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Earth

Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected 658

techno-vampire writes with word that a long-accepted model of deep ocean currents is inaccurate. Deep Sea News has a summary of the research, to be published in Nature. The Woods Hole press release has more details. "A 50-year-old model of global thermohaline circulation that predicts a deep Atlantic counter current below the Gulf Stream is now formally called into question by an armada of subsurface RAFOS floats drifting 700 - 1500m deep. Nearly 80% of the RAFOS floats escaped the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC), drifting into the open ocean. This confirms suspicions that have been around since the 1990s, and likely plays havoc with global models of climate change."

Comment Re:does Iran seriously censor Obama? (Score 1) 171

You are seriously wrong. I was there 6 weeks ago, and it seems that to me that the whole system is driven by butthurt and they p. much filter any site that has ever said anything mean about Iran.
From memory, blocked sites included:
michellemalkin.com - because she says mean things about Iran
apnews.myway.com - because the AP wire service is part of a counterrevolutionary monarchist conspiracy
openvpn.org - because VPN is for terrorists
Networking

Should Network Cables Be Replaced? 524

Jyms writes "As technology changes, so hubs routers and switches are upgraded, but does the cabling need replacing, and if so, how often? Coax gave way to CAT 5 and CAT 5e replaced that. If you are running a 100Mbit/s network on old CAT 5, can that affect performance? Do CAT 5(e) cables get old?"

Worst Censorware Blocks Cannot Be Fixed 420

Slashdot regular Bennett Haselton writes "The ACLU has targeted a group of Tennessee school districts for blocking websites categorized by a blocking company as 'LGBT.' I hope the ACLU wins, but it may create the mistaken impression that egregious overblocking of websites is easy to fix. On the contrary, the vast majority of errors are hard-coded into the products and cannot be fixed by unblocking a single category." Hit that tantalizingly entitled 'Read More' link to read his essay.
The Internet

Bell Proposing Usage-Based Billing 238

Idiomatick writes "Bell Canada is attempting to impose UBB on its wholesale customers. As Bell was given a last-mile monopoly in much of Canada by the government, they are required to follow rules set up by the CRTC; this includes leasing their lines to competitive ISPs. And they are given a directive by the CRTC to provide competitive speeds to said ISPs. Teksavvy has informed its customers that were this to go through, the current monthly cap would be quartered and the cost for exceeding it would be 'multiple times more than our current per Gigabyte rate of $0.25/GB on overages.' They have also helpfully included a link where you can send your comments/concerns to the CRTC directly."

Comment Jimmy Carter (Score 2, Interesting) 309

Our President at the time, Jimmy Carter, was also a micro-manager and a former nuclear engineer:

U.S. Navy reactor operators, the sort who served under Jimmy Carter in the 1950s,

Is not and never was a nuclear engineer, much less did he command a nuclear sub. He served as an enlisted man on several diesel-electric subs and started, but did not complete, a Naval class in nuclear engineering. He resigned from the Navy (as a lieutenant) before any nuclear subs were commissioned.

The FEMA guys were just plain stupid.

NO U

Censorship

Phoenix Police Seize PCs of a Blogger Critical of the Department 515

logicassasin sends in a story about a blogger in Phoenix, AZ, who runs a site that is critical of the local police department. The police recently raided his home and seized his computer hardware. "Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging. The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment — which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation." A local publication quotes Pataky saying, "We have heard internally from our police sources that they purposefully did this to stop me... They took my cable modem and wireless router. Anyone worth their salt knows nothing is stored in the cable modem."

Comment Re:Scary (Score 4, Insightful) 628

Do you know how cows digest grass? Cows (and virtually all other mammals) lack a critical enzyme to break down the main nutrient in grass, cellulose. They get around this by hosting trillions of bacteria in their guts which are able to produce cellulase. The bacteria gorge on the cellulose the cow brings into its stomach(s), and convert it to glucose and energy for their own use. The cow then betrays them moving them to a later portion of their digestive tract where these bacteria are killed and broken down to nourish the cow.

Bacteria react to injury, they remember the past, and they even predict the future. If you buy into the theory that causing pain is immoral then every cow is a walking Auschwitz. (not even to mention the problem of brushing teeth)

By the way, there is no philosophical reason why "it feels pain" is a better standard for deciding whether injuring something is cruel than any other arbitrary standard, see Hume

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