This just won’t go away. Has been in the news off and on for at lease several weeks now. I suppose eventually we’ll get to find out it’s a pile of rocks.
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USLegal » USLegal Blog Home » Spaceship on floor of Baltic Sea?
STAR WARS, crowdsourced.
January 24th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
This masterpiece should be watched with your fam.
You are very welcome. Spread the word.
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IBM’s Li-Air Battery Progresses
January 18th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
Pretty big news in the world of cutting edge batteries.
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Atari in the 21st Century
January 16th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
Atari, making a comeback.
An unforgettable name. Which turns out to be key in today’s saturated App market.
“The great thing about Atari and its very brand is that it is recognizable. … You understand what it is, and frankly, in the App Store or the Android Marketplace, discoverability is a big issue for people who are releasing their games. One of the benefits of Atari is that it creates instant recognition and discoverability in the App Store and the Android Marketplace.”
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Haley Barbour’s Pardongate
January 12th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
CNN reports MS Attorney General Jim Hood has obtained a temporary injunction against Barbour’s pardons, based on MS Constitution’s requirement of 30 days publication prior to pardon. A full hearing will occur Jan. 23.
Lots of good local coverage and commentary at these links.
I still can’t fathom what Barbour was thinking. His own Republicans have turned on him over this. He is a national Republican Establishment figure, even a suggested Presidential and VP candidate, and he has just given his party – which drapes itself in the ‘tough on crime’ mantra – a huge black eye going into the November elections. This is hitting all the national papers and was the lead story on the NBC nightly news last night.
The sole Democrat elected to state-wide office in Mississippi, third-term Attorney General Jim Hood, is lambasting Barbour without pause:
“He’s tried to rule the state like Boss Hogg and he didn’t think the law applied to him,” Attorney General Jim Hood told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday.
Barbour has always been widely viewed as a smart and calculating political animal, but if so, his risk-reward meter seems to have badly malfunctioned. He has destroyed whatever good will he had in Mississippi, and deservedly so. I doubt whether he can hide from this in his D.C. lobbying firm. How anyone can ever mistake him for a serious person again, I don’t know.
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Steelers’ Tomlin: A Big Game For Us, But Still a Game
January 5th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
When I was 6 and 7 years old, I saw the Pittsburgh Steelers win Super Bowls in probably the first football games I ever paid attention to – and have been a lifelong Steelers fan as a consequence. So I was very interested to see this report on Steerlers safety and leading tackler Ryan Clark’s medical condition that makes playing in Denver at a mile of altitude more risky for him than for other players. Last time Clark played in Denver he had complications that led to the removal of his spleen and gall bladder.
It’s definitely more than a football story – it’s medical science, ethics, and a lesson in perspective.
“Looking at data and all the variables he is at more risk, so we’re not going to play him. It’s just that simple,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday, according to CNN affiliate WPXI-TV.
“If he is in any more danger than any of the other 21 men on the field, then we err on the side of caution,” Tomlin said at a news conference.
“It is a big game for us, but it is a game,” he said.
After a 2007 game in Denver, Clark had his spleen and gall bladder removed and lost 30 pounds from sickle cell complications.
But Clark told ESPN he thought he could play in Denver this weekend despite the risks.
“I talked to my doctors and we actually had a plan in place for me to play. All things pointed to me going until (Tomlin) told me I can’t. He said he wouldn’t have let his son play and so I’m not playing either,” Clark told ESPN.
After hearing that, Clark said he couldn’t argue with Tomlin’s decision.
“I appreciate coach caring about me more than this football game,” he said in the ESPN interview.
Classy all around.
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Welcome Our Alien Overlord
January 4th, 2012 by Bryan Lieb
Good guess, but no, I don’t mean Mitt Romney, who won the Iowa Republican Caucuses by 8 votes last night over Rick Santorum, with Ron Paul finishing a strong third. Perry and Bachmann likely out after poor showings. Newt Gingrich is going to devote his remaining money and energy to destroying Romney, who destroyed him with Super Pac money, then denied he was behind it – says Josh Marshall.
No, our Alien Overlord is THIS:
Welcome!!!
Per CNN, this object (which is about the size of a beach ball, best I can tell) fell from space onto the nation of Nambia in Africa back in December, and has yet to reveal its intentions.
Interestingly, the commenters seem to have a pretty good guess for what this is. There is a suggestion to update the text at that link to “With 1 Flight Failure” – pretty funny.
So Happy New Year. I had a nice vacation, but, I came back. I might have actually seen this thing fall, except that what I saw streaking through the sky was last night, and clearly a meteor from the Quadrantids meteor shower. I stepped outside late to take a look up at the reported peak of the shower, and within five seconds saw a bright streak across the sky. Took me by surprise, so I didn’t get a truly great look at it, but I was pumped up for a show. After standing there in the cold craning my neck for approaching 5 minutes, I gave up.
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Occupy China: Wukan
December 15th, 2011 by Bryan Lieb
Horrible story for the town of Wukan. 10,000 residents under siege in rural China because the authorities have given away the people’s farmland to developers and the villagers are protesting. Their leader, Xue Jinbo, died in police custody. Just a reminder that the 1% in China are ruthless autocrats who care nothing for the lot in life of the 99% except for using them as beasts of burden in the further accumulation of riches and power.
Wait, what?
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LEGO Robot with Smartphone Brain Solves Rubik’s Cube
December 13th, 2011 by Bryan Lieb
This is really cool. Did I mention it’s made of LEGOs?
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Great Headlines of 2011
December 12th, 2011 by Bryan Lieb
“Great Britain Goes to War” is really high on the hyperbole chart at Slate. Discussing Britain’s withdrawal from the pact struck by other Euro members to strike a pact.
Meanwhile the markets have shown no confidence in Europe’s latest maneuvers.
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