53034707
submission
riverat1 writes:
Now visible in the morning sky comet ISON will swing around the Sun on November 28. ISON will pass 730,000 km above the surface of the Sun at closest approach (Mercury's perihelion distance is 46 million km). If it survives its near brush with the Sun it could provide a spectacular sky show from December into January. This NASA timeline shows that ISON will be the most observed comet ever as instruments ranging from a balloon carried telescope to the Hubble Space Telescope to the STEREO satellites will be brought into play. Lowell Observatory astronomer Matthew Knight lays out three possibilities for ISON, spontaneous disintegration before it gets to the Sun (less than 1% chance), disintegration as it rounds the Sun or survival. If it survives its closest approach to Earth will be on December 26 at about 1/3 of an AU.
46663151
submission
riverat1 writes:
After being embarrassed when the Europeans did a better job forecasting Sandy than the National Weather Service Congress allocated $25 million ($23.7 after sequestration) in the Sandy relief bill for upgrades to forecasting and supercomputer resources. The NWS announced that their main forecasting computer will be upgraded from the current 213 TeraFlops to 2,600 TFlops by fiscal year 2015, over a twelve-fold increase. The upgrade is expected to increase the horizontal grid scale by a factor of 3 allowing more precise forecasting of local features of weather. The some of the allocated funds will also be used to hire some contract scientists to improve the forecast model physics and enhance the collection and assimilation of data.
42370461
submission
riverat1 writes:
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature studies latest release finds that land surface temperature changes since 1750 are nearly completely explained by increases in greenhouse gases and large volcanic eruptions. They also said that including solar forcing did not significantly improve the fit. Unlike the other major temperature records BEST used nearly all available temperature records instead of just a representative sample. Yet to come is an analysis that includes ocean temperatures.
34838723
submission
riverat1 writes:
Sea level rise won't stop for several hundred years even if we reverse global warming according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. As warmer water is mixed down into the oceans it causes thermal expansion of the water. Under the best emissions scenario the expected rise is 14.2 cm, under the worst 32.2 cm in 2100 (6 & 13 inches) from thermal expansion alone. Any glacial/ice sheet melt and water pumped from aquifers is on top of that. An easier to read summary is available at Reuters.
26975236
submission
riverat1 writes:
KTLA reports police in North Dakota arrested 3 men accused of cattle rustling with the help of a Predator B drone from nearby Grand Forks AFB. The sheriff of Nelson Country was chased off by 3 armed men when he went to serve a warrant so he came back the next morning with reinforcements including the drone which, while circling 2 miles overhead, was able to determine the whereabouts of the men on their 3,000 acre spread and the fact that they were unarmed. A SWAT team quickly moved in and apprehended the men. Local police say they have used the Predator drones for at least 2 dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and DEA have used the drones for domestic investigations as well.
Big Brother is watching.
26592678
submission
riverat1 writes:
The classic operating system turns 40, and its progeny abound.
After AT&T dropped the Multics project in March of 1969 Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs through a combination of discarded equipment and subterfuge continued to work on the project eventually writing the first programming manual for System I in November 1971. A paper published in 1974 in the Communications of the ACM on Unix brought a flurry of requests for copies. Since AT&T was restricted from selling products not directly related to telephones or telecommunications they released it to anyone who asked for a nominal license fee. At conferences they displayed the policy on a slide saying "No advertising, no support, no bug fixes, payment in advance." From that grew an ecosystem of users supporting users much like the Linux community. The rest is history.
23520702
submission
riverat1 writes:
The Next Web has a story on Muammar Gaddafi's monitoring of the internet and other telecommunications. As you might expect the monitoring was intense. The story names companies that supplied the monitoring software, most notably Amesys, a unit of the French company Bull SA. There is apparently a more detailed story behind the paywall at the Wall Street Journal here.
17838692
submission
riverat1 writes:
On December 1 Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced that a creationism theme part is expected to open in 2014. The Louisville Courier-Journal has the story.
The park called Ark Encounter will have a 500 foot replica of the Ark with live animals on it and a Tower of Babel explaining how races and languages developed. The park will be turned over to Answers in Genesis after it is built. They are a non-profit organization which may allow them to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion.
