The Spiral Arm Where The Humans Live
Anyone who’s worked at a largish corporation for a while probably has similar stories to tell — but the stories of Microsoft’s internal politics, backstabbing and intentional sabotage are sickening nonetheless.
Op-Ed Contributor – Microsoft’s Creative Destruction – NYTimes.com.
The ESA reports:
Space is a hostile environment for living things, but small organisms on the Expose-E experiment unit outside Europe’s Columbus ISS laboratory module have resisted the solar UV radiation, cosmic rays, vacuum and varying temperatures for 18 months. A certain lichen seems to be particularly happy in open space! [...]
The lichen in question comes from Spain and is called Xanthoria Elegans.
“Apart from lichens,” says the ESA article, “only a few animals and plants can resist the vacuum: water-bears” (not the big, hairy mammal but a fugly little bug), “brine shrimp and larvae of the African midge Polypedilum vanderplank are the only animals known to survive open space.”
via ESA – Human Spaceflight and Exploration – Live long and prosper, Xanthoria elegans.
It seems that a country this big can, paradoxically, be one of the world’s worst polluters and still end up manufacturing most of the world’s alternative-energy technologies.
China Seizes Lead in Alternative Energy – Truthdig.
Haitians who urgently need emergency aid SMS the digits 4636. Crowdsourced volunteers the world over process these requests in order to supply aid workers on the ground with more accurate locations of those trapped or needing assistance and to direct NGO workers to those requests.
A key part of this process is the 10 000 Haitian online volunteers who are translating the incoming SMS messages from Creole into English.
From ScienceDaily:
Jan. 14, 2010 — Scientists are reporting that “biochar” — a material that the Amazonian Indians used to enhance soil fertility centuries ago — has potential in the modern world to help slow global climate change. Mass production of biochar could capture and sock away carbon that otherwise would wind up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
Read on:
From the ancient Amazonian Indians: ‘Biochar’ as a modern weapon against global warming.
Firefox users generally can’t live without their browser add-ons. Now you can get them in Google Chrome too: https://chrome.google.com/extensions
If your version of Chrome doesn’t let you install them, read on.
To install extensions in Google Chrome, you need to uninstall your current Chrome and download and install the latest Google Chrome Beta:
http://www.google.com/landing/chrome/beta/
Email this page
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/dbeoemfhkdniadbojeencpkgmobndpai
ForecastFox Weather
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ihffmkcfkejomlfnilnmkokcpgclhfeg
Speed Dial
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/dgpdioedihjhncjafcpgbbjdpbbkikmi
IE Tab
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hehijbfgiekmjfkfjpbkbammjbdenadd
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