Don't you? Don't you?

Another photo that blurs the line between Art and Science

(Jupiter's Red Spot, as seen by Voyager)

http://www.nasa.gov/content/jupiters-great-red-spot-viewed-by-voyager-i/#.UzmgL_ldWSp

Even when it screws up, Hubble makes beautiful images.

Here's what results when the Hubble Telescope experiences a transient (and harmless) tracking error:

More/details: http://explore.noodle.org/post/80874571009/a-technical-glitch-causes-the-hubble-space

Here's something you don't see every day.

260 million-year-old spider footprints:

Story: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/prehistoric-spider-footprints

What's your city's kink?

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Microsoft Posts Source Code For MS-DOS and Word For Windows

"Microsoft, along with the Computer History Museum, has posted the source code for MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, and Word for Windows 1.1a. It's been a long time coming — DOS 2.0 was released for IBM PCs in 1983, and Word for Windows 1.1a came out in 1990. The museum, with Microsoft's consent, has made the code available for non-commercial use."

Story: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03/25/186232/microsoft-posts-source-code-for-ms-dos-and-word-for-windows

100% free Netflix-style video/audio streaming

Hoopladigital is a relatively new media streaming service "... that partners with your local public library to bring you thousands of movies, television, music, and audiobook titles for free. There are no costs or hassles. All you need is a library card and a web browser, phone, or tablet."

Here's the current lineup of participating libraries:

The Boston Public Library system just joined, so most of eastern Mass. now has free streaming available. :) The library systems in Chicago and Toronto are just about to come online, with many more in the works.

You can sign up and view/hear movies and music using your browser at https://www.hoopladigital.com/; free apps are also available for iOS and Android.

If your library participates, check it out! If your library doesn't, maybe you should ask why!

The US cities that Hollywood loves to destroy

Example:

Other categories include infections, creature attacks, geologic events, climate events, alien attack, space rocks, superhero battles, human malfeasance, and... sharknados. :)

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/map-how-hollywood-has-destroyed-america-1542969906

WW2 London Street Scenes

With a focus on the propaganda posters: http://www.retronaut.com/2013/03/war-time-street-posters/

Meanwhile, on Mars...

"Explanation: Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24 by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers across a sand dune field in a southern highlands crater. Captured when the Sun was just 5 degrees above the local horizon, only the dune crests are caught in full sunlight. With the long, cold winter approaching the red planet's southern hemisphere, bright ridges of seasonal frost line the martian dunes."

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140322.html

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_035143_1325

This explains so much about the US today.

Newsweek: IQ Doctor estimates Americans have lost 41,000,000 IQ points from toxic exposure

(and yes: that's 41 million collective IQ points... Welcome to the Big Duh.)

 http://j.mp/OCrCcS #CWW via @TheAtlantic

95% of the World's ATMs run XP. Only 40% have been upgraded.

So, something close to 60% will still be running XP after Microsoft drops support next month.

Why? Because it costs money to upgrade, of course. The banks and ATM owners knew XP's end was at hand --- everyone's known that for years --- but they did nothing, preferring short-term profits over long term security for their customers.

Jeebus. With stuff like this, the foreclosure fiascos, and crashing the whole freaking world economy in '08, is there anything laudable about modern banking? To me, it seems it's just greed, greed, greed.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/031914-most-atms-will-remain-on-279891.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2014-03-20

Chernobyl...28 years later, in words and pictures.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/03/19/gerd_ludwig_documents_the_chernobyl_nuclear_disaster_s_aftermath_in_his.html

What if... ?

From: Daily Kos

If you're reading this in Firefox, you might want to consider alternatives...

Firefox Was the Most Exploited Browser At Pwn2own 2014

http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/03/15/2322229/firefox-was-the-most-attacked-exploited-browser-at-pwn2own-2014

http://www.pwn2own.com/

Happy Pi Day!

Pi, on Star Trek:

http://youtu.be/H20cKjz-bjw

World's oldest stone-age masks, 9K years old, now on exhibit.

http://www.livescience.com/44080-photos-oldest-masks-stone-age.html

Stanley Kubrick's daughter posts photos she took on her father's movie sets

Example, goofing on the set of A Clockwork Orange:

More: http://laist.com/2014/03/10/vivian_kubrick_shares_priceless_pho.php

Three years after: Atomic worker gives eyewitness account of the quake, tsunami and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

After the meltdowns, "...the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Nuclear Accident launched a national campaign to collect personal testimonials from those who experienced the accident at the plant and those who were forced to evacuate the area close to the plant.

"One such story was from a subcontractor of the Tokyo Electric Power Company... He worked in the plant’s Crisis Center, located on the second floor of the earthquake-resistant building, and recounted his story of what happened as the accident unfolded on March 11, 2011. He was promised anonymity as a condition of providing his account...."

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March/April 2014 vol. 70 no. 2 36-41:
http://bos.sagepub.com/content/70/2/36.full

Et tu, Linux?

Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping

http://tinyurl.com/k5wczkh

Here's a wonderful demo of why it's called "space."

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

(via: laughingsquid.com)

WWJS? (Who would Jesus shoot?)

Kentucky Baptist Church is giving away 25 guns to attract converts:
http://tinyurl.com/ppsvbem

Heartwarming, iddnit?

It's never too late: The New York Times Corrects 161-year-old Spelling Error

http://tinyurl.com/n8ykdqy

It's a real-life version of ''The Thing," on a smaller scale.

"The Thing," is a wonderful 1982 John Carpenter sci-fi movie in which a malevolent life form is dug up and thawed from the polar ice, after being frozen for 100,000 years. The scientists who do the thawing do not enjoy the experience.

Now, in a "life imitates art" moment, scientists have dug up and thawed a giant, infectious virus which had been buried and dormant in the Siberian permafrost for 30,000 years. Like the creature in The Thing, the virus wasn't harmed by its long ice nap.

Let's hope it wasn't similarly annoyed.  :)

Info on the newly-thawed virus (which does not infect humans, btw):

http://www.nature.com/news/giant-virus-resurrected-from-30-000-year-old-ice-1.14801

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140303-giant-virus-permafrost-siberia-pithovirus-pandoravirus-science/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/03/frozen-virus-permafrost/5902883/

http://www.newser.com/story/183212/giant-virus-revives-after-30000-years.html 



(PS: Here's the original "The Thing:" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/. It features some fantastic, pre-cgi special effects, many of which still hold up even today. There also was a sucky remake of the movie in 2011 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905372/); it's not worth seeing.)

Nihil novi sub sole: LOLcats aren't new, either.

Case in point --- from 1914, exactly 100 years ago:

 More: http://tinyurl.com/kbf2fuv