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Submission + - Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by coop0030
coop0030 writes: President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft.

Submission + - Not Just Drones; Military Aircraft Susceptible Too (wired.com) 2

Submitted by azoblue
azoblue writes: Tapping into drones’ video feeds was just the start. The U.S. military’s primary system for bringing overhead surveillance down to soldiers and Marines on the ground is also vulnerable to electronic interception, multiple military sources tell Danger Room. That means militants have the ability to see through the eyes of all kinds of combat aircraft — from traditional fighters and bombers to unmanned spy planes. The problem is in the process of being addressed. But for now, an enormous security breach is even larger than previously thought.
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
NASA

Submission + - NASA: De-Orbit the ISS in 2016 1

Submitted by
NewbieV
NewbieV writes: "From a story in Monday's Washington Post:

The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, it often passes over North America and is visible from the ground when night has fallen but the station, up high, is still bathed in sunlight.
After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year.
And then?
"In the first quarter of 2016, we'll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft," says NASA's space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini.

"
Image

South Park Creators Given Signed Photo of Saddam Hussein 1297

Posted by samzenpus from the respect-my-authority dept.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, were given a very special gift by US marines: a signed photo of Saddam Hussein. During his captivity, the marines forced Saddam to repeatedly watch the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as the boyfriend of Satan. Stone said, "We're very proud of our signed Saddam picture and what it means. It's one of our biggest highlights."

Comment Re:First thing I want to get data on (Score 1) 111

by NewbieV (#27471473) Attached to: Data.gov To Launch In May

Sorry, but the DHHL argument is a non-starter.

The DHHL program is a land lease program that native Hawaiian Islanders may participate in.

No one is trying to make the argument that Barack Obama is from native Hawaiian blood - they're just trying to make the correct argument that he was born in Hawaii.

The certificate called the Certification of Live Birth specifies a date, time and location of birth and provides prima facie evidence that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and therefore qualifies as a natural born citizen who is eligible to hold the office of President.
Image

Science Unlocks The Mystery Of Belly Button Lint 161

Posted by samzenpus from the extreme-navel-gazing dept.
After three years of research, including examining 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button, Georg Steinhauser has discovered a type of body hair that traps stray pieces of lint and draws them into the navel. Dr Steinhauser's observations showed that "small pieces of fluff first form in the hair and then end up in the navel at the end of the day." Chemical analysis revealed the pieces of fluff were not just made up of cotton from clothing. Wrapped up in the lint were also flecks of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust. Unfortunately, further study has failed to yield a hair or fiber that would give Dr. Steinhauser the last three years of his life back.

Comment Re:Ignoring the Constitution is easy (Score 1) 1088

by NewbieV (#26829169) Attached to: Iowa Seeks To Remove Electoral College

There's a subtle flaw in your logic, mi. Article I Section 10 refers to the several States, and not to the Federal Government:

"No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."

The First Bank of the United States was chartered shortly afterwards, which started the process of tying thirteen separate colonial economies into a single national economy.

As far as gold-backed currency vs. fiat currency, this article explains the pros and cons pretty easily. In general, fiat money allows the economy to respond to the market more flexibly than the gold standard does.
Classic Games (Games)

History of the Pinball Construction Set 32

Posted by Soulskill from the games-two-point-oh-started-in-the-eighties dept.
Matt Barton writes "I thought you all might enjoy our article on the history of Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set, a key progenitor to LittleBigPlanet and other games that enable users to generate their own shareable content. The article is heavily illustrated and covers the game's precedents as well as those it influenced (Bard's Tale Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, etc.) Budge said, 'I was exposed to GUIs at Apple, and I had the pinball simulation from Raster Blaster. I saw that it would be a small step to do a construction set. This was the kind of program I liked, since there was no game to write. But it was a lot of work, since I had to implement file saving, a mini sound editor and a mini paint program.'"
Sci-Fi

Ricardo Montalban Dead At 88 280

Posted by samzenpus from the welcome-to-fantasy-island dept.
DesScorp writes "Ricardo Montalban, immortalized as Khan in the Star Trek franchise, is dead at age 88, passing at his Los Angeles home. Montalban had a long and successful career on television and film. The voice of Rich Corinthian Leather is silenced, but we still have the memories."
Privacy

Submission + - MPAA University 'Toolkit' Raises Privacy Concerns

Submitted by
NewbieV
NewbieV writes: "On the heels of the MPAA's efforts to eliminate peer-to-peer file sharing in colleges and universities, The Washington Post is reporting on a new development:

The Motion Picture of Association of America is urging some of the nation's largest universities to deploy custom software designed to pinpoint students who may be using the schools' networks to illegally download pirated movies. A closer look at the MPAA's software, however, raises some serious privacy and security concerns for both the entertainment industry and the schools that choose to deploy the technology.
The University Toolkit (website), also known as peerwatch, uses xubuntu, Snort, ntop and Apache to gather data and phone home. More from the article:

Steve Worona, director of policy and networking programs at EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association that promotes the use of information technology in higher learning, said he'd like to think that "no university network administrator in their right mind would install this toolkit on their networks." But he said some campus IT personnel may fail to dig too deeply into what the device actually does before installing it.
"

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