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NASA

The Sun Unleashes Coronal Mass Ejection At Earth 220

Posted by Soulskill from the return-fire dept.
astroengine writes "Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."

Comment Re:Why then (Score 2, Insightful) 164

by roseblood (#32014154) Attached to: Firefox Arrives On Android
<i>Why then would I want to replace my webkit browser with this? I understand this is an Alpha and that bug might be fixed, but again, why would I want to use this over my webkit based browser?</i>

Because some of us view OSS as more than just free software. Some of us want to help debug/test it and add to the community. Some are out for more than just a free-ride (although there's nothing wrong with a free-ride when it's offered.)

Comment Re:For an Interesting Exercise in Head Asplosion (Score 1) 158

by roseblood (#31691042) Attached to: Facebook Kills Dataset of Crawled Public Profiles

Since this is publicly available data and all the guy did was send an automated web browner to go download it does this mean Facebook has threatened him with a lawsuit for doing what every visitor to facebook does already? Granted, he likely did it much faster than any other individual has done. It's just wonky.
Canada

Dead Pigs Used To Investigate Ocean's "Dead Zones" 106

Posted by samzenpus from the big-ocean-long-pig dept.
timothy writes "As places to study what happens to corpses, the Atlantic Ocean is both much larger and much more specialized than the famous 'body farm' in Knoxville, TN. But for all kinds of good reasons, sending human bodies into Davy Jones' locker just to see where they float and how they bloat is unpopular. Pigs don't pay taxes, and more importantly, they don't vote. So Canadian scientists have taken to using them as human-body proxies, to study what happens when creatures of similar size and hairlessness (aka, us) end up 86ed and in the drink."
Crime

What You Get When You Buy a $40 iPhone In a Bar 211

Posted by timothy from the cheap-thrills dept.
Barence writes "How good — or bad — are fake iPhones? PC Pro blogger Steve Cassidy has a friend who paid £25 ($40) for an 'iPhone' in a bar, and he's got the photos and full lowdown of what's inside this not-so smartphone. The phone looks convincing enough from the outside, with a genuine-looking backplate, but things start to go wrong when you switch it on. What's a "Java" and "WLAN" App button doing on the screen? And how about that Internet Explorer icon? It's like you're handling an artefact from an alternate history, dropped in via a spacetime wormhole. It has dual SIM handling, too, and came with a bizarre auxiliary battery festooned with warnings about not pressing a button mounted on the front of the top-up device."

Comment Re:Dark Tan? (Score 1) 964

by roseblood (#29205737) Attached to: Microsoft Poland Photoshops Black Guy To White One

That's not necessarily true. In Central Europe, nationalism is alive and well (actually increasing due to the perceived cultural threat from the EU), and a picture with three different skin colors for three people will not be interpreted as affirmative action, but unwanted external cultural influence.

Particularly the black guy, as you don't expect to see black people every day.

In Hungary, at least, the original picture would cause outrage from the far-right and a measurable decrease in sales.

So, you're saying the Polish are racists and MS is just bowing to market forces?

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