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Space

Venus May Have Active Volcanoes 45

An anonymous reader writes: The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered hot lava flows on the surface of Venus, providing the best evidence yet that the planet may have active volcanoes. "[U]sing a near-infrared channel of the spacecraft's Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) to map thermal emission from the surface through a transparent spectral window in the planet's atmosphere, an international team of planetary scientists has spotted localized changes in surface brightness between images taken only a few days apart (abstract)." Venus is fairly similar to Earth in size and composition, which suggests it has an internal heat source. One of the biggest mysteries about Venus is how that heat escapes, and volcanic activity could be the answer.
Open Source

Open Source Hardware Pioneer Ladyada Interviews the New MakerBot CEO 38

ptorrone writes: Open source hardware pioneer and founder of Adafruit Limor "Ladyada" Fried sat down and interviewed the new CEO of MakerBot, Jonathan Jaglom. She asked some really tough questions had some suggestions for them, too, if they're going to turn things around. Discussed: Is there a desire for MakerBot to patch things up with the open source community? Jaglom wants to assure the 3D-printing community there are not any plans for filament DRM, and it was nice to hear him say "patents are not the way to win." Lastly, Fried suggested the open-sourcing of some specific elements of the MakerBot to get back to its open-source hardware roots.

Comment Re:Works particularly well in SA/Victoria (Score 2) 169

I was under the impression that SA does a huge amount of mining and makes it one of the most electricity hungry states in Australia, but I've just found this: http://www.bree.gov.au/publica... and a quick glance at the breakdown per-state shows total energy consumption not the highest, but if you weight it in proportion by population, WA (also lots of mining) and SA are the highest.

Comment Re:Cheap (Score 2) 458

Reposting a reader's comment to the blog entry you linked - it's a good rebuttal with some sharp points: "Reader June 28, 2010 at 1:19 PM I could not agree with you less. It is plainly evident that a attack on Wikileaks is well underway by many agencies, there has been quite a bit of news on this topic lately. To see you join into this fray is dismaying at best, and somewhat revealing on your own openness. Wikileaks does not have to fit your assumptions on what you think it should and should not publish. It makes no difference if they are secret rites or rituals or undisclosed government documents. This side-handed character attack is beneath you, or so I once thought. The allegations you make are based on conjecture â" example was your comment about not receiving funding from the Knight Foundation. There could be any number of reasons Wikileaks was not selected, but your conjecture was inappropriate, unnecessary and somewhat revealing of your own bias. And frankly, itâ(TM)s not really important or even relevant to the real issue here â" which is just as much about you as it is Wikileaks. What EXACTLY then is your own agenda is this debacle? Your own position is dead clear, in your own words: âoeIn fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.â That remark is the stupidest thing I think I have ever read here. Enemies? Since you chose this word yourself, what the hell does that make you? The rule of law is a sick joke â" which any honest person acknowledges, and the very reason sites like this exist. If the rule of law was in point of fact in effect and actually working, this very site would not need to be here. But here you are â" and here is Wikileaks, trying to overturn the corruption and secrecy (and violations of law). The rights of individuals you alleged is a straw argument altogether, which you should have immediately realize before uttering this nonsense. You are trying to cloak the issue while sounding self-righteous and ethical yourself, but all youâ(TM)ve managed to do here is point a finger for some bizarre and unknown reason. Maybe you arenâ(TM)t the open and honest source you allege yourself to be. Shame on you for this entire essay. Youâ(TM)ve only revealed yourself uncommitted to open information sharing, biased and quite possibly, not working for the good intention of the people you allege you serve. Which leaves all your readers with this question: Who exactly are you serving here?"

Comment Re:Topolsky (Score 1) 269

No, he had no counter-argument.

Child pornography is universally morally abhorrent. The definition of 'child' and the age of legal sexual consent differs from state to state to country, but the first worlders have it pretty much set at about 16+ years (Japan being a strange exception with some provinces at 13). Google does filter child pornography (http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/familysafety/faq/). Did I read you right? Did you say they didn't? But are they right to do this? Yes. No thought required, the automatic affirmative is the correct answer. It's not a slippery slope of censorship, but it is Google policing the flow of information and it is the minimum essential moral obligation a global corporation like Google can do in a world where there is no globally held morality.

Finding links to download the latest hollywood blockbuster on Google isn't even a far distant cry to filtering for child pornography - the two are not even comparable and the distinction is false.

Emanual should be mortally ashamed for even thinking policing child pornography and policing links to torrents equate.

Comment Re:BSD license was always more permissive, so grea (Score 1) 808

The GPL and it's rules cultivates your idea of 'freedom'. If there were no GPL and only the BSD free software as we know it would have stagnated and died before it ever reached critical mass. The GPL isn't going away and talking about it in the past tense won't hurry it on it's way either. Everything has it's place and the GPL was and will continue to be a necessary component in providing a cradle in which our 'freedom' to create, persists.

Comment Re:Not all religions are bad (Score 1) 910

Buddhism still has one kneeling and bowing before icons. Once upon a time it might have been a philosphy, now it's practically teeming with supernatural bit and pieces. There is a good book by Stephen Batchelor, an agnostic and former hardcore buddhist, called "Buddhism without Beliefs" where he re-presents buddhism stripped of a lot of it's historical cruft. It's a small book but it offers up some very practical knowledge.

Comment Booq BOA (Score 1) 282

The Booq Boa could be what you are looking for: Booq Boa Flow XL Digital SLR/17" Laptop Backpack I have a regular laptop bag made by Booq and it's perhaps the nicest thing I own. I was blown away by the quality of it when it arrived. I also paid through the nose for it, but it was worth every penny. Rushfaster, the site I just linked to, also have an excellent website and excellent customer service. Not a shill, just a regular, satisfied customer :) Hope it helps.

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