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1. • CommentAuthorWood
   • CommentTimeMar 18th 2013

    (10957.301)
   Will Tor help Iranians access URLs that have been banned by the regime ?
2. •  
     CommentAuthorDoc Ocassi
   • CommentTimeMar 18th 2013 edited

    (10957.302)
   The makers of Tor are in a constant arms race with companies that make the devices to block and monitor traffic.
   And these devices are mostly made by the western companies.
   
   Have a read through Tors literature.
   
   Re. Iran, They are being directly threated by the west and they can see that a lot clearer that the general population on our side.
   Hope you are all going to be tuning into panorama tonight.
   The Spies Who Fooled the World
3. •  
     CommentAuthorDoc Ocassi
   • CommentTimeMar 18th 2013

    (10957.303)
   I think that people should be able to understand the Internet in terms of a theatre of war.
   
   The Internet is a surveillance state
   
   Or better still is there a way of preventing it being used as such, but keeping all the things we love about it. I feel a responsibility to fight for it because I have grown up with it and want to keep all the things that make it great; the free flow of information, the ability to talk to anyone about anything without feeling I have to use some type of self censorship, all the space for people to explore without fear of what is around the corner.
   
   Now I have to accept Licence agreements that I cannot possibly read, fully comprehend or reasonably accept, just to send my friend Dave a picture of a kitten, to annoy him obviously. We really need a social network platform that is impenetrable to all the data analysis, manipulation, and Point-scoring narcissistic Arse-Tossers. One where you can get a real human moment between two like-minded individuals, I want an Internet that I can be proud of, but I fear that in actively taking responsibility for it I will be left by myself at the mercy of some organization that doesn't give a flying fuck about it.
   
   There is a part of me that thinks that the Internet is being slowly strangled, by who and why I don't fully understand.
   
   I have to keep reminding myself of the quote of the great Steve Earl.
   "Paranoia is a fear with no basis."
   
   ^ I hope this doesn't make my sound like a Point-Scoring Narcissistic Arse-Tosser, I just wanted to vent a little.
   Thanks for listening.
4. • CommentAuthorFlabyo
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013

    (10957.304)
   Is the Cyprus thing being reported much Stateside?
   
   A country about to go bankrupt, the EU requiring a frankly ludicrous 7% levy on EVERYONES savings before they'll help them out (which not one Cypriot MP voted to accept), and now it looks like they're going to sell their banks off to Russia to survive instead.
   
   Weird situation.
5. •  
     CommentAuthordorkmuffin
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013 edited

    (10957.305)
   @Flabyo, I've been hearing about it pretty much every day on NPR (National Public Radio) for the past week or so. Granted, my main source of news is listening to NPR as I lie in bed before getting up, and NPR usually has a less sensationalist programming agenda than most US news sources, but yes. Hearing about it a fair amount.
   
   Edited to add: the Wall Street Journal has a pretty large feature on it on their home page, and the NYTimes at least mentions it on their home page. The Washington Post includes it on their homepage in "the day in pictures" feature. I've noticed a lot of the coverage I've seen is mentioned partly as international news, and partly as business/economy news.
6. • CommentAuthorScrymgeour
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013

    (10957.306)
   @Flaybo, The EU actually demanded a 9.9 tax on anyones saving over 100,000 euro. It was a decision by the cypriot government to change this to include all saving including those below 100k. This is because Cyprus economic status is based on its banking system. This is mainly propped up by wealthy Russians who it is alleged did not gain some of their wealth totally legally. The cypriot goverment did not want them to withdraw enormous amounts of money and so included the regular cypriots' savings to gain support to refuse the bill.
   It was an excellent piece of politics but sadly economically shortsighted. The banks are still closed, they will not receive a bailout, and it puts the future of the Eurozone at risk for Cyprus to hold their hat out to Russia.
7. • CommentAuthorFlabyo
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013

    (10957.307)
   Cheers Scrymgeour, it's hard to get a straight explanation of what's going on over there from the UK, because it's all being filtered through the 'EU is bad, UK is good' filter the press seems to have in place whenever discussing the Eurozone issues.
8. •  
     CommentAuthorcelan
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013

    (10957.308)
   You Are Now Leaving The Heliosphere: Voyager Exits the Solar System
9. • CommentAuthorScrymgeour
   • CommentTimeMar 20th 2013

    (10957.309)
   @Flaybo, Actually, I am from the UK! I agree a great deal of the press is quite eurosceptic.
   However I work on the road so I get to listen to A LOT of BBC radio 4 (which is quite simply the best thing ever), and they've been running stuff on this pretty much constantly (until the budget hit today). There was an interview with someone from the European central bank and I've basically paraphrased..
   
   I think all anyone needs to know about it is:
   
   Mr Putin had called the bailout deal "unfair, unprofessional and dangerous".
10. • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013

     (10957.310)
    Yet one more thing that can kill you in Australia : Bats
    

    Experts on infectious diseases Thursday warned people to stay away from bats worldwide after the recent death of an eight-year-old boy bitten in Australia.
    
    The boy last month became the third person in the country to die of Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV), for which there is no effective treatment.

    
    
    

    "ABLV has proved fatal in all cases reported to date. There is a need for increased public awareness of the risk associated with bat contact," Francis said. "In short, people should stay away from bats."

11. •  
      CommentAuthor3millionyears
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013

     (10957.311)
    I always think of FourEcks in the Discworld books when I seen articles like this:
    
    

    Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS-
    
    Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.
    
    After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.
    
    Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them for his master to clamber free.
    
    HMM... Death picked up a book at random and read the cover. "DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, " he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.
    
    He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?
    
    They waited.
    
    IT WOULD APPEAR THAT-
    
    "No, wait master. Here it comes."
    
    Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up an caught the single sheet of paper.
    
    He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.
    
    "May I?" said Albert. Death handed him the paper.
    
    "'Some of the sheep, '" Albert read aloud. "Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside'd be better, then."
    
    WHAT AN INTRIGUING PLACE, said Death. SADDLE UP THE HORSE, ALBERT. I FEEL SURE I'M GOING TO BE NEEDED.

12. •  
      CommentAuthorInternaut
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013

     (10957.312)
    "Fugitive Acupuncturist Arrested for Infecting people with HIV and Threatening Police with a Gun and a Samurai Sword."
13. •  
      CommentAuthorCat Vincent
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013 edited

     (10957.313)
    It's always a Samurai sword...
    
    Here's a nasty one for readers of Peter Watts' excellent and nasty Rifters books, from the man himself - the Behemoth bug has a real world analogue:
    
    So Lever et al have found something in the rocks, deep below the Pacific seabed (Source paper; supplementary materials; Wired popsci commentary). It eats inorganics, notably sulfur—
    
    (Behemoth assimilates several inorganic nutrients 26-84% more efficiently than its closest terrestrial competitors. This is especially problematic when dealing with sulfur.)
    
    —it’s an anaerobe—
    
    (“Behemoth doesn’t just predate other life, it predates photosynthesis. It predates oxygen. It’s over four billion years old. And all the other really ancient bugs we’ve found, the Archaebacteria and the Nanoliths and so forth, they’re still anaerobes to this day. You only find them in reducing environments. And yet here’s Behemoth, even older, and oxygen doesn’t bother it at all…
    
    …Would there be any reason why someone—hypothetically—might want to take an organism like Behemoth, and tweak it?”)
    
    Modified from Lever et al supplementary materials
    
    —and they found it on the Juan de Fuca Ridge — less than 200km, in fact, from where Starfish places Beebe Station.
    
    (Yes, I know it should be Behemoth with a Beta, but the html here won't play along.)
14. • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013

     (10957.314)
    Yeah, why is it always a samurai sword ? And why never a polish sabre ?
15. •  
      CommentAuthorInternaut
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013 edited

     (10957.315)
    "Hacker Breaks Into Soulja Boy's Social Network, Deletes All His Youtube Videos."
16. • CommentAuthor256
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013 edited

     (10957.316)
    @Cat - the opening (post-abstract) line "Subseafloor basaltic crust represents the largest habitable zone by volume on Earth" alone is worth an article or two. Cheers.
17. • CommentAuthorFlabyo
    • CommentTimeMar 21st 2013

     (10957.317)
    @wood - it's never an *actual* samurai sword though. Those things are worth thousands of dollars. It's actually a crappy replica from 'house of cutlery' or some such.
    
    The kind of thing that you could probably hurt someone with if you hit them, whereas if it actually was a samurai sword you'd kill them in one strike and not realise you've even connected.
    
    Or so I hear... Ahem.
18. • CommentAuthorMWHS
    • CommentTimeMar 22nd 2013

     (10957.318)
    @Flabyo - Yeah, the problem is unstable people having easy access to weapons that they don't need. Certainly the UK law tried to take that into account, -allowing straight swords/original artefacts/ones made with traditional techniques etc.
    
    As an aside, cutting with a sword is mostly a matter of edge alignment and the mechanics of following through with the cut - especially with a slicing cut (like the 'Polish' sabres, or a katana). I don't know much about Asian swords, but it is quite common for poor modern replicas of some European blade types to be better at cutting flesh/tatami matts/water bottles than the surviving examples are. Whoever made the modern replicas optimised them for that function...
19. •  
      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeMar 22nd 2013

     (10957.319)
    Huh, and speaking of all things stabby and slicey ...
    
    Knife blade taken from man's back after three years
20. • CommentAuthorArgos
    • CommentTimeMar 22nd 2013

     (10957.320)
    WHAT