NGC 2170 AKA FSM

Part of the active Monoceros R2 star-forming region (NGC 2170):



Is that a collection of glowing meatballs and spaghetti-like tentacles, or what?

Found at APOD: Astronomy Picture of the Day, 2010 October 15 where you'll see more information and a bigger image.

Hoag's Object: A Strange Ring Galaxy

From Astronomy Picture of the Day 22/8/2010:

Hoag's Object - a ring galaxy: On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. Coincidentally, visible in the gap (at about one o'clock) is yet another ring galaxy that likely lies far in the distance.

Read more and see a larger image

Master Yoda was an idiot

Found in the comment thread of a Slashdot post:

Master Yoda was an idiot:

• Didn't see the fall of the Jedi. *
• None of his "visions of the future" ever came true.
• In order to do, you must try. Frankly at this point he might as well be sitting in a senile home reading fortune cookies.
• Taught children the force using real light sabers.

* Not just with his "vision" but through common sense he should have seen it coming.
I mean really, when Samuel Jackson is on your side, some serious shit is going to happen... mother fucker.

by geekoid

ROUS

Found at icanhascheezburger.com

Full-fat dairy not all bad for health

From www.abc.net.au:

Scientists from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research surveyed more than 1,000 people on their eating habits over 16 years. They found those who had the highest intake of full-fat dairy had the lowest risk of death from heart disease or stroke... While more research is needed, there may be nutrients in full-fat dairy products that balance their saturated fat content.

And this is just two weeks after I finally worked up the strength to abandon full cream milk and drink the more expensive, watery Trim milk.

I give up. I just give up. I'm eating butter for lunch and you can't stop me.

The Moon Hoax - Darryl Cunningham Investigates

An excellent, easy to understand debunking of many of the moon-hoax-believers main arguments.



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Monocle: an in-browser eBook reader

From inventivelabs.com.au:

Monocle is an ebook reader. It works in modern web browsers, using standard technologies. It runs in desktop browsers and on mobile devices. It's awesome in Safari and Chrome (the browsers used on iPhone OS and Android devices), increasingly awesome in Firefox, and workable in more standards-fearing browsers like Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

We've open-sourced it under the MIT licence, which is the most liberal of the mainstream software licences.

Monocle is drop-in. You can embed a "book" on any webpage with two lines of code - one to include the library, one to initialize the reader. Monocle is approximately 25kb and has no dependencies on external JavaScript libraries.

Monocle is as you like it. Out of the box it simply lets you turn the pages. It's lean. But you can add controls - page numbers, tables of contents, scrubbers (to jump to a different place in the book), font-size magnifiers - or you can code your own. The reader is rendered in CSS3; it can be made to look like pretty much anything.

Read more   and more, including sample eBooks

"Rape-aXe" - Anti-rape condom

A South African doctor [Dr Sonnet Ehlers] has developed a new anti-rape female condom... The latex condom is inserted by the woman like a tampon, and features jagged rows of teeth-like hooks that latch onto an attacker's penis upon penetration. Once attached, only a doctor can remove the Rape-aXe...

"It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it's on. If he tries to remove it, it will clasp tighter. However, it doesn't break the skin and there's no danger of fluid exposure."

Dr Ehlers said she consulted engineers, gynaecologists and psychologists during the device's development, and sold her house and car to help fund the project. It is expected to retail for around $2...

Critics have labelled it a "medieval device", something that Dr Ehlers agrees with.

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Dr Ehlers rocks! Especially the bit about her selling her house and car.

Friday's filter announcement - full steam ahead

Regarding Minister Stephen Conroy's net filter:

... To our great surprise, the Minister appears to have endorsed several of the best ideas received in their review of filter transparency, by agreeing to several measures (including some suggested by us that attempt to lessen the corrosive effects of a secret blacklist. Conroy announced that:

• Australian site owners will be notified when their content is added to the blacklist;
• A standard block notification will be shown, making it clear the page was deliberately blocked by the government;
• The Classification Board, rather than ACMA, will decide on the RC status of submitted URLs;
• An annual review of the list will be conducted.

It's good that the issues have finally got some attention, but it is important to note that nothing has really changed here as far as the value of this policy is concerned. Firstly, the filter still has no clear policy goal; it will still neither help parents nor prevent the spread of illegal material. Secondly, a secret blacklist, the scope of which could easily increase over time, is always going to be a big worry...

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Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

From kalzumeus.com:

... I have never seen a computer system which handles names properly and doubt one exists, anywhere. So, as a public service, I'm going to list assumptions your systems probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.

• People have exactly one canonical full name.
  ...
• People's names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
  ...
• People's names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
  ...
• People's names are written in ASCII.
  ...
• People's names do not contain numbers.
  ...
• My system will never have to deal with names from China.
• Or Japan.
• Or Korea.
• Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have "weird" naming schemes in common use.
• That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
  ...
• I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people's names in it.
• People's names are assigned at birth.
• OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
• Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
• Five years?
• You're kidding me, right?
  ...
• People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.
• People have names.

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