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Video How Much Stuff Can Timothy Jam Into His New Hoodie's Pockets? (Video) 183

Posted by Roblimo from the someday-we'll-all-carry-more-than-our-body-weight-in-our-jackets dept.
Timothy Lord is exactly the kind of person for whom the SCOTTEVEST Ultimate Hoodie Microfleece was designed; He's on the go all the time, needs to travel light, and wants to carry lots of stuff on his person to avoid checking luggage when he's flying. Yes, we know; before long half the people waiting to board airliners will be bulked out to double their normal width. Meanwhile, Timothy managed to jam an amazing amount of stuff into his new hoodie. Or jacket, as he prefers to call it.

Comment No, because science != sci-fi/fantasy (Score 3, Insightful) 298

by delibes (#34692810) Attached to: Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists?
Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Men ... these are not science movies, they're sci-fi and fantasy. They show you awesome special effects, lots of action, and funny looking aliens/mutants. They lack a "Hero" role in these movies where the character uses, say, the laws of thermodynamics or Newton's laws of motion to save the day. In fact "Evil Science Co Inc." is often the bad evil corporation trying to exploit nature to make a profit (Aliens, Avatar ... Frankenstein?).

Good *science* movies are much harder to find. There's some vaguely interesting scientific issues raised in films like 2001 - where did life come from and what would extra-terrastrial intelligent life be like? Solaris perhaps? And film's like Lorenzo's Oil show science in a positive role. I did like Apollo 13 though for showing the engineers doing the almost impossible to save the astronauts. Can anyone help me make a list of others?

Comment Agile (Score 3, Interesting) 200

by delibes (#34354352) Attached to: What Software Specification Tools Do You Use?
7" x 5" index cards, a marker pen, and lots of conversations between the people who'll really create the software and the people who'll really use it. Everyone in between can be ignored. All that other stuff you think is important... it's ceremony and job creation. Also, read the end of The Dilbert Principle - if you're one level removed from your company's core business (creating a policy and writing code rather that writing code, talking about customers rather than talking to customers, quality teams, process teams etc etc), then it's not worth doing.
Social Networks

Twitter Considered Harmful To Swine-Flu Panic 383

Posted by kdawson from the you-have-the-flu-swine dept.
judgecorp writes "Twitter is being criticized for spreading panic about swine flu. This is not just knee-jerk Luddism 2.0: it's argued that Twitter's structure encourages ill-informed repetition, with little room for context, while older Web media use their power for good — for instance Google's Flu Trends page (which we discussed last winter), and the introduction of a Google swine flu map." On a related note, reader NewtonsLaw suggests that it might be a good idea, epidemiologically speaking, to catch the flu now vs. later.

Comment Re:Quantum Mechanics (Score 1) 137

by delibes (#27738141) Attached to: Quantum Mechanics Involved In Photosynthesis

Is it just me or is everything now being explained through Quantum Mechanics? Don't understand why people make irrational decisions? Quantum Mechanics may be at work. Don't understand how photosynthesis happens? Quantum Mechanics may be at work. Don't understand contradictions in quantum mechanics? Well, that is because sub-atomic paticles may have free will? Can't we just credit God or something?

Is it just me or is everything now being explained through "science"?

Don't understand why the Sun rises every morning?
Science may be at work.

Don't understand why water falls from the sky sometimes?
Science may be at work.

Don't understand contradictions in scripture?
Well, that's because the mere human authors may have free will.

Can't we just credit nature with being the way it is or something?

(Sorry, might be snarky but I hope you see the equally valid and often more testable point?)
Space

Probe Captures Avalanche on Mars 69

Posted by Zonk from the not-a-recommended-vacation-spot dept.
mdekato writes "MSNBC reports that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an avalanche on Mars' surface as it happened. Very good still images show what must have been an awesome sight. 'The full image reveals features as small as a desk in a strip of terrain 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) wide and more than 10 times that long, at 84 degrees north latitude. Reddish layers known to be rich in water ice make up the face of a steep slope more than 2,300 feet (700 meters) tall, running the length of the image. Mars' north pole is covered by a cap of ice, and it even snows there. The scientists suspect that more ice than dust probably makes up the material that fell from the upper portion of the scarp.'"
Space

DARPA Fractionated Spacecraft Program Starts 59

Posted by Zonk from the better-them-than-us dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Start buying Cold War nuclear shelters and piling up the canned food, because Boeing Advanced Systems has started System F6: 'DARPA's Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft United by Information Exchange space technology program.' In other words: multiple, networked specialized spacecraft swarms that are intelligent enough to perform a single coordinated task together, like analyzing the crops or deciding to destroy humanity, Skynet-style. Actually, it could completely change satellites for the better, according to some experts."
Space

'Death Star' Aimed at Earth 400

Posted by Zonk from the don't-destroy-earth-that's-where-i-keep-my-stuff dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays that could lead to a major extinction event — and Earth may be right in the line of fire. Australian science magazine Cosmos Magazine reports: 'Though the risk may be remote, there is evidence that gamma ray bursts have swept over the planet at various points in Earth's history with a devastating effect on life. A 2005 study showed that a gamma-ray burst originating within 6,500 light years of Earth could be enough to strip away the ozone layer and cause a mass extinction. Researchers led by Adrian Melott at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, U.S., suggest that such an event may have been responsible for a mass extinction 443 million years ago, in the late Ordovician period, which wiped out 60 per cent of life and cooled the planet.'"
Education

Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution 1049

Posted by Zonk from the legislating-science-is-a-challenge dept.
Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."
Japan

Experiment Shows Traffic 'Shock Waves' Cause Jams 642

Posted by Zonk from the science-in-the-wheels dept.
Galactic_grub writes "Japanese researchers recently performed the first experimental demonstration of a phenomenon that causes a busy freeway to inexplicably grind to a halt. A team from Nagoya University in Japan had volunteers drive cars around a small circular track and monitored the way 'shockwaves' — caused when one driver brakes — are sent back to other cars, caused jams to occur. Drivers were asked to travel at 30 kmph but small fluctuations soon appeared, eventually causing several vehicles to stop completely. Understanding the phenomenon could help devise ways to avoid the problem. As one researcher comments: 'If they had set up an experiment with robots driving in a perfect circle, flow breakdown would not have occurred.'"

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