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Submission + - Climate crisis has shifted the Earth's axis (theguardian.com) 1

DickHodgman writes: Melting ice and human groundwater use has shifted the earth's axis by 4 meters since the 1990s, says Damian Carrington in The Guardian.
"The massive melting of glaciers as a result of global heating has caused marked shifts in the Earth’s axis of rotation since the 1990s, research has shown. It demonstrates the profound impact humans are having on the planet, scientists said."

Comment Sony PCG-41412L (Score 1) 300

I've owned a Sony Viao S Series PCG-41412L VPCSE13FX laptop since February. It has a numeric keyboard and a 15.5 in., 1920x1080 screen, 4 GB DDR3, 640 GB storage, Intel core i5 2430M processor, weighs 4.4 lbs. It's 1 in thick. I've had no problems with the keyboard; the keys are illuminated and have a nice feel. It's the best laptop I've owned, so far. Google VPCSE13FX to find out more.

Space

Astronomers Discover the Coolest Known Sub-Stellar Body 60

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports that using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar system. Too small to be stars and with insufficient mass to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, 'brown dwarfs' have masses smaller than stars but larger than gas giant planets like Jupiter, with an upper limit in between 75 and 80 Jupiter masses. 'This looks like the fourth time in three years that the UKIRT has made a record breaking discovery of the coolest known brown dwarf, with an estimated temperature not far above 200 degrees Celsius,' says Dr. Philip Lucas at the University of Hertfordshire. Due to their low temperature these objects are very faint in visible light, and are detected by their glow at infrared wavelengths. The object known as SDSS1416+13B is in a wide orbit around a somewhat brighter and warmer brown dwarf, SDSS1416+13A, and the pair is located between 15 and 50 light years from the solar system, which is quite close in astronomical terms."

Comment TMDA Catches All My Spam (Score 1) 87

TMDA catches all my spam. I does not examine content. It sends a request for response to all unknown senders. Since the vast majority of spam has forged return addresses, no responses are sent back and the mail stays in the TMDA pending queue until it expires. Humans, on the other hand, reply, and their mail is removed from the pending queue and gets through. When I set up TMDA, I populated the whitelist with all the email addresses of my correspondents and lists.

Around 75% (150/200 daily) of my email is spam. After a month my false positive rate was around 0.5% (1/200) and most of those were mass mailed offers I would not miss. My false negative rate is around 0.02% (1/6000); every month or so a spam message is validated; I just move the address from validated to blocked so I'll never see it again.

I never have to see the 150 spam messages that come each day. I check the pending queue only when a business that sends email with a non-responding return address is sending me a message, like an online order confirmation.

The user can generate a keyword address when signing up for a list; messages from this address are allowed through without whitelisting. If later compromised; that address can be put on the revoked list.

I use tmda.cgi for configuration.

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