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Submission + - The Whole Six (or is that Nine) Yards

pdclarry writes: I'm sure all of us wonder where "the whole nine yards" expression came from, and many of us have argued one or more of the hypotheses (WW II ammo belt length, American football reference, fabric in a kilt, capacity of a transit mixer...). Well, the latest research now says that it has no origin. (paywall warning): The NY Times covers the story, referencing the Yale Alumni Magazine source.

Interesting discovery is that there's been phrase inflation (it was originally "The Whole Six Yards") and that it has no specific reference in real life. Of course, this most recent discovery probably will not end the argument that Linguist Ben Zimmer says is “something of a Holy Grail among word sleuths.” Indeed, there are already new hypotheses posted in comments to the Yale Alumni Magazine article.
Technology

Submission + - A novel project delivers microscope experiments in a Google Maps-like interface

An anonymous reader writes: We as human beings are very curious about our world and the meaning of all of this. We have been developing new devices to explore things that are not visible to our naked eye. We have been using telescopes to explore things that are far away from here and microscopes to explore things that are near of us, but in a scale not catchable for our naked biologic eyes.

A novel website is intended to feed our curiosity about the microscopic world with interactive experiments in Google Maps-like interface. Visiting Zoompy (http://www.zoompy.net) it is possible to explore a collection of experiments constructed using hundred of million pixels of microscopic images.

In one experiment it is possible to see many microscopic details of a hundred dollar bill. In another one, it is possible to realize how printed images are constructed from a series of simple dots. An outstanding feature of this site is the ability to see the proportion of the images in relation to the object in real scale.

Bring on more experiments of this kind!

Submission + - Australia Plans to Drill 2,000-Year-Old Ice Core in Antarctica

An anonymous reader writes: Australia announced Saturday a new project to drill a deep ice core in Antarctica, which may shed light on past climatic conditions in the continent. The project, Aurora Basin North project, will involve researchers drilling a 2,000-year-old ice core, in order to search for the scientific "holy grail" of the ice core.

Comment Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score 1) 718

Interesting question, but since the advent of the Essex class carrier in 1941 no US carrier of Essex class or later has ever been sunk. USS Intrepid in the course of WW II took a torpedo and 5 Kamikaze hits at different times, and was repaired and back in service weeks after each attack.

Comment Re:Not sure about the thesis of the article, but.. (Score 1) 718

Carriers are also:
* Mobile hospitals.
* Mobile power generation units.
* Mobile food services.
And I'm sure that people here can think of a few more. Carriers cannot be fully replaced.

This is a really good point, and the most common use of carriers in the US fleet. Also for providing fresh water in emergencies (such as Haiti), as mentioned in a followup post.

Submission + - Married gay couple's engagement photo used in anti-gay political campaign (nj.com)

pdclarry writes: Two years ago Tom and Brian decided to marry, and were legally married in Connecticut. One of their treasures was an engagement photo showing them with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. They recently found out that the photograph had been altered and affixed to an anti-gay political ad used to attack a state Senate candidate in Colorado.

The couple has threatened a lawsuit over the misuse of their photograph.

The Military

Submission + - TOP UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES TAKING FLIGHT (blogspot.in)

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, Stanford University researchers created a model-plane sized unmanned aerial vehicle that can fly directly to a wall and then land vertically on it, superhero style. Miniature spines on its feet allow the vehicle to cling to a surface. The feet, with help from the propeller, can be manipulated so the UAV walks the wall to get a better view.

“I am impressed with the engineering on the aircraft and the iterations they went through to get that configuration,” Kochersberger says. “It’s going to lead to new technologies.”

He says the UAV has the potential to sense data that would otherwise be unobtainable.

According to the Stanford team, the weather-resistant vehicle consumes very little power and can quietly monitor an area for days. No bat signal required.
In the same vein, a team at MIT designed a control system that allows a foam glider with a single motor on its tail to land on a perch. more info with photos and video in my blog http://edututorin.blogspot.in/

Apple

Submission + - Apple store refuses to sell iPad to Iranian-American woman (yahoo.com) 2

pdclarry writes: An Iranian-American teenager was told by an Apple store employee that they could not sell her an iPad because it would violate US trade restrictions. She returned to the store with a camera crew from a local TV station and was again turned down.

Apparently an Apple employee heard her speaking Farsi. As he was also of Iranian extraction he recognized the language and used this as a basis for refusal.

Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Usage for an old iMac G5 2.0 GHz PowerPC? (Ask Slashdot) (wikipedia.org) 1

andr1976 writes: "I have purchased an Old iMac G5 2 GHz and 1 GB RAM. The OS has been upgraded to 10.5.8 (Leopard). While I am fairly new to Mac (linux user for 10 years), I like the GUI of OS X and the fact that it is Unix underneath. I bought the iMac since it was fairly cheap (200€) and despite the milage the design is still good looking, and it lets me tinker with OS X. I am planning to put the iMac in the kitchen/living room, maybe connected to the stereo (if not using AirPort Express). The main idea is to have a PC nearby to entertain the kids, play music etc. I will certainly have a more powerful computer in the home office. What kind of usage besides that mentioned above do you think an old iMac can power? What is the general experience with flash (Leopard/Flash 10)? What kind of mediacenter software is recommended? Is it worth the money to add extra RAM? Any other performance tweaks?"

Comment Knee-jerk responses (Score 1) 627

I've read through the comments thus far, and no one has pointed out the absurdity of the original question, if cloud storage isn't allowed why don't businesses use Linux? What does the choice of operating system have to do with essentially exposing data outside of the corporate firewall? Cloud storage and choice of operating system have nothing to do with each other. All that have appeared are the usual knee-jerk responses defending or attacking various operating systems.

Submission + - Bank of America down (again) 1

pdclarry writes: Bank of America's web banking portal appears to be down again today. The last outage back in October was 6 days. I wonder how long this one will be? As with the last outage, this affects both browser access and mobile apps.

It's also interesting that no mainstream media has picked this up.

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