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Earth

Fat People Cause Global Warming, Higher Food Prices 1083

Stating the obvious: "Two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat. 'Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,' write the authors, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the evocatively named London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine."
The Military

Submission + - Gabe of PA interviews his WWII vet Grandpa

Flange writes: Gabe earlier mentioned he had interviewed his grandfather's WWII Navy experiences but never transcribed and posted it. He now posts a recent interview about it: "I'm sharing it with you guys for a couple reasons. First, I hope it might motivate some of you that have veterans in your family to sit down with them and just listen for a little while. Second, his view of World War II games comes from a perspective that we don't often hear. I'm not posting this to change anyone's opinion of these games but his insight has certainly made me think about them in a different way" http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/12/07
United States

Submission + - Sliding Rocks Baffle Scientists (geology.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists can't figure out why these rocks — weighing up to several pounds each — can slide across a dry lake bed. Some blame it on the wind — but it can't be that simple!
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - The 110 Million Dollar Button

Reservoir Hill writes: "The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's search page may cost the company up to $110 million in lost ad revenue every year according to a report in American Public Media's Marketplace. Tom Chavez says that since the company makes money selling ads on its search results page, the 1% of users who use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button never see Google's ads because the button automatically directs them to a non-Google site reducing Google's ad revenue. So why does Google keep the button? Marisa Mayer, Google's vice president responsible for everything on the search page, says that "it's possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money" and the "I'm Feeling Lucky," button reminds you that "people here have personality." Web usability expert Jacob Nielsen says the whimsy serves another business purpose: "Oh we're just two kind of grad students hanging out and having a beer and having a grand old time," not you know, "We are 16,000 people working on undermining your privacy.""
NASA

Submission + - Launching Satellites cheaply at light speed

Denis Joseph Barrow writes: "Before launching the Satellite launch around 50 bullet shaped objects at a rate of probably 10,000 a second each of successively larger radius. Probably with conical tops starting at about 1cm in radius & increasing in surface area linearly to about 1 meter in radius. When the bullet stops accelerating vertically have an accelerometer in the bullet to make it explode in a horizontal direction & a put a fuse on it's rear end to cause it to explode if a preceding bullet crashes into it. The idea of doing this is that a successively larger & better vacuum hole will be created in the atmosphere the bullets should I believe travel along the path of least resistance & winds should make minimal effect owing to the speed of the bullets & the speed at which new bullets come along. By the time the satellite is to be launched almost a complete vacuum should be available for it & I'd hope that the Satellite will be able to travel hopefully at upto 97% the speed of light."
Moon

Submission + - Vote to Eliminate Leap Seconds 6

Mortimer.CA writes: As mentionted on Slahdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It wil be put to a vote to ITU member states, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens. People with appliances that blink '12:00' can probably ignore this issue.
Math

Submission + - Open Source Mathematical Software

An anonymous reader writes: The American Mathematical society has an opinion piece about open source software vs propietary software used in mathematics. From the article : "Increasingly, proprietary software and the algorithms used are an essential part of mathematical proofs. To quote J. Neubüser, 'with this situation two of the most basic rules of conduct in mathematics are violated: In mathematics information is passed on free of charge and everything is laid open for checking.'"
Power

Submission + - CO2Stats Project makes web sites carbon neutral (co2stats.com)

Alex Wissner-Gross writes: "According to the Telegraph, the Internet is responsible for more than 100 billion pounds of CO2 emissions per year yet most web surfers are unaware of its environmental impact. To tackle this global problem, two PhD students at Harvard and Yale founded The CO2Stats Project to freely distribute a widget that tracks the carbon emissions attributable to their site due to the electricity usage of their visitors' computers interacting with their servers. The CO2Stats Project then completely offsets the emissions gratis, and has the ambitious goal of making the entire Internet carbon neutral."
Censorship

Submission + - Korea proposes further censoring bulletin boards (koreaherald.co.kr)

dave_h_in_philly writes: "An article in today's Korea Herald states that 'more than a quarter of Korean lawmakers' have joined a group that calls itself the Sunfull Politics Campaign, whose purpose is to 'root out ill-intended [I]nternet postings.' The group is also pressuring the government to expand the use of Korea's real-name system for bulletin board postings. Furthermore, the group pledges to 'clean up internet culture and educate teenagers from an early age.'"
Christmas Cheer

Child's Play 2007 Gets Underway 42

It is well worth mentioning that a post by Tycho over on the Penny Arcade site signals the kickoff for Child's Play 2007. This year they have over 30 hospitals spread across five countries, and (as always) every little bit helps. From Mr. Brahe's post: "At the last Child's Play dinner, a man whose son was currently staying at Seattle Children's Hospital - he'd left him temporarily, to attend - literally could not produce the words to thank me. The depth of his appreciation bordered on anguish. I hardly knew how to respond, other than attribute those comforts to their true authors. The opportunity to be excellent has arisen again. Just as in years past, visit the site proper, choose your favorite hospital, and select your toy. We promise to let you know how incredible you are at regular intervals."
The Internet

Wikipedia Wins Defamation Case 153

Raul654 writes "Yesterday, a French judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation for defamation. The judge found that 'Web site hosts cannot be liable under civil law because of information stored on them if they do not in fact know of their illicit nature.' According to the inquirer: 'Three plaintiffs were each seeking 69,000 euros ($100,000) in damages for invasion of their privacy after their homosexuality was revealed on the website.'"

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