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Toyota's systems have over a 100 million lines of code: http://news.discovery.com/tech/toyota-recall-software-code.html

Not exactly a trivial app to just run strings on.

To turn that around, advanced technology, sir, is walking a line dangerously close to communism! :-)

That's because we are seeing the value of most human labor slowly plummeting to zero (one reason why no one can afford health insurance anymore except the doctors and medical equipment manufacturer owners. :-) See:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So, as Marshall Brain suggests, the end point of capitalism is the starvation of all people who do not have a lot of capital (because, when their labor is worthless, they will not be able to pay for food, clothes, rent, medical costs, etc.). Everything from milking cows to doing genetic research is being automated:
"VMS robotic milking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqWpOxQmIs
"Robot Scientist Makes Discovery"
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html

Robots are making the leap from less coordinated than humans to more coordinated than humans:
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

More links to robot videos here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The thing is, "ownership" is ultimately a political construction:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Propped up by millionaire wannabees and slightly privileged guards:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Coming Revolt of the Guards"
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html

Are you a billionaire? Otherwise, by capitalist standards, if your work can eventually be automated, your life will then be worthless in their eyes, and you should then logically starve once everything you can do of value to billionaires has been automated. And don't say you'll just get another job, because as Marshall Brain suggests, that one will be automated too once we pass some critical thresholds in AI and robotics. That's like saying you will hide under a tree to stay dry in a rainstorm and when that tree gets wet through you will go find another.

The only question is, do we put in place social reforms now, or do we wait until even more people are starving? Well, there's an obvious answer to that in a capitalist society, and as American financier Jay Gould said after hiring strikebreakers, it is "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

So, ideally, we need to find alternatives to a society build around a conception of work:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The real reason why violent (and other) games are evil in a way is just that they are a distraction from dealing with that very serious issue of rethinking our society on some better ba

There's news that the health risks of power lines is not due to the radiation, directly, but rather the effect of their magnetic fields on pollution.

Ok, I see what your gripe is. Yeh, by "plateau" I didn't mean tens of thousands of years of relatively flat temperatures. Just that we should be maxed out about now.

And what makes you it's "maxed out"? Just visually looking (you have to look at the raw numbers to get an exact amount), the trough to peak time for the previous cycles exceeds the current trough to current time. My TARDIS is broken. Is yours working?

It is not an assumption, rather what a truckload of research has been pointing to. But if you prefer let's say it's dark and it looks like it might be a gun, but you're not sure. The analogy is still fine.

I'm tired of people saying there's "a truckload of research". Cite references. You can't have an intelligent discussion without knowing what the basis of the opinion is. Back to your anaogy, I presume you are saying that CO2 is a gun. I know guns can easily kill. Show me a reference where it says were are going to release enough CO2 to be toxic. The dark example I agree is much better.

That's pretty much the same thing as saying the gun isn't loaded. Or that it might actually be pointed at your foot and not your head. Put that in if you like. The analogy still works.

If only works if you are trying to get me to react without thinking. Let's change your analogy to this: You are in a dark room and you have the gun, and you see something coming towards you. Do you shoot? Much harder to answer, isn't it?

However you are making a false dichotomy: solve the climate problem or help the poor. Any action we are able to take now on climate will help improve our options in the future should the dangerous effects of AGW prove to be true. And furthermore, significantly rising sea levels and changing weather will probably have a much greater adverse effect on the poor and disadvantaged than anyone else. So not doing anything to stop GW may also end up being equivalent to hurting the poor.

You have not examined the effect of the politics from the issue much, have you? We've already seen limiting of cheaper, combustion generators to push more limited solar ones (yes, it's renewable, the it doesn't work at night and is far more costly). If you want an egregious ( unrelated to AGW ) example (but same 'logic'), the EU obstructed US GM (genetically modified) corn to Somalia under famine conditions. If the EU cared that much, they should have just offered to grind it up into cornmeal. Another one would be the effect of banning DDT and malaria. Millions of lives were needlessly lost. The poor will be the ones who will mostly suffer.

So you're advocating ignoring a known threat just because there might be other unknown threats? That just seems silly.

No. I'm saying (for example) if soot is what is causing a bulk of the glacial melting you are worried about, you should concentrate on soot.

I totally agree with you there. You'll note that I made no suggestions about what policy actions to take. I merely said we need to take the threat seriously. But I believe there is much we can do without sending global economies to the brink of disaster. As the science evolves we must be prepared to react. But doing nothing now is a poor choice. We at least need to invest heavily in green energy, so that we'll have something reliable we can switch to.

The sane non-AGW sites say exactly that. You don't need AGW to argue that it's a bad thing to send B$s to unstable parts of the world. You don't need cap-and-trade to push economical light technology or better insulation. AGW is just a distraction.

Oh, ok, you mean ignoring feedbacks. Yeh, 1 deg C

So there are few women in technology. Sad. There are few men in primary or secondary education, nursing, or child care. Do we care?

Not that I've noticed, but we probably should. The gap in tech may well be partly caused by the gap in teaching.

http://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-news/discovery-communications-sony-and-imax-announce-pl/

Yep - a 24/7 fully dedicated 3D network in the US.

I think 3D is an epic fail right out of the gate. Autostereoscopy has been on the market already, so the whole add glasses thing is idiotic.

Samsung showed it at this year's CES, but it didn't get the big exposure... but still, it's out there:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1379458976&play=1

Autostereoscopic info here (one example) - meaning, 3D without glasses:

http://www.xyz3d.tv/

In addition - 3D headsets with 1.44 megapixel/eye glasses have been out for some time. All it would take would be a few minor upgrades, and for about a grand, you'd have the equivalent of a 3D 70" set at 13'. See, for example:

http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html

Oh - and wait for it - the Blu-ray kiddies have decided that the correct term is now 3-D, not 3D, unless it is.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3924

A note on spelling

Earlier this year, the blu-ray.com team unanimously decided to use the spelling "3-D", with a hyphen, for everything related to stereoscopic images, and "3D", without a hyphen, for three-dimensional graphics and animation. We shall continue to do so, except when citing the name of the "Blu-ray 3D" specification, which doesn't use the hyphen.

OBTW - Did we all notice that the proposed tech is going to eat an additional 50% of bandwidth? For those suffering from compression/decompression artifacting - read: for everyone with digital cable or satellite HD - it's going to get worse as the 3D premiums are added. Woot!

I loved David Pogue's view (amusing as always) on 3D TV in his Truth Serum video.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1386497920&play=1

Let's not forget - the Avatar craze was with circularly polarized PASSIVE GLASSES - not Bluetooth'd active shutters!

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/164200,3d-tv-buzz-at-ces-2010-just-another-gimmick-or-should-you-hang-onto-those-avatar-glasses.aspx

I think this is a simple case of **I AM** ready for 3D-D ... ready to wait until it dies or makes sense!

BTW - Let's not forget Johnny Lee's head-tracking system (if you watch nothing else - watch this!!) - at least that was cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

Are you serious?

Is a heroin addict less likely to violently pursue their next “hit” just because their last score was cut with ink? Is the pusher or dealer any less guilty than the consumer?

Mixed metaphors aside, there's a real danger to all this. Let's use the the TLC program, Toddlers & Tiaras, as a quick example. Does this show have any redeeming entertainment value? The only drop of virtue you could squeeze from that show is a plain and clear message, leave the children alone! Is anyone committing a crime on the show? Technically, no. Even so, do you suppose that message gets through to anyone with pedophilia? I highly doubt it.

What does this have to do with cartoon kiddie-porn? I'll tell you; it's like how cartoon violence prepares us for the real thing. It's like how watching episodes of Tom & Jerry gives us the idea to bring home that mouse from the pet store and drop it in front of the cat, just to see what happens. The fact that it's drawn makes no difference!

Even in America, consumption of representational media is tantamount to the real thing. That's why Heavy Metal earned an “R” rating in 1981, even though there wasn't even one naked woman or eviscerated human in the entire film.

The point has arisen, how cartoon children are not, in fact “real” children. I disagree. Maybe the illustrated form of a child isn't connected to any, one child. Consider, then, that the drawn form could be any child... every child... my child... your child. Does that make these men seem any less dangerous than a convicted sex offender? The only real difference is time, and TFA tells us that these men got exactly what they deserved.

E.O.Wilson wrote an essay in the late 90's suggesting China is the test case for humanity's attempts to find solutions to environmental and population problems. China as a traditional agrarian male dominated culture has moved from a practise of female infanticide to using technology to abort female foetuses. From this practise a sex ratio imbalance has arisen that some see as of little current or historical importance. The nation's one-child policy could leave 24 million bachelors by the year 2020. My own readings in history have taken on views more in line from what has been learnt from the last few decades of research in primatology. Chimpanzee behaviour favouring, figuratively speaking, male oligarchies restricting access to resources maps clearly, in my mind, onto all three, still widely practised, Mediterranean death cult religions promulgating male dominated societies. Based on China's current sex ratio imbalance the questions to be addressed probably can be set in historical, anthropological and primatological contexts.

Personally I suspect China flirted with democracy, but as is nearly always the case, power structures are not given to relinquishing dominion. Recently /. ran a story that the Chinese government replaced the movie "Avatar" with a biography of Confucius. The works of Confucius are only known by way of reconstructions, but his core message seems to have been one of a familia philosophy, strongly patriarchal, and, in that light, like the Christian, Islamic and Judaic cults that I find map well onto Chimpanzee behaviour. The core mandate of such power structures is submission and tradition. I suspect the Chinese government, if not the Chinese people, are moving away from democracy and into a tradition bound version of Confucianism, but at best it's only a superficial reading.

The discussion can go on and deeper but one current salient point should be made. Chinese society is observed to be much more family orientated than our western societies. A recent rampage killing in the international press was reported on as having happened in western societies because the killer was deranged, whereas the Chinese feedback suggested the man went on a killing spree because his family wasn't there to support him. Western society is strongly vested in the rights of the individual, China not nearly so much. If the West and China and, perhaps much of Asia, are to achieve an equilibrium than we're going to have to bridge this core cultural divide from both sides.

just my loose change.

I'll be in the dusty back closet toning the line, don't be too shocked if I come out with a dust bunny or two on me.

Dude, you've got something on your shirt...

http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9701967776/m/38319614101

Found in Turbo C version 2.0 Reference Guide:

/* Emits a 7-Hz tone for 10 seconds.
True story: 7 Hz is the resonant frequency of a
chicken's skull cavity. This was determined
empirically in Australia, where a new factory
generating 7-Hz tones was located too close to a
chicken ranch: When the factory started up, all the chickens died.
Your PC may not be able to emit a 7-Hz tone. */

main()
{
sound(7);
delay(10000);
nosound();
}
</blockquote>

A classic.

You can't polish a turd

What? I thought the Mythbusters proved that you can polish a turd.

Discovery Health should totally do a story on this one.

improvement over their stupid tirade about Obama swatting a housefly.

Can you provide a link to said tirade? I can only find this reaction:

He isn’t the Buddha, he’s a human being and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.

This article implies that PETA said very little and the media ran with it. Not that they haven't had more than their share of bat-shit crazy moments but I don't think this was one.

How about http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8233632.stm

Or maybe http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=a5LmlZgQzoPQ&refer=australia

And http://www.azocleantech.com/details.asp?newsID=3740

Then there is http://ecobridge.org/content/g_evd.htm#Disintegration

Also http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/29/coral-reefs-glue.html

Of course there is also the http://www.coral.org/resources/about_coral_reefs/threats_to_coral_reefs

I could go on, but I have a feeling that it still wouldn't convince you. Global Warming is not a myth. True, the Earth does go through cycles. I don't dispute that. However, the rate of climate change is far faster than previous cyclic rates. The rate now versus that of the pre-industrial age is much, much faster. The global ecology cannot adapt fast enough to the change. What used to take thousands of years now takes hundreds, and increasingly, decades. There is plenty of research all around to find. Pretty much the only studies that disagree with the idea of global warming are those that are done by the oil companies and their allies.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/carbon-dioxide-sources-outpacing-sinks.html

Galloping increases in human fossil fuel emissions now appear to be outrunning the ability of the world's oceans to absorb them. The first year-by-year accounting of the oceans' role as a carbon sink shows that, even as they soak up record amounts, the seas are absorbing a smaller proportion of the rising total.

But hey, you have a right to chew through as much power you want with whatever inefficient device you have, consequences be damned, right?

They already ruined your fun. June 17, 2009's episode "Car vs. Rain" had the Build Team investigate popping popcorn via laser.

Are you claiming that the human body has a fixed number of nerve endings? So, are you saying that Matt Roloff is going to be twice as sensative on every part of his body than Michael Jordan? Really?

The claim that the number of nerve endings in humans is fixed irrelevent of size, or even amongst people of the same size is highly dubious, and certainly needs some sort of citation.

Here, Discovery Channel did an article focusing on Scientific Match and another company doing the same thing that talks more about the science behind it. But, like the Komo News article, it points out that it's not very likely to work with such a small sample size of both people and genes.

You think i think you jest, but duringst the meanwhilst...
http://dsc.discovery.com/space/slideshows/sharks-space/hsw-mars-rover-625x625.jpg

But the answer comes from German city of Bremen, from a company dubbed Vector Foil. Vector Foil manufactures an innovative strong, lightweight, transparent polymer known as ethylene tetra fluoro ethylene (ETFE). At just one percent of glass, ETFE is described as 99 percent nothing. And considering that it can withstand winds of 180 miles per hour, it could be the breakthrough for the Houston Dome.

I'm not a mechanical engineer nor did any of my college coursework overlap with that but my gut feeling was pure skepticism and doubt. At least it's a long long way off if they follow through.

Here's a link for additional links with a lot of resources for teachers to get kids exposed to alternative energy.

Alternate, your choice on google, just look for DIY windchargers. Ton of hits from many sites, some freebie, some cheap plans, many interesting homebrew projects.

Just whiz on your phone when you need more power: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/08/urine-power.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/15/intersex-fish.html

I immediately thought of you when I stumbled over that article. ;^)

What does it tell us? Hell, I dunno. That we've poisoned the water? That the fish are evolving into something different? That global warming is changing them? Hell, I just don't know. But, most likely, it is due to poisons that we've put into the water, and DDT is one of the "suspects".

Just something to think about.

Bill Nye is back! - http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/stuff-happens/

Wind isn't going to work on a wide basis, too many problems and all the solutions are stop gap.

Geo won't work in many places.

Industrial Solar Thermal, and IFR plants are the greenest options we have.

However, if this scales up:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/23/carbon-dioxide-fuel-02.html

we might be able to burn coal without CO2 issues.

It turns out that you can turn CO2 into fuel by exposing it to a titanium oxide catalyst in the presence of sunlight. In a closed cycle, this would be a carbon-neutral way to go. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/23/carbon-dioxide-fuel.html

If only Japan could somehow magically create more open, unfarmable, and uninhabited land where the turbines could be placed without taking away already scarce farm land or slowly deafen anyone within a kilometer!

Unlike nuclear power land for wind turbines can be used for food farming as well. Here in Minnesota many corn farmers site wind turbines on their farms. Platforms for towers don't take much space. And wind turbines aren't as loud as some make them out to be. All those who say they take too much land or are too loud are doing is spreading FUD and lies. And saying they kill a of birds is also FUD. Buildings, cars, and cats kill many birds. If you're worries about birds being killed by wind turbines then complain about birds being killed at airports. Here is a list of "9 Human Activities That Threaten Birds".

Falcon

The summary seems to imply a "British Company To Pick Up NASA's Dropped Asteroid Ball" slant. "Seems" is used here because rhetorical device is relied on because the facts themselves don't do the job.

One failure is the false dichotomy created by positioning the Near Earth Object program(s -- there's seven http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs/ ) for detecting and tracking thousands of rocks against a vehicle intended to take one such rock and push it around. A tactic like this is common when the writer has little faith in the intended focus of the piece to carry the story alone, and they present a badly constructed straw man in contrast.

The second problem is in presenting NASA's possible future NEO (a currently operating and planned continued project, mind you) budget crunch as problematic, whereas this British company's announcement of what amounts to grand plans on paper that would admittedly require huge national or international funding to even begin is held up as "taking the lead".

If announcing one has plans that one considers viable is "taking the lead", the team in TFA is taking the lead behind dozens of other "programs" in equal or farther planning stages, some described in a recent Discovery/Science Channel program, many written up in popular media over the years and available to the search engine of your choice, with the Top Ten Ways listed at http://dsc.discovery.com/space/top-10/asteroid-stopping-technology/index-03.html . Harry Stamper's roughnecks and Spurgeon Tanner's shuttle crew are not among them, which didn't stop me from using them in the obligatory /. inclusion of SF references.

a bike collision involves different types and magnitude of force than a close explosion. the head also must be held in damping suspension to attenuate impact shock from bullets. take a look at the type of deformation that occurs when it takes a bullet. an explosive concussion would probably compress foam padding that would otherwise feel very secure on the head in normal wear.

Similar to improvements in body armour, more soldiers are returning crippled when they would have come home in body bags in past wars. The the TC2K is a much better helmet than the kevlar ones in the vietnam war. This "flaw" maybe blown out of proportion by the slashdot article; e.g. perhaps this is news because they started installing helmet sensors in 2008 to aid in helmet redesign. i don't think this is a design flaw, this is part of research that has been reported slightly out of context.

Another alternative would be to stop killing so many other people, and there'd probably be less explosions to worry about in the first place.

First peanuts were good for everything, now this. Same idea, only bigger...and green...and red...and much juicer. It's truly the wonder fruit. See here

Oh geeze, I knew I shouldn't have waited to submit a story on this, as the Guardian article linked is pretty crappy, which isn't a surprise considering how opposed the Guardian usually is to manned spaceflight in general. It doesn't even list the options the Committee is presenting to the White House. Here's some better sources:

The actual presentations from the meeting: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/meetings/08_12_meeting.html
http://www.space.com/news/090812-nasa-spaceflight-options-refined.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/13/AR2009081302244.html
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/08/13/show-exploration-the-money/

Basically, the Augustine Committee concluded that you can't do too much with the $10B budget spaceflight currently has, but a number of interesting options open up if you increase that by $3B. Basically, there's two main types of scenarios which have been outlined:

• Lunar focus: Similar to the current plan, focusing on lunar exploration and settlement with a mind towards future Mars exploration
• Deep space: Exploration of Lagrange points, near-earth asteroids, and Phobos, with an emphasis on building the in-space infrastructure which will make it easier to explore the Moon and Mars

Some items of interest regarding both scenarios:

• Most of the scenarios don't include the Ares I, which suggests that the problem-ridden program is quite likely to be cancelled
• Just about all the scenarios will have a big boost to commercial spaceflight to low-earth orbit, with the goal of making commercial providers the primary way to get to LEO by 2016
• Most of the scenarios place an emphasis on in-orbit refueling, which is something the previous administration avoided for some fairly dodgy reasons. Refueling is a major enabler when it comes to spaceflight, and helps you do a lot more with existing boosters. It also provides a market for promoting the growth and cost-efficiency of new rockets.
• Most of the options include restoring technology development funding at NASA, which was largely scrapped to help pay for the Ares I development

Murder rates in the Brazilian backwater states are astronomical.

Watch the movie Manda Bala for more background on how far corruption permeates the state political systems (although current President Lula seems to be slowly driving it from the Federal system - which is perhaps the only reason that accountability is possible in cases like Souza's).

All that won't be news to most people: Crime, corruption, drugs, guns, murder in tropical states. But less known are the causes and effects. The roots of the problem are not infrequently traced to the First World, in the form of cheap cash crops (in the Amazon region), and obviously drugs (more visibly in other South American countries). But the effects are even more tragic: Environmental and social destruction on an incredible scale.

It seems that I misunderstood at least parts of your post. Our positions aren't very far apart, really.

Some related reading from my news feed: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/28/global-warming-inca.html

Environmentally nuclear is vastly better than all the other serious energy sources.

Prove it.

Now that I asked fro proof I'll provide my own evidence which supports my position as well as contradicts yours. "Report: Wind the Best Energy; Nuclear, Coal and Ethanol the Worst". "For Cheap Clean Energy, Go Geothermal, Study Says". "Oregon Geothermal Energy = Baseload Energy".

Wind and solar are not serious energy sources as is hinted by how much subsidies they need

By that criteria nuclear power is not a serious energy source because it needs massive subsidies. Not only does it need guarantied loans but it also needs it's liability limited and government disposal of it's waste. All alternative energy sources put together including geothermal, solar, tidal, wind, even biofuels only get a fraction of the subsidies nuclear power gets. "While renewable energy may require subsidies for the immediate future, nuclear power needs subsidies forever." From the Financial Times:

"'But those hoping for handouts would be disappointed. The "incentives" for nuclear and carbon capture and storage are only there to "help a nascent sector grow', he said."

"We are not going to achieve a competitive [nuclear] sector by handing out subsidies... we are not in the business of giving out subsidies. We are in the business of maintaining a level playing field."

"It's telling that the 'level playing field' the industry wants and the one the government wants bear little resemblance to each other."

Something is still going to need to provide the power to run the aluminium foundries and nuclear is the cleanest, safest long term solution for that.

Neither you nor anyone else has proven that nuclear power is clean yet I have provided evidence solar and wind are clean. Such as 2 of the links I provide above. Studies linked to say both wind and geothermal and cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. Now will you provide links to evidence says nuclear is cleaner?

Lets run through the check lists.

I provide evidence that this list is wrong, where is yours saying you're right? And for one on that list, "Wind is nice but it's unpredictable and bigger wind farms kill migrating birds", buildings cats, and cars kill more birds than turbines.

Try again.

Together they can never provide more than 20% of the grids needs simply for stability reasons. This is pretty much a hard cap, once you get more than that from unpredictable sources rolling blackouts start to become a real problem.

So you know more about solar power than the writers of the SciAm article "A Solar Grand Plan", and know more about wind power than the writers of a new study in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science" as well as those who created the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States at the National Renewable Energy Lab? What is your degree in and where did you get it so that you're smarter than they are? The SciAm article says that by 2050 solar energy can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs. The National Acad

Where the hell are all the aliens gonna hide now?

I actually like watching Dr. Michio Kaku on the science channel's SCI-Q. He seems to take abstract topics (Quantum Mechanics, String Theory) or stuff out of science-fiction (like time travel) and answer them in a easy to understand (but not Sesame Street) level. Here's 10 example questions from the show's website: http://science.discovery.com/questions/michio-kaku/michio-kaku.html

Yes, he's got a show on Planet Green doing ecological science called Stuff Happens.

When I read papers about animals and language, I get the idea that the science is weak. Also, when I read Slashdot stories, I get the idea that the language skills of Slashdot editors are weak.

The Slashdot story quotes the Examiner, which in turn quotes this Discovery article: Monkeys Display Verbal Skills Quote: "... a response previously determined to indicate their acknowledgment that the familiar sound ordering pattern had been violated".

This BBC article is a better discussion: Monkeys recognise 'bad grammar'. Quote: ' "Simple temporal ordering is shared with non-human animals," he said. '. My impression is that the researchers are claiming something different than they actually have shown to be true. And, of course, the articles about their work are even more exaggerated.

The abstract in Biology Letters gives some useful information: Evidence of an evolutionary precursor to human language affixation in a non-human primate.

Hard core scientists aren't out making the pitch for carbon credits, my friend. Those people are still researching, studying, and hypothesizing.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/01/trees-earth-freeze.html

The discovery channel has had their share of the global warming kool-aid, and they no longer present completely unbiased articles. But, read the article anyway.

Want to save the earth? Plant some trees. Deforestation is more at fault for any man made climate change than even our ignorant wasteful use of fossil fuels. Instead of buying carbon credits, go CREATE some carbon credits. Plant a dozen trees, wherever you live. One pin oak can sequester 5 tons of carbon, in time. Some few varieties of pine can come close to that. Avoid the genetically engineered varieties that are used to make paper. Smaller, more attractive shade trees, such as magnolias and dogwoods will store less carbon, but every ton helps.

Google says you lie.

http://xkcd.com/357/

http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9701967776/m/4071911989

Oh God .. yes it was .. thanks for bringing back bad memories. And for the curious Fixing Carbon

Oh, an other versions:
Discovery Channel

Bad Astronomy

But CICLOPS has the main story. (And should be able to take a reasonable Slashdotting, these days.)

Actually recent papers published (last week?) actually indicate that the Earth is losing atmosphere faster than Venus and Mars. It seems that the belief is wholly incorrect. It does seem to still prevent radiation exposure though, which is always a Good Thing(tm) Discovery Channel coverage

Even a gold plated, extra shiny, polished turd is still a turd at heart.

FWIW, they do have Discovery Channel in Japan, including Dirty Jobs (and Future Weapons, and American Chopper). I am in Japan atm, they have it on cable with both Japanese and English audio, though I haven't watched that particular show here.

No idea if it's going to change people's attitudes here. I don't know if it makes Americans more likely to do those jobs, either.

page here:

http://japan.discovery.com/series/index.php?sid=779

anything that involves trying to recreate big bangs is not a good idea.

Try telling that to the guys at MythBusters.

Holy Shit! You aren't full of it!

"You can't polish a turd."

Well, actually, you can (there's an ad at the start and it's flash, sorry), but that doesn't negate the rest of your point.

You can't polish a turd.

Sure you can. The Mythbusters even managed to get a very nice shine on it.

Mythbusters: Polishing a Turd

You fucking idiots are so fucking funny.

Coal technology is already clean [...]

About 525 million gallons of ash slurry clean, yeah.