mikewelter - Slashdot User

100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier 323

Posted by kdawson on Saturday August 07, 2010 @06:11PM from the many-titanics-worth dept.

suraj.sun sends word of a 100-sq.-mile (260-sq.-km) ice island that broke off of a Greenland glacier on Thursday. "The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland. It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962... The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada. ... [NASA satellite] images showed that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70-km-long (43-mile) floating ice shelf. There was enough fresh water locked up in the ice island to 'keep all US public tap water flowing for 120 days,' said Prof Muenchow." The Montreal Gazette has more details and implications for Canadian shipping and oil exploration, along with this telling detail: "the ice island’s thickness [is] more than 200 metres in some places... [or] half the height of the Empire State Building." The NY Times has a good satellite photo of the situation.

Submission + - alternatives to rent-a-coder?

Submitted by mikewelter on Monday March 29, 2010 @10:02PM

mikewelter writes: I'm looking for pickup coding jobs. rentacoder.com has a nice website, but the buyers have a definite M$ slant (many go so far as to specify "no open source allowed"). Are there alternative sites that cater to the non-M$ coder?

Comment Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score 1) 1100

by mikewelter on Wednesday August 26, 2009 @09:29AM (#29200481) Attached to: Global Warming To Be Put On Trial?

But, but, but, science is not about consensus!

Comment openmoko (Score 1) 376

by mikewelter on Monday July 06, 2009 @08:20AM (#28593063) Attached to: iPhone 3GS Finally Hacked

the community desperately wanted an open phone, and thousands of openmoko neos and freerunners were purchased. the problem was the 1 day battery life. as well as a few problems with the GSM radio. the iphone is the next best device.

Comment Re:Once upon a time (Score 1) 120

by mikewelter on Sunday July 05, 2009 @07:56AM (#28585723) Attached to: The Laptop, Circa 1968

Except this beast was 110baud. But time sharing systems in those days weren't much faster (IBM 1401 series, Honeywell 200 series, early IBM360). It was a TTY33 in a case with wheels and an acoustic coupler (connecting wires to AT&T's network in those days was strictly verboten). It weighed about 90 pounds (or at least felt like 90 #).

The first 300baud units were lugable but used thermal paper on a roll.

Comment Re:Probable cause? (Score 1) 383

by mikewelter on Friday June 12, 2009 @07:59AM (#28306333) Attached to: Could Betelgeuse Go Boom?

Naw, it's Bush's fault...

Comment Re:Phoenix has done screwed up. (Score 1, Insightful) 515

by mikewelter on Saturday April 04, 2009 @03:48PM (#27459717) Attached to: Phoenix Police Seize PCs of a Blogger Critical of the Department

County? Isn't that a misspelling? Shouldn't that be country? In the next few years this incident will become just one of thousands.

Comment Re:This is a waste of time and money. (Score 1) 411

by mikewelter on Sunday January 25, 2009 @02:39PM (#26599647) Attached to: Best IT Solution For a Brand-New School?

Ahhh, big government solves everything. Like IT in NHS.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 773

by mikewelter on Thursday October 09, 2008 @12:28PM (#25315863) Attached to: Qantas Blames Wireless For Aircraft Incidents

Speaking of Airbus, have you seen the video of an Airbus (on a test flight) that decided it was going to land in the trees? The crew was killed. Software.

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