] The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke
] diesel engine is the most powerful and most efficient
] prime-mover in the world today.

wow... 5,608,312 foot pounds of torque!!! Someone needs to build a muscle car with this engine...

The Most Powerful Diesel Engine in the World

] As of late October, sources indicate that a central
] recommendation is likely, but not certainly to be
] resumption of manned lunar flights to develop advanced
] technologies that can support U.S. astronauts working
] beyond Earth orbit to not only the Moon, but eventually
] on near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

Holy shit... to be delivered on 17Dec, the Centennial of Flight?

I'm not going to get into anything about Bush space policy right now, but I'm interested to see how the political fires burn around this, if indeed this is the announcement made.

Presidential review on space policy heading to closure | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of oil giant Yukos, was seized by special forces at a Siberian airport Saturday. He was sent to Moscow and charged with a $1 billion (30 billion rubles) fraud and tax evasion.

Yukos -- as well as Russian businessmen and politicians -- said the arrest of Khodorkovsky, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $8 billion and has funded two liberal opposition parties, was politically motivated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Putin bags another Oligarch. He's really consolidating his power. He effectively ended freedom of the press when he toppled Berezovsky's media empire, and renationalized the last independant television station... and then following Nord Ost, he has threatened to revoke freedom of the press for "bad coverage" when he is criticized. Now out goes Xodorkovsky. There will be more to come. Putin will never step down as President. When Bush says he can see into his soul, I believe it. One motherfucker to another.

The Oligarchs are all evil, bad men. Thieves on probably the largest scale the twentieth century has seen. But where Putin conquers, he does not bring reform. He replaces the toppled gang with his own... the FSB. The domestic branch of the former KGB.

Russia markets rocked by arrest: Putin bags another Oligarch

http://www.k-pet.co.jp/images/biyo/DSC04497.JPG

OH THE HUMANITY!

The Google random picture generator

Decius wrote:
] This is probably the scariest Microsoft related footage that I
] have ever seen. Its called Dance Monkey Boy.

Its like a piece of horrible scat-bukkake someone links you to, and even though it makes you want to puke, you have to watch it 6 times...

RE: Steve Ballmer: When marketing goes too far... [MPG]

] The team created a glass block, two centimetres in diameter
] and three millimetres thick, containing about 400,000 to
] 500,000 individual channels.
]
] Thanks to a phenomenon called the electric double layer,
] when water flows through these 10-micron-diameter-wide
] channels, a positive charge is created at one end of the
] block and a negative charge at the other - just like a
] conventional battery.

Canadian team invents new power source, no moving parts, may be useful for powering nanotech devices.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Water sparks new power source

From the Scout Report: This fascinating collection of social hygiene posters (designed to inculcate certain social practices regarding hygiene, friendship, prostitution, and mental health) is culled from the fine holdings of the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

There are some gems to be found here, and the collection is easily browsed. Consider "Beware of Chance Acquaintances" and "Danger in Familiarities".

American Social Hygiene Posters, ca. 1910-1970

] The reason that I have over 700 BBS programs listed on
] the documentary site is not just because there were so
] many platforms to program them, but because the balance
] of the software and the hardware against the very root of
] humanity's nature is a problem, a difficulty, far deeper
] and greater than any specific issues of the moment.

Latest post from Jason Scott on the BoingBoing sidebar waxes about his big picture conclusions about the BBS scene.

Why Jason Scott doesn't run a BBS.

] His research shows that not only are suicide terrorists
] significantly more educated than their peers, they are
] also significantly better off. According to Krueger,
] although one-third of Palestinians live in poverty, only
] 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers do; 57 percent
] of bombers have education beyond high school versus 15
] percent of the population of comparable age.
]
] The Defense Intelligence Agency also gave me profiles
] of all these people they were interrogating at Guantánamo
] Bay in Cuba. They divide them into Yemenis and Saudis.
] The Yemenis are sort of the foot soldiers. And they found
] that the Saudis, their leaders especially, are from
] high-status families. A surprising number have graduate
] degrees. And they are willing to give up everything. They
] give up well-paying jobs, they give up their families,
] whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because
] they really believe that it's the only way they're going
] to change the world.

These people are not stupid, nor poor, nor desperate. While there are reasons to focus on education and poverty in places like West Bank/Gaza, the idea that its going to prevent people from deciding to become suicide terrorists is apparently wrongheaded.

An interested oped on Religion in this article too...

Everything you know about terrorists is wrong.

] Washington - Dr Miguel Nicolelis knew he had nailed it
] when the monkey stopped using her arm to play the
] computer game.
]
]
] An implanted device had allowed the monkey to control the
] game using only her thoughts, Nicolelis and colleagues
] report in the Public Library of Science Biology journal
] on Monday.
]
]
] And changes in the way the monkey's brain cells worked
] suggested the brain was physically adjusting to the
] device, they reported in the new online science journal.
]
] Nicolelis hopes the device will eventually allow
] paralyzed patients to regain some ability to use their
] upper bodies - virtually, if not physically.
]
]
] "The monkey suddenly realized that she didn't need to
] move her arm at all," Nicolelis said in a statement.
]
]
] "Her arm muscles went completely quiet, she kept the arm
] at her side and she controlled the robot arm using only
] her brain and visual feedback."

Good applications, scary applications.

IOL : Monkey think, monkey do... now people too?