Clipmarks | vk2yoc's clips

Invisible, Untrackable Long Distance Laser-Beam Death System

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:51:06 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Be afraid.....be VERY AFRAID.

Does this sound like a NeoCon dream, or what? We at the Daily Galaxy have absolutely nothing bad to say about the US Air Force's plans for an airborne, invisible, untrackable long distance laser death system. And if you know what's good for, neither do you.

Most ominous (and ironic) is how USAF chief engineers and directors have been using the phrase "plausible deniability". Since the laser doesn't leave any shell fragments, debris or even have to be the same square mile as the target, the user could conceivably deny all knowledge of why a politically unpopular person suddenly caught fire. Or at least, they could if they weren't already on record talking about their cool multi-million dollar airborne laser system and how it can do exactly that.

Another slight handicap is the fact the system weight 5.5 tonnes

The system trades portability for power

You can't see laser blasts shooting around the place

Who needs spelling?

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:52:22 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: The power of our minds!

Clip Source: www.thebiglad.com

Don't delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the human mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

Tags: words, spelling, human mind

Scientists Warn: "North Pole Ice Free in Five Years"

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:58:52 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: It just keeps getting worse.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013. Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic

Scientists are saying that the disappearance of sea ice at the North Pole could exceed last year's record loss, when more than a million square kilometers melted as global warming tightened its grip on the Arctic, a landscape vastly different from that found by explorer Robert Peary

'It is a neck-and-neck race between 2007 and this year over the issue of ice loss

This startling loss of Arctic sea ice has major meteorological, environmental and ecological implications. The region acts like a giant refrigerator that has a strong effect on the northern hemisphere's meteorology

global warming is occurring far earlier than any of us expected

CAN BIRDS REALLY SEE THE MAGNETIC FIELD?

Mon, 05 May 2008 07:51:08 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Personally, I think they carry GPS.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Quantum Vision Lets Birds See the Magnetic Field

Birds' ability to navigate huge distances while migrating has always been a source of natural wonder, and totally sweet long panning shots for nature documentaries. But now it seems that the avian autopilot is of interest to science, and possibly the X-Men - because the birds might have QUANTUM MAGNO-VISION

He argues that when the blue photon triggers the creation of radical-ion pairs, the orientation of the exchanged electrons are affected by the Earth's magnetic field

quantum craziness - the Quantum Zeno effect. The very fact that the pair separation is constantly being checked by the bird prevents it from recombining as quickly as normal. This is a known quantum effect, an utterly scientific version of "a watched pot never boils"

It's like driving the family car, but every time a kid asks "Are we there yet?" you get teleported back to where you started.

exactly the effect used in the very latest atomic magnetometers

"Do Humans Have 23 years to Go?"

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:19:34 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Here's your chance to do something positive. A must read.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future, creating superstructures to solve and counter super threats facing the planet.

Developed by the Palo Alto-based non-profit think tank, it will launch on September 22 for six weeks. Superstruct allows participants to use their “collective intelligence” to create solutions that can apply to real-world problems

Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the "survival horizon" for Homo sapiens - the human race - from "indefinite" to 23 years.

the latest GEAS simulation harnessed over 70 petabytes of environmental, economic, and demographic data, and was cross-validated by ten different probabilistic models. The GEAS models revealed a potentially terminal combination of five so-called “super-threats”, which represent a collision of environmental, economic, and social risks

"You can help.

Superstruct now."

NASA's Climate TimeMachine

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:11:13 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: From the people who know what they are about. Very scary if you want to keep living here on Earth.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

NASA's Climate TimeMachine visualization shows the changes in annual Arctic Sea ice, sea surface height, carbon dioxide emissions, and global surface temperatures.

Arctic sea ice minimum is shown from 1979 to 2007. At the end of each summer, the sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent, leaving what is called the perennial ice cover. The area of the perennial ice has been steadily decreasing since the satellite record began in 1979.

Sea surface height variations are shown, observed by the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 missions from January 1996 through December 2005. These variations between what we see and what is normal for different times of year and regions are called anomalies, or residuals.

Annual carbon dioxide emissions produced by the top 12 nations or regions from 1980-2004 is graphically illustrated. Units are given in thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel consumption.

NASA Climate TimeMachine

Do Galactic Cycles Influence Earth's Biological History?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:33:07 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Early last year, research revealed that the rise and fall of species on Earth seems to be driven by the undulating motions of our solar system as it travels through the Milky Way

The University of California, Berkeley found that marine fossil records show that biodiversity increases and decreases based on a 62-million-year cycle. At least two of the Earth's great mass extinctions-the Permian extinction 250 million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years ago-correspond with peaks of this cycle, which can't be explained by evolutionary theory.

Our own star moves toward and away from the Milky Way's center, and also up and down through the galactic plane. One complete up-and-down cycle takes 64 million years- suspiciously close to the Earth's biodiversity cycle.

Normally, our galaxy's magnetic field shields our solar system from this "galactic wind." But every 64 million years, the solar system's cyclical travels take it above the galactic plane.

THANK GOD I'M NOT IN AMERICA!!!

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:45:56 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Anywhere else I'd say it was a joke.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The Department of Homeland Security recently announced the development of futuristic sounding technology with a bizarre “Minority Report” twist. The criminals they’re looking for haven’t committed a crime yet.

DHS says that they need a way to detect possible “future” terrorists without a criminal past and with no known ties to terrorist organizations and therefore do not appear in any government databases. The technology will use advanced biometric technology in an attempt to “read minds” of people in public places, like airports.

If a computer determines that you are thinking about committing a terrorist act, either imminently, or at some point during your stay in the US, then you will be picked up by security officers for an interview. What is especially creepy about this upcoming program is that since it is specifically targeting people with no known terrorists ties—the only evidence is the “opinion” of a invariably flawed computer program.

Tags: only in america

Extraterrestrial Climate Change - A Message for Earth?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:44:25 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: But will we heed the warnings!

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“It seems that both and Venus started out much more like Earth," says David Grinspoon, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and one of the Venus Express interdisciplinary scientists. "They both hold priceless climate information for Earth."

The atmosphere of Venus is much thicker than Earth’s. Nevertheless, current climate models can reproduce its present temperature structure well. Now planetary scientists want to turn the clock back to understand why and how Venus changed from its former Earth-like conditions into the inferno of today.

Climate scientists believe that the planet experienced a runaway greenhouse effect as the Sun gradually heated up. Astronomers believe that the young Sun was dimmer than the present-day Sun by 30 percent. Over the last 4 thousand million years, it has gradually brightened. During this increase, Venus’s surface water evaporated and entered the atmosphere.

As Earth warms in response to man-made pollution, it risks the same fate

Scientists Create a "Law of War"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:00:20 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: These guys must have found their degrees in a box of crackers.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

An international team of scientists have bravely taken time away from fusion research, curing cancer and solar power to announce some truly staggering results: in war, sometimes some people get killed. But other times, more people get killed. It's amazing stuff

In a complexity study more staggeringly misleading than a blind guide dog that's just been spun in a centrifuge, their discovery of a "Law of War" was announced at the European Consortium for Mathematics

"Regardless of the origins and locations of modern conflicts, the insurgent groups in each case are operating in the same way. In short, it is effectively the same enemy on all fronts", he says, and if you can see the words "pseudoscientific backing for concept of the War on Terror here, PLEASE FUND ME" swimming between the lines, then congratulations on having basic cognitive ability

if I told some troopers we spent the money on this instead of body armor, would they punch me in the face?

The Deepest Swimming Pool In The World

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:58:41 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: It's in Belgium near Brussels.

Clip Source: braingoodbye.com

HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE PHOTOGRAPHY.

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:22:14 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Go to the site to see how it's done.

Clip Source: stuckincustoms.com

Large Hadron Collider: "This machine will not blow up the universe."

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:09:15 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Einstein won't let it happen!

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The LHC has been plagued by doom-sayers since it entered the public eye, though "irritated" would be a more suitable word. The volume of the fearmongers is surpassed only by their utter lack of evidence or even the most fundamental understanding of probability.

These claims are always popular, but suffer from the slight flaw that the people telling you that the planet will be dissolved into a strangelet soup don't actually know what strangelets are. The people building the LHC? They know that they are; they discovered them, wrote the library of books on them, and you'll notice that when they have something to say it comes in the form of refereed journal papers and not tabloids that have to start with "A black hole is like a vacuum cleaner...."

That CERN have been forced to patiently explain to the scientific community equivalent of a toothless man screaming on streetcorners is tragic, but a sign of their maturity that they will address any statement as if it wasn't retarded.

Extraterrestrial Life Confirmed

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:32:57 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: I always knew I was different.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

If you want to see the offspring of extraterrestrial interference in Earth evolution, you don't have to break into the X-files or start watching late night crazy-person public access. You could be looking at one in the mirror.

Early in Earth's history the surface suffered a heavy hail of meteorites. This is usually bad news for any lifeforms in the vicinity (if you don't believe me, just ask a velociraptor), but since even DNA was only a gleam in the ocean's eye at the time the space-rocks weren't a setback - in fact, they may have delivered vital ingredients to the rich pre-life soup on the surface.

A collaboration between various US and European institutes has proven the presence of vital nucleobases in the Murchison meteorite, an extraterrestrial rock fragment which impacted Earth in 1969.

These bases are unquestionably alien - for one, the rock-chemicals are equally left and right "handed"

the odds of life off-planet seem better than ever.

Will Exploration Threaten Antarctic's 15-Million Year Old Lake?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:46:22 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Lake Vostok is an international treasure. We have to convince not just the scientific community but the entire world that we can do this without contaminating the lake

Because of the long isolation, it's believed that Lake Vostok could contain new lifeforms, and unique geochemical processes

The overlying ice provides a continuous paleo-climatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for as long as 15 million years

NASA has expressed interest in exploring the lake to search for microbes that might be similar to ones on other planets. How the bacteria get energy to survive is an important unanswered question. The lake could be an analog to Jupiter's moon Europa or subsurface where conditions are similar

The original Russian Vostok station sits over the south end of the lake at the precise geomagnetic South Pole, surrounded by decades' worth of discarded machinery, waste and rubbish.

No other natural lake environment on Earth has this much oxygen