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Submission + - Where is everybody? Fermi's Paradox Revisited. (arxiv.org)

Submitted by
Snowmit
Snowmit writes: "In a sweeping review of the literature around Fermi's Paradox, Milan M. Cirkovic argues that the fact that the question remains unanswered indicates that there must be some unresolved flaw in the current scientific understanding of our place in the universe. The paper is extremely fun to read, covering concepts such as self-replicating death-probes, galactic engineering projects, the importance of Jupiter in stellar safety, the inefficiency of stars as an energy source, the likelihood of the Cambrian explosion, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and why the SETI program might not be such a waste after all.

From the abstract:

We review Fermi's paradox (or the "Great Silence" problem), not only arguably the oldest and crucial problem for the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but also a conundrum of profound scientific, philosophical and cultural importance. By a simple analysis of observation selection effects, the correct resolution of Fermi's paradox is certain to tell us something about the future of humanity ... Somewhat paradoxically, it seems that the class of (neo)catastrophic hypotheses gives, on balance, the strongest justification for guarded optimism regarding our current and near-future SETI efforts.

It's long but it's worth it. The giga-scale thinking involved in Fermi's paradox is a breath of fresh air and a great antidote to spending too much time worrying about whatever tiny little details make up your tiny little life."
Earth

Formerly Classified Global Warming Spy Photos Released 791

Posted by kdawson from the inconvenient-images dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration has released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice, following a declassification request by the National Academy of Sciences. The images feature a 1m resolution, and scientists who have had to base climate models on 15m- or 30m-resolution photos are rejoicing. The photos, kept classified by the Bush administration, show the impact of global warming in the Arctic and the retreat of glaciers in Washington and Alaska."
Windows

Submission + - Fix to crippled Vista drivers "stealing" - (wired.com)

Submitted by
Snowmit
Snowmit writes: "Thought you might be interested in this story about Creative Labs (who make the SoundBlaster audio cards). It seems that they intentionally left off some features of their hardware on Windows Vista and then a enterprising consumer figured out how to fix the crippled software. Creative was not impressed.

"The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing," O'Shaughnessy wrote. "By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods." ... "If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make," wrote O'Shaughnessy.

Crazy stuff. In this blog posting Wired reprints an email from Daniel_K explaining how he made the improved drivers."
IBM

Submission + - IBM: Here's your overtime pay and a 15% pay cut (wired.com)

Submitted by
Snowmit
Snowmit writes: "In response to the $65 million overtime lawsuit, IBM has decided to slash employee's base pay by 15%. In other words, if you are one of the people affected by this, you need to work 5 hours of overtime to break even and continue to earn your current wage. Even better, the reduction in base wage means a corresponding reduction in benefit packages like vacation pay or life insurance.

So I guess good luck to everyone at IBM and congratulations on your new 45 hour work week?"
Google

Google Reader Begins Sharing Private Data 313

Posted by kdawson from the thought-it-was-your-data-eh dept.
Felipe Hoffa writes "One week ago Google Reader's team decided to begin showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven't been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family who says they won't be able to enjoy this Christmas because of this 'feature.' Will Google start doing this with all their products? You can check a summary of complaints in my journal here or browse the whole thread in Google Groups."

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