PM Visits Mojave's Burgeoning Private Spaceport

The sign at the entrance to the Mojave Air and Space Port says "imagination flies here." The motto fits this collection of World War II?era hangars and outbuildings with two control towers and four airstrips in the middle of the California Desert.

In 2004, the airport became a spaceport when a three-seat rocket-powered airplane built by a company called Scaled Composites and designed by its founder and CEO Burt Rutan became the first civilian-built craft to leave Earth's atmosphere. But Rutan and his ilk put themselves on the aerospace map long before SpaceShipOne took flight, and now they're trying to make Mojave one of the most important points in the growing commercial space industry.

Under Development

Recently we got to visit Mojave, where models of both SpaceShipOne and Voyager?the Rutan-designed craft that became the first to fly around the world nonstop without refueling?in the newly Legacy Park. But what we'd come to see was SpaceShipTwo, the new spaceship currently in development (though we weren't allowed to take pictures of it.)

The new ship has begun atmospheric test flights, launched into free fall from its WhiteKnightTwo mother ship at 50,000 feet. Both vehicles?SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo?were in various states of disassembly on my visit?the mother ship for its annual inspection and overhaul, the spaceship with its mid-section open to the ceiling, awaiting installation of its nitrous-oxide tank and solid-fuel rocket motor. Scaled is notoriously cagey about its test-flight schedule, but word is the spaceship could begin powered flights by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, another winged spaceship was getting ready for flight from Mojave: the Lynx, being built by XCOR Aerospace, which was founded by Rotary Rocket alums. CEO Jeff Greason, who doesn't like to tie himself to schedules either, says he hopes to see air under the landing gear by year end. So far the company has built and successfully test-fired one of the four identical 2850-pound-thrust rocket motors that will power the Lynx, is completing design work on the vehicle, and is awaiting delivery of major structural elements.

Where SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo rely on a carrier airplane to drop them from high altitude for launch, Lynx is designed to take off from the runway under its own rocket power. Engines powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, providing greater efficiency than the SpaceShips' solid-fuel and nitrous-oxide mix, should make it possible. Like the SpaceShips, Lynx is designed for suborbital flight, just above 62 miles in altitude.

There's a vast difference in size as well. Think of SpaceShipTwo as a kind of space minivan, with seats for six passengers and two pilots. Lynx is more of a sports car, with room for only a pilot and passenger sitting side by side or a pilot and an experiment package.

The third class of rockets under development at Mojave includes the vertical takeoff/vertical landers designed, built, and flown by Masten Space Systems. The newest of the three companies we visited in Mojave, its founders (including former Bay Area IT engineer Dave Masten) were inspired to get into rockets when they stopped by the XCOR hangar during the SpaceShipOne flights.

Now this team of a dozen or so engineers and technicians is busy building a series of increasingly faster and higher-flying liquid-fuel rockets, each essentially a collection of propellant tanks, plumbing, legs, guidance system, and rocket motor attached to a metal frame. Their latest, called Xaero, is designed for flight to 5 kilometers of altitude (a little more than three miles) and return to pinpoint landings. Masten got on NASA's radar when it competed in and eventually won the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Now it, along with XCOR, Virgin Galactic, and others, is contracted for NASA-sponsored suborbital research flights.

Long Time Coming

Things don't come quickly in the commercial space race, and not all of the dreams birthed at Mojave fully take flight. Another model that dominates the Mojave airport is the conical Roton Atmospheric Test Vehicle, or ATV, which was designed by Rotary Rocket. Former military pilots Marti Sarigul-Klijn and Brian Binnie flew the thing on a trio of test flights during which the craft was lifted a few dozen feet off the ground by whirling helicopter blades tipped with rocket motors. It was to be the first series of tests of a new single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. Instead it became the last when Rotary went bust.

Nevertheless, the builders at Mojave are an undeniably patient and persistent lot. Consider the newest project that will take shape there: Stratolaunch.

Nearly 10 years ago, Burt Rutan told Mojave airport general manager Stu Witt, an ex?fighter pilot with the patience of a desert coyote, that he wanted to build the world's largest airplane and fly high-altitude rocket launches with it from the airport. Witt set in motion a step-by-step plan to widen runways and acquire a possible hangar site. Then last month the moment came, when Paul Allen, the financier behind SpaceShipOne, announced that, you guessed it, Scaled Composites would build the world's largest aircraft under the name Stratolaunch and take off from Mojave for high-altitude rocket launches.

How did this come as a surprise after a decade of preparation? It helps to build in the middle of nowhere.

"What drove Orville and Wilbur to Kitty Hawk in 1893," Witt told PM, "was freedom from encroachment of the press, freedom from industrial espionage, and a steady breeze. The fact that we were able to keep this under wraps for nearly nine years says that we still enjoy the three elements that took Orville and Wilbur to Kitty Hawk."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/news/pm-visits-mojaves-burgeoning-private-spaceport?src=rss

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Former Italian President Scalfaro dies at 93 (Reuters)

ROME (Reuters) ? Former Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who was head of state during the "Bribesville" corruption affair that overturned Italy's old political order in the 1990s, has died, officials said on Sunday. He was 93.

Scalfaro, a former interior minister and speaker of the lower house of parliament, was appointed president in 1992 as the bribery and political funding scandal swept aside a party system which had run Italy since World War Two.

Politicians from the main parties paid tribute to Scalfaro's integrity and sense of responsibility in protecting the constitution which he had helped shape as a young lawyer after the war.

Mario Monti said he spoke to Scalfaro just after becoming prime minister last year. "I expressed to him personally my feelings of gratitude to him for the example he gave of public service," he said in a statement.

Although the head of state holds no executive power, his role in Italy's often turbulent political life can be extremely important as a guarantor of stability and in overseeing the timing of elections and the transition between governments.

Last year's transition between the scandal-plagued government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Monti's technocrat administration, overseen by the current president, Giorgio Napolitano, underlined the importance of the position.

Scalfaro's own period in office began as the Bribesville scandal was creating a corrosive mistrust in the political system that overshadowed Italy's preparations to join the embryonic single European currency.

"As President of the Republic, he faced some of the most difficult periods of our history firmly and steadfastly," Napolitano said in a statement.

Both Scalfaro's own conservative Christian Democrat party and the centre-left Socialists were shown to have been involved in a vast web of bribery and illegal funding which reached deep into public life and destroyed Italians' faith in government.

His appointment also came shortly after the murder of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, an event which profoundly shocked Italy and heightened popular disgust with a political class that had failed to protect its own public servants.

Scalfaro, a deeply religious man who attended mass every morning, was one of the founding fathers of the Italian republic in 1946 and became well known in parliament for frequent references to his conversations with the Virgin Mary.

Despite his widely hailed sense of rectitude, he faced accusations in 1993 that he had been implicated in a murky scandal over the alleged theft of millions of dollars in funds for covert secret service operations.

He strongly denied the accusations and in a special televised address, "denounced what he called "an attempt at a slow destruction of the state," suggesting that the affair had been created to undermine confidence in Italy's institutions.

(Reporting By James Mackenzie, editing by Ben Harding)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/wl_nm/us_italy_expresident

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Rotblat's pursuit of nuclear peace

Edwin Lyman, contributor

NOBEL laureate and eminent scientist Joseph Rotblat was a man of inexhaustible energy, optimism and dedication. In this new biography, author and radiation oncologist Andrew Brown faithfully captures his character. Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience chronicles Rotblat's journey from his beginnings in a prosperous Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, before the first world war, to his rapid rise from electrician to internationally prominent nuclear physicist, and ultimately his committed opposition to nuclear weapons.

A prot?g? of neutron discoverer James Chadwick, Rotblat had been one of the scientists on the Manhattan Project. Yet he left in 1944, and after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945, his concern about the misuse of nuclear science drove him to become a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons. He went on to pursue a career in medical physics, and with the like-minded Bertrand Russell, organised the first Pugwash conference in 1957 in Canada.

Even as cold war mistrust reached fever pitch, this path-breaking and audacious event brought together Soviet and western scientists to discuss risks from weapons of mass destruction. Its success led to a series of conferences, continuing to this day, that helped lay the groundwork for a number of arms control agreements, including the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Rotblat and the Pugwash conferences were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1995.

Brown's great respect for his subject is apparent, but this is no hagiography. He hints at a personality that could be prickly and arrogant, and also takes a closer look at Rotblat's famous resignation from the Manhattan Project. By Rotblat's own account, he lost interest when Allied intelligence was convinced the Nazis had abandoned their own atomic bomb project. Although his moral qualms clearly were a major motivating factor, Brown presents a more complex story.

Whatever his motivations, Rotblat's departure from the Manhattan Project sealed his fate as an outsider: he learned about its "success" from a news report. Still, he was determined to play a major role in establishing policies to control the bomb that he had helped to develop.

His stature as a nuclear physicist enabled him to provide high-level expert advice and his public warnings about the dangers of fallout from hydrogen bomb tests soon rankled with the US and UK nuclear weapons establishments.

At times, Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience seems as much a history of the Pugwash conferences as a biography of Rotblat. Yet Brown makes a convincing case that the two were so closely intertwined that Rotblat deserves some credit for all its accomplishments.

Beyond its successes, the book also details Pugwash's many internecine conflicts - such as whether the organisation should pursue Rotblat's vision of an internationally verified nuclear weapon-free world or a more pragmatic, incremental approach to arms control. Rotblat, who periodically flirted with the idea of world government, was long concerned that the concept of national sovereignty enshrined in the UN charter hindered the international inspection and enforcement necessary to abolish nuclear weapons, and ultimately war itself. Today, when many nations routinely invoke "national sovereignty" to block international initiatives to slow the proliferation of sensitive nuclear facilities, increase the security of nuclear materials and strengthen the safety of nuclear power plants, it is hard to deny that Rotblat had a point.

Though he could do without so much speculation about the feelings of various players, Brown's use of numerous interviews, including one with Rotblat himself, make for compelling reading. Overall, Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience is a fine work that lucidly depicts the challenges faced by Rotblat and his Pugwash colleagues as they relentlessly pursued a more peaceful world.

Edwin Lyman us a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC.

Book Information
Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience: The life and work of Joseph Rotblat
by Andrew Brown
Published by: Oxford University Press
?18.99/$29.95

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US weapons for future include key relics of past (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The lineup of weapons the Pentagon has picked to fit President Barack Obama's new forward-looking defense strategy, called "Priorities for 21st Century Defense," features relics of the past.

They include the Air Force's venerable B-52 bomber, whose current model entered service shortly before Obama was born. There is the even older U-2 spy plane, which began flying in 1955 and burst into the spotlight in May 1960 when Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union.

When Obama went to the Pentagon on Jan. 5 to announce his new defense strategy he said that as the U.S. shifts from a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan it will "get rid of outdated Cold War-era systems." He was not specific. But when the first details of the Pentagon's 2013 budget plan were announced Thursday, it was clear that some prominent remaining Cold War-era "systems" will live on.

That includes not just the B-52 bomber and the U-2 spy plane, but also the foundation of U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy: a "triad" of nuclear weapons that can be launched from land, sea, and air. That concept, credited by many for preventing nuclear conflict throughout the Cold War, is now seen by some arms control experts as the kind of outdated structure that the United States can afford to get rid of.

Some think the U.S. should do away with at least one leg of that "triad," perhaps the bomber role. That would not just save money and clear the way for larger reductions in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons ? an Obama goal in line with his April 2009 pledge to seek the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said recently that maintaining the current structure of American nuclear forces was "not in keeping with the modern world." He and like-minded lawmakers argue that nuclear weapons play no role in deterring threats such as global terrorists.

The U.S. now has about 5,000 operational nuclear weapons, about half as many as a decade ago. They can be launched from ballistic missile submarines, from underground silos housing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and from B-52 and B-2 bombers at air bases in Louisiana, North Dakota and Missouri.

The Air Force, which provides the land and air legs of the triad, argues for preserving that Cold War-era configuration.

"It remains our conviction that as you go down (in numbers of nuclear weapons), the triad actually becomes more important," Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, told reporters Friday. "The diversity, the variety, the attributes associated with each leg of the triad reinforce each other to a greater degree."

Both the B-52 and the B-2 are capable of doing more than carrying nuclear weapons. The B-52 has been modernized many times and is now used in a variety of roles, including close-air support of troops in conflict and can carry missiles, bombs and mines. The first of the current H models entered service in May 1961.

The land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force dates to 1959. Ballistic missile subs, known as "boomers," were first launched in 1960; the current Ohio-class fleet dates to 1981.

The administration is nearing completion of an internal review of how many nuclear weapons are required to meet today's security needs; that process will lead to decisions on whether to reshape the nuclear arsenal. That effort is linked to consultations with NATO allies on whether to withdraw the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, an arrangement that also is rooted in the Cold War. Also at play is how to set the stage for a new round of nuclear reduction talks with Russia.

The only move the Pentagon is making on the nuclear weapons front in the 2013 budget is a proposed two-year delay in development of a new generation of submarines to replace those how equipped with Trident nuclear missiles.

The Arms Control Association, which favors cutting nuclear weapons, estimates that the new fleet of ballistic missile submarines would cost $350 billion to build and would last for 50 years. It advocates shrinking the number of subs to eight, which is says would save $27 billion over 10 years.

Laicie Olson, senior policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in an interview Friday that she was surprised, given Obama's commitment to reducing the number of nuclear weapons, that the administration is not using its 2013 defense budget to take substantial steps in that direction.

"All of these things are sticking around," she said, referring also to the U-2 spy plane, which was to have been retired in 2015 and replaced by a high-tech successor, the Global Hawk, which is flown without a pilot aboard.

Preserving such Cold War-era weapons "actually seems like the opposite of what the president set out to do," she said.

The Pentagon announced Thursday that the Global Hawk turned out to be a disappointment and no cheaper to use, so it is being canceled. As a result, the Air Force is extending the lifespan of the U-2, nicknamed "Angel" by Kelly Johnson, the Lockheed engineer who helped design the high-altitude spy plane.

Since 1994 the Air Force has spent $1.7 billion to modernize the U-2, whose claims to fame include the October 1962 flights over Cuba that confirmed the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles, touching off the Cuban missile crisis.

___

Online:

Pentagon: http://tinyurl.com/84ouz2u

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: http://armscontrolcenter.org/

Arms Control Association: http://www.armscontrol.org

___

Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_pentagon_in_with_the_old

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How Pentagon budget cuts will reshape the Army

The Army has been seen as one of the big losers in the Pentagon budget cuts released Thursday. But Army officials say now is the perfect time for the force to recast itself.?

Military officials moved quickly Friday to counter the perception that the Army was the big loser in the new Pentagon budget unveiled Thursday.

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The priorities laid out Thursday will have significant effects on the Army. For starters, the Army will be smaller,?moving from approximately 570,000 soldiers today to 490,000 by 2017. Moreover, Army operations will involve more Special Operations Forces that will launch missions from small bases near hot-spots around the world.?

The ranks of ?cyberwarriors? to combat the threat of computer attacks on vital US infrastructure will also grow.?

But now is the time to make such changes, Army officials say.

?The time is strategically right to reduce the Army?s force structure,? the Army?s top officer, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said Friday.

That's because the day-to-day job of soldiers will be changing dramatically in the years to come.?US military officials promise that?there will be no more wars that look like Iraq and Afghanistan ? what are known in military parlance as ?large-scale stability operations? ? for quite some time,?

?With the successful completion of our mission in Iraq, the continued transitions of operations to Afghan security forces, and the reduction of US presence in Afghanistan, our strategy calls for us to no longer plan for large-scale stability operations,? General Odierno said.

In addition, the bulk of US forces in Europe ? specifically, two heavy combat brigades ? will leave in the years to come. That?s a big change for a military with decades of ties to bases in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe.?

The Army will maintain partnerships with its NATO allies, though in new ways, Odierno said. In the years ahead, the Army will instead rotate units through Europe more quickly, to train with NATO partners and other allies. This might include everything from small company-size units to large battalion-level exercises.

?In reality, I think, in the long run this will benefit all of us,? Odierno said. ?It?ll cause more of our units to get involved in working with our NATO partners. It won?t just be limited to those stationed in Europe.?

Future missions may involve some stability, or peacekeeping, operations, but Odierno says they will likely be ?on a much smaller scale.? Beyond that, he adds, ?we?ll rely more on other partners to assist us as we do stability operations.?

Defense analysts point out that though the future US military interventions may indeed be smaller ? think Libya, for example ? they may not always be shorter.?

In fact, they may be ?prolonged,? says Stephanie Sanok, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This means the United States will need ?friends and allies to do what we?re not going to do,? she adds. ?And I don?t think those conversations have happened.??

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ChsAYbHxNCQ/How-Pentagon-budget-cuts-will-reshape-the-Army

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Exclusive: 'Phantom Menace' 3D Preview From 'Star Wars' Insider

As the "Star Wars" saga joins the 3D revolution with the coming theatrical release of "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" on?February 10th, our good friends at Star Wars Insider magazine are marking the occasion with a special celebratory issue. And we're marking that occasion with our very own preview of that upcoming [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/27/star-wars-phantom-menace-3d-preview/

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Iran won't move toward nuclear weapon in 2012: ISIS report (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Iran is unlikely to move toward building a nuclear weapon this year because it does not yet have the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium, a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security said on Wednesday.

The report by the institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offered a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Tehran.

"Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today," the report said.

The United States and Iran are engaged in a war of words over sanctions, with Iran threatening to retaliate by blocking oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The United States said it would not allow that to happen.

The escalating rhetoric and tensions have led to concerns about the potential for missteps between the adversaries that might spiral into a military confrontation that neither wants.

But the report, financed by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, said Iran had not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. The USIP is an independent, non-partisan center created by the U.S. Congress in 1984 that receives federal government funding.

"Iran is unlikely to break out in 2012, in great part because it is deterred from doing so," said the ISIS report, which has not yet been publicly released.

The report turns down the temperature, saying that sanctions and the fear of a military strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities have worked as a deterrent.

The institute has advised U.S. and foreign governments about Iran's nuclear capabilities and Albright is considered a respected expert on the issue. The report tracks closely with what is known of official U.S. government assessments.

U.S. officials say Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon and that Iranian leaders haven't made the decision because they have to weigh the cost and benefits of building a nuclear weapon.

Much of what the Iranians are doing with their nuclear program has civilian uses, but they are keeping their options open, which significantly adds to the air of ambiguity, U.S. officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Some conservative and Israeli analysts in the past have challenged these types of assessments, asserting that Iranian nuclear efforts are sufficiently advanced that they could build a bomb in a year or less.

But according to the institute's report: "Although Iran is engaged in nuclear hedging, no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons."

"Such a decision may be unlikely to occur until Iran is first able to augment its enrichment capability to a point where it would have the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly," the report obtained by Reuters said.

It added that despite a report last November by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency alleging that Iran had made significant progress on nuclear weaponization, "Iran's essential challenge remains developing a secure capability to make enough weapon-grade uranium, likely for at least several nuclear weapons."

Some European intelligence officials have disputed a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate published in 2007 which said that Iran had stopped working on a program it had launched earlier to design and build a bomb.

The Europeans maintain that Iran never stopped research and scientific development efforts which could be bomb-related.

Tensions spiked after Iran announced earlier this month that it had begun to enrich uranium deep inside an underground facility near the holy city of Qom. The secretly built facility was publicly revealed by the United States in 2009.

AIRSTRIKES 'OVERSOLD'

Among possible policy options for halting Iran's nuclear program, one of the least likely to be successful is a military attack on its nuclear program, according to the institute's report.

Limited military options, such as airstrikes against nuclear facilities, are "oversold as to their ability to end or even significantly delay Iran's nuclear program," the report said. Limited bombing campaigns would be "unlikely to destroy Iran's main capability" to produce weapon-grade uranium, it said.

Iran has taken precautions by dispersing the centrifuges it uses for enrichment to multiple locations, has mastered the construction of centrifuges, and has probably stockpiled extra centrifuges, the institute said.

A bombing campaign that did not totally eliminate these capabilities would leave Iran "able to quickly rebuild" its nuclear program and even motivate it to set up a Manhattan Project-style crash program to build a bomb, which would only make the region more dangerous and unstable, according to the institute.

The report said that clandestine intelligence operations aimed at detecting secret Iranian nuclear activities, including the construction of new underground sites, are "vitally important." Known methods used by spy agencies include the recruitment of secret agents, cyber spying operations, overhead surveillance by satellites and drones, and bugging of equipment which Iran buys from foreign suppliers.

The report says another "well known tactic" used by Western spy agencies against Iran has been to infiltrate Iranian networks that smuggle nuclear-related equipment and supply them with plans or items which are faulty or sabotaged. The report says this tactic has helped the West to uncover at least one of Iran's secret nuclear sites and, according to official statements by the Iranians, has caused enrichment centrifuges to break.

Other more violent covert operations strategies, particularly the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and engineers, have "serious downsides and implications," such as high risks of Iranian retaliation through militant attacks which could be directed against civilian targets. The United States has emphatically denied any involvement in the assassinations.

The report said that since thousands of specialists are involved in the Iranian nuclear program, assassinations were unlikely to be effective in slowing it down. It also warned that Iran could construe assassinations as acts of war and use them to justify retaliation.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

(This January 25 story was corrected in paragraph 16 to change the date of the NIE report to 2007 from 2003)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_usa_iran_nuclear

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Amazon prices Verizon Galaxy Nexus at $99, tests your self control

Looking for an excuse to buy a LTE-enabled superphone? Look no further. Online retail giant Amazon has priced Verizon's iteration of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus at a paltry $99 for customers opening a new line of service. For those keeping score at home, that's a full $200 less than the on-contract price ($299) currently being peddled by Big Red. Why are you still reading this? Hit the source link, hammer in your Amazon credentials and get yourself one of these lean, mean, Ice Cream Sandwich running machines.

Amazon prices Verizon Galaxy Nexus at $99, tests your self control originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World stocks up as Apple result lifts tech shares (AP)

BANGKOK ? World stocks rose Wednesday as investors stayed calm in the face of a possible debt default by Greece to search for good deals in technology shares boosted by stunning results from Apple Inc.

Benchmark crude rose to nearly $99 per barrel while the dollar rose against the yen but fell against the euro.

European shares followed their Asian counterparts higher. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 5,774.31. Germany's DAX climbed 0.5 percent to 6,448.33 and France's CAC-40 added 0.4 percent at 3,334.50.

After a session of slight losses Tuesday, Wall Street appeared headed for a higher opening. Dow Jones industrial futures rose 0.1 percent to 12,644 while S&P 500 futures added 0.2 percent to 1,314.40.

Asian stocks posted solid gains. The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo rose 1.1 percent to close at 8,883.69. South Korea's Kospi gained 0.1 percent to 1,952.23 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 1.1 percent to 4,271.30. Markets in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan remained closed for Chinese New Year.

Japan's powerhouse export sector got a lift from a moderation in the yen's strength even as the country reported its first annual trade deficit since 1980. A strong yen, which hit multiple historic highs last year against the dollar, shrinks the value of overseas earnings when repatriated and makes Japanese products less competitive.

Honda Motor Corp. surged 3.8 percent. Mitsubishi Motor Corp. jumped 4.4 percent and Sony Corp. added 4.8 percent. Tire-maker Bridgestone Corp. added 4.2 percent.

Technology stocks were elevated after Apple Inc. reported earnings that sailed past analyst estimates. Apple said late Tuesday said it sold 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, vastly exceeding estimates and propelling the company to record quarterly results.

That stellar performance reverberated throughout the global tech industry. South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., which ranks No. 2 globally in flat screen televisions, jumped 4.1 percent. Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world's second-largest memory chip maker, added 1.9 percent.

In Australia, shares in Lynas Corp. Ltd. soared 5.1 percent after the company said it had secured the funding necessary to complete construction and start-up at its rare earths processing plant in Malaysia.

Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne said the gains in Asia suggested that investors were paying less attention to Greece, which is struggling to reach a deal with creditors to prevent a chaotic default on its massive debts. A default could trigger a financial crisis in Europe and likely beyond.

Greece is trying to get its creditors to swap Greek government bonds for new ones that have half the face value. Greece faces an important bond repayment deadline in March.

"To a large extent, traders are thinking that people are going to lose money either way in this deal, so it's now about how we can move on," Shamu said. Markets "are thinking more long-term. Encouraging data out of the U.S. has been good for sentiment. We also have China, which has been managing its economy very well."

Benchmark oil for March delivery rose 8 cents to $99.03 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 63 cents to end at $98.95 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.

In currency trading, the euro rose to $1.3031 from $1.3021 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 77.98 yen from 77.73 yen.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

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U.S. Science Degrees Are Up

Private firms may be experiencing a shortage of graduates in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, but it?s not for a lack of students. For many STEM disciplines, more undergraduate degrees are being awarded now than 10 or 20 years ago. More women are entering college, which in turn is changing the relative popularity of disciplines.

Some specific trends worth noting:

• Women undergraduates, growing in number faster than men, tend to take psychology and biology over physics or math.
• Women generally account for strong numbers in the arts.
• Foreign students, who often seek the physical sciences, temporarily decreased after the 9/11 attacks because of changes in visa rules.
• The dot-com boom in the late 1990s caused a run-up in computer and electrical engineering enrollment (with degrees four years later), but interest fell after the dot-com bust.
• Students view business degrees as the surest bet for finding a job and paying off college loans.

So what?s behind the worker shortfall? Although the number of graduates and job openings match up fairly well, people with STEM degrees often choose jobs in other fields that pay more or have higher perceived status. ?Biology students become doctors; math majors go into finance,? says Nicole Smith, senior economist at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Others get M.B.A.s so they can take higher-salaried management positions, which makes it easier to pay off ever rising student debt.

For additional commentary read:
How to Make Science and Tech Jobs More Enticing to Undergrads

Graphic by Nathan Yau

This article was published in print as "How Science Degrees Stack Up."

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=fa27d124c71c331dfbc845ecf325dabf

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Watch a very lucky snowmobiler get buried by ??? and then rescued from ??? an avalanche (Yahoo! News)

There are a lot of fun things you can?do in the snow, whether it's just a little flurry or an?unexpected blizzard. Things can go south in a hurry, though, when an avalanche occurs. That's what?happened to John Swanson when he and his friends went out for an afternoon of snowmobiling in Stampede Pass on Mount Washington, about 18 miles south of Seattle.

One of his friends was shooting video from his helmet-mounted camera, and first caught Swanson taking a tumble off his snowmobile near the top of a hillside clearing. As Swanson made his way down to the bottom, a small avalanche caught him unaware and quickly buried him. Luckily, since his friends were watching, they knew exactly where to dig to get him out, and he escaped the ordeal without injury.

With avalanche danger currently extremely high in the Northwest, this is one example of how all outdoor enthusiasts need to be on their guard as they enjoy the winter weather. While this incident ended without tragedy, it's always best to be prepared.

This article originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120125/tc_yblog_technews/watch-a-very-lucky-snowmobiler-get-buried-by-e2-80-94-and-then-rescued-from-e2-80-94-an-avalanche

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[OOC] Group 4 intro: Tasha and Rowan

Forum rules
This forum is for OOC discussion about existing roleplays.

Please post all "Players Wanted" threads in the Roleplayers Wanted forum!

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
This group will be starting in Estes Park, Colorado -- Southwest of Fort Collins along 36.

Places of Interest:
- Estes Park Medical Center
- Lake Estes
- Rocky Mountain Pharmacy
- Safeway
- Estes Park Pharmacy
- Rexall Drug
- Timberline Medical
- Family Medical Clinic
- Estes Park Specialty Clinic
- Country Market
- Buckwheat Organic Market
- Famous Eastside Food Store
- Numerous hunting and sporting outlets (Big Red of the Rockies, The Hiking Hut, Outdoor World)

Environment:
The population of Estes Park is approximately 5,858.
It is largely mountainous, with a few heavily populated "settlements".
The mountains grow steeper the further west you travel and grow less steep the further east you travel.
To the north and south, it is largely similar.

~*Do not frown, you never know who is falling in love with your smile*~

StrawberryFoxglove

Member for 1 years

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Cinedigm, New Video team up to buy indie films (Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) ? Cinedigm Entertainment Group is teaming up with New Video to buy and distribute independent films, the two companies announced at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday.

As part of the joint venture, Cinedigm will handle the theatrical release of the movies. New Video will oversee the video-on-demand, digital distribution and home entertainment portion.

The move allows both companies to be a one-stop shop for moviemakers -- overseeing everything from their theatrical debuts to their digital streaming pacts.

"Theatrical continues to be the holy grail for filmmakers," Steve Savage, co-president of New Video, told TheWrap. "We didn't have theatrical, and they (Cinedigm) didn't have ancillary markets, so this was a perfect meeting of minds."

Cinedigm chairman and chief executive officer Chris McGurk said he hopes the company will be able to release one film a month. He hopes the move will position Cinedigm and New Video as a buyer on the level of Magnolia or Sony Pictures Classics.

"We're here at Sundance looking for quality films across all genres," McGurk said. "We're going to be offering a streamlined, cost-efficient and distinct distribution model that I think is going to be very attractive to filmmakers."

The agreement is effective immediately. McGurk said they hope to leave the festival with one or two acquisitions.

Last year, Cinedigm released 10 films, including a 3D Dave Matthews Band concert and the Sarah Palin documentary "Undefeated."

New Video is the largest aggregator of independent digital content worldwide, with Amazon, Apple's iTunes store, Hulu, Netflix and Walmart's Vudu serving as partners.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/film_nm/us_cinedigm

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No simple explanation in AF Academy sex crime data (AP)

DENVER ? Nine years after a sexual assault scandal at the Air Force Academy sent shock waves across the military, the Defense Department last month announced a spike in reported assaults at the school ? and days later the Air Force filed sex-crime charges against three cadets.

It isn't clear whether the disturbing news means sexual predation is on the rise at the academy, experts and school officials say. It could reflect the academy's efforts to encourage cadets to report any kind of unwanted sexual contact.

"I don't think anybody knows how to read that data," said Lory Manning, director of the Women in the Military Project at the Women's Research & Education Institute in Washington and a retired Navy captain.

The number of assaults reported at the academy since the 2005-06 school year, when comprehensive record-keeping began, has varied widely. From 10 in the first year, the totals rose to 24 two years later, plummeted to eight in 2008-09 and then rose again, to 20 in 2009-10 and 33 last year. Nearly 80 percent of the academy's approximately 4,600 cadets are male.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday nearly 3,200 sexual assaults were reported across the military last year, but he said the real number is probably closer to 19,000 because so few victims report the crime.

Panetta said the Pentagon would prepare initiatives to reduce the number of assaults.

It's a battle the Air Force Academy outside Colorado Springs, Colo., has been waging since 2003.

In January of that year, female cadets came forward to say that when they reported being sexually assaulted, they were punished for minor infractions as drinking. Some went to a local rape crisis clinic instead of academy officers, saying they feared their military careers would be damaged if they spoke with commanders.

Top leaders at the academy were replaced and programs put in place to prevent sexual abuse and to encourage cadets to report incidents.

It's impossible to measure how many crimes the training may have prevented, said Teresa Beasley, the academy's sexual assault coordinator. "How do you measure prevention?" she said.

"The number of reports have gone up," said Col. Reni Renner, vice commandant of cadets for climate and culture. "But it's hard to draw a correlation between the number of incidents and the number of reports."

Beasley and Renner say they believe the school is making headway. They point to a growing number of cadets coming to Beasley's office after speaking with cadets who came forward and were treated well.

Other cadets ask for help with repercussions from an assault that occurred before they enrolled. The academy said five of the 33 incidents reported in the 2010-11 school year occurred before the victim entered the military.

"My sense ... is that we really are seeing an increase in trust in our system," Renner said.

Manning said she has no doubt the academy is sincere in its efforts.

"As to the effectiveness, well, they've got three guys charged now," Manning said.

The academy announced on Jan. 5 that three male cadets had been charged with sex crimes stemming from unrelated incidents between February 2010 and May 2011. Academy officials said the three cases were announced together because the investigations happened to end at about the same time.

Robert M. Evenson Jr. is charged with rape, Stephan H. Claxton with abusive sexual assault and Kyle A. Cressy with aggravated assault. Evenson and Claxton face other, non-sex-related counts.

Cressy's civilian lawyer, Richard Stevens, did not immediately return a phone call. Claxton's military attorney, Capt. Nicole Torres, declined comment. The academy said Evenson's civilian lawyer asked not to be identified.

Hearings are expected to begin next week. Air Force attorneys haven't yet calculated sentencing ranges for any convictions, said academy spokesman Meade Warthen.

It's unclear what effect prosecutions have on encouraging victims to come forward. Beasley said she believes that in general, prosecutions reassure victims that they'll be taken seriously. But a sex-crime court-martial at the academy in the 2008-2009 school year led to an acquittal, and reports of sexual assaults plummeted that year, from 24 to eight.

The academy's sex assault prevention campaign starts before freshman studies begin. Among other things, cadets are told the Department of Defense definition of sexual assault includes "intentional sexual contact ... when the victim does not or cannot consent."

The breadth of the definition comes as a surprise to some.

"When they come in at basic, you see the `deer-in-the-headlight' look ? `Wow, I didn't realize I'd been assaulted,'" Beasley said.

By the time cadets are seniors, the training includes what their roles as officers will be, including what to do when someone brings a sex-assault complaint.

Manning said academy officials are "trying their level best."

"I think it's a problem we won't totally solve ever. But I think there's room for one less this year, two less next year," she said.

Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, said in an interview the day of Panetta's announcement that the military culture has "run amok" and the rules for handling sexual abuse need an overhaul. She has introduced a bill that would create a separate system within the military to investigate and prosecute sex crimes.

Currently, a victim's commander might be part of the decision-making process. That creates a conflict of interest; the commander could suffer career damage if a subordinate is victimized; the commander could be a friend of the suspect; or the commander could be the suspect, Speier said.

"We've got to do something fairly dramatic to get the academies back on track and the military back on track," she said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/usmilitary/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_us/us_sex_assaults_air_force_academy

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Eye on State of the Union, Obama promotes tourism (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Eye on the State of the Union address, President Barack Obama is citing his work to bolster tourism and aid the economy as he readies to outline his election-year priorities.

Obama used his radio and Internet address Saturday to bring attention to steps he outlined in Florida's Walt Disney World on Thursday to make it easier for tourists to travel to the U.S. The White House said more than 1 million U.S. jobs could be created over the next decade, according to industry projections, if the nation took a larger share of the international travel market.

"We want more visitors coming here. We want them spending money here. It's good for our economy, and it will help provide the boost more businesses need to grow and hire," Obama said in the radio address.

The tourism initiative was part of an executive order Obama signed to increase non-immigrant visa processing capacity in China and Brazil by 40 percent this year and expand a visa waiver program that lets participating nationals to travel to the U.S. for stays of 90 days or less without a visa.

Obama said too often "we've seen Congress drag its feet and refuse to take steps we know will help strengthen our economy."

The president said that has prompted him to take executive actions to give states more flexibility to help children meet higher educational standards, help small businesses with federal contracts get paid at a faster rate, offer incentives for companies to hire veterans and help families refinance their mortgages.

Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The president said he'd offer a "blueprint for actions we need to take together ? not just me, or Congress, but every American ? to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility are rewarded. An economy that's built to last."

Republicans said Obama's previous State of the Union addresses have offered plenty of promises but few results.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, delivering the weekly Republican address, said Obama told Americans in 2009 that an economic stimulus plan would improve the economy and offered health care reform as an economic boost in his 2010 speech. Last year, Hensarling said Obama vowed "that his budget would help us `win the future.'"

Instead, the lawmaker said 1.9 million fewer Americans have jobs since the president took office, gas prices have doubled and more Americans are now on food stamps than ever before.

"Regardless of the president's good intentions, his policies have failed the American people. His policies haven't just failed to make the economy better ? they have actually made it worse," he said, criticizing the president for rejecting a pipeline extension that would have run from Canada to Texas and added thousands of jobs.

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/HouseConference

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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Consumer groups rip mandatory arbitration ruling

Consumer advocates are deeply disappointed in the high court.?

?It?s just another example of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations and against consumers,? says Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.?

This latest case involves a credit repair firm CompuCredit Corp. of Atlanta. It offered people with poor credit the Aspire Visa card. The card, which was issued by Columbus Bank and Trust (now a division of Synovus Bank), had a $300 credit limit. It was marketed as a way to ?rebuild your credit? and ?improve your credit rating.??

Unhappy customers claim the promotional material said ?no deposit required.? But the Aspire Card came with $185 in fees that were assessed before the customer even received the card.?

A group of customers sued CompuCredit, accusing the company of deceptive marketing. A lower court said they had the right to sue. But in an 8-to-1 decision the justices said the cardholders could not -- even though federal law (the Credit Repair Organization Act) specifically gives credit repair clients the right to sue. ?The high court said the arbitration clause in their contracts trumped that.?

?The idea that they agreed to arbitration, they agreed to this provision in the fine print and buried it in a long, dense mouse-print kind of contract, is just ridiculous,? said Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center. ?These people had no idea that they were agreeing to arbitration.??

I contacted both CompuCredit and Synovus for a response. Synovus would not comment. I never heard back from CompuCredit.?

Many business groups are pleased with the court?s rulings in support of mandatory arbitration. They see it as a cost-effective way to handle small disputes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce believes lawyers often abuse the class action lawsuit. It calls arbitration ?a faster, cheaper, and fairer alternative to litigation.??

Nessa Feddis, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association, says people who arbitrate usually do better than if they go to court.?

?It?s not that banks don?t want customers to have the right to sue,? she insisted. ?They just don?t like the class actions which primarily benefit the plaintiffs? attorneys. Consumers usually get pennies on the dollar.??

Why consumer groups don?t like mandatory arbitration
Companies often describe arbitration as an unbiased ruling from a neutral party. And they point out that the customer does not have to pay.?

But consumer advocates say forced arbitration is unfair. They claim it favors the companies paying the arbitration service.?

?It?s like a kangaroo court,? noted Kathleen Day with the Center for Responsible Lending. ?If you look at arbitration cases where there?s a consumer claiming a financial institution has done them wrong, you?ll see that very rarely does the system ever rule in the consumer?s favor. It?s really a stacked deck.?

While lawsuits are public, binding arbitration is a secret tribunal. Neither the accusations nor the outcome is released. And the arbitrator?s ruling cannot be appealed.?

?Arbitration is controlled by powerful special interests,? said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at U.S. PIRG. ?You are stuck with whatever the outcome is and too bad for you that the outcome almost always favors the company.??

Ira Rheingold with the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators believes companies favor arbitration because it allows them ?to engage in lots of unfair practices without anybody holding them accountable.?

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has written a bill -- the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2011. If passed, it would make a pre-dispute arbitration agreement invalid and unenforceable for an employment, consumer or civil rights dispute.

My two cents
There is nothing wrong with voluntary arbitration?-- when both parties agree to it. In this case, either side can ignore the arbiter?s decision and go to court. But that isn?t the case with forced arbitration.

I have a real problem with this being forced down my throat as the only way to settle a dispute.?

These mandatory arbitration clauses are often hidden in lengthy contracts that few people read or can understand. And even if you do spot it, there?s nothing you can do if you want that product or service. It?s a case of take it or leave it.?

That?s just not fair.?

When Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), it told the new consumer watchdog to study forced arbitration and decide whether to ban it or regulate it in some way. The Supreme Court?s recent decision makes it all the more urgent for the CFPB to complete the study and take action.?

I hate it when class action lawyers sue a company, make millions in fees and get almost nothing for the individual consumer. But something needs to be done to level the playing field between big businesses and you, the customer.?

If you are wronged, you should have a right to your day in court.?

More info:

National Association of Consumer Advocates: Forced Arbitration?

?

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10183640-consumer-groups-rip-mandatory-arbitration-ruling

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MacCase Premium Leather Accessory Pouches

We talk about a lot of small bags and organizer pouches here at The Gadgeteer.? Most of them work great, but many of them are utilitarian looking.? If you’d like an elegant, leather pouch to carry your cables and flash drives in, check out the Premium Leather Accessory Pouches from MacCase.? They’re made from premium [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/01/22/maccase-premium-leather-accessory-pouches/

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David Beckham Underwear Ad to Air During Super Bowl

Even if Tom Brady and the Patriots knock off the Ravens on Sunday, the quarterback may not be the most handsome man associated with Super Bowl XLVI.

That's because David Beckham - who just signed a new two-year deal to remain with the Los Angeles Galaxy of the MLS - will be featured during a second quarter commercial... in his underwear!

The spot will mark Beckham's first campaign with H&M and will support the launch of his nine-piece bodywear collection, which hits 1,800 stores nationwide on February 2. He says of the collaboration:

"With my design team we spent time working on the feel, fit and style to ensure the product is not only something I would wear but one which I would be proud to put my name to. I always want to challenge myself and this was such a rewarding experience for me. I'm very happy with the end result and I hope H&M's male customers will be as excited as I am."

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/david-beckham-underwear-ad-to-air-during-super-bowl/

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No Wikipedia? What if the Internet went down? (AP)

WASHINGTON ? If a day without Wikipedia was a bother, think bigger. In this plugged-in world, we would barely be able to cope if the entire Internet went down in a city, state or country for a day or a week.

Sure, we'd survive. People have done it. Countries have, as Egypt did last year during the anti-government protests. And most of civilization went along until the 1990s without the Internet. But now we're so intertwined socially, financially and industrially that suddenly going back to the 1980s would hit the world as hard as a natural disaster, experts say.

No email, Twitter or Facebook. No buying online. No stock trades. No just-in-time industrial shipping. No real-time tracking of diseases. It's gotten so that not just the entire Internet but individual websites such as Google are considered critical infrastructure, experts said.

"Nobody would die, but there would be a major hassle," said computer security expert Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure in Helsinki, Finland.

If an Internet outage lasted more than a day or two, the financial hit would be huge, with mass unemployment, said Ken Mayland, a former chief bank economist and president of ClearView Economics. Eugene Spafford, director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, worries about bank runs and general panic.

Psychologically, too, it could be wrenching.

"I think it's easier to get off heroin," said Lisa Welter of New York City, who weaned herself for a month last year from just the social aspects of the Internet ? she still paid bills online ? and felt as if she was "living in a cave."

"There would be a sense of loss: What would I do with my time?" said Kimberly Young, a psychologist who directs the Center for Internet Addiction and Recovery.

On Wednesday, certain websites, most prominently Wikipedia, went dark to protest legislation in Congress that would crack down on pirated movies and TV shows. It was a one-day stunt. But it raises questions about our connectedness.

It is possible that hackers, terrorists, accidents or even sunspots could take down the Internet and cause areas to become cut off and unreachable, said Spafford, one of the foremost experts on computer security. The U.S. and other developed nations have multiple and robust routing systems that make it unlikely large areas would be affected, but smaller countries could be vulnerable to nationwide outages, Hypponen said.

The world only has to look back one year to Egypt to see what a sudden unplugging could spawn.

The government of Hosni Mubarak tried to stop protests in January 2011 by switching off the Internet. The shutdown halted businesses, banking operations and ? at the height of the demonstrations ? the ability of the protest leaders to organize and communicate with one another.

During the five days that the Internet was out, anti-Mubarak activists had to rely on help from abroad to spread their news and update Web pages. The outage harmed protesters' ability to organize or to counter government propaganda that portrayed them as agents of foreign powers, said Ahmed Saleh, who was in charge of managing the Facebook page that was credited with mobilizing thousands of Egyptians to take to the streets.

With the shutdown, the protests swelled as people unable to follow minute-by-minute what was going on took to the streets.

"No Internet meant that more people went down and realized that this was for real. The protests grew, and so did the anger against the government domestically and internationally," Saleh said.

He said the lack of Internet also allowed him to "live the moment" because he was not distracted with tweeting and posting on Facebook or analyzing the situation. This, he said, strengthened real face-to-face connections between people.

Nicholas Christin, associate director of the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, said that while a prolonged Internet outage would be uncomfortable, it might also bring out the best in people.

"I think you would find that people are very resilient," he said. "We would go back to the libraries."

Christin said he has gone a week without the Internet as part of a vacation. The first few days were rough, he said, but then "it was fantastic."

Christin did it by choice. Others had it imposed on them because of weather disasters or financial problems. They weren't nostalgic about it.

For three days, Jill Williams lost the Internet and power because of a California windstorm last month. Her small business requires her to use email to plan events.

"Those three days I felt deprived," she recalled in an email, responding to a Twitter request for anecdotes about going Internet-less. "The Internet has totally consumed my life, both business as well as pleasure."

Wyatt McMahon of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech University was having a hard time Wednesday just dealing with the shutdown at Wikipedia, which he leans on as a first step in his searches in his field, which combines statistics and biology.

If the entire Internet were lost, "that would be beyond catastrophic. Every single day, every single hour, if not every 30 minutes, I am using the Internet for work," McMahon said. "So if anything like that were to happen, it would bring everything to a screeching halt."

___

Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_hi_te/us_world_without_internet

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Alltop_TW: China wants population to register for Twitter http://t.co/6TCUAVpd

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Real-life James Bonds used fake rock to spy on Russia

Rossiya via AFP - Getty Images

A combination of video grabs from footage broadcast by Russian state-run television in 2006 allegedly shows a man, said to be a British spy, in a park outside Moscow collecting a fake rock being used as a high-tech version of the spy's traditional letter-box or dead drop in which agents can anonymously deliver or retrieve information.

RTR via Reuters

Russian television said there was a transmitter inside the fake rock.

In an embarrassing episode for the British security services, Tony Blair's former chief of staff?has admitted that the U.K. used a fake rock to spy on Russia. Reuters reports:

In a television program aired on Russian state television in 2006, Russia's FSB security service accused Britain of using the gadget for top secret communications in Moscow, but London did not admit to the charge at the time.

Now Jonathan Powell, who was chief of staff to then Prime Minister Tony Blair, has confirmed the Russians were correct.

"They had us bang to rights," Powell says in a BBC documentary to be aired on Thursday.

"There's not much you can say. You can't really call up and say 'terribly sorry about that and it won't happen again'," Powell says.?Read the full story.

RTR via Reuters

Russian television showed an X-ray of what they said was a transmitter in the rock.

Source: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/19/10189012-real-life-james-bonds-used-fake-rock-to-spy-on-russia

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