Comment Re:Spoiler Alert (Score 1) 196
I'm a fan of the wedding ring theory as well.
Comment Re:But does it work? (Score 1) 707
Nobody says you can't drink or drive
Unless you're Amish.
We're In Danger of Losing Our Memories 398
Hugh Pickens writes "The chief executive of the British Library, Lynne Brindley, says that our cultural heritage is at risk as the Internet evolves and technologies become obsolete, and that historians and citizens face a 'black hole' in the knowledge base of the 21st century unless urgent action is taken to preserve websites and other digital records. For example, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president last week, all traces of George W. Bush disappeared from the White House website. There were more than 150 websites relating to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney that vanished instantly at the end of the games and are now stored only by the National Library of Australia. 'If websites continue to disappear in the same way as those on President Bush and the Sydney Olympics... the memory of the nation disappears too,' says Brindley. The library plans to create a comprehensive archive of material from the 8M .uk domain websites, and also is organizing a collecting and archiving project for the London 2012 Olympics. 'The task of capturing our online intellectual heritage and preserving it for the long term falls, quite rightly, to the same libraries and archives that have over centuries systematically collected books, periodicals, newspapers, and recordings...'" Over the years we've discussed various aspects of this archiving problem.
Comment Re:"Propaganda" (Score 1) 1486
You neglected to mention that the IB program is optional. My high school had an IB program and I chose not to participate in it; as a result, I didn't have to perform any community service at all.
Please understand that the "mandatory" community service you're talking about wasn't mandatory at all.
Comment Re:Hahaha (Score 1) 457
Well, it's a safe bet as long as the wager isn't held in escrow. =P
Gravity Tractor Could Deflect Asteroids 372
Hugh Pickens writes "A new study at the Jet Propulsion Labs shows that weak gravitational pull of a "gravity tractor" could deflect an Earth-threatening asteroid if it was deployed when the asteroid was at least one orbit away from potential impact with Earth. First a spacecraft would be crashed directly into the asteroid, similar to the Deep Impact mission that impacted a comet in 2005. This would provide a big change of direction, but in a less controllable fashion that could push the path of the asteroid into a dangerous keyhole. But then a second spacecraft, the gravity tractor, would come into play, hovering about 150 meters away from the asteroid, to exert a gentle gravitational force, changing the asteroid's velocity by only 0.22 microns per second each day. Over a long enough time, that could steer it away from the keyhole. In the simulation, a simple control system kept the spacecraft in position, and a transponder on the asteroid helped monitor its position and thus determine its trajectory more precisely than would be possible otherwise. 'The gravity tractor is a wimp, but it's a precise wimp,' said astronaut Jack Schweickart. 'It can make very small, precise changes in orbit, and that's what you need to avoid a keyhole.'"
