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Comment Re:Not exactly new (Score 1) 70

by phyr (#38226814) Attached to: UK Plans Space Based Radar System
What's new here is that they are trying to get a constellation up very cheap (20M) and expect to get a 50:1 return on investment.
The sensors themselves aren't that impressive and low resolution when compared to RADARSAT-2, TerraSAR-X and CosmoSkymed.

Let's hope they fund some new work into the GPL SAR Toolbox NEST http://www.array.ca/nest
Earth

When Did Irene Stop Being a Hurricane? 426

Posted by timothy from the anything-with-cliff-mass-is-interesting dept.
jamesl writes "Cliff Mass, a climate researcher at the University of Washington and popular Seattle blogger, asks, 'When did Irene stop being a hurricane? ... there is really no reliable evidence of hurricane-force winds at any time the storm was approaching North Carolina or moving up the East Coast. ... I took a look at all the observations over Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Not one National Weather Service or FAA observation location, not one buoy observations, none reach the requisite wind speed. Most were not even close. ... Surely, one of the observations upwind of landfall, over Cape Hatteras or one of the other barrier island locations, indicated hurricane-force sustained winds? Amazingly, the answer is still no.' Cliff supports his statement with data from NOAA/NWS/NDBC presented in easy to understand charts."

Comment Remote Sensing Toolboxes (Score 2) 18

by phyr (#36609092) Attached to: ESA Opens To Open Source Code Development
With all the new data that is and will be freely available to everyone, we could use some SoC help on the open source toolboxes BEAM, NEST and others.
Please send in your ideas on what could be worked on for NEST here
NEST could definitely benefit from more GIS functionality with more integration with GeoTools or other Java GIS libraries.
Music

Copyright Time Bomb Set To Go Off 402

Posted by kdawson from the insult-to-injury dept.
In September we discussed one isolated instance of the heirs of rights-holders filing for copyright termination. Now Wired discusses the general case — many copyrights from 1978 and before could come up for grabs in a few years. Some are already in play. "At a time when record labels and, to a lesser extent, music publishers, find themselves in the midst of an unprecedented contraction, the last thing they need is to start losing valuable copyrights to '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s music, much of which still sells as well or better than more recently released fare. Nonetheless, the wheels are already in motion. ... The Eagles plan to file grant termination notices by the end of the year.... 'It's going to happen,' said [an industry lawyer]. 'Just think of what the Eagles are doing when they get back their whole catalog. They don't need a record company now... You'll be able to go to Eagles.com (currently under construction) and get all their songs. They're going to do it; it's coming up.' ...If the labels' best strategy to avoid losing copyright grants or renegotiating them at an extreme disadvantage is the same one they're suing other companies for using, they're in for quite a bumpy — or, rather, an even bumpier — ride."
Power

10% of US Energy Derived From Old Soviet Nukes 213

Posted by timothy from the what-about-the-peak-nukes-problem dept.
Nrbelex writes "The New York Times reports that about 10 percent of electricity generated in the United States comes from fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, mostly Russian. 'It's a great, easy source' of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Bank and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers.'"
Wireless Networking

No Hand-Held Devices In Ontario Cars 584

Posted by kdawson from the hands-where-i-can-see-'em dept.
NIK282000 writes "To cut down on accidents caused by drivers who aren't paying attention, in Ontario it is now a ticketable offense to text, email, or navigate with your GPS while driving. But it seems to me that they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, because it is now also a $500 fine to change your radio station, change songs on your MP3 player, or even drink your morning coffee. It can also be enforced to the point where changing the climate controls on your dash can get you fined because it requires you to take your hands off the wheel. Though this was a good idea, it seems to have been taken a little too far."

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