
