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Comment Re:Do not go out for this show in North America (Score 1) 87

It's important to stress that this is a 33 year cycle meteor shower. I wasn't around for 1966 but the 1998 shower was probably the biggest of meteor shower of my lifetime (since 1980) thus far. As a poster above suggested I just invited a few college friends and went to the remotest part of KY we could get to by a lake, built a fire (let it die down to avoid light pollution) and waited. We counted around 350 meteors that night in a little over 3 hours with 5 or so spectacular fire balls. It's a night none of us will forget any time soon.

Comment Re:A Change is as Good as a Rest (Score 1) 783

That's quite an inspiring post for me (not that I hadn't thought of doing just that already, it's awesome to hear from those who have done it). As an IT guy who's only been at it for 5 years I'm already starting to see that my previous dream of just finding any local job and keeping it is a little small.. It's a global economy now anyway right? Why shouldn't more of us scrap this American dream thing, travel the world and help out where we're needed. Besides staying here is just padding more wealthy peoples pockets, whether mine or the stockholders, either way it's less beneficial for those who need it most. I'd like to stick with IT, but I'm curious particularly about India, and wondering if any native Westerners have been reassigned there or moved there at will and what your thoughts/experiences concerning your job experience?

Comment Re:Coincidence? (Score 1) 1032

What is propaganda-ish about saying they have nuclear ambitions?? Only the most pro-Iran propagandists are saying otherwise. This is certainly not a repeat of Iraq's missing WMD's..

Comment Re:Energy prices are unstable (Score 1) 541

This is fairly unscientific, but having owned a general coal index fund for the past year I've seen a direct relationship between the price of oil and coal. When I go to the gas pump if the price of gas is up it tends to mean that my coal investment will be up by the same percentage. Electricity prices will go up when peak oil becomes more obvious. Energy is energy, and we humans are pretty creative at using all our nonrenewable resources. If that means using coal instead of oil to power our cars then it will happen if need be.
Math

Quantum Test Found For Mathematical Undecidability 223

KentuckyFC writes "Philosophers have long wondered at the profound link between mathematics and physics, but how deep does this connection go? Pretty deep according to the results of a quantum experiment exploring the nature of mathematical undecidability. Here's how: any logical system must be based on axioms, which are propositions that are defined to be true. A proposition is logically independent from these axioms if it can neither be proved nor disproved from them; mathematicians say it is undecidable. In the experiment, researchers encoded a set of axioms as quantum states. A particular measurement on this system can then be thought of as a proposition which, if undecidable, yields a random result — which is what they found. 'This sheds new light on the (mathematical) origin of quantum randomness in these measurements,' say the researchers (abstract)."
Google

Google Book Search Settlement Receiving Criticism 119

waderoush writes "While James Gleick, Lawrence Lessig, and other pundits have reacted positively to this week's proposed settlement of the publishing industry's lawsuit against Google over the Google Book Search project, a deeper study of the agreement turns up some worrisome provisions that could make online access to books much more costly and difficult than it needs to be. Harvard University's libraries, for example, declined to endorse the settlement over concerns that it provides no mechanism for keeping the cost of access to books reasonable. And while the parties to the settlement have made much of the clause providing public libraries with free full-text access to Google's database of over 7 million out-of-print books, Xconomy has a post pointing out that this access is restricted to exactly one Google terminal per library. So, you can read books for free — as long as you're the first person to get to your public library's computer room in the morning."

India Joins China in Censoring Websites 303

cpatil writes "On the directions of the government of India, Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties. This was first noticed by Indian bloggers and upon inquiring with their respective ISPs, the actions are confirmed. Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets till now." There's an ongoing discussion of the censorship on GoogleGroups. The rediff.com coverage linked above indicates that the blocking is based on a list issued by India's Department of Telecommunications.

A Working 5D Rubik's Cube 171

Melinda Green writes "Readers who enjoyed the previous Slashdot postings regarding the 4-dimensional Rubik's cube called MagicCube4D will be interested to know that a couple of brilliant developers have recently created a working 5-dimensional Rubik's cube. Operating a 5 dimensional puzzle projected all the way down to a 2D computer screen may seem a hopeless task but the full 5D puzzle has already been solved by 3 people. Also noteworthy is the fact that the 4D puzzle has now been ported to Java and is available as both a full-featured desktop application and as an Applet."

Google Propping Up Typosquatting Biz? 279

An anonymous reader writes "Google is making oodles of cash placing ads on a vast sea of otherwise vacant Web sites that do little more than capitalize on misspelled domain name names, according to a story in today's Washington Post. From the story: 'Google Inc., which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as BistBuy.com. This new form of advertising is turning into a booming business that some say is cluttering the Internet and could be violating trademark rules.'"

An Alternate Human 450

B0b Barker writes "What has six limbs, a prehensile tail, its brain in its chest, and reproductive organs in its mouth? The alternate human designed by biologist PZ Myers in Remaking Humanity, a story in Forbes.com's package on Reinvention. It may sound fantastic, but researchers are already working to re-build DNA, proteins and cells in a new field called synthetic biology, and we may have to meet these bug-eyed freaks sometime in our lifetime."

Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains 179

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

A Stark Warning On Climate Change 926

cliffski writes "In a report based on computer predictions, UK government advisor Professor David King said that an increase of even three degrees Celsius would cause drought and famine and threaten millions of lives The US refuses to cut emissions and those of India and China are rising. A government report based on computer modeling projects a 3C rise would cause a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops, about 400 million more people at risk of hunger and between 1.2bn and 3bn more people at risk of water stress."

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