An International Herald Tribune story talks about NASA's answer to the movie 'Armageddon'. Specifically, they've outlined a plan to deflect a planet-killer asteroid. "In 1998, Congress gave NASA's Spaceguard Survey program a mandate of 'discovering, tracking, cataloging and characterizing' 90 percent of the near-Earth objects larger than one kilometer (3,200 feet) wide by 2008. An object that size would probably destroy civilization. The consensus at the conference was that the initial survey is doing fairly well although it will probably not quite meet the 2008 goal." With this tracking system in place, scientists are hopeful an intervention could be staged before any grim choices have to be made. Assuming they have the money and manpower needed for the effort, NASA has actually outlined a pair of procedures that dove-tail with each other: "First we would deflect the asteroid with kinetic impact from a missile (that is, running into it); then we would use the slight pull of a 'gravity tractor' -- a satellite that would hover near the asteroid -- to fine-tune its new trajectory to our liking. (In the case of an extremely large object, probably one in 100, the missile might have to contain a nuclear warhead.) To be effective, however, such missions would have to be launched 15 or even 30 years before a calculated impact."

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We've all heard about BitTorrent going legit this week with legal movie and TV show downloads. Ars Technica took a look at the service to see how usable it was and ran into a few snags, including not being able to download or even open the video files on some computers. However, the ones that they did manage to open varied a lot in quality. Overall, they blame DRM: 'Without knowing whether browser compatibility and dysfunctional video files are a rare occurrence or not, it's hard to say whether BitTorrent's service is a good one overall. Our initial experiences have been disappointing and frustrating, and guess what the culprit is once again? DRM. Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases is not clear, but whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable.'"

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Paramount today announced the new Star Trek film is scheduled for release on Christmas Day 2008. The studio also confirmed the film will be directed by J. J. Abrams, who said the film will 'embrace and respect' Trek canon, but will also 'chart its own course.' Also today, rumors are out claiming Matt Damon, Adrien Brody and Gary Sinise will play Kirk, Spock, and Scotty, respectively.

No mention of Star Trek would be complete with a quote from Scotty so here you go
"If I give her anymore she'll blow captain". Of course he was referring to his ever expanding waistline.

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A good debunking piece on space based weapon systems. Slightly disheartening, because I really want to have solar energy satellites that are also lasers. The article does a good job of looking further afield at nations besides the United States efforts in this area.

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 Drug Dealers

1. Refer to their clients as "users".
2. "The first one's free!"
3. Have important Asian connections.
4. Strange jargon:
   "Stick"
   "Rock"
   "Wrap"
   "E"
   "Stash"
   "Drive-by"
   "Hit (LSD)"
   "Source"
   "The Pigs"
5. Realize that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market.
6. Clients really like your stuff when it works.When it doesn't work they want to kill you.
7. Job is assisted by the industry's producing newer, more potent product.
8. Often seen in the company of pimps, hustlers and low-lifes
9. When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away, but may be expensive
10. A lot of people are getting rich while still teenagers.
11. Product causes unhealthy addictions.
12. Do your job well and you can sleep with sexy movie stars who depend on you.

Software Developers

1. Refer to their clients as "users".
2. "Download a free trial version..."
3. Have important Asian connections.
4. Strange jargon:
   "SCSI"
   "RTFM"
   "Packet"
   "C"
   "Cache"
   "CTRL ALT DEL"
   "Hit (WWW)"
   "Source-code"
   "Microsoft"
5. Realize that there's tons of cash in the 14- to 25-year-old market.
6. Clients really like your stuff when it works.When it doesn't work they want to kill you.
7. Job is assisted by the industry's producing newer, more potent products.
8. Often seen in the company of marketing people, venture capitalists and fund managers.
9. When things go wrong, a "fix" is just a phone call away, but may be expensive
10. A lot of people are getting rich while still teenagers.
11. DOOM 3, Quake, Half Life 2, Crysis...
12. Damn! DAMN!!!
     

Chinese scientists are developing pigeons whose flight can be controlled remotely. The best coverage may be Wired's, both because they link to the English language version of the original Peoples Daily Online release, and because of the (disturbing) photos. The birds can be commanded to fly left, right, up, or down. Reader KDan writes, "A number of obvious uses jump out to me... the remote-controlled pigeons will finally allow us to create an efficient implementation of RFC 1149 and RFC 2549."

Talk about bird brained ideas. Now if only they would concentrate their efforts on something useful, like a remote controlled woman. Hoover, wash, massage, sex....

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A US Federal Court recently ruled that ads displayed by search engines are protected as free speech. In the case at issue, Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft were sued by an individual demanding under the 14th Amendment that the search engines display his advertisements concerning fraud in North Carolina. The Court flatly stated that the search engines were exercising their First Amendment right of free speech in deciding what ads they want to display."

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PCBs from discarded computers, cellphones and other devices could be recycled less harmfully using a technique developed by researchers in China. Unlike current methods, it can be used to reclaim metals such as copper without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Only a small numbers of PCBs are currently recycled."

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