Touché

As an Space Program advocate, I certainly hope they find them-- the public needs to trust NASA again; knowing that NASA can keep track of its mission assets would be the very basic start.

Whoever found the tapes (if they really were found) should not feel disappointed about not breaking the news him or herself. It is a shame they were lost in the first place, and finding them is nothing to feel proud about. I cannot imagine loosing my baby in the supermarket and then feeling like a real smart, witty person for finding her two years later.

I don't doubt it is, but please check this site where they explain reverse engineering further: http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi

Companies comercializing GPS devices are in the business of making money. I am inclined to believe you would run into proprietary and legal stuff should you plan to hack or reverse-engineer the device. Maybe some provide an API?

... run Linux?

Anybody familiar with the efficiency of this process? What fraction of the wattage is lost during transfer?

I mean to say "an institution which manages highly confidential information".

Good point, though.

baby

We should avoid the "butterfly effects" of the proposed solutions. We don't know what will happen if we just dump shit in the ocean, it might be that the remedy is worse than the disease.

For the plant argument, I agree we cannot just plant whatever ficus we happen to like. However, planting trees of the same species we've cut in the same places where we've cut them would be a start-- they were already there, and nothing bad happened to us.

... nobody knows you are a Montana worker.

Why are they concerned about who you've been poking? And what if they are members of, say, a porn site? Do they really expect them to write "I'm a member of turtlescopulating.com"? Nobody will know that Joe Smith is "longandwild87".

I say workers should just create a Gmail account called FuckYouBozemanLaw@gmail.com and start emailing their representatives.

at least conceptually.

The solution? Plant trees and cut carbon emissions by a fraction such that old trees + new trees absorb and stabilize carbon levels. The problem? Major polluters are not taking bold steps; they are like the United Nations-- speak a lot, and hope speeches will accomplish something.

Why are we looking for esoteric ways to "heal the planet"? We have the answer, it is just a matter of someone with a lot of balls standing up and saying "listen, fuckers, we are going to cap the carbon emissions and every human family will plant a tree. If we don't do it we will be fucked, and I will not fucking allow that to fucking happen" (notice than my stereotype of "person with a lot of balls" uses the word "fuck" a lot).

I fail to see how the comment punishes smart people, my simple point was that it is important to distinguish scientific fact from plausible speculation.
Overall public may be confused about all things you mention, and even more. However, this does not mean that we should confuse them even more or, worse, not give a shit about it because, if I recall correctly, the Space Program is funded by taxpayers in most countries.
Also, educating the public and helping them distinguish reality from well-wishes is a good thing. We could all do better if society as a whole was more critical and not as innocent.
Nothing wrong with dreaming, as long as we can distinguish when we are awake.

Drupal is a Content Management System and Django is a Web Framework. I recommend their corresponding Wikipedia articles to study the differences.

I will try to briefly explain the differences as I see them.

When you fire-up Drupal, you can start immediately adding stories and pages using the Administrative Page; it assumes that your website will likely need those content types. If you want to add different content types (like a blog entry, an rss feed, a Google Map, etc) then you can plug-in contributed modules. Your Website is thus created and expanded.

With Django you design three different things: Models, Views, and Controllers. The Model contains the data structures which you design from the ground-up, like a blog entry which will have a date, a title, and it's content. The View contains the template to render the Model, and the Controller links the first two. Django autmatically creates the Administrative page where you can add/edit/delete the data structures you designed; it also comes with batteries included: data types for users and groups; login engine; protection against SQL injections and cross-server attacks, etc.

I seriously recommend that you give it a shot to the Django tutorial (you will create a poll; it will take you about an hour, installation included). It is very exciting to design the data structures and the templates (Django has a very simple but extremely powerful template language). Django is written and manipulated using Python.

Like I said, no need to write your own blog using Django (not even Drupal, for that matter) but, if you want to fully grasp the logic of your site, I seriously advice against the overhead necessarily introduced by Drupal.

If you happen to like Django, I recommend the book "Django 1.0 Website Development" (packtub.com). You can get the online PDF version for about 27 US Dollars. The book covers the design and implementation of a bookmark sharing website - very helpful indeed.

Good luck in your projects.

The entry should clarify that it is the largest infrared telescope ever launched. Actually, the adjective large should not be used. Space is not porn. To most people.

It would also be very helpful for the public to know how will Herschel and Hubble complement each-other. Otherwise, the general public may believe that humanity has launched two different things to accomplish the same task.