To me, the real story is that the people behind this botnet are getting extradited and, (knock wood), will do jail time in the US. This news made my day. I know this is slashdot, but malware is not going to be fought through any technical solution. Until this kind of activity carries personal risk, the bad guys are going to win.

Nice to actually feel good about my government, at least for a few minutes.

I don't really have an opinion on if we'd be safer with open carry laws or under current laws. Regardless, laws on the books should be enforced--as long as concealed firearms are illegal, it strikes me as fair to use technology to enforce that. My neighborhood (which is not at all an inner city shithole) has had a minor spate of gun crimes recently, including one fairly horrific home invasion followed by kidnapping and forced ATM withdrawals, so this is about more than thugs killing each other.

Maybe it's because I live in Baltimore and my chance of getting murdered is not too much lower my chance of getting cancer, I'd say forget about scanning for tumors. If they invent something that lets cop cars scan for concealed firearms while they drive down the street, that's at least as much a public health benefit as improved cancer screening. Or does the 2nd amendment mean we have to pretend that getting shot isn't bad for your health? And, just to anticipate to the inevitable psuedo-constitutional argument, what part of "well regulated militia" applies to people with criminal records walking around with unregistered concealed firearms?

I'll go against the grain and say this might be a good thing. Isn't being a teenager about making stupid mistakes and suffering painful lessons while still in a somewhat protected environment? Public humiliation at the hands of a bitter ex will teach you more about online security (and relationships in general) than a hundred lectures.

Our, you know, OP could RTFM: The retrieval of this data has been authorized by the vehicle's owner, or other legal authority such as a subpoena or search warrant...

RTFA (A=abstract, since the article is behind a paywall)...the abstract doesn't say that gas giants formed, then were stripped. It suggests the protoplanatary disk breaks up into clumps of gas and dust, and that the clumps that come too close to the star are stripped of their gas. I think all this happens long before the dust clouds condense into planets. At least from the abstract, all they seem to be saying is that the same original dust clouds could become rocky planets or gas giants, depending on if they're disrupted or not.

From the article:

Multiple individual pre-humans did evolve into humans, just not independently. Actually, saying that any particular individual evolved is a misnomer--more accurate to say that each of us has multiple pre-humans in our ancestry. The change most likely happened in a small-ish, somewhat isolated population over many generations. (Sort of related--much teaching about evolution overemphasizes the importance of random mutations. Selective concentration of already existing genetic variation is usually the more important mechanism. Once you realize that, it becomes easier to see how evolution happens to populations, not individuals.) Also, take a look at this, especially the common fallacies section.

Amen, brother, would mod you up if I had the points. Seems like three scientists, one affiliated with NASA, should at least nod in the general direction of physics when writing something like this. Does Acta Astronautica claim to be peer reviewed? If not, I guess this is just a sort of speculative quasi-SF opinion piece, and we can cut them some slack.

Looks like the trans-pacific cables are newer than the trans-atlantic, might just be an artifact of whatever the technology was at the time the cables were installed.

Does look like they lost a few...if they started stacked 6 high, the bottom one on the left got lost. And look at the ones at the bottom right, they just got smushed like empty beer cans. Love the idea of using this as a demotivation poster.

The data doesn't really support your claim. Between 1920 and 2000, the rate of fatal automobile accidents per vehicle-mile decreased by a factor of about 17. No idea if that's better technology, drunk driving laws, better educated drivers, better roads or whatever, but the idea that transportation safety can't be influenced just doesn't hold up.

Despite libertarians wishes, policy actually does matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States

Hmmm...just brainstorming, but shouldn't it be pretty cheap to put a GPS and water-activated beacon in each container? I bet the GPS is already there in a lot of cases, I can see that paying for itself in logistics management once the thing's on a train or truck. Then the insurance or salvage companies could operate smaller oceangoing cranes to scoop them up. Anyone have a guess what the average value of the contents of a container is? Since insurance companies and/or shippers are paying for all these losses, doesn't seem like it would have to be much to maybe worth somethign like this. Then again, maybe the cargo's worthless after a dip in the ocean. http://www.ttclub.com/TTCLUB/PubArc.nsf/D5E4C4B3A805731980256792004C617E/02CE747115C182F780256A6500596BF5?OpenDocument

Here's a pic of a container ship after going through rough seas: http://i.imgur.com/4ynah.jpg. I'm stunned that those containers are still on board. Looks like they're chained down, but even metal breaks eventually

I think the $0.10 bullet made the $5 wrench unworkable.

I think you're off by a factor of 2: dt = dx / (average V). Since it goes from 0 to 352 ft/s, v-bar is 176 ft/s, and dt is 75/44 sec.