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Comment This is truly not a big deal (Score 2) 375

by I_am_Syrinx (#45362879) Attached to: Third Tesla Fire Means Feds To Begin Review
Each of these accidents have defined causes, and the resulting fires are not unreasonable based on the cause. Puncturing a battery with tons of force might just cause a fire. These are not spontaneously combusting. No one was hurt, even the guy that crashed in Mexico. Investigate away, but there really is nothing to see here. The upside is that I can afford more stock now.

Comment It has only been 2 years... (Score 5, Informative) 319

by I_am_Syrinx (#43919323) Attached to: Japan's Radiation Disaster Toll: None Dead, None Sick
In a 2004 study on this very subject, it was determined that the mean latency period for thyroid cancer to appear after radiation exposure was over 30 years. Some appear sooner, of course, but many appeared much later than that. What is the point of this report? At best, the proclamation of not causing any noticeable immediate harm is premature. But saying that the exposure is "unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future" borders on irresponsible, and seems driven by an agenda.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1356259/
Politics

Submission + - Ted Stevens and Sean O'Keefe in plane crash

Submitted by necro81
necro81 writes: The NY Times is reporting that former Senator Ted Stevens was aboard a small plane with eight others that crashed in remote southwest Alaska Monday night. Reuters is reporting that he died, along with at least four others. Meanwhile, the North American CEOof aerospace firm EADS and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe was was also reported in the crash. Rescue crews from the Alaska Air National Guard reached the site about ten hours after the initial crash.

Submission + - US Senate Passes 'Libel Tourism' Bill

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "AFP reports that the US Senate has passed a bill that prevents US federal courts from recognizing or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation that is inconsistent with the first amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, shielding US journalists, authors, and publishers from "libel tourists" who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling. "While we cannot legislate changes to foreign law that are chilling protected speech in our country, we can ensure that our courts do not become a tool to uphold foreign libel judgments that undermine American First Amendment or due process rights," says Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy adding that libel judgments in foreign courts were "undermining" freedom of speech and of the press and "chilling" open debate in the United States. Backers of the bill have cited England, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore as places where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers and publishers. The popular legislation headed to the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it. "This bill is a needed first step to ensure that weak free-speech protections and abusive legal practices in foreign countries do not prevent Americans from fully exercising their constitutional right to speak and debate freely," says Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on Leahy's committee."
Microsoft

Submission + - MechWarrior 4 free release 'held up' by Microsoft (joystiq.com)

Submitted by Vamman
Vamman writes: Way back in July 2009, Smith & Tinker announced that it was going to authorize MekTek to release MechWarrior 4 and all its expansions for free "soon" — likely to drum up interest for the upcoming MechWarrior reboot. After nearly a year, the game remains unreleased. The reason for the delay, according to MekTek, lies with Microsoft. The group claims that the project is "held up at Microsoft" and it's currently "unknown" when the release will receive its "final go ahead."

The studio adds the unfortunate revelation that it's now in dire financial straights thanks to the delay. "Due to the demands placed upon us by industry lawyers to release the Mechwarrior 4 Free release we were forced to insure our Studio at a premium rate to meet the Microsoft standard," reads the announcement, adding that group's server fund has "run dry" and is currently being paid directly by staff. MekTek is asking for donations from players that download its MekPak 3.1 expansion. According to the announcement, MekTek would be able to keep the servers running for an entire year if all those who downloaded the expansion were to donate $5. MekTek is saying thank you for support from another company caught up in this mess Virtual World Entertainment, the company which owns and operates the Tesla Cockpits simulators also running Mechwarrior.

MekTek has released to their community a major update for their existing community expansion MekPak 3.1. Check em' out! They are also promising their new expansion — MekPak 4 in a few weeks as open beta!
NASA

Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video 266

Posted by Soulskill from the new-perspective-on-an-old-tragedy dept.
longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."

Comment As far as "breaking the news"... (Score 4, Informative) 256

by I_am_Syrinx (#28508851) Attached to: Google Mistook Jackson Searches For Net Attack
"The Los Angeles Times web site also crashed soon after it broke the news of Jackson's death."

It was actually TMZ.com that "broke" the news, many minutes before anyone else. The other news sites waited until someone they considered "legitimate" reported it before accepting it as fact. I guess they were trying to avoid a "Dewey defeats Truman" moment...
Music

Submission + - Is Shawn Fanning's Snocap melting? 1

Submitted by newtley
newtley writes: Rumors are swirling about the pending demise of Napster creator Shawn Fanning's Snocap, says Michael Robertson, former MP3.com CEO who's now CEO of MP3tunes and founder and chairman of Linspire. "Articles mention a 'sale', but more likely it will be a shuttering and quiet bankruptcy," he believes. "Snocap represents a commonplace occurrence in the music business — an unprofitable retailer which withers and eventually dies."
Software

Submission + - DJB Releases All Source to Public Domain (google.com) 3

Submitted by
A Sage Developer
A Sage Developer writes: "During a recent conference, Sage Days 6, Dan Bernstein (who has recently come under attack for his licensing policy) was among the invited speakers. During a panel discussion on the future of open source mathematics software, Bernstein declared that all of his past and future code would be released to the public domain (video here). This includes qmail, primegen, and a number of other projects. Given the headache that incompatibility between GPLv3 and GPLv2 is causing developers, will we see more of this?"

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