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We live in an Information Age. Never before have we had so much data at our fingertips, thanks to digitization and the Internet. But information is only useful if it is accessible, searchable, and intelligible. Last August, the US Energy Department proudly announced a "comprehensive website reform, making Energy.gov a cutting-edge, interactive information platform and saving taxpayers more than $10 million annually."
Energy.gov: Where information goes to die
Math
World's smallest silicon mechanical devices are made at Cornell Smallest guitar, about the size of a human blood cell, illustrates new technology for nano-sized electromechanical devices FOR RELEASE: July 22, 1997 Contact: Larry Bernard Office: (607) 255-3651 E-Mail: lb12@cornell.edu The world's smallest guitar is 10 micrometers long -- about the size of a single cell -- with six strings each about 50 nanometers, or 100 atoms, wide.
Science News: Nanoguitar
Square Pixel Inventor Tries to Smooth Things Out | Wired Science
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23166" title="baby_pixels" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2010/06/baby_pixels-660x660.jpg" alt="" width="660" height="660" /> Russell Kirsch says he’s sorry. <img class="size-full wp-image-11123 alignright" title="sciencenews" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/09/sciencenews.gif" alt="sciencenews" width="200" height="40" />15 Words You Won't Believe They Added to the Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary is constantly updating, adding new words to reflect the vibrant changes in language and culture. Of course, that also means that as said culture spirals toward a frightening and retarded oblivion, the good people at Oxford have to be there to chronicle it. Here are some recent additions that make us fear for our future. n. In the fiction of J.K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers.
At the beginning of December, we warned the Copyright Office that operating system vendors would use UEFI secure boot anticompetitively, by colluding with hardware partners to exclude alternative operating systems. As Glyn Moody points out , Microsoft has wasted no time in revising its Windows Hardware Certification Requirements to effectively ban most alternative operating systems on ARM -based devices that ship with Windows 8. The Certification Requirements define (on page 116) a "custom" secure boot mode, in which a physically present user can add signatures for alternative operating systems to the system's signature database, allowing the system to boot those operating systems.
Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices - SFLC Blog - Software Freedom Law Center
Library in fight with US corporation - national
Last updated 07:16 23/11/2011 A small New Zealand library is fighting to keep its trademark free software from the clutches of a United States corporation. The Horowhenua Library trust designed the Koha system 12 years ago to manage catalogues and lending information. It was the first free open source software of its kind and has been sponsored by libraries and volunteers around the world. However, the trust says an American company named LibLime has hijacked the system and wants to use it for its own private client base.
Update (by Liz Rea on behalf of the community): There has been a lot of news in the last 24 hours – much of it has been collected in this Zotero group. Coverage of the story includes three radio stories, one TV clip, blog posts, tweets, Facebook and G+ updates. We are overwhelmed by the support we are getting from around the world – thank you so much for your time, money, tweets, and attention to our plight. We learned a few hours ago of a press release and statement from a LibLime/PTFS staff member that states their intention to transfer the TM to the Horowhenua Library Trust.
Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust | Koha Library Software Community
Imagine flying, along with 20 or so fellow aircrew, in an Air Force E-8C Joint Surveillance Targeting and Attack Radar System (JSTARS) jet for a mission to track down insurgents planting roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan. You’ve just taken off from your base in Qatar but before you can go scan the ground for bad guys with the plane’s powerful AN/APY-7 radar, you’ve got to refuel from a waiting KC-135 tanker since the E-8’s ancient Pratt & Whitney JT3D engines burned way too much gas taking off on a hot Middle Eastern day. The E-8 you’re flying in is a converted Boeing 707 passenger jet that was built in 1967 and flew in airline service for decades before being purchased by the Air Force and refurbished for military use in the 1990s. Approaching the tanker, all is going smoothly until the two planes hook up and fuel starts flowing into the JSTARS.
A Basic Mistake That Trashed a JSTARS
Psychologist Explains Teens' Risky Decision-making Behavior
May 31, 2007 — Meg Gerrard will be the first to admit that unraveling the adolescent mind is not an easy thing. Like most parents, she's even asked her teen daughters, "What were you thinking?" after one of them was caught in a risky behavior. But now it's Gerrard -- an Iowa State University psychology professor -- who has tried to answer that question scientifically through analysis of research from the last 12 years on adolescent risk-taking. She was invited by the Association of Psychological Science to deliver a presentation titled "A Dual Process Approach to Adolescent Decision-Making: Applications to Cancer Risk and Prevention" at its annual convention last week in Washington, D.C.scum trash filth lies politics
“Narrative summaries of Accidents Involving Nuclear Weapons.”
Mark 6 nuclear bomb similar to the one the United States Air Force inadvertently dropped on the Gregg family's garden in Mars Bluff, South Carolina. According to a Department of Defense report, there have been at least 32 “accidents involving nuclear weapons.” And the report only counts US accidents which occurred before 1980 . Today’s hot doc, entitled “Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving U.S. Nuclear Weapons” briefly recounts each of these incidents.Science
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