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Submission + - First Evidence Found of a Comet Strike on Earth (nationalgeographic.com)

mdsolar writes: "Saharan glass and a brooch belonging to King Tut provide the first evidence of a comet directly impacting Earth, a new study claims. The finding may help unlock some of the mysteries surrounding the birth of our solar system.

About 28 million years ago a comet exploded over Egypt, creating a 3600F (2000C) blast wave that spread out over the desert below. The fiery shockwave melted the sand, forming copious amounts of yellow silica glass scattered over 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers) of the Sahara.

Polished into the shape of a scarab beetle, a large piece of this glass found its way into a brooch owned by the famed Egyptian boy king Tutankhamen.

"Because there is no sign of an impact crater, it has been a mystery as to what kind of celestial event actually could have caused this debris field, but a small, black stone found lying in the middle of the glass area caught our attention," said study co-author David Block, an astronomer at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa."

Comment Re:Interesting... (Score 1) 745

Aren't you two full of jokes. I'm sure you'd be first in line to accuse americans of blatant cultural intolerance and bigotry.. look in the fucking mirror.

Unlikely, it's impossible for me to be first in line, I'm only 31 years old, Americans have been culturally intolerant bigots for hundred of years.

Comment Interesting... (Score 3, Funny) 745

(Through the eyes of your average American)
America - Totally Normal, just slightly lacking on education...
Japan - Weird People, Known for Sushi, Nuclear incidents and Cosplay girls
Finland - Freaks, Known for Insane Death Metal Bands and Rally drivers
Canada - Canadians, Known for not being America
Netherlands - Druggies, Known for being full of pot smokers
Australia - Weird People, Known for all being criminals and bush rangers
Sweden - More Weird People, Known for tall blonde women, word's ending in "ooorgan" and "ski", and families who shower together
Norway - Must be Weird, Known for very little... I think it snows there
Flanders-Belgium - Freaks, make chocolate and not get fat
Czech Republic - Fucking Freaks, Known for street porn and getting mugged when travelling
Slovak Republic - Nutters, just look at Slovakia on a map, it's worse than cz..
Korea - Freaks, Known for having a north and south, wait Korea? do they have electricity there yet?

BTW, I am from Australia - clearly, the more crazy and fucked up your nation is, the smarter it's population is.

Comment Seriously America? (Score 2) 206

Does your solution to everything have to be shoot / bomb it? Surely you guys can be more creative - EMP, Deathray. signal jammer / spoofer, hack the drone maybe I dunno... There's got to be better ways of bringing down machines than technology that's been around since the Song Dynasty in China (960 - 1279).

Comment Amazing! (Score 4, Interesting) 39

I thought it was movies, TV shows, rock music, rap music, computer games, friends and family that were at fault for the evil's of society, I'm glad we can blame social media now, people were starting to point the finger at religion for causing these issues and we can't have that happening now...

Comment This is the Future (Score 4, Interesting) 99

I am sad I don't have any mod points to give negative shit right now, especially with all the people drinking haterade and talking shit about electric cars - this is a subject I hold close to my heart.....

Yes we are behind on tech, a 1911-1916 Detroit Motors electric car was doing ~80 miles on a charge, with the best test being 211 miles (340 km) from a single charge - however with small scale wind and solar systems we can manage 90% of consumer and urban driving requirements without relying on a single drop of oil from the middle east. I am from Australia - its 3:10am here (yes I've had a drink) and personally whatever happens over there doesn't affect us apart from catching the flu when America sneezes - but this type of technology is what will make the world free one day.

Brand new Electric cars are $100k, but for $20k you can buy an old can and convert it to electric with 200km "down under" range (~120 miles) and it will consume a hell of a lot less overall energy than a combustion motor - you guys in the USA will probably get the most expensive part - the batteries - cheaper than we would in Australia and your currency is now stronger.

Electric cars will always have more instant torque and power than unleaded, ethenol, DIEsel or Gas (LPG, Natural Gas) - and they will kick ass when the time is right. Look up "White Zombie EV" and "EV West" cars for some real education on what is available on the market already.

If anyone disagree's, you suck and I don't care.

Comment I love punchscreen laptops! (Score 2) 359

I don't know what crap kids are using these days, but the only touchscreen laptops I remember well are the Panasonic Toughbooks. I used to abuse mine all the time, it was great for meetings because you could hold it up by the screen, and hit the area of the screen you wanted to get dumb shit corporate knobs to see, and then when they still didn't understand - drop the laptop on the table (In frustration that you will need to re-explain everything 4 times before everyone gets it).

If you get an email and want to punch the person who sent it to you, you can just punch your laptop right in the email client, if you aim well you can get them right in their email address and highlight a few chars. Made a mistake in some code? Don't blame yourself, take it out on your laptop - mash the keyboard with your fist - YEAH!

You should see the look on peoples face when I would "share" my beer with my laptop at a pub. The only thing I miss about the job was that toughbook, sometimes I wonder if the company used them knowing that their incompetent management would cause all kinds of anger and stress around the office, instead of having staff walk out or start shooting the place up, they could vent instantly on their hardware and get on with working. Toughbooks - one of the best touchscreen devices ever produced - however starting at $3500 with an i5 CPU and 4 gig ram they aren't the best bang for buck when it comes to performance.

Submission + - The Battle of the Next Gen Consoles Begin With a Win for PS4

YokimaSun writes: Sony and Microsoft at E3 last night showed off to the world their new next gen consoles and whilst both were impressive, Sony seemed to steal the day with better decisions. First off the price of the XboxOne is $499/£429 and to be released on November 30th, the pick of the games were Halo Combat and Star Wars Battlefront. However Sony will release the PS4 in the holiday season before Xmas for $399/£349 which is a full $100 cheaper. Heres where Sony have played a master stroke, first off the PS4 will be region free, major support for indie developers, there will be no penalty whatsoever for having used games and in 2014 PS3 Games will be streamed to the PS4. Will Microsoft back track on the Used game policy ?

Submission + - New Hot-Pink Slug Found in Australia (nationalgeographic.com)

BEVIN writes: Scientists already knew that a bright-pink slug lived on Mount Kaputar (map), thinking it was a variety of the red triangle slug, a species common along the east coast of Australia. But new research shows that the colorful critter is actually its own species, said Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Michael Murphy.

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