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Submission + - Hubble Discovers Water Plumes Over Europa (discovery.com)

astroengine writes: Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found plumes of water vapor shooting off the southern pole of Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is believed to have an underground ocean. If confirmed — so far the plumes have only been spotted once — the finding could have implications for the moon’s suitability for life and help explain why its surface appears relatively young and crater-free. “The plumes are incredibly exciting, if they are there. They’re bringing up material from in the ocean, perhaps there’s organic material that will be laying on the surface of the south pole. Those are the things that we want to know about,” James Green, head of NASA’s planetary science programs, told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Comment Re:Jackpot (Score 1) 617

See, there's your problem right there. Just because they have lots of money, doesn't mean it's okay for you to defraud them

When the difference is so unbelievably huge, for me it does mean it's okay. If and when large corporations are taxed the same way I am, and tax loopholes are made unlawful, and in general if and when the insane income disparity is fixed (I'm not holding my breath), then I might reconsider that position.
Also, it's not like I actually abused their mistake - I might've ordered 10 covers on that third order so that I could resell the readers on ebay. I did not. As I said, I feel no guilt over this. I get your point of view, though, but I consider that in a sane society no person should ever hold hundreds of times the wealth of the poorest one in the same society. That I find very wrong.

Comment Re:Jackpot (Score 1) 617

Happened more than once, and I do signal the error and give the money back ;-)
Mostly because in that case it's the clerk that it will impact, not the shop (although I do the same for the small shop owner next to my flat).

I think most people do, too - either for the same reason or because there's an actual human being in front of you (which makes it very different psychologically than ordering from an automated system).

Comment Re:Jackpot (Score 2) 617

Well, you're a better guy than me then, I guess :-)
That being said, the online store in question is very large (first or second largest in France I think), has a reputation for screwing customers when it comes to warranty/customer service, and has repeatedly been highlighted in the media for cutting their workforce while having record profits.

Given all that, I care little for their ~540 euros loss. Had it been a smaller store, I would certainly have pointed the mistake (but even then, I might not have sent the product back, unless it was a very small shop).

Comment Re:Jackpot (Score 4, Interesting) 617

No idea either - however, something close happened to me a few years ago.
I ordered an e-ink ebook reader (for 200+ euros) as well as a cover (~20 euros) for the same. A few days later, package arrives: there were two ebook readers in it, no cover at all. I said to myself "lucky ! they made a mistake", did not tell the online store they did (it was a large, national one - I have no guilt over this), and proceeded to order two covers on the same store for the two readers I now possessed.
A few days later, package arrives, contains two other ebook readers. At that point I thought "what the hell", and ordered four covers, one for each of the readers, half expecting four new readers to arrive. This time however, they had fixed the mistake, and I received the product I ordered - the four covers. At that point, me and my flatmates (there were four of us) each had a reader and a cover to go with it anyway.

Frankly, I expected them to at least contact us or use legal action, but the only thing that happened is that we received a phone call with a weird guy asking us "did you order something online recently ?". We simply asked who he was and he answered "I can't tell you that", at which point we simply hung up. Never heard from them again.
This suggests to me that since they made the mistake, they weren't allowed to try and get the products back - I could be wrong though, and I was overseas from said online store at the time, so they may simply have considered that legal action in another country would simply cost them too much.

Comment Re:This app never seemed necessary (Score 3, Insightful) 187

The "built-in" torch function you're talking about in CM is an app. It's open source - see here: https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_packages_apps_Torch .

You make it an app because it makes no sense to integrate such a feature directly in the OS/ROM - it would take longer, and that way you can update it and have additional features (morse code flashing, for example).

What baffles me is why people would install an app named "Brightest Flashlight Free" (name sounds like a moron-magnet), which probably require network access and include ads, when there are tens of ads-less Open-Source alternatives in the Google market as well as outside it.

Comment Re:Already done in Bitcoin (Score 1) 287

There are several tumblers existing for exactly this purpose. See for example: http://bitcoinfog.com/
I do not know whether or not they did indeed attract the attention of law enforcement, but since they are running as a tor hidden service and such a tumbler is pretty easy to code/deploy (meaning any such service taken down would be pretty assuredly replaced by 10 others the next day), it is unlikely LE could do anything about it.

Submission + - SafeFlame Torch Turns Water Into Fire (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: The pressurized acetylene and propane gas used in brazing and related tasks is highly flammable, and thus very dangerous. You know what isn't flammable, though? Water. Bearing that in mind, the European Union-funded SafeFlame consortium has developed a torch system that generates a flame using nothing but H2O and electricity.

Submission + - Republican proposal puts 'national interest' requirement on US science agency (nature.com)

ananyo writes: Key members of the US House of Representatives are seeking to require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to justify every grant it awards as being in the “national interest”. The proposal, included in a draft bill from the Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and obtained by Nature, would force the NSF to document how its basic science grants benefit the country.
The requirement is similar to one in a discussion draft circulated in April by committee chairman Lamar Smith (Republican, Texas). At the time, scientists raised concerns that ‘national interest’ was defined far too narrowly. The current draft bill provides a more expansive definition that includes six goals: economic competitiveness, health and welfare, scientific literacy, partnerships between academia and industry, promotion of scientific progress, and national defence.
But many believe that predicting the broader impacts of basic research is tantamount to gazing into a crystal ball. All scientists know it’s nonsense,” says John Bruer, president of James S. McDonnell Foundation and former co-chair of an NSF task force that examined requiring scientists to state the 'broader impacts' of their work in grant applications.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 625

Aging is an essential process in the cycle of life.

So are diseases and genetic defects, for example - thining out the herd through evolution, making sure the survivors have the most updated genes to fight the current diseases, themselves constantly evolving. Would you suggest that we stop treating them ? thinking like that, we should also stop extracting problematic wisdom tooth for people, because that also is part of the "cycle of life".
We have consciousness. This allows us to go beyond our mere nature and try to decrease suffering, for everyone of us. Aging implies suffering. And beyond this, aging should IMHO become a *choice*, not something that is imposed upon us.

In my mind, the very expression "cycle of life" evokes something almost sacred/religious (or at the very least romantical) in nature. There is no sacred "cycle of life". We are the product of randomness, and our consciousness a response born from the process of evolution to a universe where anything can happend, at any time: self-awareness, the ultimate (for now at least) way of surviving in such an universe, by allowing our species to react at time scale inferior to a generation - by being aware, we can analyze our universe, understand it, and overcome potential species-wide issues at the scale of a lifetime, instead of relying on genetic evolution over larger timespans. If one day we finally get our collective asses to space and start colonizing other planets, then even a nuclear winter following a meteor event (such as the one that wiped out 75% of earth's species at one point) becomes survivable for us. Such a thing would be highly unlikely without self-awareness.

And precisely because we are self aware, we should in my opinion consider aging as a remnant of our animal origin: something to be fixed. Eventually, even our very bodies ought to be replaceable. I know *I* certainly long to see in wider wavelengths, to feel and experience more and thus to become more aware. It is the essence of transhumanism, and in my view what we should aim for.

As for the ressources issue, we have an entire solar system full of ressources, and an exponential tech development curve to match it. Even on earth, tech such as transmutation will eventually make ressources wars pointless, and scarcity itself could become a thing of the past. I'm not saying we'll see it for sure during our lifetime, but I definitely wouldn't bet it won't happend. I was born during the eighties, and the tech progress I've witnessed during my (admitedly short) lifespan is simply staggering - a lot of the SF stuff I read as a child is already a common part of life. We live in a time of miracles, and I think it's only the tip of the iceberg and we'll see incredible, profoundly changing progresses during the upcoming century.

Submission + - What's Next, Google Self Driving Drones? (linuxgizmos.com)

__aajbyc7391 writes: In light of the FAA's recent approval of two unmanned drones for commercial operation in U.S. airspace (Slashdot), it's interesting to see the bits and pieces for building commercial UAVs falling into place. For example, Airware demonstrated its line of autopilot computers for UAVs this week at AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2013 in Washington DC. The devices include multi-rotor capabilities, and support various radios, GPS and inertial systems, servo interfaces, and onboard interfaces such as USB and CAN. The autopilot controllers run a configurable, royalty-free AirwareOS embedded Linux OS, making them amenable to considerable customization. Adding to that the fact that Airware recently received $10.7 million in funding from Google Ventures and several other investors raises the question: What's next, Google self-driving drones?

Submission + - China to Try Out Ocean Thermal Energy System (ieee.org)

the_newsbeagle writes: When you've got a wacky high-tech idea that will cost a lot of money, head to China. Lockheed Martin is the lastest company to heed this advice. For decades, Lockheed has investigated ocean thermal energy conversion, in which the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water is leveraged to produce power. Just a few years ago, the company was working with the Navy and discussing a possible OTEC pilot project in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor. That idea has since been scrapped, and Lockheed is now partnering with a Chinese resort developer to build the 10-MW pilot plant off the coast of southern China. Lockheed hasn't disclosed the cost of building this plant, but outside experts say it might cost more than $300 million.

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