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Comment Re:Does it have to be pure methane? (Score 3, Informative) 84

Plausible but unlikely. Plausible since remnants of methane tend to form complex organic compounds but unlikely since if the entire composition was a single compound, the spectrographic analysis would have likely identified it! And honey does dry out! http://scienceline.org/2007/04/ask-westly-crystallizedhoney/

Comment No Proof (Score 2) 84

There is no proof that there is any life at all. The paper(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103510001053- login needed) that interpreted the data from the Cassini mission has been questioned by Chris McKay (NASA http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Have_We_Discovered_Evidence_For_Life_On_Titan_999.html). The possibilities do NOT rule out life but comes out with other explanations that are more plausible.
1. The determination that there is a strong flux of hydrogen into the surface is mistaken. It will be interesting to see if other researchers, in trying to duplicate Strobel's results, reach the same conclusion.
2. There is a physical process that is transporting H2 from the upper atmosphere into the lower atmosphere. One possibility is adsorption onto the solid organic atmospheric haze particles which eventually fall to the ground. However this would be a flux of H2, and not a net loss of H2.
3. If the loss of hydrogen at the surface is correct, the non-biological explanation requires that there be some sort of surface catalyst, presently unknown, that can mediate the hydrogenation reaction at 95 K, the temperature of the Titan surface. That would be quite interesting and a startling find although not as startling as the presence of life.
4. The depletion of hydrogen, acetylene, and ethane, is due to a new type of liquid-methane based life form as predicted (Benner et al. 2004, McKay and Smith 2005, and Schulze-Makuch and Grinspoon 2005).

Comment Re:Do I need to change my password? (Score 1) 271

It is very likely they have the information linking the two. In your case it seems like the harm would have been limited to the Linkedin site, if you had not changed your password. They would most likely make money by hijacking your accounting and posting/messaging spammy links to your friends. But *many* people use same/similar passwords and mail id combos (evident from the password choices). They have more reason to be worried - FB, Twitter, In all hijacked!

Comment Foolish, pointless draconian law (Score 1) 130

This law needs to desperately be amended to exclude all session cookies, cookies that help UX and analytics. The rest will also need a workable solution like using the W3C recommended DNT that is set as 'NO' to default currently. And if that is set and websites/the pervs in the house upstairs are still dropping cookies/tracking they should then have their backsides hauled to court.

Comment I call BS on this one (Score 1) 405

The way this article has been put forth makes it seem as if listening to music at work decreases productivity. Not so. the study is about comparing personality types and see if introvert Vs. extrovert has an impact on productivity. The last line on the website says *"These findings suggest that people will learn more when revising for an exam or perform better at work if tasks are performed in silence regardless of personality type, and frequency of listening to music when working does not affect performance. So to conclude: no, listening to music unfortunately won’t increase your concentration."*. There are other studies that show no correlation between the two http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/50/6/493/ (login required). Also, there are other factors like employee morale and happiness that improve by music (http://www.musicworksforyou.com/workplace-productivity/radio-in-the-workplace-increasing-morale-a-productivity.html) that are unaccounted. In short biased, stupid and sensationalistic. Sorry!

Comment Unworkable and a waste of time. (Score 1, Interesting) 208

The whole focus of this has been towards helping people protect their 'privacy'. But look at the implementation on sites and you will know at once that there is no explicit consent. a) They have a pop-up box that allows you to opt out (disappears after 20s) b) There is a link to their 'Cookie page' c) The consent is bundled with other site functionality (i.e. ability to use FB/Twitter with marketing cookies) indirectly forcing users to accept all cookies. Companies are spending thousands of £s on a whole array of solutions since the EU directive and the UK law are still so broad. I think making the non-savvy users aware is the only way forward. At the same time people must realise that the livelihood of hundreds if not thousands of people depends on data gathered from sites.

Submission + - Flash Cookies Re-spawning (mediapost.com)

lixns21 writes: It seems that little brother is hell bent upon becoming big brother!!! V for vendetta all over again..

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