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Comment Let me sum up (Score 1) 49

Before anyone wastes too much time reading the posts, I'll see if I can sum everything up:
===
WTF are we spending all this money on space when there are hungry people on Earth!
A lot of products and knowledge come out of these projects. Besides, we spend more on a war than this stuff!
Can't you see that this is in Europe? Quit thinking the USA is the only country out there!
Aliens are too smart to come visit us. Earth people are dumb!
This will never work! Don't you get that any alien civilization would have evolved in ways we can't fathom?
Yeah, but some evolutionary and physical principals are universal!
No they aren't!
They will find aliens any minute now. Just run the numbers!
Those numbers are flawed and will never work!
This isn't even original! Just look at these links to a book that I once read that had similar ideals!
Obama sucks!
Bush sucks!
*random yelling and fighting way off topic*
===
I hope I hit most of the major talking points and saved some of you some time.

Comment Re:Dark stuff? (Score 2, Funny) 279

The missing mass is comprised of all the socks that have slipped through the spacetime continuum when you put them in the washing machine. They emit no radiation, but exert gravity. It's especially grave when you can't find a matching pair.

I've always held to the 'Sock Fairy' theory. It explains both the missing sock, and how the nickle that you hear bouncing around in the dryer got there.

Image

Japanese Turning To "Therapeutic Ringtones" Screenshot-sm 75

indiavision writes "A host of young Japanese are drawn to the allure of 'therapeutic ringtones' — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover. Developed by Matsumi Suzuki, the head of the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, an eight-year-old subsidiary of the Japan Acoustic Laboratory, the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers."
Image

Designer Builds Coffin For Xbox's Suffering RROD Screenshot-sm 118

angry tapir writes "The Xbox 360 RROD coffin was created by Aussie designer Alexis Vanamois, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's the ultimate final resting place for 'bricked' Xbox 360 consoles that have suffered the Red Ring of Death; it even has a cavity for your controller!"
Space

A Hyper-Velocity Impact In the Asteroid Belt? 114

astroengine writes "Astronomers have spotted something rather odd in the asteroid belt. It looks like a comet, but it's got a circular orbit, similar to an asteroid. Whether it's an asteroid or a comet, it has a long, comet-like tail, suggesting something is being vented into space. Some experts think it could be a very rare comet/asteroid hybrid being heated by the sun, but there's an even more exciting possibility: It could be the first ever observation of two asteroids colliding in the asteroid belt."

Comment Re:Surely the easiest thing.. (Score 1) 120

That's way dumb. Call a local tow operator. Any Earthside tow operator will want to be paid for the mileage. You're paying them to drive 60 million miles each way. At $3 per mile, that's a lot of dough.

360 million dollars to put a man on mars seems much cheaper than anything NASA could come up with. Why didn't someone think about this before?

This is one of the great failures of the rovers. If they would have stopped working after 90 days like intended, we could have dispatched a tow truck years ago. Sending help before that would be silly! Leave it to NASA to screw something up as simple as getting a robot stuck a few million miles away!

Science

Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice 110

Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."
Games

Whatever Happened To Second Life? 209

Barence writes "It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this article, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it's raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening."
Space

Astronomers Discover 33 Pairs of Waltzing Black Holes 101

Astronomers from UC Berkeley have identified 33 pairs of waltzing black holes, closing the gap somewhat between the observed population of super-massive black hole pairs and what had been predicted by theory. "Astronomical observations have shown that 1) nearly every galaxy has a central super-massive black hole (with a mass of a million to a billion times the mass of the Sun), and 2) galaxies commonly collide and merge to form new, more massive galaxies. As a consequence of these two observations, a merger between two galaxies should bring two super-massive black holes to the new, more massive galaxy formed from the merger. The two black holes gradually in-spiral toward the center of this galaxy, engaging in a gravitational tug-of-war with the surrounding stars. The result is a black hole dance, choreographed by Newton himself. Such a dance is expected to occur in our own Milky Way Galaxy in about 3 billion years, when it collides with the Andromeda Galaxy."
Space

Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21

davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."

Comment Re:just silly (Score 1) 479

This would be like suing ford or gm for not continuing to keep last years engines for sale in new cars... this is just silly.

It would be more like Ford telling a car dealership that they cannot sell last year's model (which they have in stock) to a customer who wants it. Instead, they need to sell the new model to the customer first, and only then can they sell the old model (so long as the customer gets rid of the new model first).

Yes, this is just silly (but in a different way than your comment suggested).

The Courts

Microsoft Sued Over Vista-To-XP Downgrade Fees 479

Krojack writes with this excerpt from Computerworld: "Los Angeles resident Emma Alvarado charged Microsoft with multiple violations of Washington state's unfair business practices and consumer protection laws over its policy of barring computer makers from continuing to offer XP on new PCs after Vista's early-2007 launch. Alvarado is seeking compensatory damages and wants the case declared a class-action suit. ... Irked at having to pay a fee for downgrading a new Lenovo notebook to XP, Alvarado said that Microsoft had used its position as the dominant operating system maker to 'require consumers to purchase computers pre-installed with the Vista operating system and to pay additional sums to "downgrade" to the Windows XP operating system.'"
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Indian Court Is 466 Years Behind Schedule Screenshot-sm 5

The High Court in New Delhi is so behind in its work that it could take 466 years to clear the backlog, the court's chief justice said in a report. Even though the average case takes about 5 minutes to decide, the court still has tens of thousands of cases pending, including upward of 600 that are more than 20 years old. The United Nations Development Program says some 20 million legal cases are pending in India. "It's a completely collapsed system," said Prashant Bhushan, a well-known lawyer in New Delhi. "This country only lives under the illusion that there is a judicial system." Maybe we could stimulate the economy a little and help India out by shipping them a few hundred reality TV judge shows — we seem to have an abundance.

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