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Submission + - Japan to land unmanned lunar probe in 2018 (astrowatch.net)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning to attempt Japan’s first lunar landing in fiscal 2018, sources close to the project said Sunday. JAXA has said it will use unmanned probes to study the possible use of materials on the moon as well as its environment, which could pave the way for future manned missions. JAXA is expected to brief a government panel on the project with the aim of securing funding for mission preparations from the budget for fiscal 2016, which begins next April, the sources said

The lunar probe is likely to be launched on an Epsilon advanced rocket, the sources said

The SLIM mission is aimed at establishing a method for pinpoint landings that would make it possible to approach a target area with a level of accuracy ranging in the hundreds of meters

Submission + - Something Smells: Cities Use High Tech to Investigate Intrusive Odors 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Kate Murphy reports at the NYT that local governments are beginning to regulate intrusive and unpleasant smells using high tech devices. If you time-traveled back 200 years or so, you’d likely scrunch up your nose because our forebears threw sewage out their windows, and the primary mode of transport — horses — relieved themselves in the streets. These days 'we have so reduced the level of background odor pollution, we are becoming more sensitive to anything we smell,” says Pamela Dalton, an olfactory researcher at Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit group in Philadelphia that studies smell and taste. In the past offenders were typically livestock operations and wastewater treatment plants, but more recently odor inspectors are getting calls about smells emanating from ethnic restaurants, coffee roasters and candle and bath shops. In an effort to be objective, a growing number of locales have begun using a device called a Nasal Ranger, which looks like a megaphone for the nose and measures the intensity of smells according to a so-called dilution ratio (PDF). An odor is considered intrusive if the average person can smell it when it is diluted with seven parts clean air — a decades-old threshold of stinky.

New York City received more than 10,000 odor complaints last year, many from residents upset about cooking smells wafting into their apartments from restaurants and coffeehouses — smells that might be pleasing when patronizing those same establishments. “A lot of it has to do with tolerance level in neighborhoods that are getting gentrified,” says Ben Siller. “People at lower socioeconomic levels may tolerate something much better than someone who moves into the same area and buys a house, sinks a fortune into remodeling and then goes out in the backyard and smells a pot grower, charbroiler, pet food manufacturer or something stinky like that.”

Submission + - Hubble turns 25 (hubble25th.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The Hubble Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Currently it is flying about 340 miles over the Earth and circling us every 97 minutes

While the telescope itself is not really much to look at, that silver bucket is pure gold for astronomers

Scientists have used that vantage point to make ground-breaking observations about planets, stars, galaxies and to reveal parts of our universe we didn't know existed. The telescope has made more than 1 million observations and astronomers have used Hubble data in more than 12,700 scientific papers, "making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built," according to NASA

The truly spectacular images of the cosmo have also led to a scientific bounty that has far exceeded Hubble’s original goals: measuring how fast the universe is expanding; figuring out how galaxies evolve; and studying the gas that lies between galaxies

NASA aims to keep Hubble operating through at least 2020 so that it can overlap with its successor. The James Webb Space Telescope is due to launch in October 2018 and begin observations in mid-2019

The institute is reviewing scientists’ proposals for telescope time and mulling if some projects merit special attention as Hubble nears its end. Typically, the program receives about five requests for every hour of available telescope time

“There’s clearly there’s no lack of things to do with this observatory in its remaining years. The question is what do we do?” Sembach said at a recent American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle

More links @
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04...
http://www.space.com/29148-hub...
http://news.discovery.com/spac...
http://www.skynews.com.au/news...

Submission + - Tor is building the next generation Dark Net with funding from DARPA (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Patrick O'Neill
Patrick O'Neill writes: After years of relative neglect, Tor has been able to dedicate increasing time and resources to its hidden services thanks to funding in part by DARPA, as well as an upcoming crowdfunding campaign. DARPA's funding lasts 1-3 years and covers several projects including security and usability upgrades that close the gap between hidden services and the everyday Internet.

Submission + - Baltimore Police say Stingray phone tracking use exceeds 25,000 instances (baltimoresun.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Baltimore Police Department is starting to come clean about its use of cell-phone signal interceptors — commonly known as Stingrays — and the numbers are alarming. According to recent court testimony reported by The Baltimore Sun, the city's police have used Stingray devices with a court order more than 25,000 times. It's a massive number, representing an average of nearly nine uses a day for eight years (the BPD acquired the technology in 2007), and it doesn't include any emergency uses of the device, which would have proceeded without a court order.

Submission + - AMD Publishes New "AMDGPU" Linux Graphics Driver (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD has made available its new AMDGPU Linux graphics driver comprised of a brand new DRM/KMS kernel driver, a new xf86-video-amdgpu X11 driver, and modifications to libdrm and Gallium3D. This new AMDGPU driver is designed for supporting AMD's next-generation hardware with no support differences for currently supported Radeon GPUs. While yet to be released, this new AMDGPU driver is the critical piece to the new unified driver strategy with Catalyst where their high performance proprietary driver will now become limited to being a user-space binary component that uses this open-source kernel driver.

Comment Re:Finally a good reason for an assault. (Score 1) 134

I'm ashamed that vi vs. emacs never ended in a knife fight. The youngens are showing us up!!

Years back I heard a rumour that at a conference in Australia that Theo de Raadt and a relatively big name Linux contributor got in an argument over autoconf which ended with them being physically restrained.

I don't know if it's true but it's one of the more awesome things I've heard.

Comment Re:Interstate Water Sharing system (Score 1) 678

> What would happen if we diverted most of the Colorado river to a piping system to southern California?

The worlds longest garden hose? California already tried that.

See the fantastic documentary Cadillac Desert . Details Mulholland's Dream, aka the rape and pillage of Owen's Lake and then tried to do the same with other river systems.

Thankfully the other states told California to fuck off before they destroyed their ecosystem.

--
First Contact is coming ~2024. Are you ready for a new perspective?

Comment Re:Why not? (Score 3, Informative) 678

Indeed. Cadillac Desert is a fantastic documentary about Mulhollands Dream, aka the rape and pillage of Owen's Lake.

In 9 parts

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

--
First Contact is coming 2024. Are you ready for a new perspective?

Comment Re:I guess he crossed the wrong people (Score 1) 320

by quantaman (#49502707) Attached to: Columbia University Doctors Ask For Dr. Mehmet Oz's Dismissal

Are you so mentally deranged that you claim a blog post is evidence? No, it's not! Instead of wallowing in your pathetic OPINION step back and review FACTS.

Uhh, the blog post was by a medical doctor, and it was filled with facts.

Was he reprimanded in any way by any medical board? NO

Was he found guilty of any form of malpractice? NO

Probably because his actions on a talk show aren't covered by malpractice.

If the doctors want to claim he is a quack they must provide evidence. If you claim he's a quack YOU must provide evidence. No evidence == delusional opinion.

Fine:

For recommendations in The Dr Oz Show, evidence supported 46%, contradicted 15%, and was not found for 39%.

Comment Re:Haven't used it... but these laws are ridicules (Score 2) 48

We should not have to register vehicles, obtain drivers licenses, social security numbers, license plates, or submit to other forms of identification. It's not impossible to arrest someone for committing murder in a system without driver licenses or taxi licenses. Such licensing doesn't stop or reduce the murder rate either. All it does is add costs to running a business.

Just last month I watched a truck rear end a minivan at a stop light then decide to make a run for it. In the process he forced a girl to jump out of the way (or get run over) then flew over a sidewalk around a blind corner (if anyone had been walking there he could have killed them).

Fortunately several people caught the license plate, he had a record already and with this latest infraction he'll likely be off the roads for a while. That most definitely could save lives.

you do have a right to drive people without being licensed. At the same time people have the right to refuse business with unlicensed drivers. Uber I imagine actually reduces risk to drivers and passengers alike by enabling individuals to select safer drivers.

What you don't have it the right to arbitrarily declare the laws we don't like to be unjust. There are times when there's real rights involved and civil disobedience is justified, I don't think a novel way of running a taxi service qualifies.

Should the law be changed to allow Uber-like services? Probably.

But that doesn't mean Uber can simply ignore the current laws.

Comment Re:in my opinion this guy is like Jenny McCarthy (Score 1) 320

by quantaman (#49501001) Attached to: Columbia University Doctors Ask For Dr. Mehmet Oz's Dismissal

And yet, there is one thing - one single bit of information - that the chemical industry has spent billions making sure never gets on that package.

That doesn't mean they know it's dangerous, it just means that they know it will make people think it's dangerous.

I've already stated that the health concerns are not what's driving my opinion on GMOs.

I don't think your concerns are the factor that's pushing the GMO labelling movement. And there are other regulatory ways to address your concerns that have nothing to do with labelling.

Shall we have a little conversation about which chemicals "Science" has told us are completely safe? And especially the FDA? You really wanna go down that road with me?

http://www.thalidomide.ca/the-... [thalidomide.ca]

That's the question of a chemical designed to have a pharmacological effect that they didn't know how to properly test at the time.

With GMOs we're talking about chemicals that we're already ingesting as part of other foods.

And yes it's possible that it will contain some compound that will turn out to be harmful, but that's absolutely true of any food. It could even be safer since we're going to know a lot more about the chemicals in a GMO apple than the chemicals in the countless varieties of normal apples.

Or my personal favorite in the category of "Scientist who tells you something is completely safe but runs away when it comes near him":

Meh, there's a lot of things that wouldn't harm me but I really wouldn't want to drink (particularly when handed to me by a hostile interviewer). He was stupid and a bit misleading in how he brought up the drinking example since he implied it wasn't just non-toxic but actually drinkable, but he was fundamentally truthful.

There's also the question of what he means by harm, it might not cause hospitalization or serious side effects, but it might cause him to throw up and have a horrible taste in his mouth for days.

Comment Re:in my opinion this guy is like Jenny McCarthy (Score 1) 320

by quantaman (#49500557) Attached to: Columbia University Doctors Ask For Dr. Mehmet Oz's Dismissal

And, I'm also more than a little offended by people who say that consumers don't have a right to know the provenance of the food they eat. As if you've become some new arbiter of what information consumers may be allowed to base their purchasing decisions on. If I don't want to buy green socks, I don't have to buy green socks, even though they are every bit as safe as the grey socks I prefer. Does that mean that sock consumers must now not be allowed to see the color of the fucking socks in the package, because after all, green socks are functionally the same as grey socks?

[...]

So knock if off before you get someone hurt. And just put the goddamn label on the package, OK? If you're so ashamed of where that food comes from, well that tells me something, too.

Lets look at those socks. You can see the colour, what about the cotton? Was the cotton from a GMO cotton plant? Did it come from an organic farm? Which pesticides did they use? Were the trucks used to transport it carbon neutral? Was the farmer independent or part of a conglomerate? Did they use dye X that some random blog claimed was a carcinogen? etc

There are thousands of things the consumer might want to know but they can't all possibly fit on the package. Instead the government mandates a few pieces of information they think you need to know, if the government puts GMO labelling on foods then the government is suggesting that the GMO status is so important (ie potentially dangerous) that the consumer needs to be informed.

Yes I know a lot of people want to know if the food is GMO, but their desire to know is based on faulty science.

Also, the studies on GMO safety have been extremely narrow, looking for toxicity and certain types of cancer-causing effects. There have been no studies at all on people who've eaten GMOs for 20 years, because they've only been selling GMOs to people for 20 years. Further, no studies on the overall health of people eating GMOs or life expectancy of people eating GMOs or effect of GMOs on developing children or senior citizens. Not a fucking one. And I don't know what's up where you live, but judging from the people I see walking the streets who eat the foods most likely to come from GMOs (ie: prepared foods), I would say it's not a shining endorsement of the health-giving benefits of GMOs.

I've got concerns about the corporate influence or the monoculture that GMOs create. But the health concerns are bogus.

What's the difference between a GMO and non-GMO food? The GMO food can potentially create a slightly different set of chemicals. We can assess it's safety the same way we assess the safety of any piece of food, look at what those chemicals are and see if any are dangerous. Pretending the GMO origin of the food creates some mysterious threat without any plausible mechanism is anti-science.

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