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US House 'Creator' of TSA Wants To Kill It 681

Posted by OverTheGeicoE from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.
U.S. Representative John Mica (R-Florida), the sponsor of the original House bill that helped create the TSA, has become an outspoken opponent of the agency. In a recent interview, "Mica said screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled." Mica seems to agree with other TSA critics that the agency 'failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.' Mica is the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman and receives classified briefings on TSA. Perhaps we should trust him more than most people on this topic.
Image

Lucasfilm Unveils "Sandcrawler" Singapore Office Screenshot-sm 159

Posted by samzenpus from the breaks-over-jawa dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The massive, slow moving Sandcrawlers from George Lucas' Star Wars films inspired the form of Lucasfilm's new regional headquarters in Singapore. Designed by Aedas, the Sandcrawler Building will house a 100 seat theater, Lucasfilm Singapore offices, a public podium and other employee spaces. Neither rusty nor slow moving in this case, the glassy and streamlined building will combine a high performance facade with lush gardens and foliage that spills over terraces, resulting in a highly efficient commercial space. With construction already underway, we can look forward to this real life Star Wars manifestation sometime in 2012."
Earth

Ask Slashdot: Could We Deal With the End of Time Zones? 990

Posted by timothy from the gedankenexperiment dept.
First time accepted submitter hairyfish writes "Do we still need time zones? Time zones are a relic of the past, when different parts of the world were isolated, and 12 p.m. was whenever the sun was directly above your specific location. Now, in the Internet age, time is just an arbitrary number, and time zones are just unnecessary complexity. Why can't we scrap time zones altogether, and all just use UTC across the board? So here on the eastern seaboard of Australia, lunchtime will now be at 2 a.m., In New York it will be 4 p.m., and in Moscow it will be 8 a.m. There'll be some pain with the initial changeover, but from then on it's all good. Got a meeting with colleagues on the other side of the world? 4 a.m. means 4 a.m. for everyone. Got a flight landing at 3 p.m.? 3 p.m. now means 3 p.m. for everyone. For DST, you simply change your schedule rather than the clock (i.e. work and school starts an hour earlier during DST months). No confusion ever again. For someone whose work involves travel or communication across time zones, this is the best idea I've ever heard. So why aren't we doing it?"

Comment Re:Widespread opposition to a vacuous plan (Score 1) 340

by Phelan (#31127618) Attached to: State of Alabama Fighting NASA's New Plan

I'm all pro NASA. As an Alabama resident I love what it does for Huntsville.

The real blame here should go to Parker Griffith. You don't leave the majority party, this is what happens when you do. If he hadn't become a turncoat there would be no way the administration would have cut funding to his district.

But he made the decision easy for them... good luck Parker getting re-elected with the right and the left wanting to taste your blood.

Comment Re:Real summary. (Score 1) 878

by Phelan (#22369790) Attached to: Has Ron Paul Quit?
I actually think he is repeating a theory by Paul Johnson from the London School of Economics. He argues that the New Deal prolonged the depression in his book 'Modern Times'. It's actually a pretty good read, a history of the 20th century from an economics perspective
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Top Ten Science Predictions that didn't come true

Submitted by
radioweather
radioweather writes: "There's an article in the New York Times pushing a something called "the five stages of climate grief" done by a professor at the University of Montana. This got me to thinking about the regular disaster forecasting that we see published in the media about what will happen due to climate change. We've seen this sort of angst broadcast before, and it occurred to me that through history, a lot of "predictions of certainty" with roots in scientifically based forecasts have not come true. That being the case, here is a list of famous quotes and predictions from science "experts"."
The Internet

Time Warner Cable to Test Tiered Bandwidth Caps 591

Posted by samzenpus from the take-only-what-you-need dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a leaked internal memo, Time Warner Cable is testing out tiered bandwidth caps in their Beaumont, TX division as a way to fairly balance the needs of heavy users against the limited amount of shared bandwidth cable can provide. The plan is to offer various service tiers with bandwidth fees for overuse, as well as a bandwidth meter customers can use to help them stay within their allotment. If it works out, they will consider a nation-wide rollout. Interestingly, the memo also claims that 5% of subscribers use over 50% of the total network bandwidth."
Science

Weapon Found in Whale Dated From the 1800s 661

Posted by Zonk from the whale-just-wanted-the-damn-kids-off-his-lawn dept.
LABarr writes "AP and CNN are carrying a story that has forced scientists to re-evaluate the longevity of mammals. A bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt over a century ago. 'Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old. The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time. It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890.' "
Sony

Submission + - 80GB PS3 an "Option" for Other Regions, Sa

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Following yesterday's announcement that the long-rumoured 80GB PS3 would be hitting South Korean territories on June 19th, Sony Computer Entertainment has issued a statement revealing that they company may consider releasing this model outside of Korea at some point. According to company spokesperson Satoshi Fukuoka, "It could be an option to introduce it in other regions but it needs to be decided by each region.""

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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