Comment Re:No One Knows Why (Score 1) 461
I'm glad my Treasury Notes don't bounce up and down like that, although the ways things are going that may be coming.
Comment Commercial Radio Studios (Score 3, Insightful) 85
Are typically RF shielded as well. There is nothing new, exciting, or exotic about a Faraday cage. Why is this article even here?
Comment Where are the heads-up displays? (Score 2) 112
My '03 Pontiac has a heads-up display that shows my speed, and radio station briefly when I change stations. I went looking at new cars last year and didn't find a lot of models with the heads-up display. It's a great idea, and the technology has been available for at least 8 years, why isn't it as common as cruise control and interval wipers?
Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352
A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!
Spectrum of Light Captured From Distant World 32
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos:
"Astronomers have made the first direct capture of a spectrum of light from a planet outside the Solar System and are deciphering its composition. The light was snared from a giant planet that orbits a bright young star called HR 8799 about 130 light-years from Earth, said the European Southern Observatory (ESO). ... The find is important, because hidden within a light spectrum are clues about the relative amounts of different elements in the planet's atmosphere. 'The features observed in the spectrum are not compatible with current theoretical models,' said co-author Wolfgang Brandner. 'We need to take into account a more detailed description of the atmospheric dust clouds, or accept that the atmosphere has a different chemical composition from that previously assumed.' The result represents a milestone in the search for life elsewhere in the universe, said the ESO. Until now, astronomers have been able to get only an indirect light sample from an exoplanet, as worlds beyond our Solar System are called. They do this by measuring the spectrum of a star twice — while an orbiting exoplanet passes near to the front of it, and again while the planet is directly behind it. The planet's spectrum is thus calculated by subtracting one light sample from another."
Ocean-Crossing Dragonflies Discovered 95
grrlscientist writes "While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the Globe Skimmer, Pantala flavescens, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world."
Comment The Taxman (Score 5, Insightful) 625
Revenue agencies scare me the most. Unlike police agencies who are (supposed to be) bound by principals like 'probable cause' and 'reasonable suspicion', the IRS and other taxing authorities can generally seize your assets with nothing more than a hint of impropriety, and then make you prove that they are wrong in order to get your property back. After all, it took the IRS to finally get Capone, and I don't know very many people who ever tangled with a taxing authority that came out ahead on the deal.
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Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing. -- E. Dijkstra
