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Interesting Reading…

by Marshall Brain

Congressman: there should be a law against Internet caps! – “A freshman New York Congressman plans to introduce the “Broadband Internet Fairness Act” that would, in his words, “prevent job killing broadband internet downloading caps.”"

A visual guide to where all federal tax dollars go

Gallery: The Top 10 Telescopes of All Time

PG&E makes deal for space solar power – “Utility to buy orbit-generated electricity from Solaren in 2016, at no risk…”

Chrysler LLC Introduces All-new Pentastar V-6 Engine – “In the all-new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the all-new 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 engine will deliver 280 horsepower (209 kW) at 6,400 rpm and 260 lb.-ft. (353 N*m) of torque at 4,800 rpm — an increase of 33 percent in horsepower and 11 percent in torque over its predecessor — while providing an 11 percent fuel economy improvement…”

Boldly Going Nowhere – “Well, cool your warp jets, Mr. Scott, because we’re not about to breach the final frontier. Piling into a starship and barreling into deep space may long remain — like perfect children or effort-free bathroom cleaners — a pipe dream…”

EBay Plans Public Offering for Skype – “EBay announced plans on Tuesday to spin off Skype, its Internet calling division, in an initial public offering aimed at the first half of 2010…”

Tiny built-in cracks stop teeth from shattering – “Our teeth are a mystery. The set we grow during late childhood stays with us throughout our lives, biting and chewing thousands of times a day. They can withstand forces of up to 1,000 newtons and yet, the material that coats them – enamel – is little tougher than glass. How does this extraordinarily brittle substance not shatter into pieces every time we crunch a nut or chomp on an apple? “

NBC Universal’s Great Idea: Let’s Make It Harder And More Expensive To Watch The Olympics – “During the last Olympics, we sat stunned as NBC Universal made mistake after mistake after mistake in making it incredibly difficult for fans who wanted to watch the Olympics online to do so. And then, NBC Universal executives bragged about how difficult they made it to watch, when really they just shot themselves in the foot, since even the audience who could actually watch it online watched it more on TV. In other words, everything about NBC Universal’s strategy backfired…”

Earthquakes’ Many Mysteries Stymie Efforts to Predict Them – “Almost all earthquakes are small. A small segment of a fault, miles underground, jerks a little, the rumble imperceptible at the surface. But with a few quakes, the fault continues breaking, the ground jumps several feet and the world shakes in cataclysm…”

How To Power The Entire Country With Renewable Energy: Fun With Maps Edition – “So with Al Gore calling for 100% renewable energy in 10 years a lot of people might wonder where the heck we are going to get all that energy from (if we are not using coal/oil/gas). Well my friends take a gander. What you see below is where we are going to get all that energy…” More info:

Lessons In Survival – “The science that explains why elite military forces bounce back faster than the rest of us…”

Russians Saving U.S. from Colony Collapse Disorder – “Russian bees are stationed at the White House. (That’s a good thing.)”

The World’s strangest research lab – “FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform) is the US Navy’s oldest, and most unusual, research vessel. Commonly referred to as the FLIP ship, it is actually a 355ft long, spoon-shaped buoy which can be flipped from horizontal to a vertical position by pumping 700t of seawater into the ‘handle’ end whilst flooding air into the ‘cradle’, causing it to rise up out of the sea…”

Germany Bans Cultivation of GM Corn – “Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed…”

New Pollution Monitoring: Our Air is Dirtier Than We Thought – “One of my pet peeves is the focus we have on global warming. While global climate change is important, it continues to provide a red herring of sorts, taking attention away the public health concern that is air pollution. Recent developments in pollution tracking may change things. With help from satellites, scientists are beginning to understand just how dirty our air is becoming….”

10 years later, the real story behind Columbine – “The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver’s Columbine High School 10 years ago next week weren’t in the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” disaffected videogamers who wore cowboy dusters. The killings ignited a national debate over bullying, but the record now shows Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold hadn’t been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and “fags.” “

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Comments

2 Responses to “Interesting Reading…”

Jake Lara says:

The PG&E deal for space solar power is pretty amazing as long as the very powerful radio-frequency transmissions don’t damage the environment.

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