My friend recently had a story published there and turned me onto it. This is an online revival of a 1960s science-fiction magazine. Paid-for content, free for readers. Check out the "Shorter Stories" for a quick sample. Short reads and entertaining, IMO.

http://www.perihelionsf.com/anomalies.htm

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http://www.boston.com/news/source/2013/06/small_dog_loses.html?camp=twit:bostondotcom-robo&dlvrit=980919

SARASOTA, Fla. - You may not realize it, but backing your car into a parking spot is illegal in certain parts of Sarasota, including the Palm Avenue parking garage. That's where $35 tickets are being issued on a daily basis to those who don't follow the rules.

That fine is raising a few eyebrows. Recently, local photographer Cliff Roles received a ticket in the garage for backing into a space. He says it's the only way he has ever parked his car.

"My peeve in the whole thing was basically the amount of money that was being asked of me," said Roles. "I hope the person that determined this amount of money might reconsider and think about a friendly warning, or reduce the amount of money he is going to take from people breaking this absolutely ridiculous ordinance."

The garage does have signs indicating that backing in is prohibited. Roles admits he did not see the signs.


http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local/fine-for-backing-in-car-raises-eyebrows/article_9a4b16f8-ccb9-11e2-945e-001a4bcf6878.html

SARASOTA, Fla. - Police have arrested a Sarasota man after they say he attempted to rob three people at a gas station while threatening to spray gasoline on them.

It happened at the Shell gas station across the street from Sarasota Memorial Hospital a little after 9pm on Thursday.

According to the Sarasota Police Department, the three victims say that a man later identified as 38-year-old Reggie Randall approached them at the pump and began yelling at them. He grabbed a gas pump, pointed it at the victims, and said he'd send them to the hospital. He then told them to "give me everything you have" and threatened to injure them.

The victims refused to give the man anything, and he walked away toward a nearby apartment building.


http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local/police-man-attempts-robbery-with-gas-pump/article_5c097028-cc9c-11e2-91b0-001a4bcf6878.html

Reports of a natural gas smell sparked the evacuation of several buildings in downtown Great Falls on Wednesday morning, but it turns out scratch-and-sniff cards were to blame and not a widespread gas leak.

Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, said workers at the company were cleaning out some storage areas and discarded several boxes of scratch-and-sniff cards that it sent out to customers in the past to educate them on what natural gas smells like.

“They were expired, and they were old,” Bohr said. “They threw them into the Dumpsters.”

When the cards were picked up by sanitation trucks and crushed, “It was the same as if they had scratched them.”

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20130508/NEWS01/305080010/Energy-West-official-Scratch-sniff-cards-blame-gas-smell-downtown-Great-Falls?nclick_check=1



People stand on the sidewalk in downtown Great Falls after being evacuated due to widespread reports of a natural gas smell in the area.

President Obama will decide this year whether to allow the project to carry oil sands crude from Canada to U.S. ports.

This year President Obama will decide whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Few environmental issues in recent years have engendered so much passion and debate. The pipeline would facilitate the transportation of a particularly thick type of oil, oil sands crude, from Canada to U.S. ports.

What is oil sands crude?

It is a tar-like substance containing bitumen, extracted from the boreal forests of western Canada by strip mining.

Where would the pipeline go?

If approved, Keystone XL would carry 830,000 barrels a day from Alberta to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Canada is already the biggest exporter of oil to the United States.

Why is this issue so important to the Canadian government?

Only 4% of Canada's 170 billion barrels in proven reserves of oil sands crude has been developed, and Canada sees the deposits as a massive source of wealth. The United States buys 98.5% of Canadian oil exports at a great discount compared with global prices. Canada wants the pipeline built so it can sell to the world market.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-keystone-qa-20130407,0,7871332.story


I realize that many already know this, but I thought it was a pretty clear explanation...

Transatomic, an MIT spinoff, is developing a nuclear reactor that it estimates will cut the overall cost of a nuclear power plant in half. It’s an updated molten-salt reactor, a type that’s highly resistant to meltdowns. Molten-salt reactors were demonstrated in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab, where one test reactor ran for six years, but the technology hasn’t been used commercially.

The new reactor design, which so far exists only on paper, produces 20 times as much power for its size as Oak Ridge’s technology. That means relatively small, yet powerful, reactors could be built less expensively in factories and shipped by rail instead of being built on site like conventional ones. Transatomic also modified the original molten-salt design to allow it to run on nuclear waste.

High costs, together with concerns about safety and waste disposal, have largely stalled construction of new nuclear plants in the United States and elsewhere (though construction continues in some countries, including China). Japan and Germany even shut down existing plants after the Fukushima accident two years ago (see “Japan’s Economic Troubles Spur a Return to Nuclear” and “Small Nukes Get Boost”). Several companies are trying to address the cost issue by developing small modular reactors that can be built in factories. But these are typically limited to producing 200 megawatts of power, whereas conventional reactors produce more than 1,000 megawatts.

Transatomic says it can split the difference, building a 500-megawatt power plant that achieves some of the cost savings associated with the smaller reactor designs. It estimates that it can build a plant based on such a reactor for $1.7 billion, roughly half the cost per megawatt of current plants. The company has raised $1 million in seed funding, including some from Ray Rothrock, a partner at the VC firm Venrock. Although its cofounders, Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan, are still PhD candidates at MIT, the design has attracted some top advisors, including Regis Matzie, the former CTO of the major nuclear power plant supplier Westinghouse Electric, and Richard Lester, the head of the nuclear engineering department at MIT.


http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512321/safer-nuclear-power-at-half-the-price/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130312


I'm not trying to start anything here, just thought this was too noteworthy not to post.

INDIANAPOLIS (WLFI) - State legislators are working to protect people from buying a car that meth has been manufactured in.

A proposed bill would require dealers or sellers who know meth has been made in a vehicle within two years to inform a potential buyer.

State Sen. Ron Alting (R-22) said the information has to be in writing. He said if a seller does not do that, he or she will be required to reimburse the buyer the amount of money paid for the vehicle. He said the seller may also have to pay no more than $10,000 in liquidated damages.

Alting said more and more people seem to be making meth in their cars and sometimes get caught doing it.


http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local/sellers-must-tell-buyers-if-meth-was-manufactured-in-vehicle

NEW YORK — Hess is getting out of the gas station business and ridding itself of its energy trading and marketing businesses, as it shifts its focus further into exploration and production.

The company will also nominate a slate of six independent directors to its board, replacing six that already hold seats.

The announcement arrives about a month after the hedge fund Elliott Management, one of the company's largest shareholders, accused the board of "poor oversight," and said that the company's management was responsible for more than a "decade of failures."

Elliott, which holds a 4 percent stake in Hess Corp., is pushing to seat five outsiders on the board.

But Hess rejected Elliott's nominees in a letter to shareholders Monday, accusing the firm of trying to disrupt progress it has already made in reshaping itself. It said that Elliott hasn't taken into account how much company shares have risen since it began to shed previous business models.

Hess said the nominees chosen by Elliott would effectively dismantle the company.

http://www.wral.com/hess-under-pressure-to-exit-retail-business/12178750/

Source: BBC News

Kenyans are voting in an election that observers describe as the most important in the country's history.

It is the first time a vote has taken place under a new constitution, designed to prevent a repeat of violence that followed the 2007 polls.

More than 1,000 people died in widespread ethnic violence when supporters of rival candidates clashed.

Despite appeals for calm, at least four police officers died when they were attacked near Mombasa on Monday.

At least six other people - including several attackers - are also reported to have died in the assault in the early hours in Changamwe, half an hour's drive from the centre of Mombasa.


Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21651267

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In the capital Nairobi, voters rose early to stand in line, some of them chanting "peace"