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Pakistan Used Google Earth For Military Targeting 111

Posted by samzenpus from the bejewel-funded dept.
NeoBeans writes "According to this article in the New York Times about the recent 'improvements' in military strikes by the Pakistani military it is revealed that they have dropped Google Earth as part of their target planning for a more precise technology. From the article, '... the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to more sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs. And no, you can't really find Osama Bin Laden using Google Maps either."
Education

Submission + - HS Student Isolates Polystyrene-eating Microbe (wired.com)

Submitted by
cmholm
cmholm writes: "Although I had for years assumed that plastics eventually biodegrade, my recent reading of Weisman's The World Without Us reminded me that just because garbage has broken down into pieces that I can't see doesn't mean it isn't still polluting the biosphere. Weisman's book suggests that we're pretty much stuck with most plastics until something evolves to eat them. Perhaps we just need to introduce the diner to the dinner. A Waterloo, Ontario teen's 2008 science fair experiment found polystyrene's match in the team of the relatively uncommon Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas bacterias. At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks, rather than thousands of years."

Comment Re:Put your personal agenda on the shelf (Score 1) 149

by halligas (#28843901) Attached to: How To Help With a University ICT Strategy?

Granted it would be a mistake to elevate this above the task of actually getting the job done, but I see no shame in promoting OSS as a matter of policy provided there are no overriding practical considerations.

My point exactly. Anyone making recommendations with any sort of bias blinders on, whether is be (corruption) getting paid off by a corporate entity or personal agenda (being an OSS zealot), is inherently not to be trusted. Getting the job done is the key. In the best way, for the least money, and serving the public good. The OP suggested that he wanted to convince the powers that be that OSS was the way. The absense of any other reasoning suggests that he may have a personal agenda that is clouding his judgement. It is not and should not be OSS vs. Commercial software. It should be solution A vs solution B. With all the aspects of those solutions taken into consideration. If solution B is OSS, perhaps it gets a +1. But OSS is merely one of the factors, not all of them.

Comment Put your personal agenda on the shelf (Score 1) 149

by halligas (#28842599) Attached to: How To Help With a University ICT Strategy?
and recommend the best solution to the tasks at hand. You sound like you have a OSS agenda to push without regard at to what the issue that needs to be addressed is. I can tell you, as someone that has managed teams of engineers, that I will be convinced by a logical discussion of why software package A is preferred over software package B. If I hired a guy who had an agenda of pushing a particular software vendor over another due to personal agendas, I can tell you he wouldn't be around for long. Pushing OSS, just because it is OSS, is equally as pernicious as pushing BigSoftwareCoX's products. Right tool, right job. Of course $ is always a consideration, so OSS may have a good "Right Tool" argument, but you need to make the WHOLE argument.
Quickies

Submission + - New From Coca-Cola ... Fizzy Milk? (foxnews.com) 3

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Cows may not think it is the real thing, but Coca-Cola is preparing to launch fizzy milk on the world.

The drink contains skim milk mixed with sparkling water, flavored with fruit and sweetened with cane sugar.

Scientists have developed the drink at the firm's laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, ensuring it will not curdle in its 8 oz. aluminium bottle.

Going under the name Vio, Coca-Cola has begun test-marketing the carbonated drink at natural food stores and delis in New York. It sells for about $2.50 a bottle, no chilling required. One of Coke's copywriters claims it tastes "like a birthday party for a polar bear."

It comes in four "natural" flavors — peach mango, berry, citrus and tropical colada — and could even be marketed as a healthy nutritional drink. But it has 26 grams of sugar a bottle, on a par with other non-diet Coca-Cola products, and 1.5 grams of fat.

The drink is part of a wider Coke initiative called Project Life to develop milk-based products. If it is a success in the United States it could be launched globally.

FoxNews : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534917,00.html
Security

Submission + - DHS Pathogen Lab to be Built in 'Tornado Alley'

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate the $700 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas. A GAO report says that it is not "scientifically defensible" to conclude that lab can safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas. "They call it 'Tornado Alley' for a reason," says attorney Michael Guiffre. Such research has been conducted up to now on a remote island on the northern tip of Long Island, N.Y. "Drawing conclusions about relocating research with highly infectious exotic animal pathogens from questionable methodology could result in regrettable consequences," the GAO warned in its draft report. Critics of moving the operation to the mainland argue that a release could lead to widespread contamination that could kill livestock, devastate a farm economy and endanger humans. Along with the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, NBAF researchers plan to study African swine fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever and other viruses in the Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 and BSL-4 livestock laboratory capable of developing countermeasures for foreign animal diseases. GAO noted that the United Kingdom's outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, resulted from an accidental release at a biological research laboratory south of London and six million sheep, cattle and pigs had to be slaughtered to stop the contamination. "This really boils down to politics at its very worst and public officials who are more concerned about erecting some gleaming new research building than thinking about what's best for the general public," says Guiffre."

Comment The real question is.. (Score 1) 634

by halligas (#28838255) Attached to: Linus Calls Microsoft Hatred "a Disease"
why Linux advocates wouldn't wnat more people to use Linux? The driver MS has provided allows one to run Linux under MS's Virtualization software. 1) People use MS's Virtualization softaware. Perhaps not even by choice. (Business requirements) 2) They may want to install Linux in a VM. 3) Before they couldn't, now they can. Seems to me that MS, at least in this scenario, is making it EASIER for you to use your OS of choice.
Power

Submission + - Milan Announces World's Largest Solar Roof Array (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "Italy's Milano Fiera convention center has announced that it will soon be construction the world's largest rooftop solar array. The massive photovoltaic system will cover 2.9 million sq ft of the roof, and carry a peak capacity of 18 megawatts, totally trouncing the previous record set by Spain's General Motor's facility at 12 megawatts. Capital costs for the system have been estimated to be between $97-111 million, which will be paid by the developer in exchange for the rights to market and sell the electricity produced."
Biotech

Submission + - New Treatment Trains Immune System to Kill Cancer (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
Al
Al writes: "A vaccine in clinical trials at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine triggers the human immune system to attack a faulty protein that's often abundant in colorectal cancer tissue and precancerous tissue. If it works as hoped, it could remove the need for repeated colonoscopies in patients at high risk for developing colorectal cancer. The vaccine has already proven safe in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. It works by spurring the body to manufacture antibodies against the abnormal version of a mucous protein called MUC1. While moderate amounts of the protein are found in the lining of normal intestines, high levels of a defective form of MUC1 are present in about half of advanced adenomas and the majority of colorectal cancers."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Uses Human Computing Game to Tune Bing (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
Al
Al writes: "Microsoft researchers have come up with a novel way to fine-tune the algorithms behind the company's new search engine Bing: a game that harness human-computing power to improve the results. Called Page Hunt, the game (which unfortunately requires Silverlight to run) shows users a webpage and asks them to figure out a search query that should produce the page within the first 5 results. The idea is to better understand users' behavior and expectations and ultimately improve its search algorithms. Other human-computing projects have sought to digitize out-of-print text (reCAPTCHA) and image labeling (Google Image Labeler). Can Microsoft use a similar approach to gain the edge over its rival? Or does Google already have the edge with SearchWiki, which lets searchers re-rank its results."

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