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The University of Alaska - Fairbanks does predict high auroral activity the night of the 18th.

So, depending on where you live, you might get to see some aurora that night - but nothing like the "news" going around the web.

It looks like a pretty good disruption at about 12:20 local time.
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webi...

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/acti...

Here's one that I'm particularly fond of from last year.

Why should they not come out better than when they went in?

Forced education of the basic R's would be a good start. Nearly 60-70% of our incarcerated population can not read

Bullshit.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs94/9410...

About 7 in 10 prisoners perform in Levels 1 and 2 on the prose, document,
and quantitative scales. These prisoners are apt to experience difficulty in
performing tasks that require them to integrate or synthesize information
from complex or lengthy texts or to perform quantitative tasks that involve
two or more sequential operations and that require the individual to set up
the problem.

They say that about 70% have some problems with complex or lengthy texts -- mostly as a result of them entering prison as a person who likely lacked an education to begin with. Nowhere will you find anything credible that says 70% are illiterate.

begintoread.com is propaganda.

You can see here:
http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/... ...that while prison rates are bad, they're not significantly worse than anything else. ...and still only measures people deficient -- not outright illiterate. At mostly, only 25% of specific prison groups by ethnicity have difficulty reading documents. ...and in some cases, their literacy level is HIGHER than outside prison.

You're deeply confused about what a glacier's advancement or retreat means. Glaciers advance on a thin layer of (wait for it) melted ice. This is not necessarily strongly correlated to global warming one way or another, depending on the glacier. Antarctic sea ice is not glacial in the sense that any of your ignorance might apply to it. To make the obvious point, Antarctica receives very little precipitation, whereas glaciers are usually the product of snowfall.

Ocean temperatures, by the way, are increasing in the Antarctic. And your argument totally ignores that the Arctic is, in fact, melting like gangbusters. We were losing 52 cubic kilometers of glacier ice per year in Alaska from 1950 until 1990, when the rate doubled. Arctic ice extent has been plummeting with barely a pause during that same time. The number of frost-free days has increased by half in Fairbanks. Again during that same time, average annual temperature has increased by an average of 3.4 degrees across the state. Winter temperatures have risen by 6 degrees. Overall warming rate is roughly double the global average, and the global average is not good. A possibly counterintuitive effect is that precipitation (including snowfall) is increasing, but this should actually be obvious with a little thought: warmer air holds more moisture, and increasing evaporation in warm Pacific waters will of course result in increased precipitation when that air slams into the Chugach Mountains. Deny what you will, but that the Arctic is melting at an incredible rate is incontrovertible, and glaciers are merely the most visible symptom.

Beyond this, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas can be confirmed by schoolchildren. That we are currently dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate equaled only by the most violent periods of volcanism that the planet has seen should have some pretty obvious effects. Like the Arctic melting. Like we have observed. Sure, there may be some non-intuitive results, as in any other physical field -- the universe is a strange, strange place -- but it is purest stupidity and hubris to think that every phenomenon should be intuitively comprehensible. The only dishonesty here is that you don't choose to seek out the answers to your questions.

You're deeply confused about what a glacier's advancement or retreat means. Glaciers advance on a thin layer of (wait for it) melted ice. This is not necessarily strongly correlated to global warming one way or another, depending on the glacier. Antarctic sea ice is not glacial in the sense that any of your ignorance might apply to it. To make the obvious point, Antarctica receives very little precipitation, whereas glaciers are usually the product of snowfall.

Ocean temperatures, by the way, are increasing in the Antarctic. And your argument totally ignores that the Arctic is, in fact, melting like gangbusters. We were losing 52 cubic kilometers of glacier ice per year in Alaska from 1950 until 1990, when the rate doubled. Arctic ice extent has been plummeting with barely a pause during that same time. The number of frost-free days has increased by half in Fairbanks. Again during that same time, average annual temperature has increased by an average of 3.4 degrees across the state. Winter temperatures have risen by 6 degrees. Overall warming rate is roughly double the global average, and the global average is not good. A possibly counterintuitive effect is that precipitation (including snowfall) is increasing, but this should actually be obvious with a little thought: warmer air holds more moisture, and increasing evaporation in warm Pacific waters will of course result in increased precipitation when that air slams into the Chugach Mountains. Deny what you will, but that the Arctic is melting at an incredible rate is incontrovertible, and glaciers are merely the most visible symptom.

Beyond this, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas can be confirmed by schoolchildren. That we are currently dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate equaled only by the most violent periods of volcanism that the planet has seen should have some pretty obvious effects. Like the Arctic melting. Like we have observed. Sure, there may be some non-intuitive results, as in any other physical field -- the universe is a strange, strange place -- but it is purest stupidity and hubris to think that every phenomenon should be intuitively comprehensible. The only dishonesty here is that you don't choose to seek out the answers to your questions.

I looked at a datasheet for cobalt 60 apparently you have to come into physical contact. Looking at it shouldn't do them much harm.

Are you serious? It is a gamma and X-ray emitter. You don't need anywhere near direct contact. The MSDS I am looking at indicates 41,800 GBq/g. I have no idea what the quantity involved in the incident was, but if you postulate 1 kg, that means 41.8*10^15 Bq. The dose rate given in said MSDS is 370 uSv/h/GBq at 1 m. That works out to 370 Sv/h for said 41.8 thousand thousand GBq., or about 6 Sv/min (600 rem/min). Coincidentally, that is LD50 for whole-body radiation. I'm pretty sure that would do the trick, absent heroic and expert medical measures promptly applied (and likely even if they WERE applied), if torso and/or head was placed at 1 m for 1 minute. And these fumb ducks are not likely going to be visiting a hospital which has expertise in massive radiation sickness.

There is a lot of postulation there, but the take-home is that your assumption is grossly incorrect. Good thing you weren't on scene.

This would be funnier if it weren't completely retarded. Let me draw you a map.

I've explained enough times to want to make this short, but most of the ground up here is some variant on permanently frozen. At some point, all of that is likely to melt, and subside. We Alaskans know a lot about what that looks like, because if you build in the wrong way in the wrong place, you'll be filling out your cross-stitch with "Home Sweet Bog". Houses built on permafrost are built on stilts.

Also, while the Arctic is warming at a significantly greater pace than the rest of the world (1.6 degrees C up from last century, compared with .8 degrees C globally), the winters are still going to be cold as fuck (<-40) for a long time to come.

Plus, there's <1% of the land up in Alaska that's actually owned privately. The rest is owned either by the Feds, the State, or the Natives.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. Your suggestion, and its underlying premise, are so wrong-headed that it's turning my stomach. Perhaps you can go be a real estate agent in Shishmaref, or one of the other villages that we're having to relocate due to climate change. Hopefully at that point you might understand exactly what it is that is offensive about your comment.

The ice caps are not bigger. During my lifetime in Alaska I've been able to see glaciers shrink dramatically. Note the numbers on the map. The mean annual temperature in the region has been climbing rather more drastically than at lower latitudes. See also weather data, and also this report on exactly how many cubic kilometers of ice have been evaporating as a result of elevated temperatures there.

The Arctic is undeniably melting. I can see it all around me. Argue about the cause as you may, but to deny that it is happening is a malicious and despicable lie.

The ice caps are not bigger. During my lifetime in Alaska I've been able to see glaciers shrink dramatically. Note the numbers on the map. The mean annual temperature in the region has been climbing rather more drastically than at lower latitudes. See also weather data, and also this report on exactly how many cubic kilometers of ice have been evaporating as a result of elevated temperatures there.

The Arctic is undeniably melting. I can see it all around me. Argue about the cause as you may, but to deny that it is happening is a malicious and despicable lie.

Not to mention that the GI@UAF is showing decreased activity through the rest of the month. The peak in any Earth bound activity was yesterday.
 
As usual, Slashdot is a day late and a dollar short.

You laugh. This planet is pretty active. Although a quick perusal of recent Alaska activity doesn't show much unusual stuff, we've had a RM 7 and 6 quake on Queen Charlotte / Fairweather fault that's been quiet for the past decade or so (a blink in the geological eye). Time to get off my ass and bolt down the diesel tanks some more.

The fun thing about today's technology is that we can actually see the actual magnitude of volcanism on the planet in pretty much real time. Never had that ability before.

I live on the Ring of Fire. I'm aware on a daily basis of the threats to my welfare, though I'm less than an ant on a beachball to the forces of plate tectonics. If it happens, it happens. If I survive, maybe I'll move somewhere safe ... say, New Madrid, Missouri. (c:

You laugh. This planet is pretty active. Although a quick perusal of recent Alaska activity doesn't show much unusual stuff, we've had a RM 7 and 6 quake on Queen Charlotte / Fairweather fault that's been quiet for the past decade or so (a blink in the geological eye). Time to get off my ass and bolt down the diesel tanks some more.

The fun thing about today's technology is that we can actually see the actual magnitude of volcanism on the planet in pretty much real time. Never had that ability before.

Obviously it's a dock for their new fleet of Subterrenes, as the patent recently ran out.

Sounds crazy, right? Yea, that's what people said when I told them about HAARP 10 years ago; now it has its own website.





Crazy is, apparently, a matter of perspective.

The modern and affluent parts of those countries aren't where the majority of the jihadists are coming from. They're being recruited from and in parts of the country that are at least "backwater" by any modern nation's description.

The people who push for youtube to be banned in Pakistan are:
1. Media organizations
2. Lawyers, judges, e.g. the judicial establishment
3. Political parties within the government (notably excluding the largest, the PPP, from what I can tell)
4. and yes, the poor people in the backwaters

Really, the poor people aren't the problem. Like you said, they're being people. And really, by themselves they have such little power, they don't do anything more than low level violence (honor killings, tribal punishments, etc). That's not a huge world-wide deal, though it obviously sucks for the people who live there who are always on the wrong end of that violence, such as the few remaining Christians.

Even when it comes to outright jihad, you're mistaken in thinking that the modern and affluent parts of Pakistan are not a problem. That's exactly the problem. The small middle and upper classes in Pakistan hate India, hate Jews, and hate America. They see conspiracy theories everywhere -- ever heard of HAARP? Probably not.. I hadn't until I started reading Pakistani news and seeing articles EVERYWHERE (mainstream papers and websites) that HAARP is a secret US weapons program that controls the weather, causes earthquakes, etc. Do a search for "haarp pakistan" and you'll see what I mean. It's been going on for years. And I only read the English-language papers, which are frankly much more moderate than the Urdu ones.

That kind of 24/7 irrational fear and hatred breeds a support for terrorism. If you talk to the average rich Pakistani, and bring up the Taliban, they will stop you and let you know the first thing to learn about the Taliban is that there is the Good Taliban and the Bad Taliban. The Good Taliban are the lions of Islam who fight for speedy justice, the rights of the oppressed, and so on. They do that outside of Pakistan. The Bad Taliban are the ones who fight inside Pakistan.

Many middle and upper class Pakistanis will tell you they support terrorism as long as it's not against themselves. Terrorism against India, Israel, America (especially in Afghanistan) is fine because it's the only thing they CAN do against these shadowy, cowardly enemies who collude with each other to keep Pakistan weak, to keep Muslims everywhere weak. This is not a joke. Their government, military, and media talk about it all the time. Google "pakistan strategic depth" -- that's a codeword for supporting terrorist groups in other countries to maintain Pakistan's influence. Their army commanders give speeches about it and how proud they are that they have held the gigantic enemy of India at bay despite being so much smaller. I suggest you read this blog: http://criticalppp.com/ It began ostensibly as a watchdog of the PPP, the biggest political party in Pakistan, but I'd say it's not about that anymore. They do a good job pointing out problems in Pakistani society -- media, judiciary, military. They do a good job sourcing evidence like videos and quotes from speeches showing the widespread support for terrorism, blasphemy laws, oppression of minorities like Shias, and conspiracy theories. They'll also have translations of Urdu-language articles sometimes.

This is getting too long, but I wanted to comment on your mention of Saudi Arabia. I wasn't sure if you were joking, to be honest. I've never heard anybody seriously call Saudi Arabia more "chilling out" and "adjusting" than other Muslim countries. Surely you know that's incorrect, right? What you may be seeing is that Saudi Arabia is more stable than other Muslim countries, and mistaking that for "chilling out". Really they have more control over their population than other Muslim countries, harsher laws, and more

Look at the aftershocks. Maybe you'll get lucky. Seems like the fault it really trying to dump some energy.

It would likely be more fitting for pride month festivities than for a religious event, but it would be different to have a holiday with colorful auroras to watch. In that spirit, maybe an event should last a Carrington rotation instead of a month?

Techno / disco beach resort at the north pole after the ice melts?

http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/images/plot_ace.png

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anakin1814/7578749634/in/photostream/

The Aurora Forecast predicts a good show. Too bad I doubt it will get dark enough in AK for my friends to see. Hopefully I can see it down here in Washington!

Everything that exists is a part of nature, and is therefore by definition natural. However, that does not mean that we can claim to know what is real, and what is not, until we've actually tried to find out.

What I mean is this...

Just because it is politically incorrect to believe in ghosts, surviving dinosaurs, chi, etc... does not mean that they don't exist. But because they are politically incorrect, no serious scientists would ever sully their reputations on even considering researching such things.

That is a shame, because that kind of unscientific thinking (ie. not trying to prove/debunk assumptions) may have us miss out on some really nifty discoveries.

Some examples:

1. St. Elmos Fire was first thought by sailors to be angels harkening the end of long lasting storms. With todays all too common attitue that no serious scientist would consider testing for angels, sailors would probably still be considered superstitious. Luckily that's a relatively easily repeatable fenomenon, so people were able to study it and work out how it happens. (Cause: Electromagnetic.)

2. Some people claim to have heard clicking sounds from Auroras. However, not everyone hears them and recording them has been unsuccessful. So, does that mean that "some" people are just plain wrong? Unlikely, in my opinion, given that there's no benfit to making such claims. (Side note, an uncle of mine once heard it one bitingly cold night when walking.) Alaska Science Forum Explanation of Auroral Sounds (Cause: Unknown)

3. The Third Man Factor is when people in extreme conditions sense/see/interact with a “spirit” who eggs them on to think rationally and survive. In a book by Geiger a hypothesis is proposed: In an accidental discovery a girl had the left side of her skull open, and as doctors prodded a particular spot, she had a feeling of a presence next to her. Geiger’s hypothesis is that in extreme situations the brain might trigger this effect to give itself company in a lonely and stressful time, thus increasing the chance of survival. If so, then perhaps this could used deliberately on travellers to Mars and other hard to reach places. (Cause: Possibly psychosomatic.)

4. Apparitions have apparently been seen all over the world. However, when you look closely, you’ll find that aside from people scaring themselves, there are those who are certain of what they saw (though they won’t tell just anyone for fear of ridicule). All the stories that I’ve come across have certain elements in common. A hypothesis I have is best described as an analogy to magnetic storage: When active, we give off signals that can be recorded into surrounding materials. Later, when we’re passive (ex. at night when we’re no longer heavily distracted by day to tasks) some of us might be sensitive enough to read those recordings enough for the brain to conjure up an image (ie. a hallucination based on what’s recorded in the surroundings). Perhaps some materials are better recording materials than others, which may be partly why some areas are thought to be more “haunted” than others. It would also explain why hauntings can never be recorded, and also why some old places have a certain “feel” to them. If so, then perhaps in a few centuries time, this could possibly be harnessed to create new forms of information storage. (Cause: Unknown)

Do I believe in any of these? To be honest, I’d like to but, but must admit to being agnostic.

However, my point is simply to be more open minded, and critical, at the same time. But simply disbelieving outright is both disrespectful and cl

HHARP is real, but it's not a weapon. http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/faq.html

I am assuming that they are not claiming a "hack" job but rather that the overwhelmingly powerful EM from the HAARP installation is shorting out the functionality of their launch systems. A suggestion that I don't think makes too much sense given that you'd expect them to be hardening their space vehicles against EM radiation since the Sun is rather good at making space is a rather hostile environment to EM sensitive equipment.

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/cam2.html

With this you can super heat the ionosphere, control the cooling plasma, heat up earth's ambient temperatures, light up the night sky, change the high weather patterns, steer hurricanes, bounce it of the highest realms of the ionosphere, shred the magnetosphere, open earth up to the sun's naughty flares, create floods, how about some earthquakes? You can communicate way down under the oceans, search for submarines, search for underground industrial complexes and generally cook any one you want all the while sending messages to their brains as it operates at human biological frequencies telling us all how much we are going to enjoy the next really big thing.

Tah!

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.474701,93.509531&spn=0.053604,0.132093&sll=40.458018,93.392587&sspn=0.0208,0.040426&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=14

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.452107,93.742118&hl=en&ll=40.472808,93.517685&spn=0.105121,0.165997&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.323926,84.990234&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=13

... the funny electrical thing, which reminds me of HAARP?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.458679,93.31314%09&hl=en&ll=40.474701,93.509531&spn=0.053604,0.132093&sll=40.458018,93.392587&sspn=0.0208,0.040426&vpsrc=6&t=h&z=14

Also this - http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/MobilePages - not an app, a website you can use to check on aurora (mobile version).

A greenhouse works by blocking infrared radiation from escaping the greenhouse, just like greenhouses gasses block infrared radiation from escaping the atmosphere.

Oh, trust me... I've felt lots and lots of earthquakes, at all sorts of depths.

History shows us that famine, war, and plague occur when we run out of resources or populate an area too densely. Some of the strong, smart, and lucky will survive to repopulate.

Not always

Conspiracy or not HAARP exists.
As to why or for what reason,who knows. A good place to begin with is Tesla's "Colorado Springs Notes".

Hey, you are fun.

Given your handle, I bet you are a kinesthic causality model type. Most everyone is. But when pushed real hard by something interesting, you sometimes see physics people looking at dynamic models. There is an issue therein about what is relevant. I hear there a couple hundred causality models.

On the summary slug, my immediate thought was a criticism of current instrumentation on these sort of inquiries. This is a pretty standard thought about the purpose to which we build machines. I thought of a couple examples I thought were relevant here, googled, and this is the top hit.

http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF12/1257.html

More simply, most everyone does some sort of physical/spiritual dualalty, so it is hard for me to understand why the story author thinks that a physical demonstration of non-existence would be relevant to his social situation. I might think he hopes his relatives would have to actually think about what they are saying around ghosts, but somehow I think this is a very difficult goal.

Go to the HAARP website, and look up the online data. Call up the Magnetometer Charts, specifically the archives.

Look at a few of the charts, zoom in, zoom out, change the dates, play with it a bit.

Now...

1. Go to a "history timeline" website, one that specifically deals with major events in the last decade. This is a reasonably okay one?

2. Go back to your magnetometer chart. Zoom in to a 2-week data range, starting 1 week before a major event, and ending 1 week after.

3. Look at how the dataline is relatively flat. RELATIVELY flat, mind you, compared to the other data.

4. Look at the massive spike either just before, or right AT the event. For example, look at the data for the morning of 9/11.

5. Now look at the data for every single major security scare, national security event, or even a major natural disaster where everyone got worked up into a froth, or there were a lot of people injured or otherwise killed.

Isnt' that interesting?

Now then, I am NOT suggesting that HAARP was responsible for 9/11 or the Haiti earthquake. Please, don't even go there.

What I am suggesting, is that major catastrophes have an effect on the magnetosphere, effects that can be measured.

Now here's the $100,000.00 question?

Exactly what is it surrounding these events that is affecting the earth's magnetosphere? Radio traffic? Cellphone traffic? Pumping up the satellite feed to overcome interference?

Some have suggested that human emotions are responsible. That's a bit of a reach, though. Isn't it?

That's not quite right for this event. Here's a forecast for tonight's event, it's possible that anyone north of about 55 degrees in North America will get a glimmer. True, that leaves most of us SOL. But that's why CME events are special -- people who can't normally see the aurora borealis get a chance to view it.

The only people in the US that will be able to see it live in Alaska - likely an extremely insignificant portion of the /. crowd.

That's not quite right for this event.

Here's a forecast for tonight's event, it's possible that anyone north of about 55 degrees in North America will get a glimmer.

True, that leaves most of us SOL. But that's why CME events are special -- people who can't normally see the aurora borealis get a chance to view it.

You know that Obama put those clouds there, right?

http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/ionindex.html Obama: Turn on the super sky microwave.... we don't wan't the jet stream blowing away the clouds HAARP: Yes mr president no more wind blowing to the gulf... Well make sure of that! And they wonder why cancer rates are up.

I use this site from the University of Alaska because it has forecasts and I live in Alaska.

They are. Every modernized country does research in this area in anything from cloud seeding to haarp.

Of course this is but the latest anti-freeze that is found in nature.

Having spent some time on Alaskan Glaciers I frequently saw ice worms, especially on cold rainy days that washed snow cover away. These things live their entire life at zero C, or within 3 or 4 degrees thereof.

Locals win a lot of bets with tourists, who simply don't believe them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesenchytraeus_solifugus

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF19/1918.html

Nope, it's the evil lab coats at HAARP this time...

Okay, that was an interesting description. You might note that any US auroral research is best performed in Alaska more for reasons of auroral proximity than prying eyes -- and there are a number of US citizens in Alaska, anyway.

But, while I find myself unable to share your paranoia (the ability for humans to perceive false correlation with such things is legendary -- ask the 1000s of hams whose neighbors suddenly "start" suffering TV interference when they see a new tower put up), that is a very interesting facility -- 3.6MW of RF is nothing to sneeze at, and pumping the ionosphere with HF to transmit ELF is damn cool. Thanks for the info, and here's a link for others who may be interested.

73 de ab9ul

Birds have been shown to react to magnetism, why not humans?

Sensitivity to magnetic fields are rather important for birds to navigate, for humans it is not. 99,9999999% of pigeons survive getting dropped from 500 meters above a parking lot, why not humans?

I think this is the correct line. The question is then where does the current come from. For that we look a the Aurora. The magnetic field reaches into space and the charged particles from space seperate and enter the atmosphere at the earth's magnetic poles. The current generates a magnetic field, which seperates the charges in the solar wind. How much currnet? Take a look.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF5/506.html

This makes more sense to me than a little salt water on an extremely thin crust of the planet.

Unlike many government programs, volcano monitoring can be easily justified with solid numbers and statistics.

I worked with a few folks in a volcano-monitoring program a few years ago.

Much of the justification for their existence comes from an incidentthat took place in 1989, in which a 747 flew into a cloud of volcanic ash, causing all 4 engines to fail.

A similar incident took place in 1982 with a British Airways 747. In both cases, the pilots at the controls had experience flying unpowered aircraft, and were able to perform a set of maneuvers to unclog and restart the engines, and land the planes safely. Both planes were severely damaged, and the KLM jet was nearly written off, requiring over $80 million worth of repairs. The landings had to be performed on instruments alone, as the ash sandblasted the windscreens, rendering them unusable.

Much like the infamous US Airways water landing that took place last year, it was a statistical anomaly that either of these planes landed safely. The odds of safely recovering from a complete loss of power are staggeringly low. (The presence of an unusually-experienced pilot with glider training can also be considered somewhat of an anomaly.)

Volcano monitoring can be tricky business, given that ash clouds look almost exactly like "normal" clouds on radar. (Popular legend states that the pilots didn't know anything was wrong until the engines abruptly stopped).

A 747-8 costs about $300 million in 2007 dollars, and can carry 467 passengers. An Airbus A-380 costs a bit more, and can hold up to 853 people in an all-economy configuration.

If one of these large planes were to crash in this manner, the monetary expenses due to the loss of the airframe, the recovery effort, and the inevitable insurance settlement could easily exceed several billion dollars.

If we prevent one such crash every 15 years, the program pays for itself. Additionally, much of the money spent is used to fund basic science research, and can be statistically demonstrated to have saved lives.

Since 1989, we have improved our ability to detect eruptions, and the major volcano observatories now have a direct line to the FAA, and the appropriate emergency management agencies to divert air traffic, and mobilize first responders within minutes of detection.

The governor of Louisiana should know better than to protest funding of an emergency preparedness measure.

Nonsense. Anyone is capable of writing their own software, just as anyone is capable of keeping and maintaining their own garden.

This is nonsense. Most people can't program even using something like Borland's Delphi or MS Visual Basic whereas there are very few who have brown thumbs or black thumbs.

My mother has zero interest in programming her own apps, just as I have zero interest in growing my own food.

I do both. I started college with a major in Computer Engineering and have been growing gardens since before I was a teen. I also have other interests. In high school I was torn between majoring in CE and Marine Bio or another marine science. I picked CE, though if I had known then what I know now I would have done a double major.

She would probably write very poor code at first, and I would probably keep a terrible garden; both of us could improve with time.

And how many have the tyme to devote to learning programming while they're already working full tyme? Sure people can improve but that doesn't mean they will be able to program a compleat and useful app. Gardening is easier.

Falcon

I'm not saying COLBERT isn't great, but the best backronym I've ever seen was South East Alaska MOnitoring Network for Science, Telecommunications, Education, and Research (SEAMONSTER), which is also a NASA project.

Definitely Xenu. We're talking about volcanoes, after all.

Check out the seismograph. I can't wait until daylight and we get some pics of what's going on out there.

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php
Fox News says it erupted tomorrow.

"...laboratory rats never overcome an aversion to hot peppers".

Here is your recipe for success

There's a minimalist backup site. FWIW the banner says the normal site was overwhelmed with traffic after national media coverage (which I take to be TV); somehow I think CNN would have a bigger effect than Slashdot.

The server for the Alaska Volcano Observatory appears to be overloaded and is unresponsive.

The server's unresponsive, but damn it we're still going to link to it. If it had any chance at all to recover, we're going to make sure it stays down for the count. What did the machine do to piss off the slashdot editor?