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Submission + - Moon-bound asteroid could cripple Earth's satellites, say astronomers (substack.com) 1

KentuckyFC writes: In DEcember last year, NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) picked up an 60-meter asteroid that appeared to be heading our way. Further observations quickly ruled out the possibility of a collision but in April, the agency announced that 2024 YR4 had a 4 per cent chance of hitting the moon instead. Now astronomers have calculated the likely consequences and say the impact would create a crater 1 km across and send 100 millions tonnes of ejecta hurtling into space and towards us. The risks to astronauts and satellite systems are clearly existential. The team say this kind of risk is not considered in planetary defence plans, which now urgently need to be updated.

Comment Radio Shack TRS-80 (Score 1) 857

My Dad's TRS-80 Model III was the first I can recall using. I was about 3, and I like to press the clicky red reset button on it. I think he didn't enjoy that, as he was probably working on something at the time. A kid can be worse than a cat when it comes to computer interference.
The first I owned, as a gift, was a Color Computer II, with the game cartridges like Doubleback, and Megamunchers. Didn't do much computing on it. Then we got a Commodore 64 and Vic 20 parts. Never got the Vic 20 going, but we had fun with the Commodore 64. The school, where my Dad was a teacher had his Model III, and a Model IV, and a bunch of Apple ][, and ][e computers. Soon there was an 8088 as well.

Comment This isn't a victory for Behring-Breivik. (Score 3, Insightful) 491

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

User Journal

Journal Journal: 6 Days After My Previous Journal Entry, I Was Dead 4

...But I was revived. I had a cardiac arrest on July 1st almost exactly 6 days after 'returning' to /.

I'm doing fine now, thanks to the first responders, police, and paramedics who were doing CPR in minutes and got my heart started again with an AED. I avoided brain damage, which wasn't apparent when I first woke up days later with the memory of a goldfish. "Oh look, a castle!" (for those who know that joke.) I now have an ICD, making me a legit cyborg.

Comment Re:Estimates (Score 2) 521

Looked into, but not freaked out about. Cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year. 200M die in Canada alone.
200,000,000
vs.
28,000?

It's not even close. Delaying a switch to solar is much more deadly for birds, as it's expected 1/8th of species will soon (within decades) become extinct due to climate change.

Comment Re:god dammit. The Numbers (Score 5, Insightful) 521

Crunching the numbers, it's foolish to delay solar power adoption for even 28K birds a year.

Climate change is expected to soon kill off 1/8th of all bird species.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

200M birds die from cats each year in Canada ( which has the human population of California).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Either stop climate change pollution, or kiss some birds goodbye (peck on the cheek).

Submission + - Microsoft pays for positive XBox One coverage, requires breaking FTC rules (kotaku.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft, partnered with Machinima, has put forth a promotion for YouTube personalities — make a video about the XBox One and get money for it. Problematically, they also require that the review not mention anything negative and not disclose that they're getting paid, which breaks FTC disclosure rules. Microsoft has a well-known history of astroturfing, but is this the first proof of them doing it illegally?

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