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Golden Ray photos of amazing mass migration
[Quote:]
The spectacular scene was captured as the magnificent creatures made one of their biannual mass migrations to more agreeable waters.
(more pictures at the link)
Cartoons
George Carlin
George Carlin is dead. Here’s how he thought about religion:
And the ten commandments:
So how do cartoonists respond to his death? Yep:
And here’s how they could had responded:
Secrets about the internet
[Quote:]
Blog readers don’t click on ads. Most ads are clicked by confused, lost, nontechnical people who arrived from a Google results page and think that the ad will take them to what they were really looking for. (This is why domain-squatting with ad pages is so profitable.) Many blogs have disabled ads for everyone except Google referrals without losing significant income. Many others have started showing more ads to Google referrals.
(there’s more, all true)
Greener Jet Engine Could Reduce Aviation’s Carbon Footprint
[Quote:]
Pratt & Whitney has spent the better part of two decades developing the geared turbofan engine that burns 12 to 15 percent less fuel than other jet engines and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 1,500 tons per plane per year. It’s being called one of the most exciting developments commercial aviation has seen in years, and it was a hot topic at the Eco-Aviation Conference, where the aviation industry spent two days charting the course to a greener future.
[..]
That’s why Pratt & Whitney has so much to brag about with its geared turbofan, which significantly advances jet-engine technology. Current jet engines have fans that suck air into the combustion chamber, where it is compressed, mixed with fuel, and ignited. Then it’s blown through a turbine, generating thrust. It works, but it’s inefficient because the fan is connected to the engine and turns at the same speed as the turbine. Fans work best at low speed, while turbines work best at high speed.
Pratt & Whitney solved that problem with a gearbox that lets the fan and turbine spin independently. The fan is larger and it spins at one-third the speed of the turbine, creating a quieter, more powerful engine the company says requires less fuel, emits less C02 and costs 30 percent less to maintain. Pratt & Whitney has been torture-testing the engines, and its engineers have simulated more than 40,000 takeoffs and landings.
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What Your Government Knows About Cannabis And Cancer — And Isn’t Telling You
[Quote:]
Senator Ted Kennedy is putting forward a brave face following his recent surgery but the sad reality remains. Even with successful surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy treatment, gliomas — a highly aggressive form of brain cancer that strikes approximately 10,000 Americans annually — tragically claim the lives of 75 percent of its victims within two years and virtually all within five years.
But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?
Sadly, the questions posed above are not entirely hypothetical.
The secret life of power lines
Foreclosure Rage: Take Everything, including the Kitchen Sink
Economy on brink of recession, Greenspan says
[Quote:]
ormer Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Tuesday the U.S. economy was on the brink of a recession, with the chances of that happening at more than 50 percent.
In other news, pregnant women are on the brink of losing their virginity.
Conservapedia:Lenski dialog
[Quote:]
Dear Professor Lenski,
Skepticism has been expressed on Conservapedia about your claims, and the significance of your claims, that E. Coli bacteria had an evolutionary beneficial mutation in your study.
The reply prof Lenski sends them is a great one!
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The Website Is Down
FISA Deal Will End Court Cases Vs Phone Cos
[Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., on telecom immunity:]
“I’m not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I’m sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do,” Bond said.
Jawohl, mein Fuhrer!
And to think it was a Republican president (Reagan) that said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.”
I love you people!
Thanks, Jim!
Automated profiling tech is crap, says Home Office
[Quote:]
Automated passenger profiling is rubbish, the Home Office has conceded in an amusing - and we presume inadvertent - blurt. “Attempts at automated profiling have been used in trial operations [at UK ports of entry] and has proved [sic] that the systems and technology available are of limited use,” says home secretary Jacqui Smith in her response to Lord Carlile’s latest terror legislation review.
Furthermore, when the security services stopped trying to let the machines figure out who was a threat and went back to traditional “inituitive” stops, they were more effective. “Intelligence improved during the trials when officers reverted to the traditional intuitive methods, albeit applied in the context of intelligence provided by the security service,” says Smith. “It is likely that with more effective use of intelligence, and possibly some behavioural analysis training the quality of intelligence retrieved from persons of interest will improve and the number of people stopped will decrease.”
The Home Office’s belated discovery that human beings acting on sound intelligence make for better policing does however raise questions about the future operation of its E-Borders programme. This is intended to track people in and out of the country, and to operate in conjunction with Advanced Passenger Data (API) and Passenger Name Records (PNR) collected via Project Semaphore. As Home Office minister Joan Ryan told Parliament in March of last year, “In January 2007 23 successes were recorded by Project Semaphore as a result of automated profiling based on passenger data.”
23. Out of how many thousands of travelers profiled they dare not say, nor do they say how many of those 23 were for unpaid parking tickets and the like.
Yep, crap alright.
UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace
[Quote:]
The UK’s streets are today a safer place for kiddies and decorated war veterans after public and police hostility forced a Gloucestershire bus-spotter to give up his lifelong hobby of snapping interesting examples of road-based public transport, the Evening Standard reports.
Rob McCaffrey, 50, had apparently over 40 years built up an impressive 30,000 pics of buses, coaches and trams from across the globe, but has now put the lens cap on for good because he “keeps being mistaken for a terrorist and paedophile”.
He explained: “Since the 9/11 attacks there has been a crackdown on security and it seems everyone with a camera is now regarded as a potential criminal. The past two years have absolutely been the worst. I have had the most appalling abuse from the public, drivers and police over-exercising their authority.
Nokia grabs control of Symbian - then gives it away
[Quote:]
Nokia has bought up the bits of Symbian it didn’t already own and is chucking the OS into an open-source foundation along with the S60 UI layer, accompanied by Sony Ericsson and DoCoMo, who are throwing in UIQ and MOAP(S) respectively.
[..]
Those members will have to cough up at least $1,500 a year, but that’s chicken feed to companies such as AT&T and Vodafone, which have come on board to endorse the more open Symbian platform.
Good move. Let’s hope it works out. Apple could use the competition.
The Eff is attacking the foundation of all RIAA lawsuits.
[Quote:]
“At any instant, KaZaA users are likely to have thousands of sources for these particular songs to choose from and no reason to choose Ms. Thomas’ computer over any other. And while KaZaA users may engage in a prodigious amount of infringing activity, that tells us nothing about the crucial issue in this case: whether this Defendant transmitted any of these 24 songs during the relevant time period. Testimony from an investigator that he or she downloaded a song simply cannot bridge the chasm between “making
available” and “actual dissemination” to anyone other than Plaintiffs’ authorized agents.
Plaintiffs may complain that they cannot overcome this evidentiary hurdle. But Plaintiffs include some of the largest companies in the recording industry, with nearly
limitless resources when compared to Ms. Thomas. It is Plaintiffs who have threatened litigation against over 30,000 people, many whom are unprepared for the unfamiliar (to a layperson) demands of discovery. It is Plaintiffs who have chosen to target noncommercial activities that occur in the privacy of the home, thereby injecting themselves “behind closed doors” where factual investigation can be difficult. Having put themselves in this position, Plaintiffs should not complain that proving their distribution claims poses evidentiary challenges.”
(thanks, dré!)
Sony Bravia
Hitler
Cartoons
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And all this from the guy who played the Bishop in Dogma
I just could not remember where I saw him, but now it dinged. Good entertainment slowly passing away.