Oh dear – More Climategate!

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Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

via Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming – Telegraph Blogs.

Type n Walk

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Finally! In the right direction! Someone has changed email ‘n walk to type ‘n walk, which allows you to type whilst you walk, then copy the text and then paste it into your application. Which is not quite the same as answering your SMS messages directly, but is getting there…

Home (Type n Walk).

UK – defend your home, get put in jail

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If your family is kidnapped and tied up in your own home and you manage to escape, would you beat the living shit out of the guy who did it?

This guy did and he’s just been sentenced to 30 months jail time, whilst the kidnapper gets off completely free!

The UK is going to pot quickly, but these kind of rulings are ridiculous, even by their standards.

Millionaire Munir Hussain who fought off a knife-wielding burglar is jailed (while the intruder is let off) | Mail Online.

Why sex offender lists are a bad idea

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Not only do they indicate that as a government you think the punitive system you have in place (prison) doesn’t work as a reformation aid, it also says the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Worst of all, there are allways borderline cases, such as this one, where a 17 year old got put on the registry for having admitted consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend due to a spiteful mother. Now even the mother doesn’t agree with the amount of hassle and persecution this guy has to put up with due to the stigma of being on this list.

Young Pittsfield Township man struggles with sex offender label – AnnArbor.com.

Name a Star – Or a Galaxy!

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So… you want to be immortal… you want a celestial body named after you. What next? Unfortunately, the one body that does officially name stars and galaxies – the IAU – won’t let you put your name on one (their regulations are here). Or on a comet or asteroid either.

Fortunately there are plenty of options available for you. Some are less ‘valid’ than others, but none of them is really more than a novelty.

Commercial novelties

These companies basically put you in their own privately held catalogue and send you nice certificates.

Nice ones I’ve found are:

Name a Star Live. They’re cool because they let you use the SLOOH observatory to look at your own star.

The International Star Registry is nice because it’s been featured in loads of magazines and has several notable customers, including Nicole Kidman.

Free Star Naming

These are free but will charge you extra for not having a banner on the certificate you print yourself, having a nice looking bezel for the certificate, etc etc etc.

Free name a star is like this.

Scientific organisations

The Pale Blue Dot Project is cheap (only $10), plugs into the Google Sky addon and you can select your own star from a limited number that will be scanned for planets by the Kepler satellite.

The Stardome Observatory and the Sydney Observatory both also fund the observatory and are placed in their own catalogues. Unfotunately they only give you stars visible on the southern side of the globe.

BUT WHY STOP THERE?! BUY A GALAXY!

NameAGalaxy.com allows you to name a galaxy for free and download a certificate.

The Windowpane Observatory in Arizona gives you a star map as well – as telescope time . Galaxies are visible using the naked eye!

OR… The Moon awaits!

The Lunar Embassy thought this one up. No, you can’t enforce it, but it makes a nice certificate. They’re also offering land on Mars or Venus and it starts at GBP 16.75 but you can’t pick the location.

Now naming an asteroid…

Now these are different. The discoverer can apply for a name, which is then looked  at by the allmighty IAU to whittle off living politicians, offensive people, unpronouncable names, etc. and then the name is awarded. Of course after 10 years, it becomes fair game, and a concentrated email campaign will help push the IAU over the edge and name it the way you like. see the Space.com article.

As for comets

The guidelines are pretty strict here – it goes to the discoverer(s), unless it’s discovered by a huge amount of people, in which case it gets a generic name. The guidelines of the IAU are here.

Finally, a word for solar systems

Nope. Neither for NEO’s (Near Earth Objects). Space.com has a good article on the naming conventions here if you’re really interested.

Israel’s biometric database – haven’t they learned anything?

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You’d have thought that Isreal of all countries would have learned of the problems involved in having too much useless information in a centralised database from the Dutch in WWII – which had ethnic information such as: “are you jewish?” in there, enabling the Germans to export the most jews per capita from the Netherlands. But no – they want a compulsory database of every citizen in Israel containing two fingerprints and a picture. Idiots.

Israel tests biometric database • The Register.

All men watch porn

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Prof Lajeunesse interviewed 20 heterosexual male university students who consumed pornography, and found on average, they first watched pornography when they were 10 years old.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men’s sexuality.

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn’t changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

via All men watch porn, scientists find – Telegraph.

Sprint Makes Goverment Tracking of GPS Data Easy

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If you have a cellphone, it turns out that Sprint keeps 24 months of your location data and turns it over to law enforcement regularly. 8 million requests were made over the last year. Requests can be made every 3 minutes for up to 60 days.

Sprint isn’t the only one who tracks this data: Yahoo and Verizon are also culprits but they’re not disclosing the amount of times they’ve given away this kind of data to the government.

Yup, they know where you are and where you’ve been. It’s a brave new world indeed!

Sprint Makes Goverment Tracking of GPS Data Easy – PC World.

The Future is Here! Vat-grown meat!

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SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.

The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.

So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.

They initially extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig. Called myoblasts, these cells are programmed to grow into muscle and repair damage in animals.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece