Eventually, when the field can stretch no further, it snaps back into place, rocketing particles into the Earth's upper atmosphere. This causes the auroral displays known as the northern and southern lights.

The package includes two drive wheels and the motors, as well as everything you will need to get your robot up and rolling. It’s pretty simple to build the bot, install the software, and transfer a basic program via USB- maybe two and a half hours from unboxing to having a working, roving robot… even one with whisker detectors. There are also plenty of additional sensors and add-ons you can buy for your BoeBot- things like grippers, clawers, and ultrasonic eyes. And we’ll need every piece of information we can collect about our foes’ capabilities, before the Singularity or Judgment Day or whatever they’re calling it these days.

Looks like fun ...

Home Invasion Roundup:

New Castle

Hampton Green

Hewlett

ARIVACA

The Obama administration has set up a showdown this week with a federal judge in San Francisco, insisting in a court filing that it has no obligation to provide access to top-secret documents in a wiretapping case.

Awesome ...

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station noticed two mysterious dark circles in the ice of Russia’s Lake Baikal in April. Though the cause is more likely aqueous than alien, some aspects of the odd blemishes defy explanation.

Interesting, plus cool pics ...

“They are within the 300-metre water lot zone controlled by the parks board but apparently there’s nothing we can do to force them to leave. If someone puts up a tent in a park we can prevent it so I don’t know why we can’t do the same on our water lot. But I’ve been told there is nothing we can do,” said Robertson.

Sounds like it might to be time to reduce the staff ... idle minds, and all.

Just past Barstow on Interstate 15, Las Vegas-bound travelers can eye a tower resembling a lighthouse rising out of the desert encircled by more than 1,800 mirrors the size of billboards.

Home Invasion Round-up:

Virginia Beach

MANATEE COUNTY

Montague

SEATTLE

CARBONDALE

VIRGINIA BEACH

CORPUS CHRISTI

Clovis

Clarke County

Seattle

CHARLOTTE

When Bonnie Sweeten fled to Florida with her 9-year-old daughter, using the driver's license of a friend to get through airport security, did the airline or document checkers at Philadelphia International Airport drop the ball? The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, whose job is checking passengers' government-issued IDs, say no.

And they're correct ... because as I've mentioned before, their knowing who you are doesn't improve flight security. The only knowledge that improves flight security is the certainty that you aren't carrying the means to interfere with the flight.

Scaled Composites has completed the first series of tests on the rocket motor for the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, clearing a major milestone toward testing of the suborbital tourism vehicle, Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn said on Thursday.

Interesting ...

Gun control, as a philosophy and as a political mechanism, is a flimsy sham. It has become a smoke screen behind which its proponents hide two simple facts: 1) they are more interested in controlling the public than reducing crime, and 2) they are incompetent when it comes to reducing crime.

Investigators say the water bottle was stuffed with gun powder or powder used for fireworks. It was also fitted with a metal cap that had a hole in it for a fuse.

My father lives in Florida and has his CC. He will be making a trip via motor home to Alaska. He says he can find no legal way to transport a firearm across the border on his way to Alaska. I can't see this being true.

Interesting thread ...

The delay in retrofitting the warheads appears to validate long-standing concerns about an erosion of technical expertise at the Energy Department, as Cold War-era scientists and engineers retire and take with them detailed knowledge about the bombs.

Workers at Lawrence Livermore Lab are putting the finishing touches on the world's most powerful laser system known as NIF (National Ignition Facility). In about 18 months, physicists will conduct a highly-publicized test to create fusion energy from water.

A security guard was fatally shot and another wounded early Friday as they tried to remove several people from inside a popular nightclub in west Denver, investigators said.

It's a dangerous business ...

OPM declined to say how many background investigations may have been compromised by those 53 investigators. But the number could be significant. For the six investigators who were prosecuted, OPM had to conduct hundreds of interviews at a cost of a quarter-million dollars to reinvestigate people’s backgrounds. The agency did not withdraw anybody’s clearance after its reinvestigations, Dillaman said.

It's always the people you trust that compromise your security ...

(via Bruce)

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called Wednesday for doubling the number of nuclear reactors nationwide, a potentially $700 billion proposal that calls for building 100 more over 20 years.

I wish we had money to pay for such things ...

The Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) has demonstrated continuous flight using only solar energy during a solar powered flight of more than 27 hours over 874.4 km, the equivalent of a Zürich-London trip. This represents a world record for this size and using no thermal winds or altitude gain before the night.

Interesting ...

US energy major Westinghouse Electric company (WEC) and Nucelar Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) today signed an MoU for starting discussions on techno-commercial aspects to set up six to eight AP1000 type nuclear power reactors in India.

Looks like India is upgrading the nuke capacity ...

After constructions that lasted more than a decade and billions of dollars invested in the world's largest scientific experiment, physicists who are now operating the Large Hadron Collider have just realized that they don't really know how the entire system works, in all of its details. As a result, they say, they may need more time to familiarize themselves with the machine, even if the June deadline, when the experiment is supposed to be brought back online, nears. Basically, many of those in the project tell that they've created a very complex organism, the result of more than 3,000 engineers working together.

Gun buffs can turn to Small Arms, a twice-monthly glossy magazine that claims 60,000 subscribers. The Beretta M9 semiautomatic pistol “is classic,” said Zheng Zhoujian, an 18-year-old reader. “I envy people in other countries where guns are legal.”

It's worth keeping in mind ...

A huge volcanic eruption in China some 260 million years ago led to the sudden extermination of marine life clear around the world, British paleontologists announced Thursday, in a report being published this week in the journal Science.

Something new to worry about if you are so inclined ...

I can't quite laugh ...

Home Invasion Roundup:

Siesta Key

Tucson

Murfreesboro

Orange County

Johnston County

Using instruments aboard the Deep Impact spacecraft, a team of astronomers and astrobiologists has devised a technique to tell whether such a planet harbours liquid water, which in turn could tell whether it might be able to support life.

This bike is meant to answer all those times when you have forgotten to bring a lock. In fact the bike IS a lock and is called the "Freelock".

Clever ...

At the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor Shigeo Hirose is developing a robot that could help rescue survivors after an earthquake.

Interesting video ...

By any account, the latest test blast was small compared with the bombs now stocked by major countries including the United States, which run upward of 50 megatons. But, said Richards, “Even the 2006 North Korean test would have been a disaster if it had gone off in a metropolitan area. This one was bigger.”

The spacewalking mechanics, encumbered by bulky gloves and spacesuits, successfully pulled off unprecedentedly complex repairs. Nearly 37 hours of maintenance, installation and rehab work on the telescope not only restored the universe-piercing gaze of Hubble, but expanded its capabilities to probe even further into the mysteries of the cosmos.

(Almost) every mother loves her son and thinks the world of him. However a mother’s love for her son does not mean that he is innocent when caught red-handed, committing a violent and life-threatening robbery. I would also note that just about everyone whose child becomes involved in criminality likes to believe that their child is good, but just got involved with the “wrong crowd.” I find that idea to be unpersuasive. We all make choices as to whom we associate with, and what actions we talk. Growing up, I knew kids who committed robbery, sold drugs, etc. I chose not to associate with them, or commit those crimes. Had I chosen to engage in criminality, it would have been my fault, not just the fault of those criminally minded kids.

Complimentarity Alert: It'll never be one or the other.

"The shooting of preachers is an act of terrorism and an attack on democracy and on people's right to worship,'' said Michael Ghirra, president of the local Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha.

Killing sect leaders is terrorism only in the sense that all violence is terrorism. I tend to distrust people that wrap there positions in buzz-words.

Martin B. Kalinowski, a nuclear expert at the University of Hamburg, said a magnitude of 4.7 corresponded to a nuclear explosive yield of about three to eight kilotons of high explosives, with the most likely yield being four kilotons. A blast that generated a tremor with a magnitude of 4.5 would be smaller. In contrast, the primitive bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had explosive yields of 15 kilotons and 22 kilotons, respectively.

It's almost like he's toying with the developed world.

Since last year, a rash of ship seizures and ransom payments in the crowded waters of the Gulf of Aden has coincided with reports that well-funded syndicates, rather than small-time operators, control piracy from Somalia, a failed state with virtually no law enforcement.

Interesting ...

But when it comes to gun rights, we don’t need to guess. Judge Sotomayor has put in writing what she thinks. President Obama has nominated a radically anti-Second Amendment judge to be our newest Supreme Court justice.

Most martial arts have a code to live by. The code or tenets guide how they conduct life in general. Although most of us aren't martial artists, we can put the same code or tenets to use in making our lives better.

It never hurts to review the basics.

"That is why it is useless to quote reams of evidence, demonstrating that places that do not restrict gun ownership enjoy lower crime rates than those that do. Washington DC and New York City, where guns are outlawed, have two of the highest murder rates in the USA; Vermont and New Hampshire, with the highest gun ownership in the country, two of the lowest. Burglaries are almost unheard of in those places where most households are armed. Switzerland, with the heaviest-armed population in the world, has practically no crime, while Britain and Holland, with their strict gun laws, are crime-ridden. And in the first two years after a complete ban on handguns was introduced in Britain, gun crime went up by 50 percent and it is still growing."

A series of explosions and a fire in Clermont County Sunday night were triggered by several truckloads of ammunition, NewsChannel5 sister station WCPO-TV in Cincinnati reported.

Well ... I guess the prices aren't coming down this week.

One investigator said that other witnesses had corroborated some aspects of Mr. Hage’s account of two white youngsters, about 14 and 16 years old, running away from the scene. The investigator played down any connection to the earlier incidents, but said no conclusions had been reached. He added that the device apparently contained gunpowder, was ignited with a lighted fuse and may have been contained in an energy drink bottle.

I swear ... kid's these days!

The U.S. military is putting together a suite of hacking tools that could one day make breaking into networks as easy for the average grunt as kicking down a door.

Hmmm ... can't think of any way this could go wrong ...

Interesting and accessible analysis of the credit card rule changes can be found here.

The police commissioner and the head of the FBI's New York office said the four defendants were a serious threat, and that they were not entrapped by law enforcement officials.

I wonder if this means that they were entrapped ...

“One of my main points is that no amount of money would get them the level of security they now have for free” from pilots and others who now work at the nation’s airports, Wood said.

After years of delay and hundreds of millions of dollars in preparations, Customs and Border Protection officials said new security measures would go into effect on June 1, requiring Americans entering the country by land or sea to show government-approved identification.

Gee, it's too bad that them knowing who you are doesn't actually improve anyones Security, least of all yours. I wish they would take all the money they're spending on this and spend it on radiation detectors. At least that would force the baddies to blow the nukes or dirty bombs right at the border.

The disc containing national security information was lost sometime between October 2008 and March 2009 and its disappearance was finally made public this week by a lawmaker who sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Federal authorities and Congress have launched a probe into the matter, which they had planned to keep private.

I don't even know where to start on this one ...

Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Remember, “Guns don’t kill people; doctors do.”

Fine work ...

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

Everyone that tries this is going to come to the same conclusion ...

Dead clients don't ... play!

But perhaps the most damning conclusion was that many forensic disciplines — including analysis of fingerprints, bite marks and the striations and indentations left by a pry bar or a gun’s firing mechanism — were not grounded in the kind of rigorous, peer-reviewed research that is the hallmark of classic science. DNA analysis was an exception, the report noted, in that it had been studied extensively. But many other investigative tests, the report said, “have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny.”

Probably worth keeping in mind ...

Gee, whillickers ...

Round four of mankind’s epic battle against the walking, talking, killer machines starts tonight with the opening of Terminator Salvation. But humanoid robots aren’t confined to the movies. Turns out the U.S. military is backing research into robots that act like people, as well.

Salvation was pretty good ...

So California, in my opinion, is not only the worst state on gun rights, it's much worse than at first glance. Every year, all the gun control legislation that didn't get passed last year is re-introduced. Even as California loses on gun control in the courts the legislature just keeps passing more.

Interesting study on states gun policies ...

"They have an amazing football program. That was a big decider," she said, still girly for all the talk of guns, spacecraft and football, barefoot with toenails painted lime green. "And they're ranked number one or number two for aeronautical engineering."

Our future ...

Unlike many Nasa and European space officials, Russian engineers are confident that even after two decades in orbit, their modules would be in good enough shape to form the basis of a new space station.

I'm glad someone is going to stay up there, but I wish we were going to be there too.

TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne characterizes the changes as having more effect behind the scenes than at airport checkpoints. "What we care about at the checkpoint is what we've always cared about: that you are who you say you are," she says. "And that means having a valid government ID."

Unfortunately, TSA knowing who you are doesn't improve your security at all. Either you are carrying the means to interfere with the flight, or you aren't. If you aren't, then why waste extremely limited resources preventing you from flying on the plane? If you are, why not spend the resources making damn sure that the means are detected instead of playing Big Brother games?

Scales: "The state preemption clearly prohibits the city from passing a law. A rule is not a law. What a rule is, is essentially a formalized policy."

Hopefully, whoever replaces the mayor will get rid of this guy.

The moral of the story? These are uncertain times. Stock up on some ammo if you feel the need. But don’t give in to the fear mongering and hoard beyond what’s reasonable. Our law enforcement officers need bullets, too.

I think it's wise that the suppliers are filling the demand in such a way that they don't end up with excess capacity when the current deficit plays out. We really don't need any more bubbles. Also, just because you're hoarding, it doesn't mean that it's in any way unrasonable.

Instead, though, they tried to obtain plastic explosive--a much trickier proposition. Their supposed supplier of the ordnance, in fact, turned out to be an FBI informant. They were, in other words, undone by their attempts to acquire something more deadly than so-called "assault weapons."

Hmmm ... interesting take.

While some politicians and federal bureaucrats may not appreciate or respect the right to bear arms, most Americans understand that the Second Amendment was recognized by the Founding Fathers as critical to ensuring individual liberty and freedom. With this legislation, Congress finally has reaffirmed this right so that the more than 3 million American visitors to national parks and refuges can once again bear arms.

It's unfortunate that so many people are unwilling to recognize that true Liberty and Justice, not to mention Security, are only possible in a uniformly armed society.

XCOR’s longest-running rocket underwent 2,000 test firings before the team deliberately killed it by shutting off its cooling to see how it would have responded without it. That 2,000 firing number is important to keep in mind, considering the Lynx rocket isn’t a throwaway propulsion device, but one that’s integrated directly into the craft, which the company intends to launch multiple times a day once it’s operational.

A great bunch of pics ...

(via DRB)

Yigal Palmor, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said “not only did the Vatican not complain about so-called excessive security but they expressed their satisfaction with all the security arrangements, which were completely coordinated with them.”

I find that I'm reluctant to go to places where the 'heavy security' is for someone other than me. This is because when 'stuff' happens, everyone but the protectee is considered expendable. Even if nothing happens, it's hard to miss the sensation that the security personnel are measuring you for a body bag 'just in case'. This is why so much of the anti-tango security at the airports and government buildings is losing general support. It's impossible to miss the fact that it isn't you that's intended to be protected by it.

Some sort of mental disconnect became clear in one of the lab's behavioral studies, where people looked at a gradual morph from a human face to a doll face. People quickly recognized the point where they became uncertain about whether the face was alive or not, when the morph was just 30 percent doll mixed in. However, the point at which they found the morph "creepiest" had much more of the doll face than the human face in the mix.

Interesting ...

Shortly after launch, both spacecraft separated, triggering the execution of automatic sequences on board, including acquisition of the spacecraft's orientation in space, configuration of the data handling system and switch-on of the high-frequency radio transmitters, the ESA said.

Now scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire plan to mimic nature. They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on space craft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.

Ummm ... shields up, set phasers on 'slaughter'!

ARCO - From the beginning of nuclear energy, the discovery that atomic power is possible, to the present, three generations of nuclear reactors have been researched and developed at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Drinking urine might not have the same cachet as a bottle of Aquafina, but it beats dying of thirst in the cold, uncaring vacuum of space.

So true!

But State Sens. Tony Fulton of Lincoln and Mark Christensen of Imperial said passage of LB 430 this year will make sure that holders of permits will not run afoul of city ordinances that prohibit concealed carry.

Hmmm ... re-elect if possible.

Syed Haris Ahmed told U.S. District Judge Bill Duffey he believes Duffey will be "more impartial than normal people," considering the nature of the charge against him.

This was probably a good idea.

Can I have one of these?

The problem for anti-gun House leaders is that their priority bill, H.R. 627, now contains a pro-gun amendment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is forced to either delay the entire bill in order to try to strip the popular pro-gun amendment out later in the year, or allow the underlying bill to move through the House before Memorial Day with the Coburn amendment intact.

Congressmen Mike McIntyre, Heath Shuler, and Larry Kissel have signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder chastising him for his remarks about reviving the so-called assault weapons ban.

Hmmm ... must want to get re-elected.

In five spacewalks over the last week, the astronauts brought two ailing instruments on the telescope back to life, installed two new ones and replaced the orbiting observatory’s gyroscopes and batteries. The refurbished telescope, astronomers and engineers say, should be good for five to seven more years in space.

Fine work, folks ...

"They must realize that they may have given the demonstration of a gift to the world that provides energy for a millennium," says Leon Walters, retired Division Director from the Argonne National Laboratory. On December 20, 1951 a reaction occurred that would change the future of electricity. The Experimental Breeder Reactor, or EBR-I, was the first to use atomic energy peacefully in the world, by powering four simple light bulbs.

During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2% and robbery 6.2%. Sexual assault–Australia’s equivalent term for rape–increased 29.9%. Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2%. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8%: rape dropped 19.2%; robbery decreased 33.2%; aggravated assault dropped 32.2%. Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women (whom ABC reports are arming themselves at record rates because of safety concerns): More women, from soccer moms to professionals like the ones at the Blue Ridge Arsenal gun range in Chantilly, Va., are packing heat for sport, self-empowerment and protection.

Hmmm ... statistics!

Onion makes me laugh ...

Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Robert A. Foster said the state's Stand Your Ground law does not give Donald Montanez immunity from prosecution. "It is inherently dangerous to pull a firearm and is best left to well trained individuals who have a duty to serve and protect," Foster said. "Citizens carrying firearms, whether licensed to do so or not, proceed at their own risk subject to the laws of the state of Florida, which are very clear.

That seems to be exactly what it does. I hope Florida watches this very closely.

Space has never been more important to our national security than it is today. The opportunities for truly profound scientific discoveries through space exploration have never been greater. And the pace of international development of new capabilities for space operations has never been faster.

The next war will be won from orbital space by whomever is able to operate most effectively there.

Gotta love it ...

Tappan Street Restaurant Group, which operates most of the Taco Mac restaurants in the Atlanta area, was quick to ban the legal carry of firearms in their restaurants following the passage of HB89 (the "gun rights" bill) into law in July 2008. WSB reported today (Sunday) that, shortly after 3am, an armed gunman accosted an employee as he or she took out the trash and attempted to rob the Taco Mac in Virginia Highlands. The manager drew a handgun and exchanged fire with the gunman before he (the gunman) fled. No employees or customers were reported injured. Had the manager honored the "gun ban" in TSRG's Taco Mac restaurants, the outcome could have been much worse -- consider the fate of slain bartender John Henderson at the Standard (who complied with his assailant's instructions) in January 2009.

I do so love it when they fight back!

NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope finally ran out of its liquid helium coolant and entered its “warm mode” last Friday, May 15th. The telescope has spent almost six years probing the cosmos, and it should continue work for at least another two. However, the telescope will now operate without two of its instruments: its long-wavelength imaging photometer and its infrared spectrograph.

Includes some interesting pics ...

Tigan, who owns Tactical Avian Predators, proposes having two falconers patrol Sacramento airport grounds daily. The falcons would chase their prey off airport grounds. The falconer then would call his bird back with a whistle and a lure.

Hmmm ... Falconer ... I like the sound of it. How much does it pay ... ?

Oops ... catastrophic interwebs loss ... sorry!

Space Flight roundup:

The Phoenix has landed on Mars -- much to the relief of worried flight controllers 170 million miles away at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California, who were helpless to do anything if Phoenix ran into trouble.

Russia will charge U.S. astronauts $51 million per return trip to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2012 and will resume selling seats to space tourists, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.

Two new Canadian astronauts are to begin human spaceflight training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Canadian Space Agency said Wednesday.

Europe is planning to launch a sharp-eyed observatory Thursday to give humans their furthest look back in time to see the cosmic fingerprint of the Big Bang.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has begun its search for other Earth-like worlds. The mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 6, will spend the next three-and-a-half years staring at more than 100,000 stars for telltale signs of planets. Kepler has the unique ability to find planets as small as Earth that orbit sun-like stars at distances where temperatures are right for possible lakes and oceans.

Last year, a man with a gun who was at odds with the Morrison County Board walked into a board meeting at the courthouse in Little Falls, Minn., through an entrance without a metal detector. The man held officials hostage before he was killed by police.

One of the nice things about a heavily armed citizenry is that they make it so you don't have to spend a lot of tax dollars on security measures for your government employees. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the employees themselves are much less likely to do the things that make people crazy, and the second is that the baddies know that they are just as likely to be immediately killed at the legislature building as they are at the local gun store.

The boy told investigators that he grabbed a knife and stabbed the man to protect them, police spokesman Alan Quinn said.

I do so love it when they fight back!

Home Invasion Roundup:

Memphis police are looking for three suspects after a shooting during a home invasion robbery early today critically injured a victim.

A man answered a knock at his door from a casual acquaintance and suddenly found himself the victim of a home invasion robbery. (Obviously, a well planned crime. That guy will never get caught.)

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

We're getting there ...

The salts are just fertilizers - a mix of sodium and potassium nitrate - but they represent a significant advance in the decades-old technology of solar thermal power production, which has traditionally used mirrors to heat water or oil to generate electricity-producing steam. Now, engineers can use the molten salts to store the heat from solar radiation many hours after the sun goes down and then release it at will to drive turbines. That means solar thermal power can be used to generate electricity nearly round-the-clock.

But Napolitano, testifying before the House appropriations sub-committee on the agency's budget, told lawmakers the report was designed for "situational awareness" and not targeting purposes.

That's nice ...

There was just one problem: The man was an imposter. Stephen Grant, 48, of Rockland was sentenced today to two years of probation on one count of impersonating a federal agent, federal prosecutors said.

Hmmm ... he was certainly sporting some extra-large walendas.

The Air Force plans to send a futuristic-looking aircraft roaring out over the Pacific Ocean at hypersonic speeds this fall in its first flight test of a scramjet engine.

Though the swine flu captured the world's attention, its total confirmed death toll of fewer than 100 people so far provided a point of comparison that many health experts couldn't resist: Garden-variety seasonal flu kills that many people each day in the U.S. alone.

A fairly crunchy discussion of statistical methodology used in pandemic reporting ...

The vote was 67 to 29, with 27 Democrats and one independent joining 39 Republicans to approve an amendment overturning federal rules that required gun owners to carry their firearms unloaded and stored while visiting national parks.

Some of the Dems must want to get re-elected and at least one of the Repubs must not.

Extremely interesting ... if you're a science dink.

Can I have one of these?!?

"But with Early-Death Incentives, rather than force millions of retirees to eke out a meager subsistence on a small stipend for years, we can offer them a few years of high living, followed by guaranteed, permanent relief from being a burden on the American taxpayer."

Onion makes me laugh ...

One of my concerns with the public launch of Wolfram Alpha later this month is withstanding the crushing load the Internet can impose. But Wolfram Research revealed Tuesday it's building the service on the world's 66th-fastest supercomputer.

Hmmm ... any day, now.

The way it would work is that suspected offenders would receive two warnings about their illegal activities and on the third suspected offense, their Internet access would be cut off for anywhere from two months to a year. Users will also be put on a "three-strikes" blacklist so that they can't sign up for service from another ISP.

It's always such a pain waiting for the last of the dinosaurs to die off. In the mean time, I wonder how a general boycott of all products made by the companies that lobbied for this law would go over.

This is a very important point to tease out. A professional, all-volunteer military is more than just a selective (and self-selecting) group. Service comes with a social compact: Deployed troops should have access to first-rate medical care; they will receive psychological screening; and their families should have access to a support network. While those ideals do not always translate to practice, the American public generally will spare no expense to make sure its volunteer military is properly trained, extremely well equipped and well protected. Deploying as a unit, rather than sending individual replacements, also bolsters morale. All of those factors — the support network, the screening, the good care, the willingness to be there – help cut down on tensions which could eventually lead to fratricide.

Interesting ...

Home Invasion Roundup:

Police are looking for suspects in two different home invasions in Cape Coral. Both happened on Monday May 11th.

Police said the man matches the description of a person who has broken into nearly a dozen homes, robbing and sometimes sexually assaulting women inside.

Four men attacked an older couple during a home invasion. After stealing money and medicine, they shot a third victim multiple times before leading police on a high speed chase that ended in a crash.

"He said lay down on that floor and if you move I'm going to kill you and your whole family," says home invasion victim J.D. Anderson.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

The building was placed on lockdown immediately. A state police canine unit was brought in to search the building. But by late morning, police determined it was safe to evacuate the building floor by floor and send the students home around 11:15 a.m., said district spokeswoman Kimberly Brehm.

Hmmm ... the students were kept in the school where the first device was detonated until the rest of the school was searched ... and THEN they were sent home.

They showed how a botnet, a network of 180,000 compromised or zombie computers, allowed thieves to steal thousands of bank account and credit-card details and computer passwords and to spy on the browsing habits of the users.

If college was always this fun, everyone would go.

Home Invasion Roundup:

Two apartment residents are shaken but unharmed after two armed men forced their way into their apartment demanding cash and property.

When the resident awoke to find the two men in his bedroom, one of the suspects struck him in the head with a household object, giving the resident a laceration to his head. Deputies were dispatched to the home around 11:57 p.m, according to the release.

Two men in their twenties broke into a home looking for money and drugs in an early morning robbery, according to Greensboro police. The suspects kicked in the door at 4306 Baker Street at just before 7 a.m. Sunday.

IDSLIWTFB One Lubbock man was at home when someone tried to break in last week, and he caught the whole thing on web cam. Someone knocked on Andy Hartman's front door, and when Hartman didn't answer they jumped his fence and tried to kick in his back door. Hartman grabbed a gun, ran to a back room and called 911.

Two juveniles were linked to a home invasion that occurred at about 1:45 a.m. Saturday in the 9600 block of East D Avenue in Richland Township.

They told police they were sleeping at 5:30 a.m. when they heard shouting and the sound of their door being kicked in. Officers said the storm door to the house was damaged and caked with mud from being kicked repeatedly.

IDSLIWTFB Neighbors in LaGrange are left shocked and worried after what police are describing as a deadly home invasion. One suspect is dead, the other wounded. And the homeowner was badly beaten.

Police are investigating a Uniondale home invasion early Saturday in which a group of men, some armed with handguns, robbed the homeowner and four other residents

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

Cool pic!

At particular risk of identity theft are some 97,000 individuals whose Social Security numbers were accessed in the breach, but it's still unclear whether hackers were able to match up those SSNs with individual names, Shelton Waggener, UCB's chief technology officer, said in a press conference late last week.

There is a lot to be said for taking databases that contain this type of data off-line.

One class with Self Defense Instructor Matt Knaub is all it takes to learn how to defend yourself. "Yeah you could actually take that one class and go use that on the street to help you that day," Knaub said.

I REALLY hope this is a joke. One lesson may help you understand how quickly you're going to lose, but it will have no effect on WHETHER you lose.

A ninth grade history project at a high school in Pueblo was supposed to teach students about terrorism, but instead it outraged parents. Gini Fischer says her daughter came home Thursday saying she had two minutes to come up with a plot for an act of terrorism.

Gee whiz ... the first intelligent approach to effectively dealing with terrorism I've heard in months (teaching our high-schoolers how to put on the terrorist thinking cap when necessary) and everyone acts like the teacher committed a crime. I guess it really is better if they're oblivious to the thought processes that go into a terrorist act so that if they ever are confronted with one there won't be any chance, whatsoever, of recognizing and avoiding it. Instead they'll walk up and die horribly, as planned by the tangos. After all, we wouldn't want an education to interfere with that.

“Gun control is a topic that people don't like to talk about in any sort of rational way,” he said, noting some favor outlawing all private gun ownership, while others say there should be no gun laws. Helmke favors a middle ground. He would limit how many guns people can buy at one time, ban sales of semiautomatic rifles and increase law oversight of gun sales.

Hmmm ... I see what you mean ...

But as she desperately scrambled to grab her handbag, Gratia-Hupp realized her gun was no longer inside. She had intentionally left it in her car in order to comply with state gun laws prohibiting gun owners from carrying concealed weapons. Without the gun she carried daily, Gratia-Hupp watched helplessly as both of her parents were among those murdered in the tragic killing spree.

Yeah ... Luby Cafeteria. You would think that people would learn.

Eleven years after that, there is little that is up, and almost nothing is running. Instead, Yucca Mountain has been placed in what the Department of Energy calls "cold standby." Congress cut almost $100 million from its $386 million budget this year, forcing DOE to lay off 500 of its 1,400 workers. The new Obama administration budget proposes to stop funding altogether while a "blue ribbon" panel explores other alternatives for nuclear waste disposal.

It's amazing how the fact that it was in the desert encouraged everyone to ignore how tectonically and hydraulically active the whole area is.

Lift-off roundup:

Conditions appear favorable for Atlantis to begin its mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope today — a journey that is expected to include several measures to ensure that the space shuttle avoids any collision with dangerous space debris.

Russia has launched a Progress M-02M cargo spacecraft from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), a spokesman for Russia's space agency Roscosmos has said.

The telescopes will be hurled into space atop an Ariane 5 launcher from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on Thursday.

THE LAW REQUIRES THE DIVISION OF LICENSING TO ISSUE A LICENSE WITHIN 90 DAYS OF RECEIPT OF THE APPLICATION -- or deny the license "for cause", based upon the criteria set forth in the law. Theft of operating funds by the Legislature is not "just cause" for failure to issue licenses or renewals within 90 days.

On the plus side, Floridians should have little difficulty figuring out which of the members of their legislature are ignorant hypocrites after this.

"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, 'There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'" Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

It's almost like the Brit gubmint is trying to foment revolution. You would think that they have enough problems with all the Muslims in there country without turning their own subjects against them.

European scientists will attempt their most audacious space launch yet when they blast a pair of giant satellites – Herschel and Planck – into orbit on the same rocket on Thursday. The two spacecraft have been designed to study the deepest recesses of space, unravel the early history of the universe and probe the creation of stars, galaxies and planets.

One of those yet-to-be-unraveled things is the Big Bang, the origin of the Universe itself. Our origin, the final question that we have been trying to answer since we came out of the cave and looked up the night sky. We still don't know exactly what happened, but the observation of the Universe from Earth and space probes have caused some physicists to propose many different models. One of these models says that, during the initial inflation period of the Universe, space-time expanded faster than light. If this turns out to be the case, it would make possible the creation of warp drives.

Interesting speculations ...

In fact, according to Bill Newell, special agent in charge of ATF in Arizona and New Mexico, the so-called 800 rpm “anti-aircraft gun” isn’t a machine gun at all, but rather a WWII-era semi-automatic replica of a Browning machine gun made by a U.S. company.

It figgers ...

Home Invasion Roundup:

Kalamazoo County’s Sheriff’s Department responded to the home invasion at the 9600 block of East D Ave Saturday. The victim reported a backpack, camera, laptop computer and several beers were taken.

IDSLIWTFB The homeowner was badly beaten up. Police said the homeowner shot the two suspcets, killing on and seriously hurting the other. That man was flown to a hospital in Fort Wayne.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

When the Justice Department or the Centers for Disease Control want to send employees somewhere, they don't specify the aircraft types, let alone design the airframes, engines and avionics. They just buy plane tickets. Even the military finds it cheaper to use civilian aircraft for certain missions. So why should space transportation be any different?

It is hard to make a case that the assault weapons ban was decisive in 1994.

It is also hard (apparently) to make a case that it wasn't, too. I notice the politicians with the most to lose seem to believe it.

If the Hubble repair crew due for liftoff on Monday got into the deepest sort of orbital trouble, yet another shuttle would have to be launched into orbit as little as a week later. NASA hasn’t launched two piloted spacecraft so close together in more than 40 years. But that's just the first act of the drama.

More details, and some graphics.

For collection of number two, modified sealable bags were used. There was no privacy aboard the Gemini and Apollo capsules, so imagine doing all of this in close quarters with your buddies! To make matters worse, these bags were (are) clear. They are still carried aboard US spacecraft, for use in the event of irreparable toilet failure.

Too much information ... but still interesting.

Using pieces of disassembled code, API calls, memory addresses and subroutines associated with the bane of a security team's existence, they analyzed the data by frequency, density, and groupings. Algorithms were then developed and the artists mapped the data to the inputs of the algorithms, which then generated virtual, 3D entities.

Interesting project ... with resulting cool pics!

Seems that more than just Montana have passed laws exempting guns made in their States from federal control. The States, Montana, Alaska and Texas have drawn a line in the sand where gun control laws are concerned. These States have figured out that gun laws only hurt the law-abiding Citizen of that State, not the criminals.

There needs to be more of this ...

Home Invasion Roundup:

Pasco Sheriff's deputies are investigating a home invasion in Holiday that has left two shot with non-life threatening injuries.

London police arrested one man after an early-morning home invasion.

An Eden family got a wake-up call no family wants to receive. Police investigators with the Eden police department say in the early morning hours of Friday, May 8, the family's home was broken into by three people pointing a gun.

Allentown Police were also on the scene of an apparent home invasion this afternoon. Police radio reports indicate two men with guns broke into an apartment on Livingston Street.

Police in Lancaster County are searching for 4 suspects involved in an early morning home invasion.

Two men and a woman inside an apartment said they were robbed at gunpoint. The victims 19, 20 and 22 years old, were apparently targeted by the gunmen.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

Never before have spacewalking astronauts attempted to fix dead science instruments on the Hubble, equipment that was never meant to be handled in orbit. Before they've just swapped out the whole thing at the telescope, which started out life shockingly nearsighted.

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter properly followed commands today to shut down and restart, a strategy by its engineers to clear any memory flaws accumulated in more than five years since Odyssey’s last reboot.

I really liked it ...

A team of physicists from Austria has sent pairs of entangled photons, which can be used to encrypt messages with complete security, between telescopes spaced 144km apart in the Canary Islands. The researchers say that preserving entanglement over this distance shows the feasibility of carrying out quantum cryptography using a worldwide network of satellites.

Thus far, many policymakers in Washington have responded favorably to their constituents' requests, saying they respect and understand the public's need for dishonesty.

Onions make me laugh ...

Researchers in Denmark have created a tiny box with a lid that can lock shut and even hinge open with a set of DNA "keys". This new box exists on a n[ano]-scale and is the first such box with solid sides and moving parts.

Hmm ... I'll be needing something valuable and small enough to put in there.

Built in 2004, the Mirabella V mega yacht incorporates nearly every conceivable luxury. The yacht has a full beam owner’s suite, six staterooms with big windows and full size en-suite bathrooms, entertainment systems everywhere, and even a hot-tub and dip pool on the sailboat's foredeck. The yacht also has a gymnasium and sauna, which are located on the lower deck, and all the latest satellite communications equipment, for keeping in touch with those poor wretches on shore.

Hmmm ... got to get me one of these.

Most of the lie detector industry is based on, well, lies.

Bruce is always interesting ...

Experts from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners have agreed to outlaw all games in which players shoot at each other with pellets.

Quickly now ... let's do something, even if it's patently stupid, to hide the fact that we are unwilling to do the one thing that would actually help.

In theory, law-abiding Californians who undergo a criminal background check and pass a government training course can receive a permit from their local sheriff to carry a concealed firearm.

Home Invasion Roundup:

FAKE COP Suspect #1 had a name strip on his polo shirt with the name “John Deccor.” The suspects showed the victim a photograph, asking for the name of the person in the picture. The suspects checked the inside of the residence, took a small safe and then left. During this incident suspect #2 brandished a semiautomatic handgun. The suspects were last seen in a silver Mercedes Benz SUV (paper plates with registration sticker in front windshield).

Police said four masked men, one armed with a handgun, broke into a home on Ainsley Dr. and injured the two occupants.

IDSLIWTFB A neighbor chased down and confronted the robber, who gave back the cell phone, but kept the cash before running off, police said.

IDSLIWTFB An ex-convict recently released from prison found himself on the wrong end of a shotgun during a home invasion gone bad Wednesday, authorities said.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

However, the new measures under consideration would for the first time give the US access to some of Pakistan's nuclear ingredients, though not the actual weapons, which are reportedly stored unassembled under the control of a 10,000-member security force headed by a two-star general.

In contrast to most normal nuclear reactors, however, a fast reactor uses a coolant that is not an efficient moderator, such as liquid sodium, so its neutrons remain high-energy. Although these fast neutrons are not as good at causing fission, they are readily captured by an isotope of uranium (U₂₃₈), which then becomes plutonium (Pu₂₃₉). This plutonium isotope can be reprocessed and used as more reactor fuel or in the production of nuclear weapons. Reactors can be designed to maximize plutonium production, and in some cases they actually produce more fuel than they consume. These reactors are called breeder reactors.

Interesting explanation ...

He said 80,000 security personnel will be deployed to secure the pope's tour, including 60,000 police officers. The rest will be secret service agents and soldiers, he said.

This alone should be more than sufficient to endear him to the Israelis for all time.

A report by the Justice Department's Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that 12 terror suspects who were either not watchlisted or were slow to be added to the list may have traveled into or out of the United States during the period when they were not placed on the list. Auditors also found significant delays in taking people off the list once they were no longer considered suspects.

"We expect folks to provide their own security," Levin said. "Why should we not expect that ships that are vulnerable going into that area will provide their own security personnel?"

A little unambiguous legislative leadership then ... please ...

"The University of Colorado has chosen wisely and appropriately to protect students' violent criminal’s safety by banning armed students," said Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based group.

Home Invasion Roundup:

IDSLIWTFB An overnight home invasion ended when the victim gabbed a gun and killed a suspected member of the Arian Nations white supremacist group who had recently been released from federal prison.

Officers say they responded to a report of a home invasion on Sunday night around 11:30 p.m. on Issac Street. Officers say when they went inside they observed that the front door of the incident location was forced open and while conducting a search inside of the residence found Rev.Tyron Eichelberger with a large laceration on his head.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

Seven astronauts are stranded in orbit after their shuttle is damaged during launch. Unable to repair the ship, they hunker down with dwindling supplies while four more astronauts board a second spacecraft and blast off on a daring rescue mission.

I think that this is the point where we actually become a legitimately space-faring species.

It is often said that that there is a trade–off to be had between liberty and security but in fact the debate has become unnecessarily polarized. Why can we as a society only have one without the other?

This is a false dichotomy. Security is protection from interference and liberty is the absence of interference. Liberty is the result of effective security measures. Where we typically run into problems is when we fail to ask WHOSE security is being improved by implementation of a particular security measure. If you are being asked to give up any liberty in the bargain, then you can rest assured that it isn't your security that is being improved.

Here is a great post on several types of nuclear energy systems in development.

But in that term "observable universe" lies the rub. We can't (and never will) "see" what this mass of theorized matter looks like. Which is too bad, because the dark flow theory hints that this mass, or super structure, could be anything from another universe to a realm of whimsical fancy whose physics, forces and warped space-time are completely beyond any of us.

Interesting with some cool pics ...

"Most people who practice Indian martial arts nowadays are simply learning the toned down exhibition styles that were allowed by the British," he says. "Unless we start teaching the original fighting styles they will be extinct within 50 years. I want to find two or three sensible, intelligent and tolerant young apprentices who can pass on what I've learned to future generations."

Hmmm ... cool-lookin' outfits ... tell us more.

These may be legal in some states ...

This is very cool ...

The general aviation community bristles at many of the proposed rules because not only will they be time consuming and annoying, but some of them will incur financial costs. For example, nearly 300 general aviation airports will be required to adopt potentially expensive security programs and they’ll almost certainly pass those costs on to those who use those airports.

I don't know how good an idea it is having TSA writing rules. Maybe they should concentrate on following rules.

Home Invasion Roundup:

IDSLIWTFB The homeowner, Tupo Santini, ran outside for help during the robbery. He managed to wrestle a gun away from one of the assailants and fire at him before all three fled, police said.

Six men were behind bars Monday after a botched home invasion attempt.

A home invasion in Groton that occurred early Monday morning was not a random act, according to police.

Investigators were searching Monday for a 3-year-old boy kidnapped by two gunmen who broke into his family's home, tied up his mother and four siblings, and stole property, authorities said.

The victim went on to explain that he heard someone knocking on his apartment window before opening the main door of the building to see who it was. At this point, four Asian males forced their way in and began kicking and punching him in the common area of the building.

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!

I've only had a little while to delve, but this looks like it might be a sincere MA site.

It's engraved with Palin's name and adorned with a map of the state on the collapsible stock - made legal after the expiration of the assault weapons ban in 2004. The Big Dipper from the state flag is etched on the magazine well behind a vented barrel guard.

A customized AR-15 chambered in .50 Beowulf. What's not to like (be sure to enlarge the image)?

The center says that it has no data on police killed during the ban.

Hmmm ... how convenient.

The long, skinny tube has to go. Tasked with improving the nation's air transportation, NASA wants airplanes to burn 40 percent less fuel than a 777 by 2020 and 70 percent less by 2030. Not only that, it wants those same planes to be whisper-quiet. The best -- and perhaps the only -- way to reach these ambitious benchmarks is to design commercial planes more like stealth bombers and less like pencils.

Interesting ...

Russia is planning to build a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves.

The Department of Homeland Security and several technology giants are launching a nationwide volunteer program to put tech pros in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms to make the younger generation aware of Internet dangers.

The last of 53 replacement magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been lowered into the 16-mile tunnel straddling the Swiss-French border which houses the machine.

"We believe that our parks and community centers and open spaces are safer without guns," Fryer said.

And so they are, but what about when they're with guns but only in the hands of the bad guys. Are they safer then, too?

A Northeast Georgia security firm has introduced a surveillance camera that allows home or business owners secure video access to their property.

Interesting ...