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Comment Re:What did friday come late or early ? (Score 3, Interesting) 299

by Crashmarik (#50233289) Attached to: Want To Fight Climate Change? Stop Cows From Burping

If you look at the raw temp data for the U.S. we have been in a cooling trend for the past 115 years

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/da...

If you compare the adjustments to the trend the adjustments are actually bigger than the error bars and larger than the raw data's trend.

What is it we are supposed to be mitigating ?

Submission + - The first "C/C++ Coding Best Practices Repository" launched (codergears.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There are many style guides around the web talking about the coding best practices. Some guidelines are very interesting, some others are not suitable even they are recommended by known organisations.

CoderGears just launched the C/C++ Coding Best Practices Repository http://www.codergears.com/QACe... to centralize the most known best practices.

The goal of the repository is to vote and comment the C/C++ coding best practices rules to have the most interesting ones and every C/C++ developer will focus more on the most voted rules.

Submission + - Undergraduates Discover Densest Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies (azoquantum.com)

Submitted by Applehu Akbar
Applehu Akbar writes: This discovery, using imaging data from several large telescopes, identifies two new ultracompact dwarf galaxies (UCD), M59-UCD3 and M85-HCC1.

UCDs are small galaxies that have stellar densities of, in the case of M85-HCC1, up a million times higher than Earth's stellar neighborhood. That would mean stars averaging one twentieth of a light year apart. In such a place our own Oort cloud would contain other stars.

Furthermore, these galaxies are considerably older than our own and contain an abundance of heavy elements.

Submission + - How the Media and You Are Misled by False Data (thefiscaltimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Edward Morrissey writes at the Fiscal Times, "The most obfuscating and misleading arguments made in debate of any kind usually begin with the words, “Studies say .” People passionately arguing for a favored position will resort to these citations of assumed authority, and will often fail to comprehend the scope or underlying data ... Even on line, where writers usually link to the source data, the studies either prove to be limited in application, poorly researched, or entirely wrong. Sometimes that has serious consequences. A study published in the British medical journal Lancet more than a decade ago started a panic about a supposed causal connection between vaccinations and autism. It fueled an anti-vaccination movement that has resulted in the return of diseases once thought stamped out in the West ... The study was later exposed as a fraud, based on only twelve subjects handpicked by its author ... with the data even further manipulated. The Lancet later withdrew the study and admitted it was “an elaborate fraud.” By then, it was far too late to undo the damage done to uncounted children over several years. Most questionable studies, and questionable claims made from them involve less malice and intent to defraud but matter nonetheless for public policy. ... Claims of support from “studies” for extraordinary and yet oh-so-convenient claims need much more careful scrutiny – and perhaps much more pointed skepticism."

Submission + - Oldest rock crystals point to ancient magnetic shield for Earth (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Faint remnants of ancient Earth’s magnetic field have been found imprinted on the oldest rock crystals in the world—evidence that the magnetic dynamo in our planet’s core was alive and kicking more than 4 billion years ago, more than half a billion years earlier than scientists had thought. An early dynamo would have helped life gain a fingerhold: Earth’s magnetic field shields it from the solar wind, a stream of energetic particles from the sun that could strip the planet’s atmosphere of water vapor and other gases necessary for life. “If we know when the magnetic field starts, we have a good sense of how long the Earth has been habitable,” says Rory Cottrell, a paleomagnetist at the University of Rochester (U of R) in New York.

Comment Re:Or let us keep our hard-earned money (Score 3, Funny) 574

by Crashmarik (#50190439) Attached to: Clinton Promises 500 Million New Solar Panels

yes, yes to more booze, guns and hookers. we need to spend more on that!

Absolutely after a day of hunting, give me a curvy redhead I only have to pay once and don't have to talk to, and a bottle of good scotch and that is money well spent. At least getting screwed by the hooker is a hell of a lot more fun than having the government do it.

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