Clipmarks | Newfman's Pops

Spore gets 1 star rating on Amazon because of DRM

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:55:21 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

If you look at the reviews for Spore at the major magazines and online gaming websites, you’ll see the game is receiving some very good scores. Its Metacritic average currently stands at 87/100.

Amazon’s 5 star rating system currently only reads 1 star from over 800 reviews

anger at publisher EA deciding to use SecuROM DRM that limits legitimate copies to just 3 installs before you have to call EA for new activation codes

DRM is a show stopper. I doubt this game will work for me after a few years given my habit of new hardware purchases

$49.99 + DRM is too much to pay when the game is only a rental after the DRM.

I have no interest in paying full price for a game that I will be severely restricted from being able to play at a later point.

I’m very disappointed that EA has chosen to treat us all like criminals

There are clearly some very angry gamers

It is also clear the protection doesn’t work as the game was seen days before release in pirated form.

Tags: drm, piracy, games, spore, ea, amazon

The beating heart of nebula W5

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:46:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Oh my!

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Holy frak! Check out this new image from Spitzer Space Telescope:

(Click to hugely embiggen)

W5 is a nebula, a giant cloud of gas roughly 6000 light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It’s enormous, spanning about 2 x 1.5 degrees of the sky (15 times the size of the full Moon on the sky), and is actively cranking out stars. The valentine-shape is actually an enormous cavern, a hollow carved out of the gas by the winds and fierce ultraviolet light flooding out from massive young stars in its… well, its heart. It’s like these stars are blowing a vast bubble in the middle of the cloud.

The stars doing the work can be seen in the image; the bright blue ones are the culprits. Mind you, this is an infrared false-color image; blue is not really blue, it’s actually light at 3.6 microns, more than four times the wavelength of visible light.

WorldWide Telescope

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:04:37 GMT

clipped by: darkduskx
clipper's remarks: Sweet!

Clip Source: technology.sympatico.msn.ca

The WorldWide Telescope launches

2008-05-22

Earlier this week, a new web application known as the WorldWide Telescope launched, giving users unprecedented access to imagery from space.

WorldWide Telescope
Launched earlier this month, the WorldWide Telescope is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space-based telescopes to enable seamless exploration of the universe. Users can choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. WorldWide Telescope (credit: The WorldWide Telescope)

Wacky Sci-Fi “Laws”

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:14:27 GMT

clipped by: haraya
clipper's remarks: If that’s not enough for you, check out Wikipedia’s list of eponymous laws.

Clip Source: www.mentalfloss.com

1. Hanlon’s Razor (aka Hanlon’s Law)

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

2. Sturgeon’s Law

“Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

3. O’Toole’s Corollary of Finagle’s Law

“The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.”

4. Clarke’s Three Laws

The third is by far the most famous:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

5. Asimov’s Laws of Robotics

First law: A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second law: A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third law: A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There’s also a Zeroth Law.

6. The Dilbert Principle

the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.. (See also: the Peter principle

Tags: laws, science, science fiction, writers, humor, list, people, robots, work, life

Fucking, Austria

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:04:53 GMT

clipped by: Mohiul
clipper's remarks: an Austrian village

Clip Source: zh.wikipedia.org

Five Mad Scientists Who Went Too Far in the Name of Science

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:39:29 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.purpleslinky.com

Vladimir Demikhov (1916-1998)

Demikhov was a pioneer in organ transplantation. Although he was unable to be the first to do heart transplants in humans, he did do many organ transplants in animals. He was most notoriously known for creating a cruel monstrosity in 1954. He surgically attached the head, shoulders, and front legs of a puppy onto a mature dog. People were astonished, if not repulsed, to see the animals lap up milk from bowls.

Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834)

Andrew Ure (1778-1857)

Sergei Bruyukhonenko

Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734)

Death Penalty Advocate Avoids Death Penalty

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:42:42 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.talkleft.com

Scott Muschany, a Republican state legislator from suburban St. Louis, joined other Republican legislators and Gov. Matt Blunt last March in urging the Supreme Court to uphold the death penalty for the sexual assault of children. Muschany was indicted this week for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Muschany is fortunate that the Supreme Court didn't agree with his position.

Tags: death penalty, crime, criminal-justice, talkleft

Kemmler First to 'Ride the Lightning

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:05:47 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.wired.com

1890: William Kemmler becomes the first person ever executed using electrocution. It doesn't go well.

The first chair was built by Harold Brown, an employee of Thomas Edison, who happened to be doing a lot of work with electricity in general and was exploring electrocution as a more humane method of execution than hanging.

It also happened that Edison was embroiled in a battle with Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse over whose electric current would be adopted as the standard. Edison was pushing direct current, or DC, while Tesla and Westinghouse championed alternating current, or AC.

This Will Blow You Away!

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:16:25 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: I have just seen the clip on the site (only just over a minute long) on the BBC news. Please do have a look, it/s stunning.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A new BBC series makes use of satellite technology to create stunning images of Britain from above. Mark Sanders reports.

Andrew Marr presents the series Britain from Above, the first episode of which will be broadcast on Sunday 10 August at 2100 on BBC One.

Tags: britain from above

Jellyfish, a warning sign

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:39:28 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans’ Decline

From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. The faceless marauders are stinging children blithely bathing on summer vacations, forcing beaches to close and clogging fishing nets.

But while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans.

The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.

These problems are pronounced in the Mediterranean

Tags: global warming, pollution, ocean

Queen´s Guitarist Publishes Astrophysics Thesis

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:28:11 GMT

clipped by: Juan da Cruz
clipper's remarks: Everybody should have a fair opportunity to publish an academic thesis.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Queen's Guitarist Publishes Astrophysics Thesis

The founder of the legendary rock band Queen has completed his doctoral thesis in astrophysics after taking a 30-year break to play some guitar.

Brian May's thesis examines the mysterious phenomenon known as Zodiacal light, a misty diffuse cone of light that appears in the western sky after sunset and in the eastern sky before sunrise. Casual observers, if they live under very dark rural skies, can best see the light two to three hours before sunrise as they look east, and many people have been fooled into seeing it as the first sign of morning twilight. A Persian astronomer who lived around the 12th century referred to it as "false dawn" in a poem.

May's work focuses on an instrument that recorded 250 scans of morning and evening Zodiacal light between 1971 and 1972. The Fabry-Perot Spectrometer is located at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands.

Great Blue Hole

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:59:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.linkinn.com

The Great Blue Hole is a large underwater sinkhole off of the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 45 miles from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 1,000 feet across and 400 feet deep. It was formed as a limestone cave system during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower. As the ocean began to rise again the caves flooded, and the roof collapsed.

On-shore caves of similar formation, as large collapsed sinkholes, are well known in Belize.

This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship, the Calypso, to the hole to chart its depths.

Tags: earth, pictures

Afghanistan is “becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate"

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:29:25 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: War Gone Bad

There is no mystery as to why things have gone increasingly badly for the United States and its allies.

As the United States steps up its air war, civilian casualties have climbed steadily over the past two years. Nearly 700 were killed in the first three months of 2008, a major increase over last year. In a recent incident, 47 members of a wedding party were killed in Helmand Province. In a society where clan, tribe, and blood feuds are a part of daily life, that single act sowed a generation of enmity.

Anatol Lieven, a professor of war at King’s College London, says that a major impetus behind the growing resistance is anger over the death of family members and neighbors.

Lieven says it is as if Afghanistan is “becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the U.S. and NATO breed the very terrorists they then track down.”

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Iraq was sold as a war to halt weapons of mass destruction; then to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then to build democracy. In the end it was a fabrication built on a falsehood and anchored in a fraud.

But Afghanistan is the “good war,” aimed at “those who attacked us,” in the words of columnist Frank Rich. It is “the war of necessity,” asserts the New York Times, to roll back the “power of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

Barack Obama is making the distinction between the “bad war” in Iraq and the “good war” in Afghanistan a centerpiece of his run for the presidency. He proposes ending the war in Iraq and redeploying U.S. military forces in order “to finish the job in Afghanistan.”

As the United States steps up its air war, civilian casualties have climbed steadily over the past two years.

A recent poll of Afghan sentiment found that, while the majority dislikes the Taliban, 74% want negotiations and 54% would support a coalition government that included the Taliban.

Car accident Ghost

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:02:52 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

our children may never see the night

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:49:15 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: our DNA is in for a shake up from many fronts

Clip Source: www.disinfo.com

Around the world, the night sky is vanishing in a fog of artificial light, which a coalition of naturalists, astronomers and medical researchers consider one of the fastest growing forms of pollution, with consequences for wildlife, people's health — and the human spirit.

About two-thirds of the world's population, including almost everyone in the continental U.S. and Europe, no longer see a starry sky where they live. For much of the world, it never even gets dark enough for human eyes to adjust to night vision, reported an international team that mapped the geography of night lighting.

"Our children grow without seeing what is possibly the most extraordinary natural wonder," says Italian astronomer Fabio Falchi, one of several U.S. and Italian researchers who used military satellite images to compile the first comprehensive global atlas of night-sky brightness — a 2001 orbital survey published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Tags: night, dark