n2doc
n2doc's Journal
Unusual clouds - in pictures
From shelf clouds to supercell clouds, those white and fluffy things in the sky are not always, well, white and fluffy. Some, as you will see, are just downright weird and wacky. Many are a portent of bad things to come.
more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/2012/aug/23/meteorology-cloud-shapes-in-pictures#/?picture=395113570&index=2
Recording Industry Succeeds In Ruining a Kid’s Life Over 31 Stupid Songs
Yesterday marked the end of Joel Tenenbaum's court battle with the RIAA over 31 songs he illegally distributed on Kazaa. A federal judge denied his latest appeal, and now he's on the hook for $675,000. That's nearly $22,000 per song, plus some wholesale character assassination that has now been sealed with judge's rubber stamp.
U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel declined Tenenbaum's last appeal, saying the jury decided correctly last year when it found that Tenenbaum, 28, had willfully stolen the songs and that he knew better. But rather than uphold the decision against him and move on, Zobel took the opportunity to moralize:
evidence from which the jury could conclude that Tenenbaum's activities were willful, the award of $22,500 per infringement not only was at the low end of the range – only 15% of the statutory maximum – for willful infringement, but was below the statutory maximum for non-willful infringement.
To translate the lawspeak, the judge basically says that Tenenabaum was a very naughty who should've known better, and it was awfully nice of the jury to be so lenient. The number the jury decided on was below the maximum allowed if he had committed the crime unwittingly. They could have hit Tenenbaum with a $4.65 million penalty.
more
http://gizmodo.com/5937556/recording-industry-succeeds-in-ruining-a-kids-life-over-31-stupid-songs
Faux 'news' at it again
FOX NEWS TROLLS AMERICA BY BRANDING GREATEST NBA PLAYER OF ALL-TIME AS A FAILURE
*CORRECTION: Fox Nation was quoting a website called Free Beacon(they forgot to put quotes around the text). The page was simply a feed aggregate. Although Fox didn’t make it clear and has since taken the quote down, it was a mistake nonetheless.
Ignore for a moment the amusing photo of President Obama pointing and instead focus your attention on the caption provided by Fox News.
“Obama glad-handed with about 120 donors, including failed baseball player Michael Jordan and noted anti-police activist Carmelo Anthony on Wednesday.”
Uh, troll so hard Fox News.
http://guyism.com/sports/fox-news-trolls-america-by-branding-greatest-nba-player-of-all-time-as-a-failure.html
Prominent scientists sign declaration that animals have conscious awareness, just like us
An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. But will this make us stop treating these animals in totally inhumane ways?
While it might not sound like much for scientists to declare that many nonhuman animals possess conscious states, it's the open acknowledgement that's the big news here. The body of scientific evidence is increasingly showing that most animals are conscious in the same way that we are, and it's no longer something we can ignore.
What's also very interesting about the declaration is the group's acknowledgement that consciousness can emerge in those animals that are very much unlike humans, including those that evolved along different evolutionary tracks, namely birds and some cephalopods.
"The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states," they write, "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors."
Consequently, say the signatories, the scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.
more
http://io9.com/5937356/prominent-scientists-sign-declaration-that-animals-have-conscious-awareness-just-like-us
Breaking: Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Historic Minimum
According to data just now available, the total surface area of the summertime Arctic Sea that is covered in ice has reached the lowest point ever recorded.
Every (northern) summer the sea ice in the Arctic melts to some degree, reaching a minimum around the middle of September. Over the last several years, the amount of ice at this minimal point has been lower than previously recorded. Accurate records go back only a few decades, so this shift in ice cover reflects only the most recent period of Anthropocentric Global Warming (AGW).
Today, I got an email from my colleague John Abraham (the John Abraham from this podcast) noting that this morning’s data indicated that the ice had reached this minimum extent, as shown in this graph from the Arctic Sea Ice Monitor:
From the Arctic Sea Ice Monitor. "The latest value : 4,189,375 km2 (August 24, 2012)"
It is now August 24th, so there are about three weeks, more or less, of melting still to come. Therefore, we can say with some confidence that we will in the end have the smallest extent of ice so far in this data set.
With so much of the sea exposed, the water itself will warm from sunlight which would otherwise be reflected away by the shinier ice and snow … the albedo of the arctic is at a long-tem low because of this melting. Some people feel, and it is just a guess at this point, that the date of minimum ice extent might be getting later, moving towards late September from mid September. Statistically, this can not be said to be true at this point, but it does make sense that with less ice, there can be a warmer sea, and thus a slower re-start to the Arctic Ocean icing over again. Over the next few years we may well see the average date of sea ice minimum, which is a number with a lot of variation so this will be hard to detect, move later.
more
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/08/24/breaking-arctic-sea-ice-reaches-historic-minimum/
Mysterious Disease Leaves Patients With AIDS-like Symptons, But Not HIV
Researchers have identified a mysterious new disease that has left scores of people in Asia and some in the United States with AIDS-like symptoms even though they are not infected with HIV.
The patients’ immune systems become damaged, leaving them unable to fend off germs as healthy people do. What triggers this isn’t known, but the disease does not seem to be contagious.
This is another kind of acquired immune deficiency that is not inherited and occurs in adults, but doesn’t spread the way AIDS does through a virus, said Dr. Sarah Browne, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
She helped lead the study with researchers in Thailand and Taiwan where most of the cases have been found since 2004. Their report is in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
http://newsone.com/2032089/aids-like-symptoms-asia/
Isaac Targets Haiti, Gulf Energy Rigs Begin Shutting Down
By Susana Ferreira
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened on Friday as it took aim at flood-prone Haiti, but it was not expected to become a hurricane until it barreled into the Gulf of Mexico early next week.
On its current path, forecasters said the storm would hit Cuba and the southern tip of Florida before possibly making landfall anywhere from the Florida Panhandle in the northwest of the state or Alabama to as far west as New Orleans.
Gulf of Mexico operators began shutting down offshore oil and gas rigs on Friday ahead of the storm. London-based BP Plc, the biggest Gulf producer, said it would shut down its giant Thunder Horse platform, the world's largest, and Royal Dutch Shell said it would evacuate support personnel from its Gulf platforms.
Other offshore drillers are likely to shut production in coming days as the storm approaches.
more
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=isaac-targets-haiti-gulf-energy-rig
poor Haiti, they sure don't need this.
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