Note that the study is freely available at link from "Polution Free Cities" blog

For those who do not have the time to read this quite convincing 31 page paper, here is one quote from the introduction confirming that credible sources cite second hand smoke as a risk factor for lung cancer:

Second hand smoke (SHS) is also an established cause of both lung cancer and cardiovascular disease (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2004, 2006, 2010).

Right now, the focus seems to be on the UAV market. If the technology is ever used for manned flight, this will not be for a long time. Whether the technology is truly a major advance for UAVs in constrained spaces (the current objective) we shall need to wait and see. From the company website:

The current status of D-DALUS D-DALUS is currently in prototype stage. Over recent weeks IAT21 have conducted extensive constrained flight tests in a specially prepared laboratory near Salzburg, including the transition from vertical to forward flight, and are now ready to move to an open test range for free flight tests. In trials to date D-DALUS has met the performance criteria placed upon it and appears to be scalable, becoming more efficient and less complex as it increases in size. It will therefore be ideally suited for applications that range from maritime search and rescue, through the carriage of freight, to operating alongside and within buildings during fires or, for example, nuclear accidents.

If everybody posting on YouTube is to be considered a candidate for going crazy with guns, and suspended, then schools are going to become a lot emptier.

Dilbert's take on Internet logic

The "hack" proved that databases with huge amounts of sensitive data (not just users, passwords, and personal private information by the way) were easily accessible via an SQL injection attack. In theory, they could have downloaded the lot, but it would have taken a huge amount of time and resources to do so using remote SQL injection. Their objectives were not criminal use of the data, but to embarrass Sony, and probably massage their own egos. They did not need everything to do that. Be thankful that this group launched the attack, and hope they did so before a criminal enterprise grabbed all the data. The damage from exposing this small sample, especially with the content available to assist in mitigation, will probably be pretty limited. That would not be true if the mafia silently acquired the data, and used it before the data breach came to light.

I really like the idea of an open source, community content, translation system. Maybe, at some point in the future, Apertium might develop to the point it can be compared with Google Translate. Right now, it is no near.

Google supports nearly 60 languages, including all the most important languages worldwide. It can usually automatically identify the input language and provide understandable translations in any of the 58 supported languages. Apertium supports a handful of European languages, and cannot even support translation of some permutations of the languages it does include.

Apertium needs a huge group of contributors, similar to that enjoyed by Wikipedia, as well as linguists and engineers from around the world. Given that, maybe the need for proprietary translators can be assigned to history. Today, they are essential.

"Verizon will be eliminating its unlimited smartphone data plan this summer. No longer will one be able to pay $30 a month to have unlimited data. This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to pay more for mobile data.'"

This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to find a better phone vendor'.

First, I accept that use of nuclear power will need to continue. That said, to believe the Fukishima nuclear accident is anything short of disastrous shows a high level of ignorance. This is an area with quite high population densities where

• expert opinion is already saying that a 10km radius around the plants will be uninhabitable for a generation or more;
• dangerous levels of radiation, necessitating evacuations, have already been detected over 40km from the plants;
• several people have already been hospitalized for treatment of very high radiation exposure;
• three huge explosions, causing destruction of the concrete containment buildings, cooling systems and monitoring equipment (as well, in at least one case, damage to the steel containment vessel) have already occurred;
• major releases of highly radioactive water into the seas near the plants have already occurred;
• the safety of food supplies in the area has already been jeopardized.

Meanwhile, attempts to stabilize the situation and end the emergency continue. There remains the possibility that the worst is not yet over.

I think it is too early to draw full conclusions, but I think we should already demand

• no new boiling water reactors should be built near major population centres;
• nuclear fuels allowed in nuclear reactors should be limited to those with short half lives (ie no plutonium as in Fukishima 3) until there is unanimous agreement among nuclear engineers that containment is guaranteed under even the most extreme circumstances.

... an explanation that I am willing to accept for why I appear to be overweight. Obviously, I am just living in an area where the gravitational pull is unusually strong. The same reason explains my low level of activity. More effort is needed to move, so I am justified in moving less.

I love science!

40 year old badly designed reactors survived the worst earthquake and tsunami in living memory ... not much of a story there

This may or may not turn out to be substantially correct. Frankly, I doubt we shall be able to state this with any confidence for quite a while. Further, I do think that there are much safer (but less economic) designs than boiling water reactors, but I have yet to be convinced that modern boiling water designs are a big advance on the older designs. The problem still seems to be that accidents are potentially very difficult to contain. Remember that the initial events in Japan were not worst case. Three of the six reactors were in shut down mode in advance of the earthquake and the other three shut down correctly before the tsunami. The situation would have been quickly critical if the reactors could not be shut down before major damage occurred (surely feasible if unlikely).

Well, technically, I think it could be done. I created a Windows image at one point without IE and added IE7 back as a VMware ThinApp package. Even if IE invoked higher priority programs, these were also sandboxed (assuming no bugs in ThinApp).

I find it curious that Linux on the desktop should be so well accepted in some markets (especially Latin America) and resisted so vigorously in others. Anyway, this is sad news, whatever the reasons.

Read this and then post it prominently on a popular Australian website.

SCO had a really weak case from the beginning. However, in fairness, I must point out that their legal representation over the last couple of years has been mostly excellent. Stuart Singer is a highly skilled lawyer in the prime of his career. In the jury trial, Judge Stewart commented that the lawyering was some of the best he had ever seen. If you look back at the 10th circuit hearing of the appeal of Judge Kimball's original decisions, you will see that (against the odds) Singer outargued Novell's lawyers to win most of the critical points. I have no idea why BSF is fighting this so hard. (Perhaps, a major firm in Redmond is making it worth their while?) Whatever the reason, they are playing a weak hand for all it is worth.

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you tried to read any of those old floppies? Any of mine with data I care about were transferred to harddisk (and my regular backups) long ago. It really does not take long except for the ones with read errors (couple of minutes a floppy). I can remember, years ago, many occasions when data could not be read from old floppies. I also have a customer who ended up with real problems recently. They have an old accounting program that will not run some operations without a readable copy protected floppy. Yes, the floppy became unreadable.

Well, the United Nations charter was signed on June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, but not in the Golden Gate Park (no idea of the exact time it was signed). I guess this is the 65th anniversary of a significant event. Good excuse for a celebration. What are the laws surrounding drinking alcohol in the Golden Gate Park?