In today's news...

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Well, the difference in Syria would be that instead of leaving a power vacuum after withdrawing, that power would be held by the previous guy in charge, Assad.

Perhaps with a Kurd state in the north east, if the US wants their allies in the region to have their own state. I'm fairly sure the kurds also had a succesfull defence/militia hold off ISIS, so they should be stable enough on their own too

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: In today's news...

1. only want the "freedom" to persecute individuals that don't do what their faith stipulate

Tying so hard not to make a Kim Davis quip...

ah, shit.

 

[super_slicer]

Re: In today's news...

Tying so hard not to make a Kim Davis quip...

ah, shit.

Certainly a fair point. And I imagine there a other people pulling the same shit as her, just not getting as much coverage. These people need to be stripped of their titles, not because of their religious beliefs, but because they are breaking the law.

That said, I can't remember the last time we stoned someone to death and televised it...

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Bit older news, but got it linked today

TTIP is being revised and they're still trying
Here's a few to show what happens when it gets passed

You must be registered to see the links

Spain sued for cutting renewable energy subsidies during the economic crisis

And one in Dutch (Push it through google translate if needed)

You must be registered to see the links

Romania gets a preview, sued by a Canadian company over the decision to not allow new large toxic lakes from gold mining

Oh, and of course there's the usual news about migrants trying to rush to Germany because they think the German border might close soon

 

[fagballs]

Re: In today's news...

Bit older news, but got it linked today

TTIP is being revised and they're still trying
Here's a few to show what happens when it gets passed

You must be registered to see the links

Spain sued for cutting renewable energy subsidies during the economic crisis

And one in Dutch (Push it through google translate if needed)

You must be registered to see the links

Romania gets a preview, sued by a Canadian company over the decision to not allow new large toxic lakes from gold mining

Oh, and of course there's the usual news about migrants trying to rush to Germany because they think the German border might close soon

Nice. A poor country getting sued for 4 billion dollars in an American court via a trade agreement with the UK. Court is of course completely closed for the public, because otherwise it wouldn't be true justice.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Both TTIP and TISA are sketchy as fuck. Look to what NAFTA did to Canada. They gettin' sued all up in this neoliberal trade treaty beyotch.

 

[OAMP]

Re: In today's news...

Liquid water has been found on Mars. The implications really speak for themselves, though are also of course just one small discovery over quite a few we could make about Mars.

 

[fagballs]

Re: In today's news...

Liquid water has been found on Mars. The implications really speak for themselves, though are also of course just one small discovery over quite a few we could make about Mars.

Liquid water is POSSIBLE on Mars. There's no direct evidence.

Long story short:
-Water on Mars is only liquid between 0 and 10°C because of the low atmospheric pressure. But they have discovered some kind of chloricsomething brine (=salt), making the range way more broad, from -25ish to +75ish °C. This is in the surface temperature range. The brines have been matched via a satellite doing electromagnetic wave absorption analysis.
-This chloric chemical compound has the property of absorbing water until the salt crystals themself melt and it becomes a solution.
-They discovered dark "streams" going down from hills, which can be linked to aquifers. These are highly seasonal streams, only showing up in spring and summer. This is only detected via satellite imaging. No landers have done an analysis of these streams.

 

[Smokefish]

Re: In today's news...

>salt
>streams

Stop crying, Mars. We'll colonize you eventually, you salty little slut.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Still, very cool stuff.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Thats pretty sweet

Still no mars base, but we're getting there

 

[OAMP]

Re: In today's news...

Liquid water is POSSIBLE on Mars. There's no direct evidence.

Long story short:
-Water on Mars is only liquid between 0 and 10°C because of the low atmospheric pressure. But they have discovered some kind of chloricsomething brine (=salt), making the range way more broad, from -25ish to +75ish °C. This is in the surface temperature range. The brines have been matched via a satellite doing electromagnetic wave absorption analysis.
-This chloric chemical compound has the property of absorbing water until the salt crystals themself melt and it becomes a solution.
-They discovered dark "streams" going down from hills, which can be linked to aquifers. These are highly seasonal streams, only showing up in spring and summer. This is only detected via satellite imaging. No landers have done an analysis of these streams.

As a scientist, I'd say that's pretty much the same thing as what I said

(aka, it really is close enough)

 

[AceofWind]

Re: In today's news...

Kim Dotcom may be in trouble again as it appears that the U.S government is attempting to get him extradited to face criminal charges over evidence that he paid over $3M to some users to upload pirated content to megaupload which includes movies. Whether this will have an effect on Mega.nz in the future or not is up to speculation but it probably won't as it falls under a different CEO.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[fagballs]

Re: In today's news...

As a scientist, I'd say that's pretty much the same thing as what I said

(aka, it really is close enough)

It's dangerous to assume things as scientist, even when there's no conflicting evidence and you're in dire need of a higher budget.

It won't get verified for a long time anyway, since NASA are making preparations for manned missions. Their experiments on extracting oxygen and water from the atmosphere have priority. Same for getting soil samples back to earth.

 

[OAMP]

Re: In today's news...

It's dangerous to assume things as scientist, even when there's no conflicting evidence and you're in dire need of a higher budget.

It won't get verified for a long time anyway, since NASA are making preparations for manned missions. Their experiments on extracting oxygen and water from the atmosphere have priority. Same for getting soil samples back to earth.

It's a semantic argument. No assuming is taking place

Really, literally nothing you've said contradicts what I've said, if anything, you're backing up my original post by saying it. It comes down to how you define "water". Unless you're concerned because the water has not been directly observed. Indirect observation is indeed "good enough" in many cases. All news articles I've seen has NASA representatives as saying "liquid water still flows on Mars", and if they feel the indirect evidence is good enough, I feel the indirect evidence is good enough. If you have access to a report that states otherwise, please link it.

 

[fagballs]

Re: In today's news...

It's a semantic argument. No assuming is taking place

Really, literally nothing you've said contradicts what I've said, if anything, you're backing up my original post by saying it. It comes down to how you define "water". Unless you're concerned because the water has not been directly observed. Indirect observation is indeed "good enough" in many cases. All news articles I've seen has NASA representatives as saying "liquid water still flows on Mars", and if they feel the indirect evidence is good enough, I feel the indirect evidence is good enough. If you have access to a report that states otherwise, please link it.

It wouldn't be the first time that contradicting evidence is just ignored, especially when you're in need of funding or recognition.

I'm not saying it's definitely not liquid water, I'm just saying to be careful to jump on the bandwagon. Usually they use a system of "degrees of certainty", but here it's just "hey, it's 100% liquid water". For example the spectrometry: you have the uncertainty on the readings (your EM waves travel through an uncharted atmosphere, error range on your instruments, calibration after a year of space travel hell, ...) and on the matching with earthly minerals. The black streams on the photos are more clear, but you're still observing in an alien environment. There are scientific methods for estimating these odds, but they're probably only in the (non-free) published papers because the audience only cares about the gist of things.

Forgive my sceptic posts, but if you've followed scientific news long enough, you know the buzzwords. For archaeology it's "missing link", for particle physics it's "God particle" and for space exploration it's "liquid water".

 

[OAMP]

Re: In today's news...

Would you care to make a bet on it?

I'm a betting man, and I would take the odds on this one given the recent history of discoveries and evidence presented.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Well, strictly speaking, there's water all over the cosmos, just not liquid.


Ya damn science nerds, ya! /jk.

 

[super_slicer]

Re: In today's news...

Not to be any more of a downer, but we also have to consider the viability of the water. Is it even WORTH transporting desalination and purification (remember, if there's life in it our immune systems won't be able to cope well/at all with it) equipment to mars as opposed to sending some water with the ship along with a way to recycle it from urine?

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

(remember, if there's life in it our immune systems won't be able to cope well/at all with it)

Could be the other way around. The microbes we bring with us might be disastrous to them.