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Submission + - No big bang after all (phys.org)

Submitted by cyberspittle
cyberspittle writes: "The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once."

Submission + - Hidden Apollo 11 artefacts found in Neil Armstrong's closet after over 40 years (techienews.co.uk)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Over 40 years after Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space travel, a hidden bag full of artefacts has been discovered by his widow Carol Armstrong. Carol found the bag after Neil’s death in 2012 shortly after he underwent a heart surgery. The bag contains a total of 20 items including the priceless 16mm movie camera that recorded Apollo 11’s descent to the surface of the moon, optical alignment sight used by crew for docking manoeuvres, and Waist tether among other things. The purse and the contents are now on loan at the National Air and Space Museum for preservation, research and eventual public display.

Comment Re:This data has been validated by an IPCC reviewe (Score 1) 4

by Bomarc (#49013191) Attached to: The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
I view this as another conspiracy website:
"to no good is their efforts to prevent the archiving of their data and documents"
referenceing a "robots.txt" file. Who ever wrote this didn't follow the links to download the data!

Ever think that maybe they just want to limit the automated searchers and the like crawling their website? As a owner of a website, I restrict by robots.txt; I don't want every web-crawler visiting every web page. With hundreds of data points - could significantly bog down their network access. The info is available as a single download, and available as CD-ROM.
One such location (of MANY):

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-...

Still don't see a conspiracy here.

Comment Source is not to be trusted. (Score 1) 4

by Bomarc (#49011889) Attached to: The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever
The source (Christopher Booker) has published many opinions -- none based on any level of scientific fact. He appears to to have an ax to grind against scientific principles. From Wiki (re: Christopher Booker):
He has taken a stance which runs counter to the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including global warming, the link between passive smoking and cancer, and the dangers posed by asbestos.

Though he is offering an opinion, most people do have their own opinion. The fact that he (sill) has a forum does not mean that his opinion is any more valid than scientific research on any of the topics presented.

Voted "down" ... as "Not the best"

Submission + - Comcast Does It Again and Renames a Customer 'SuperB*tch' Bauer (wired.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Yesterday Mary Bauer received her Comcast bill in the mail. But the 63-year-old Chicago area resident says she’s not going to open it. That’s because someone at Comcast switched her name on the bill, addressing it instead to “SuperB*tch Bauer.”
Bauer has been having problems with Comcast for months. As she related her story to Chicago’s WGN television station, she’s had a lot of service and billing issues. Technicians have been dispatched to her place a whopping 39 times, and she recently got into it with telephone support after her bills stopped arriving.

Whether that prompted the “SuperB*tch” name change, Comcast doesn’t know. Comcast spokesman Jack Segal, told us that the company is “investigating this thoroughly, and we have reached out to our customer.”

Meanwhile, Bauer is understandably angry. “This is a disgrace to me,” she told WGN. “Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”

Comcast employs about 130,000 people nationwide. This looks like the work of a lone smart-ass with little common sense, and not like it’s the result of corporate policy. But this isn’t the first time someone in the bowels of the company’s billing department has pulled such a stunt. Last month, the company changed another customer’s name to “*sshole” Brown, after he tried to cancel his cable package.

And a decade ago, another Chicago area customer found herself renamed “B*tch Dog” by the cable company.

Submission + - The strangest moon in the Solar System

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Moons in our Solar System — at least the ones that formed along with the planets — all revolve counterclockwise around their planetary parents, with roughly uniform surfaces orbiting in the same plane as their other moons and rings. Yet one of Saturn's moon's, Iapetus, is unique, with a giant equatorial ridge, an orbital plane that doesn't line up, and one half that's five times brighter than the other. While the first two are still mysteries, the last one has finally been solved!

Submission + - The end is reportedly near for RadioShack

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Reports of RadioShack's demise are nothing new, but now it seems like the electronics retailer may be done for good. Bloomberg reports that company is in talks with Sprint to hand over around half of its remaining stores to the wireless company. The rest of RadioShack's locations will close, and those that are included in the deal will be painted yellow and black. This means the shops where most of us purchased parts for a project will cease to exist. Nothing's final, and until the ink is dry, another suitor could swipe up the company and allow it to keep on chuggin' along. RadioShack is facing bankruptcy after years of declining sales, so even if Sprint doesn't agree to buy those stores, a move of some kind is imminent for the company that's been selling tech since 1921.

Submission + - Comcast Ghost-writes Politician's Letters to Support Time Warner Mega-Merger

Submitted by WheezyJoe
WheezyJoe writes: As the FCC considers the merger between Comcast/Universal and Time-Warner Cable, which would create the largest cable company in the U.S. and is entering the final stages of federal review, politicians are pressuring the FCC with pro-merger letters actually written by Comcast. According to documents obtained through public records requests politicians are passing letters nearly word-for-word written by Comcast as their own, politicians are passing letters nearly word-for-word written by Comcast as their own. "Not only do records show that a Comcast official sent the councilman the exact wording of the letter he would submit to the FCC, but also that finishing touches were put on the letter by a former FCC official named Rosemary Harold, who is now a partner at one of the nation’s foremost telecom law firms in Washington, DC. Comcast has enlisted Harold to help persuade her former agency to approve the proposed merger."

Ars Technica had already reported that politicians have closely mimicked Comcast talking points and re-used Comcast's own statements without attribution. The documents revealed today show just how deeply Comcast is involved with certain politicians, and how they were able to get them on board.

Submission + - Plan C: The Cold War plan which would have brought the US under martial law (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: Starting on April 19, 1956, the federal government practiced and planned for a near-doomsday scenario known as Plan C. When activated, Plan C would have brought the United States under marshal law, rounded up over ten thousand individuals connected to "subversive" organizations, implemented a censorship board, and prepared the country for life after nuclear attack.

There was no Plan A or B.

Submission + - iPhone seeks wi-fi connection when "off" 5

Submitted by rbarrphd
rbarrphd writes: Recently, my university email account became locked every few hours due to repeated incorrect network login attempts. The culprit was my iPhone 5 trying to connect to the school’s wi-fi with an old password---even though its wi-fi Setting was “Off.” Therefore, iPhones must surreptitiously and repeatedly attempt connection to nearby networks even when that function is supposedly disabled. Is this well-known? Does anyone have another explanation?

Submission + - The end of Public Domain 1

Submitted by eporue
eporue writes: Since I uploaded the public domain movie The night of the living dead to YouTube I got 18 different complaints of copyright infrigment on it.
Actually, I have a channel of Public Domain movies in which monetization has been disabled "due to repeated community guidelines and/or copyright issues".
The problem is that 99% of the complaints are false, they are from companies that have no rights over the movies but by issuing millions of take downs, manage to control a good number of videos in YouTube.
Is there any way to fight back ? Is there a way to "probe" public domain ?

Submission + - This Battery Has Lasted 175 Years and No One Knows How (vice.com)

Submitted by sarahnaomi
sarahnaomi writes: There sits, in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, a bell that has been ringing, nonstop, for at least 175 years. It's powered by a single battery that was installed in 1840. Researchers would love to know what the battery is made of, but they are afraid that opening the bell would ruin an experiment to see how long it will last.

The bell’s clapper oscillates back and forth constantly and quickly, meaning the Oxford Electric Bell, as it’s called, has rung roughly 10 billion times, according to the university. It's made of what's called a "dry pile," which is one of the first electric batteries. Dry piles were invented by a guy named Giuseppe Zamboni (no relation to the ice resurfacing company) in the early 1800s. They use alternating discs of silver, zinc, sulfur, and other materials to generate low currents of electricity.

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