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Earth

Denmark Parliament Approves Giant Artificial Island Off Copenhagen 58

Plans for an artificial island to house 35,000 people and protect the port of Copenhagen from rising sea levels have been approved by Danish MPs. The BBC reports: The giant island, named Lynetteholm, would be connected to the mainland via a ring road, tunnels and a metro line. The approval by Denmark's parliament paves the way for the 1 sq mile (2.6 sq km) project to begin later this year. But it faces opposition from environmentalists who have concerns over the impact of its construction.

Plans for Lynetteholm include a dam system around its perimeter, with the aim of protecting the harbour from rising sea levels and storm surges. If construction goes ahead as planned, the majority of the foundations for the island off Denmark's capital should be in place by 2035, with an aim to fully complete the project by 2070.
Some of the environmental concerns include the transportation of materials by road, which will involve large numbers of vehicles to move the 80 million tons of soil required to create the peninsula alone. "There are also concerns among environmentalists about the movement of sediment at sea and the possible impact on ecosystems and water quality," the report adds.
Space

NASA's Juno To Get a Close Look At Jupiter's Moon Ganymede (phys.org) 17

On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft will come within 645 miles of the surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. "The flyby will be the closest a spacecraft has come to the solar system's largest natural satellite since NASA's Galileo spacecraft made its penultimate close approach back on May 20, 2000," reports Phys.Org. From the report: Along with striking imagery, the solar-powered spacecraft's flyby will yield insights into the moon's composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and ice shell. Juno's measurements of the radiation environment near the moon will also benefit future missions to the Jovian system. Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetosphere -- a bubble-shaped region of charged particles surrounding the celestial body.

Juno's science instruments will begin collecting data about three hours before the spacecraft's closest approach. Along with the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) and Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instruments, Juno's Microwave Radiometer's (MWR) will peer into Ganymede's water-ice crust, obtaining data on its composition and temperature. Signals from Juno's X-band and Ka-band radio wavelengths will be used to perform a radio occultation experiment to probe the moon's tenuous ionosphere (the outer layer of an atmosphere where gases are excited by solar radiation to form ions, which have an electrical charge).

Privacy

Startup Stealth Data Working To Uncover the Identities of Website Users (bizjournals.com) 111

An anonymous reader writes: Data mining startup Stealth Data is working to help websites uncover the "individual names, phone numbers, emails and physical addresses" of the users who visit websites. This information "can include a website visitor's job title, employer, annual income, age, and personal and professional social media profiles" so that businesses can use this data for marketing purposes.

Stealth Data's third co-founder Chad Sneed experienced marketing frustrations firsthand through his family's dealership, Dennis Sneed Ford in Gower, Missouri. Sneed, who's a vice president and partner, said the dealership spends a significant amount on marketing, from search engines to third-party advertising. A bulk of the dealership's website visitors were anonymous, however, which meant it couldn't follow-up with visitors to try and close a sale. Sneed wanted to unlock that information and started talking to the dealership's outside marketing firm, Phame Influence, to see if it was possible. Puckett, who co-founded Phame with Paris, also is a trial lawyer.

"My lawyer hat instantly says no," Puckett said.

But after digging further, he discovered it's legal and that using the information for cold calling and emailing is fair game.

Co-founder Chad Sneed noted that he doesn't see any privacy issues.


Comment This time, do it right... (Score 1) 239

Right, so as others are saying, for Goodness' sake change your email address; but this time, do it right.

Set up an email forwarder such as bigfoot.net (free [as in beer] for a single forwarding address). Tell bigfoot to forward to your true new account, and make sure you never give out your true address - give _everybody_ your bigfoot address.

That way, if you ever need to change your true email address again for any reason, it will just be between you and bigfoot.

Comment Why a tablet at all? (Score 2) 180

Why a tablet? Do you really want to spend all day holding the damned thing? Forget that.
Your problem is being hunched over the keyboard & mouse.
Your solution is to buy an Alphagrip:

http://http//www.alphagrips.com/

Then you can lift your screen to eye level, enlarge the fonts, and finally lean back just like in the old days, touch-typing away in full ergonomic comfort, just like I am now. I would _never_ go back to a crappy old qwerty board mate. Hell, just watch one of the typing demos and you'll get it:

http://www.alphagrips.com/typingdemo.html

No, I don't work for them, I just love the device. Oh, and comfort, I like that too.

Smile, breathe, and go slowly.

S

Submission + - ask slashdot: Tablets for Papers

An anonymous reader writes: When I was younger, engineering and science offices didn't have computers yet. It was the tradition Piled Higher and Deeper desks, and overloaded bookcases. I ended up doing other things, and haven't been in a regular office for a couple of decades. Now I'm older, spending a lot more time with the screen, and finding my aging butt and back aren't as pliable for the long hours of reading papers. And while looking at rather expensive chairs etc for a solution, what I'm remembering is we used to be able to lean back, feet up, while reading the stapled print-outs — have a change from hunched-over writing and typing. So I'm wondering is Are We There Yet with tablets? You guys would know — what makes a /good/ tablet for reading, sorting, annotating, and searching PDFs etc? Hardware, software — what tablets have gotten this really right?

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