Sounds good, but this bite sure is depressing

If we went to the moon this way, we would have been on Mars by now. But we didn't and we aren't," Greason said.

D'oh!

Orbital Gas Station Puts Moon, Mars in Reach: Discovery News

A German designer cribbed from the slot cars we loved as kids to come with a cool idea for extending the range of electric cars. Instead of relying on an electric motor under the hood, Christian Förg suggests putting an electric motor under the road.

Magnetic Slot Cars Could Solve Our Transportation Woes | Autopia | Wired.com

The Vatican's chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

[ But do they have a soul? -k]

SPACE.com -- Vatican: It's OK to Believe in Aliens

Scientists in Maryland today said they had built from scratch an entire microbial chromosome, a loop of synthetic DNA carrying all the instructions that a simple cell needs to live and reproduce.

The feat marks the first time that anyone has made such a large strand of hereditary material from off-the-shelf chemical ingredients. Previous efforts had yielded DNA strands less than one-twentieth the size, and those pieces lacked many of the key biological programs that tell a cell how to stay alive.

On the basis of earlier experiments, the researchers believe the new, full-length loop would spontaneously "boot up" inside a cell, just as a downloaded operating system can awaken a computer -- a potentially historic event that would amount to the creation of the first truly artificial life form.

Synthetic superbugs, here we come! Everyone got their space suits ready?

Md. Scientists Create Full Chromosome of Synthetic DNA - washingtonpost.com

“To get back to a reliable system, it’s going to cost more money — meaning higher ticket prices,” Mr. Atkinson said.

Or, we could build some fucking trains.

http://www.issues.org/19.4/rote.html

Even a Pilot Thinks It’s Time to Crack Down on Airlines - New York Times

in Brisbane I end up meeting and greeting some record label people, who are pleasant enough, and one of them is a sales guy, so I say "Why is this [Year Zero being priced much higher than other new releases] the case?" He goes "Because your packaging is a lot more expensive". I know how much the packaging costs -- it costs me, not them, it costs me 83 cents more to have a CD with the colour-changing ink on it. I'm taking the hit on that, not them. So I said "Well, it doesn't cost $10 more". "Ah, well, you're right, it doesn't. Basically it's because we know you've got a core audience that's gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever". And I just said "That's the most insulting thing I've heard. I've garnered a core audience that you feel it's OK to rip off? F--- you'. That's also why you don't see any label people here, 'cos I said 'F--- you people. Stay out of my f---ing show. If you wanna come, pay the ticket like anyone else. F--- you guys". They're thieves. I don't blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s--- that they pull off.

Straight talk from Trent. And I actually am now sorry that I paid full price for Year Zero. I want to support artists, so I buy from iTunes and i buy new release CD's for stuff I care about enough. This fucking sales guy makes me sick. I understand the free market well enough to know that the price for a good will be what the market will bear, and established artists tip that up. What pisses me off is that the balance ISN'T SUPPORTING THE ARTIST. I'll pay Trent Reznor more for his music than I'll pay someone I've only heard one track of and might sorta, kinda like. Of course I will. But I want to pay Trent, not these fucking self-congratulating suits without an ounce of integrity. Fuck them indeed.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails | Herald Sun

A bipartisan group of senators and House members introduced legislation Wednesday that would make the biggest changes to the U.S. patent system in over 50 years.

I'm not holding my breath but this sounds promising...

[I dunno... i want to read the whole thing, but my gut reaction is that this doesn't sound appealing to me. As much as I think the PTO needs reform, i'm not sure this is it... -k]

Patent reform bill may have a chance

California is one step closer to joining a national movement that would change the way that the Electoral College works without amending the U.S. Constitution.

AB 2948 by Assemblymember Tom Umberg, Chair of the Assembly Elections Committee is a simple bill that would have California join in an interstate compact with other states to award our electoral votes to the Presidential candidate who won the national popular vote.

[ I like this. It seems like a decent way to handle the situation. I have some concern over the fact that some states could be effectively forced to adopt the plan as long as enough other states do so, but not much concern.

Fundamentally, I've always been displeased with the all or nothing nature of the electoral system used by most states. This feels like a workable alternative.

Now, does anyone want to run some numbers on the likelihood of this becoming the reality? It requires enough states to sign on to comprise a majority of electors. California has 55 of the 270 needed. Where are the other 215 likely to come from? How likely is it, really?

The ratio of electoral weight vs. population weight is very interesting. If you plot it, you notice that the 15 most populous states all have a lower than 1.0 ratio. They weigh proportionally less than they would in a direct voting situation. On the other hand, I calculated Wyoming to have a 3.18 multiplier. (Georgians, you're at 0.96, whereas NY, CA and TX all sit at 0.85 - that's 26% of the population having 22% of the voting power.)

The only useful opposition I can think of, then, to a more direct method is that small states will be reduced. Ultimately this isn't a convincing argument for me, because while representation (a la Congress) ought to enable small states to compete, I think electing a president shouldn't be about states, but about people. ]

California Assembly Passes Electoral College Reform - California Progress Report

So-called domain tasting is one of the more unpleasant developments in the domain business in the past year. Domain speculators are registering millions of domains without paying for them, in a business model not unlike running a condiment business by visiting every fast food restaurant in town and scooping up all of the ketchup packets.

Such bullshit. I hate domain speculators. For that matter, I hate anyone who buys a domain with the express intent of reselling it or absorbing typo-traffic. Unfortunately, I haven't been satisfied by any of my own arguments against their rights to do that stuff. Alas, even with all my hate, I can't make an effective case to say they *can't* do it.

In Bad Taste

The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

Vatican paper article says 'intelligent design' not science