Submission + - Woman Sues Airline Over Turbulent Flight (foxnews.com) 1
Dthief writes: Yet another frivolous lawsuit
Submission Summary: 0 pending, 40 declined, 9 accepted (49 total, 18.37% accepted)
Submission + - Steve Jobs Dies (apple.com)
Dthief writes: Steve Jobs Died
Submission + - White castle booths too small says one man (myfoxny.com)
Dthief writes: This is the most important civil rights case to date:
Martin Kessman, 64, filed a lawsuit against the fast-food giant last week in Manhattan federal court, claiming that the uncomfortable booths violate the civil rights of fat people.
Submission + - Double Amputee to run in 2012 Olympics? (go.com)
Dthief writes: Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter, was able to do on a muggy night in Lignano, Italy, on July 19 is the sort of mind-blowing achievement that shouldn't be unfairly derailed by this unsettled debate. He thought he had already navigated it once, but now it's likely to trail the 24-year-old South African all the way to next year's Olympic Summer Games.
Submission + - No Splot (thesplot.com)
Dthief writes: I purchased Humble Bundle #3 yesterday (having enjoyed the previous ones), and decided to check up on Splot again. How do people feel about the lack of a final Splot game after so much time in the demo phase — indeed long enough for HB to put together another bundle.
Submission + - New Humble Bundle (humblebundle.com)
Dthief writes: It may be old hat by now, but the newest humble bundle is a go.
Submission + - George Lucas wants more of your money (deadline.com) 1
Dthief writes: Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that the 3D theatrical launch of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace now has an official release date – February 10, 2012
Submission + - Russians close to "reaching Mars" (myway.com)
Dthief writes:
The all-male crew of three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian has been inside windowless capsules at a Moscow research center since June. Their mission aims to help real space crews in the future cope with the confinement and stress of interplanetary travel. The six men are due to "land" on Mars on Feb. 12 and spend two days researching the planet. They then begin the months-long return flight to Earth, expected to be the most challenging part of the mission. In an effort to reproduce the conditions of space travel, with exception of weightlessness, the crew has living quarters the size of a bus connected with several other modules for experiments and exercise. A separate built-in imitator of the Red Planet's surface is attached for the mock landing.
Have they learned anything from this?
Submission + - Solar Power.....at night (wsj.com)
Dthief writes: Something new is headed for the Southwest desert: solar power plants that can make electricity whether or not the sun is shining.
The Solana plant will be able to meet winter heating and lighting needs by putting electricity on the grid early in the morning—before the sun is shining—and help satisfy summer cooling demand by producing power after sundown. The plant, which can power up to 70,000 houses, has signed a 30-year agreement to sell electricity to utility company Arizona Public Service.
Mark Mehos, a solar program manager for the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., said such molten salt storage systems add about 20% to the construction cost of solar plants but more than make up for it by boosting a plant's flexibility and productivity.
Electricity from solar plants is expensive, especially at a time when natural-gas prices have plunged, making gas-generated electricity cheap by comparison. Utilities, which are under state mandates to buy more clean power, say solar power may look more economical in the future if fossil fuel prices rise or if a tax is imposed on carbon emissions by power plants.
The Solana plant will be able to meet winter heating and lighting needs by putting electricity on the grid early in the morning—before the sun is shining—and help satisfy summer cooling demand by producing power after sundown. The plant, which can power up to 70,000 houses, has signed a 30-year agreement to sell electricity to utility company Arizona Public Service.
Mark Mehos, a solar program manager for the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., said such molten salt storage systems add about 20% to the construction cost of solar plants but more than make up for it by boosting a plant's flexibility and productivity.
Electricity from solar plants is expensive, especially at a time when natural-gas prices have plunged, making gas-generated electricity cheap by comparison. Utilities, which are under state mandates to buy more clean power, say solar power may look more economical in the future if fossil fuel prices rise or if a tax is imposed on carbon emissions by power plants.
Submission + - Woman claims to own sun, lawsuits to come (myfoxorlando.com)
Dthief writes: From the article: After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner — a woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia said Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property. There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added. There seems a push to sue her in a class action lawsuit for damages caused (skin cancer, sun burns, global warming, satellite damage due to solar flares, etc)
Submission + - US Govt begins seizures of websites (torrentfreak.com)
Dthief writes: From the article:
This morning, visitors to the Torrent-Finder.com site are greeted with an ominous graphic which indicates that ICE have seized the site’s domain. ½Â½ÂoeMy domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning. side from the fact that domains are being seized seemingly at will, there is a very serious problem with the action against Torrent-Finder. Not only does the site not host or even link to any torrents whatsoever, it actually only returns searches through embedded iframes which display other sites that are not under the control of the Torrent-Finder owner.
Submission + - facebook to own the word "face" (myfoxdc.com) 2
Dthief writes: The U.S. Patent And Trademark Office has sent Facebook a Notice of Allowance, which means it will grant the “Face” trademark to the popular social networking site.
Facebook now has three months to pay an issue fee before they officially own the word.
Facebook now has three months to pay an issue fee before they officially own the word.
Submission + - Wi-fi sickens trees? (pcworld.com)
Dthief writes: Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.
Submission + - Airports begin to go private, opt-out of TSA (wdbo.com) 4
Dthief writes:
Orlando Sanford International Airport has decided to opt out from TSA screening. "All of our due diligence shows it's the way to go," said Larry Dale, the director of the Sanford Airport Authority. "You're going to get better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service."
Submission + - Bill Clinton bans Twitter, Facebook, etc at speech (latimes.com) 1
Dthief writes:
Bill Clinton has called for a ban on the use of Twitter, Facebook updates and any live blogging during his keynote at the Dreamforce Cloud Computing conference in San Francisco next month.
Considering tweets coming during Obama's state of the union address is this an unfair request in the least. Shouldn't people be given respect when they give a talk, its not like a phone call would be socially acceptable.
