Rohit BRT ( रोिहत )

Keira and Johnny! Behind the Scenes-Pirates of the Caribbean

2007-08-28T18:45:00.001-07:00

A Lesson Learned

2007-08-28T18:39:00.001-07:00

Jurassic Park First Trailer

2007-08-28T18:37:00.001-07:00

Star Wars Ep III Revenge Of The Sith Trailer

2007-08-28T18:36:00.001-07:00

Awesome official Star Wars III trailer

2007-08-28T18:35:00.001-07:00

SR71 Blackbird

2007-08-28T18:34:00.003-07:00

Black Bird

2007-08-28T18:34:00.001-07:00

unlock iphone

2007-08-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

unlock iphone

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THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED

2007-08-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED
Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones.

Here are more details

http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/

Panasonic "Pixi" cellphone picture dock is designed for social networking, idiots

2007-08-23T18:24:00.001-07:00

We're not certain it needs to get any easier to post compromising photos to social networking sites, but apparently Panasonic's R&D labs think it's a problem in need of a giant, garish solution: say hello to the Pixi, a concept cellphone dock / cameraphone companion designed to send photos directly from your mobile to mixi, a Japanese MySpace clone. Sliding your phone into the Pixi automatically brings up your photos, and then configuring your phone and sending those latest bleary-eyed bar pics to the web is as simple as smacking one of the six touch-sensitive icons on the unit. Of course, you won't be doing this on the sly -- the unit's bright red shell with carnival-style LED chaser lights might tip off your companions, but if you can't figure out how to email photos to a website from a modern phone, you probably deserve the scorn. Check a video of the concept Pixi in action after the jump.

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2007-08-23T18:23:00.001-07:00

How the FBI spies on suspects

Details of a nifty piece of kit used by the FBI to spy on the internet activities of suspected criminals have emerged during a court case in the US.

CIPAV, which stands for Computer and Intenet Protocol Address Verifier, allows agents to track what connections a suspect's computer has made with other machines, for instance by e-mail or browsing the internet.

Continue reading "How the FBI spies on suspects" »

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Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?

2007-08-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?

There's nothing like a tiff between image processing experts to put a few extra pixels in your Monday.

Last week Wired.com ran a story in which a computer scientist claimed he could establish whether al-Qaeda had altered a video prior to posting it on the internet.

Neal Krawetz said he had written a program which would enable investigators to establish whether a background had been added to disguise the true location in which an al-Qaeda video was recorded, and, if the image had been altered, which editing software was used. (Of limited significance, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless.)

A video by a prominent al-Qaeda spokesman posted last year, had, for instance, had a desk, computer and some books added after the original recording, Mr Krawetz said.

A computer security expert at Cambridge University last week took issue with Mr Krawetz's claims, however, claiming that his analysis was flawed.

Continue reading "Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?" »

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The environmental cost of chat sessions and the paperless office

2007-08-23T18:00:00.001-07:00

The rise of the paperless office, online banking, VOIP calls and e-commerce is not as green as you might think. The demand for electronic services is creating a boom in the construction of data centres to store and process these digital details on countless computer servers, and the need to keep these server farms cool and always-on is having a noticeable effect on the power grid.

According to a recent report by America's Environmental Protection Agency, America's data centres require more power than all the television sets in the 50 states, combined. Put another way, the energy consumed is equivalent to 5.8 million homes – that's a lot of Amazon orders and Skype chat sessions. Put in monetary terms, it's $4.5 billion (£2.2 billion) worth of electricity consumption per annum, says Greenbang.com.

Continue reading "The environmental cost of chat sessions and the paperless office" »

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Hot babe

2007-08-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

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Microsoft pipped in Beijing Olympic race?

2007-08-23T17:57:00.001-07:00

Some confusion this week about whether the organisers of the Beijing Olympics had taken a swipe at Microsoft, or not.

Reports surfaced in the past couple of days that Lenovo, an official supplier to the Beijing Olympics, was to ship the majority of its computers to the games with XP, rather than Vista, installed.

This - the chairman of Lenovo, Yang Yuanqing, suggested, in remarks that were taken slightly out of context - was because the Olympics needed stable technologies and "if it's not stable, it could have some problems."

Implication: Vista was unstable.

Cue a series of rather unflattering (for Microsoft) headlines, including 'Unstable Vista Dumped for Olympics', 'Windows Vista Snubbed by Olympics organisers', 'Vista loses Olympics race', and, perhaps the most inspired, '2008 Olympics to run on XP'.

Continue reading "Microsoft pipped in Beijing Olympic race?" »

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Germans aim to build laptop powered by body heat

2007-08-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Face it, batteries just aren't very reliable, I type with gritted teeth as I spy the rapidly dwindling battery power indicator on my MacBook. And, as we learned recently, lithium-ion batteries have a tendency to overheat, triggering expensive recalls from Nokia and Sony in the past year. Perhaps the researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, the same group that brought us the MP3 audio format, have found a solution: a new method of drawing electrical current from our body heat that could some day power laptops, mobile phones and gadgets.

Continue reading "Germans aim to build laptop powered by body heat" »

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Razr2: Motorola's hope in a handset

2007-08-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

The follow up to Motorola's legendary Razr has shaved 2mm off the width of its predecessor, but still lacks a 'killer app'

Motorola Razr2

To say Motorola has a fair bit pegged to the success of the Razr2 is a little like saying that our planet has a fair bit pegged to the sun continuing to combust.

Edward Zander, Motorola's chief executive, has himself acknowledged that the company didn't deliver many "really new 'wow'" products in the first half of the year, so it will be hoped – rather fervently – along the Motorola corridors, and those of its investors, that in the third and fourth quarters the handset maker can recover some ground.

There is a fair bit of ground to make up. Last month, the company posted a deficit of $28 million (£14.2 million), its second straight quarterly loss. Overall revenues for the second quarter of this year were down 19 per cent, from $10.8 billion to $8.7 billion (£5.5 billion to £4.4 billion), compared with the same quarter last year, while handset sales dropped by 40 per cent over the same period.

Motorola's hopes are in fact pinned to two devices. First came the Z8, a 'movie phone' which came pre-loaded with The Bourne Identity, and which was released a couple of months ago.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article2308099.ece

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Move over geeks, women are top web users

2007-08-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

Women aged between 25 and 49 are now spending more time on the internet than men as they become hooked on keeping in touch with friends online, according to figures published yesterday by the communications regulator Ofcom.

The figures are particularly pronounced in the 25 to 34 age group, in which women now account for 55 per cent of time spent online – demon-strating that the medium once thought of as dominated by solitary, glass-wearing male nerds is rapidly being feminised.

James Thickett, director of research with Ofcom, said: “Young women are finally finding content relevant to them on the internet. Social networking is what is driving a lot of usage; websites like Facebook and Bebo have a much higher female profile”.

Unknown two years ago, social networking sites – a combination of communication, information and gossip – have become particularly popular with women. Such sites are visted by more than six million Britons a month, and are still growing rapidly, according to figures complied by Ofcom in its annual audit of media consumption, the Communications Market Report.

Facebook and Bebo, as well as MySpace, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, all have more young female users. Nearly a third of all Facebook users are women aged 18 to 34; only a quarter are men in the same range.

Adam Baum, media analyst with Gartner Group said: “I have no doubt that the reason behind the swing [towards women] is the rise of social networking sites. The time people spend on sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook is by some magnitude higher than on ‘traditional’ websites and these new sites, which allow people to talk to each other, engage in friendships and share tastes, appeal to women.”

Internet usage shows marked gender divides. Forrester Research, the technology specialist, describes the net as “just another channel for women to do what they enjoy: shopping, talking, and caring”. Its data, based on research of young people across Europe, shows that 55 per cent of women aged 18 to 34 – or 4.13 million – use the medium regularly compared with 45 per cent – or 3.49 million – of men. Women are also likely to spend more time on networking sites when they are there.

Sharon Bailey, general manager for MSN, Microsoft’s online business, said that 78 per cent of the users on the company’s health and wellbeing site were women.

She said: “If learning how to use the technology was ever a barrier to women getting online, it isn’t today and, frankly, there are more interesting things for women to do on the web than in the past – especially when it comes to socialising.”

However, older men are still more prolific users of the internet than older women. Of those aged over 65, men account for 79 per cent of time online. Boys go online more than girls.

If the trends continue, analysts believe that they could eventually have an impact on television viewing. “The knock-on effect will be on traditional media,” Mr Baum said.

Female favourites

1 Google – 1.8 million unique vistors

2 MSN/Windows Live – 1.56 million

3 Yahoo! – 1 million

4 BBC – 882,000

5 Facebook – 855,000

6 eBay – 839,000

7 MySpace – 722,000

8 Microsoft – 702,000

9 YouTube – 661,000

10 Google Maps – 654,000

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings surveyed women aged 18-24

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2310548.ece

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Google turns its attention to the stars

2007-08-23T17:48:00.002-07:00

Google, having brought the earth into the living room, has turned its eye to the heavens to bring the sky at night indoors.

More than 250 million people have used Google Earth’s satellite pictures to look at their own homes from space or into their neighbours’ back gardens or viewed weird and wonderful geological features.

The internet facility has now been expanded to offer a glimpse of 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies as part of the Google Sky initiative.

The system has been designed to show the night sky from any point in the world and to explain what it is the user would see were they to peer up at the stars on a clear night.

Information on 20,000 celestial bodies, including stars, planets, galaxies, constellations and comets are available at the click of a mouse.

Just as Google Earth showed the planet in close up by providing access to satellite pictures, Google Sky offers photographs from a range of observatories, including the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

Thousands of images have been put together to provide a comprehensive view of the night sky with the ability to zoom in on cosmic features of interest.

The pictures were already available to the public through the internet but the Google site is designed to bring them together in an organised, easy-to-access manner.

The facility was created in partnership with a range of organisations including Nasa, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre and the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

Among the cosmic subjects with dedicated areas on the website are the constellations, photographs from Hubble, the moon and the planets.

Users can also take virtual tours through galaxies such as the Ursa Minor Dwarf and the Milky Way, and watch the life of a star from formation to supernova and beyond.

Information and pictures provided by Google Sky have been verified by professional astronomers but additional details can be added to the site in ‘layers’.

In one layer a professional astronomer has included details of dozens of solar systems which are known to have planets.

Enthusiasts can add their own information, whether to note the discovery of an exploding star or simply to offer a photograph of the sky from their own back garden, in associated layers. Some, after being checked for accuracy and suitability, will eventually be incorporated within the main site.

Dr Fransisco Diego, an astronomer at University College London, said at the launch at Google’s officies in London that the internet facility will be an aid to professionals and amateurs alike. He described it as “an amazing facility” and said: “It opens a window on to space for the general public that will let them explore the sky.”

Dr Carol Christian, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in the United States, was part of the team that created the site that she said would allow everyone to see “the wonders of our universe”.

She added: “Never before has a roadmap of the entire sky been made so readily available. Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone’s home computer.”

Jason Chuck, of Google, said the aim had been to create a system that offered an introduction to astronomy rather than a comprehensive database. He hope it would serve as a teaching aid as well as being a site to be browsed purely out of interest.

It also, he said, surmounted the problem of trying to stargaze during cloudy weather, especially during the current damp spell, and in cities where light pollution hides many stars.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2308536.ece

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2007-08-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

Madden NFL 08

Daniel Emery

Most platforms, £35-£50. Ages 3+

Madden is the best known series of American football games and this is its meatiest incarnation. The graphics have been overhauled and the controls improved. Gone is the frenetic gamepad bashing, replaced by sensible and intuitive key combinations.

The players are superbly responsive. Indeed, star players are able to perform exquisite manoeuvres that set them apart from the rest of the team. However, this complex sport has limited appeal outside the US – a bit like serving hot dogs to a stadium of vegetarians.

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Dear iPhone owner: your 300-page bill

2007-08-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

AT&T customers have protested that absurdly comprehensive iPhone bills are damaging the environment

Owners of Apple's iPhone have been in revolt over the size of the bills they receive from their network, some of which run to hundreds of pages.

One 23-year-old was so incensed with the 300-page bill she received from AT&T, the official network of the iPhone, that she made a video of it and posted it on YouTube and other sites. The clip has now been viewed more than three million times.

Justine Ezarik, a graphic designer (and 'Lifecaster') from Pittsburgh, said that her bill was so voluminous that it arrived in a box rather than an envelope. "Save a forest – use e-billing," a slogan at the end of her 60-second video read.

AT&T's bills are larger than normal because they detail every event that has taken place on the network, even if no charge has been occurred.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article2313662.ece

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2007-08-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Virtual Bartender

Here's what might be the ultimate gadget for your home bar.

The My Fountain can store and dispense 16 chilled liquids. Put in your mixers, liquors and other beverages and the machine can dole out both single liquids or drinks based on recipes. The machine can also be password protected for different users. The machine sells for $2,500 and is available for pre-order now although it won't be out until next year. Combine this with an Enomatic for your wine and you could open your own automated bar.

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Treasury Bill Yields Fall Most Since 1987 on Money Fund Demand

2007-08-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Yields on U.S. Treasury bills fell the most in two decades on demand for the safest securities amid concern over a widening credit crunch.

Bill yields have fallen five straight days as money market funds dumped asset-backed commercial paper in favor of the shortest-maturity government debt. Three-month yields dropped the most since the stock market crash of 1987 and more than in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the U.S, as funds shunned assets that may be linked to a weakening mortgage market.

``The market is totally, absolutely, completely in fear mode,'' said John Jansen, who sells Treasuries at CastleOak Securities LP in New York. ``People are afraid that lots and lots of mortgage paper and mortgage paper derivatives of all sorts is completely opaque and they can't price it.''

The three-month Treasury bill yield fell 0.82 percentage point to 2.94 percent as of 2:54 p.m. in New York. It's the most since Oct. 20, 1987, when the yield fell 85 basis points, or 0.85 percentage point, on the day the stock market crashed, and eclipses the drop of 39 basis points on Sept. 13, 2001, the day the Treasury market reopened after the attacks. The yield has fallen from 4.69 percent on Aug. 13. The bills yielded about 7 percent in mid-October 1987, and 3.2 percent in the days before the September 2001 attacks.

``The psychotic atmosphere that's gripped the markets recently is still in place,'' said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist for New York-based Miller Tabak & Co. ``This is quite evident in the way the T-bill market is acting.''

`Get into Treasuries'

The flight to government debt helped the U.S. Treasury sell $21 billion in three-month bills today at a high discount rate of 2.85 percent, the lowest since 2.8 percent on May 16, 2005.

Investors fled even money market funds, considered among the safest instruments, on concern that the funds, which hold $2.5 trillion, have invested in risky collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime mortgage loans.

``We had clients asking to be pulled out of money market funds and wanting to get into Treasuries,'' said Henley Smith, fixed-income manager in New York at Castleton Partners, which oversees about $150 million in bonds. ``People are buying T-bills because you know exactly what's in it.''

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a statement it won't re-invest the $5 billion of Treasury bill holdings maturing on Aug. 23 through its System Open Market Account to give it ``greater flexibility'' to manage reserves. It is the first time the Fed redeemed the Treasury bills since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Crescenzi said the move shows the Fed expects banks to borrow that much at the Fed's discount window.

Job Cuts

Treasuries headed higher earlier after SunTrust Banks Inc., the seventh-largest U.S. bank, said it expects to eliminate 2,400 jobs by the end of next year as part of a plan to cut costs. That may signal the credit crunch in the U.S. will cost jobs and may slow the economy.

The yield on the benchmark two-year note fell 11 basis points to 4.08 percent. The price of the 4 5/8 percent security due in July 2009 rose about 6/32, or $1.88 per $1,000 face amount, to 101.

Investors' focus is turning to ``the amount of job cuts you're going to have from this fallout,'' said Sean Murphy, a Treasury trader and strategist in New York at RBC Capital Markets, the investment-banking arm of Canada's biggest bank.

Slower Economy

More than half of the 21 primary government security dealers that trade with the Fed now expect the central bank to cut its target interest rate by next month from the current level of 5.25 percent.

``The Fed is going to lower the funds rate, it's a question of when,'' said Thomas Tierney, head of U.S. Treasury trading at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York. ``Credit's gotten tighter, and it's going to slow the economy.''

The Fed on Aug. 17 cut the rate it charges banks for direct loans to banks by 0.5 percentage point to 5.75 percent. It was the first reduction in borrowing costs between scheduled meetings since 2001. The central bank said in a statement that risks to the economy have risen ``appreciably.''

The move failed to revive demand for asset-backed commercial paper in Europe. Solent Capital Partners LLP, a London-based credit-fund manager, is seeking to draw on emergency financing after it couldn't borrow in the commercial-paper markets.

``There is a lot to roll over in the commercial paper market and that has people getting nervous,'' said Ian Lyngen, an interest-rate strategist in Greenwich, Connecticut at primary dealer RBS Greenwich Capital.

Interest-rate futures traders see a 100 percent change the fed will lower its overnight lending rate between banks by its next meeting on Sept. 18. Eighty-six percent of those bets are for rates to drop to 4.75 percent, while the balance is for a cut to 5 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aJbhFOZ2T.R4&refer=news

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2007-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

These gizmos are a must for techies

I can live without lots of high-tech gadgets.

Cell phones, for instance. I honestly do not want to be in touch.

I also have no need for a tiny palm-sized computer. My thumbs don't work that way. I've given two away and lost another.

Places like YouTube and MySpace bore me. There are good reasons why these people are not being paid for their work.

But some gadgets seem essential to me:

Wide-screen monitor

Now I can have a Web browser open on one part of the screen, e-mail on another and -- at times -- a small note-taking program on a third.There is plenty of room on the wide 19-inch screen. And by being able to see several programs at once, I can do true multitasking that makes my work more efficient.

That's what I tell my wife. And it's true.

But I avoid telling her that my favorite games look really great on the wide screen.

HDTV

Speaking of big, wide screens, my HDTV probably furnishes more enjoyment for the dollar than any other piece of electronics in my home.

The big screen and detailed picture makes watching Braves baseball games more like the view I get at Turner Field. And I can change channels when the team makes me mad.

The high-definition picture is so beautiful that I often watch entire programs about beavers, spiders and frogs just to admire the photography.

External hard disk

Years ago, when I first started backing up my data, I used floppy disks.Then I moved to CDs and finally DVDs.

No matter what I used, I was forced to sit at the computer and change disks, as if I were feeding quarters into a slot machine.

Now, I simply click the backup button. Everything fits on my 200-gigabyte external hard disk with room to spare.

When I buy a new computer, the external hard disk makes moving data simple. I plug it into a USB port and move all my e-mail, documents, music and photos with no hassle.

Digital camera

Photography is a hobby for me. But even casual snapshooters should own a digital camera.

A digital camera will change how you use photography.

If you have to take something apart, taking pictures along the way furnishes a great reminder when it comes time to put it back together. Or, you can bring a photograph of your den into the furniture store to get help selecting the right coffee table.

I find new uses for instant photos almost every day.

GPS

Wait a minute -- I don't own one. But I can imagine how nice it would be not to get lost all the time. Like most guys, I dislike asking for directions, so that's meant some very long trips.

My wife tells me we have to save for retirement so I need to postpone the purchase. But I see from reviews that pretty good units are dropping in price. I think I'll show her this column to prove that a GPS is essential.

http://www.charlotte.com/business/story/242307.html

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Paris: I'll go on Big Brother

2007-08-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

PARTY girl Paris Hilton is set to sign for Celebrity Big Brother after being offered more than £300,000, The Sun can reveal.

Kidding ... Paris with pal's baby
Pictures: WENN

Ex-con Paris, 26, is desperate to raise her profile in the UK — and is prepared to be locked up for another three weeks in the Channel 4 house.

A Big Bro source said: “We told Paris, ‘Name your price’.

“We’re in firm talks, and it would be a fantastic coup to get her.”

An insider said Paris is aiming to show she is more than an “heirhead socialite”.

They added: “She wants people to see that she’s not a bimbo or a wildchild.

“The only time anyone hears about her is when she’s been up to no good — or saying something ridiculous.

“She’s actually smart and funny, with lots of interesting things to say.

Diary Room ... how she would look

"She would easily be the star of the show — but obviously she won’t do it unless the money is right.”

Paris would become the highest paid celeb on the show to date, with chiefs set to offer her a sum to dwarf Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty’s £300,000.

There is no hint yet which other celebrities will be go into house and share the Diary Room with Paris in January.

But appearing on Big Bro would cap a tumultuous year for the hotel heiress.

Her reality show The Simple Life was axed after the pair fell out.

Then in June she was thrown in jail for 23 days for driving offences.

Meanwhile Celeb Big Bro bosses are anxious to get the show back on track after the race row earlier this year.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003230001-2007380511,00.html

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Brit girls' excess boozing habits

2007-08-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Out for the count ... record numbers of young women are binge-drinking
Picture: GETTY

A GIRL lies limp on a bench, her fingers trailing the ground, empty bottles of alcopop by her feet.

Yet nobody bats an eyelid as they walk past — it’s a routine sight in town centres across the UK every weekend.

Despite repeated health warnings, British women are drinking more than their counterparts anywhere else in Western Europe.

Our excessive boozing has been linked to a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and violent behaviour.

Party girl ... Kate often sinks five pints

And with girls in their teens and twenties hitting the bottle harder than ever, medical experts are warning of an epidemic of liver disease in the next 15 years.

To reveal the full extent of the problem, Sun Woman set out to get a snapshot of a typical weekend on our streets and asked Sun GP Dr Carol Cooper to highlight the dangers heavy drinkers face.

We spoke to girls out on the town in Bristol, plus two people on the front line of the alcohol-abuse crisis — a taxi driver and an ambulance driver.

What we discovered provided a shocking insight into modern drinking habits . . .

It’s 8pm on a Friday night in Bristol, and the streets are buzzing with revellers.

Bright lights and signs advertise a string of bars with two-for-one deals. Student Kate Groves, 18, admits she sinks five pints of strong cider in an average night out, and reveals she narrowly escaped being seriously hurt after one binge.

“A few years ago I was house-sitting with my older sister,” she says. “We got drunk on gin and I passed out in a tent in the garden. Then I woke up to the smell of burning. In a drunken state my sister and her pals had poured gin all over my hair and set fire to it.

“When I realised what was going on I managed to stop the fire from singeing my hair too badly. At least it helped us learn our limits.”

But as she sinks another pint of cider, it’s clear Kate’s “limits” are not based on the official guideline of a maximum 14 units of alcohol a week for females.

Risk ... Rachel's pal had drink spiked

And she isn’t the only reveller who has had a nasty experience.

Sarah Baron, 25, who works as a rehab manager, tells how she recently had to call an ambulance for a drunk friend.

“She had been drinking shots and was paralytic,” Sarah says. “She was sick all over me and couldn’t stand up. I was so worried that I rang 999.”

Cardiff University student Rachel Isaacs, 21, reveals another danger that arrived with the female drinking culture.

She told us: “Recently my pal had her drink spiked. We were out clubbing, but when she didn’t come back from the toilets I got worried.

“I went to see if she was OK, but she had collapsed and there was a guy I didn’t know huddled too close to her. He ran out.

She hadn’t had enough to pass out, so he must have slipped something in her drink. I got her up and took her home, and after a sleep she woke up groggy but fine.” Rachel adds: “You drop your guard when drinking.”

By the end of the evening, the scene is chaotic. Groups of men stumble towards the nearest taxi rank, kebabs in hand, leering at the remaining scantily-clad girls.

One group whistle back, flashing acres of flesh as they do.

They are briefly distracted by a friend being sick in an alley — but she soon recovers enough to carry on flirting.

Welcome to boozy Britain.

The paramedic

ADVANCED ambulance technician Alun Ross, 23, from Newcastle, works 12-hour shifts ending at 2am.

With binge-drinking costing the NHS something in the region of £1.7billion, and the number of drinkers taken to casualty departments having trebled since 24-hour licensing – Alun sees the impact of first-hand.

He says: “We get a shocking number of alcohol-related calls at the weekend. You know people with more genuine complaints are putting off ringing as they don’t want to be sat in A&E with drunks.”

Here Alun keeps a log of the alcohol-related incidents on his shift.

2PM: Start shift.

6.30PM: The first incident of the night. We are called out by the police to two 15-year-old girls in town. They have been drinking vodka and are out of it. One is even lying on the ground screaming abuse. Because they’re just 15, the police can’t take the girls into custody so we take them to hospital. But when we arrive, the nurse says there has been a bad accident and they can’t waste their time babysitting drunk teenagers. The girls wait until their parents collect them.

7:30PM: We are called to a house party. A group of teens have been drinking and a 17-year-old boy has broken his ankle on a trampoline in the back garden.

9:00PM: A passer-by calls us out to an 18-year-old girl having a fit in the city centre. But when we arrive it’s clear that she is just drunk and rolling around on the pavement. Her friends swear at us but they help her up and move on.

11PM: Called out to a 17-year-old girl who has been bitten on the shin in a fight with another girl. She is waiting for a taxi with her sister when we arrive. We try to take her to hospital to get antibiotics but she refuses. The bleeding has stopped so we tell her to go the next day.

1AM: Police call us to a woman in her thirties who has apparently been assaulted. When we arrive she admits she had just been drinking heavily and had fallen over. She was embarrassed – especially when police with her asked us if we knew about somebody being dragged out of the river after jumping off the pier. We rush off to deal with it.

1:30AM: A 26-year-old woman has been out boozing heavily and has gone home and taken an overdose. When we arrive at the house the door is open and we find her lying on her bed. We admit her to hospital. It’s the last job of the night.

The taxi driver

TAXI driver Brian Hursburgh, 52, works eight-hour shifts from 2am to 10am, picking up revellers on Edinburgh’s streets.

Cabbie Brian ... has seen big changes

Most of his customers have been boozing heavily, many of them women on hen parties.

Brian says: “If I had to choose to pick up either a stag or hen party, I would always prefer the stag.

“Some of the women I have had in the my car behave worse than any man.

“They drink excessively, fight, swear, vomit and then usually try to get away without paying.

Here, Brian gives an overview of a night’s work:

2AM: Start shift. The night has only just begun in Edinburgh, as several bars are now open until 5am.

Most of the stag and hen parties start drinking around noon, so they have been at it about 12 hours.

A couple of drunk girls who can’t keep up with their mates ask to go to their hotel. Once there, one of the girls asks me to turn the light on as she has lost her earring down her cleavage.

As I turn around to ask for the fare, she flashes her breasts at me. They both stumble out of the car laughing.

4AM: A few members of a stag party try to escape without paying. Claiming they wanted to stop at a cashpoint, they both run away. Unfortunately for them, one leaves his wallet in the cab.

6AM: Against my better judgement, I agree to take home a very drunk woman in her early twenties. Within minutes of getting in, she is slumped against the seat and passes out.

As I never touch someone to wake them, I try talking loudly for 20 minutes, but she isn’t reacting. As I don’t know where she lives, I decide my only option is to take her to a police station. There an officer manages to wake her.

8AM: Some drinkers who have been roaming the streets for a few hours suddenly realise they need to get home.

I pick up a woman who doesn’t seem that drunk. She is completely silent in the back of the car, and gets out to pay.

Handing me the fare through the window, she tells me my cab smells.

Turning round, I see she has vomited all over the back seat and the floor. I take the car to the nearest garage to clean it out, which takes over an hour, and decide to make that my last job.

The doctor

SUN GP Carol Cooper says the problem with binge-drinking in young women is not always the amount consumed, but the speed they drink it.

“The quicker alcohol is drunk, the more extreme the intoxication,” she says.

“Alcohol is a poison that the body can cope with if consumed slowly. But if it is large amounts during a short period of time, it can have massive effects on the brain and body. When I worked in A&E I would see as many as 20 cases of binge-drinking a night. In a GP’s surgery you tend to see its longer-term impact.”

Here are four examples Carol has seen in her surgery recently:

LIVER DAMAGE: A 25-year-old woman came in for a medical because she was taking out a mortgage. She was apparently in good health, but tests showed evidence of liver damage. That could only have been down to binge-drinking. Sadly with our boozy culture this will be more common.

PREGNANCY: A girl in her twenties visited me. She was pregnant after a boozy night and wanted a termination. She did not know who the dad was. When I asked about contraception, she said “I think the condom machine was empty” which showed how incapacitated drink had made her.

HEART PALPITATIONS: A 32-year-old who kept having palpitations came in. She had no family history of heart problems. She would booze at weekends and it would often get worse after that.

ACCIDENT: A young woman had a sprained ankle and a cut on her forehead – the accident happened on a night out. It badly needed cleaning up.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001290023-2007370459,00.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Aug 17 marks Compact Disc's 25th anniversary

2007-08-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

Break open the bubbly because the spinning media that most pivotally began the worldwide transition to digital entertainment is 25 years old today.

On August 17, 1982, an assembly line in a suburb of Hanover, Germany began pumping out a modest collection of laser-encoded palm-sized discs, officially paving the path for what would later become the most popular album format.

According to Philips, the first CD was ABBA's The Visitors, an album that is now available on iTunes. CD players were brought to the market in Germany for the 1982 holiday season, by which time nearly 150 albums were already available. The format made its way to the US the following spring.

The Compact Disc was created from a partnership between Philips and Sony. Philips created most of the core technology while Sony helped with digital encoding for smooth playback. The two would later square off against each other in the 1990s as Sony's MiniDisc went in direct competition with Philips' Digital Compact Cassette. Though MiniDisc gained more widespread adoption, neither format was considered a success.

At the time, there was no emerging technology really competing against the CD format. Its biggest battle was against vinyl records, an institution by the 1980s, whih still remains the longest-running home audio format in the United States.

Sony and Philips also had to contend with video formats that had already tried to move into the digital age. A contentious battle between CED and Laserdisc resulted in two big losers. It was a risky time for digital technology, but the two companies ended up making the right product at the right time. According to Philips, over 200 billion CDs have been sold to date. That averages out to more than 250 CDs sold every second for the past 25 years. Philips says that every CD ever sold, if stacked on top of each other, would circle the earth six times.

It's a bittersweet milestone for the legendary format, as the outlook for the Compact Disc looks grim. Audio CDs are rapidly being replaced with digital music players, CD-ROMs have been scrapped for the higher capacity DVD-ROM format, and rewritable CD sales are on a decline.

However, the main technology for the CD is the backbone for DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray discs. The foundation set by Sony and Philips will remain a crucial part of entertainment mediums for years to come.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33437/113/

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Treatment for Internet addiction suggested

2007-08-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

Is your computer mouse your first thought when you get up in the morning? Are you obsessed with email, MySpace or YouTube? A psychiatrist said that such behavior should be put on the same level with other extreme addictive disorders and be treated as such.

According to Dr. Pinhas Dannon, a psychiatrist from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, says that Internet addiction should be taken seriously and grouped together with gambling, sex addiction, and kleptomania. In a new report, he describes Internet addiction as a "pathological condition that can lead to anxiety and severe depression."

Internet addiction is currently classified by mental health professionals as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mild to severe mental health condition that results in an urge to engage in ritualistic thoughts and behavior, such as excessive hand-washing or, in the case of the Internet, Web surfing. This, however, needs to change, Dannon claims. “Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge.’ It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way,” he said.

According to the psychiatrist, especially teenagers and empty nesters are at risk to suffer from Internet addiction disorder. Diagnosis of form this condition may be difficult, he said, but stated that it will reveal itself through loss of sleep, anxiety when not online, isolation from family and peer groups, loss of work, and periods of deep depression.

Dannon believes that Internet addiction can be treated effectively, if it is viewed as any other extreme addiction. This treatment, he suggests would include medication such as Serotonin blockers and Naltrexone, which are typically used in cases of kleptomania and pathological gambling.

According to Dr. Dannon, Internet addiction is an "inevitable" product of modernization: “They are just like anyone else who is addicted to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cellular phone. As the times change, so do our addictions,” he said.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33445/113/

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Now I've got a killer cleavage

2007-08-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

Vicky Cordwell, a mum of two from Northampton, is a tomboy with a former love of biker leathers and jeans.

But Trinny and Susannah have said 'on yer bike' to her old style and fixed her up with an ultra-feminine look.

Skirts and dresses are a no-go for me: a motorbike accident in my teens has left me with bad scars on my legs so I rarely get them out.

Arthritis in my ankles makes wearing heels painful too so I usually just wear jeans and trainers.

I feel like I’ve just settled into that middle bracket where I don’t look young and I don’t look old – I just look frumpy and in between!

Arriving at the shoot in cut-offs and a t-shirt, the girls said I looked practical … but that my outfit did nothing for me.

Susannah was so sweet though. I’ve put on weight recently and am feeling a bit podgy but she rushed to reassure me.

She said I had a lovely figure and great boobs I should show off more.

CLICK HERE TO SEE VICKY'S MAKEOVER VIDEO

I worry I’m getting too old to look good but she said, “Look at me. I’m 44, with three children and I can still make the best of myself.”

When I think of the ripping I expected, I couldn’t believe how positive she was being.

She said my hair was a bit too dark but that combined with my pale colouring it meant I could wear almost any colour with bold prints being a must for me.

I couldn’t bear the first dress we tried on as it was woolly and striped but the trousers that followed were great.

They looked too masculine for me on the hanger but flared out nicely at the bottom and I loved them on.

But the final dress was the best. A really bold print, it made me instantly feel more comfortable and the wrap style made my waist feel smaller.

I haven’t worn leggings since I was 18 but Susannah rightly guessed that they’d hide the scars near the back of my knees yet still show off my legs – perfect.

Even better, I had some height for the first time in ages thanks to the wedges I wore.

I think I could comfortably go out for the evening in them and I've paired them with jeans and a shirt on a night out since.

I forgot how much more confident and sexy heels make you feel - I could really hold my head high.

We left my hair as we ran out of time but probably the best bit of my whole day was learning more about make-up.

I usually wear quite heavy eye colours but the make-up artist suggested much softer shades.

She recommended a better skincare brand and I've noticed a huge difference to my skin.

Instead of just fingers, she applied the foundation with a brush and used a soft pink blusher instead of brown.

My husband was the first to comment, saying how much softer and lovely my face looked.

My friends have been full of compliments too and if I'll take one thing away from my day it's the positive words.

From Susannah to my mates, people have reminded me that I'm not too old and actually pretty gorgeous!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2005550000-2007380050,00.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Lindsay Lohan's lusty love life

2007-08-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

LINDSAY Lohan’s mother once said to her, "God, if you dated all the people they said you dated, you'd be dead by now". She’s got a point.

At the ripe old age of 20, Hollywood’s sexiest redhead has been linked to nearly every eligible bachelor in town.

From McFly’s Harry Judd to Die Hard star Bruce Willis (with a couple of generations in between), Li Lo’s alleged hook-up tally is off the chart.

In February this year alone, Lindsay’s supposed to have got frisky with Jared Leto, Jamie Burke, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Leo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro.

Of course, you shouldn’t believe all you read. Or all you hear from Lindsay herself.

The saucy star admits she makes stories up to baffle the press, "I say things that aren't true a lot".

Foxy Lindsay’s known for her dating double standards too. "If I'm going to give my body to someone, I'd rather them not be with other people, but I want to be able to if I like someone else."

Hmm, so where did Lindsay get the inspiration for this lusty love life from? "Sex and the City changed everything for me, those girls would just sleep with so many people."

It seems Carrie and the girls have a lot to answer for. Click on the images above for the full gossip on loopy Lohan’s hot men.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001290023-2006450680,00.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

MTV Ditches Lily Allen, Lily Allen Ditches America

2007-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

If Lily Allen had made it big in America she'd have been the biggest anomaly out there - a dumpy, three-nippled faux pikey lost in a sea of cosmetically-altered stage-school graspers - but we needn't worry about any of that.

That's because Lily Allen still isn't allowed into America after she punched a photographer earlier in the year. And Lily Allen's inability to get an American visa means that she's been forced to cancel her forthcoming American tour - and her spot at the MTV video music awards has been scrapped, too. This is a situation where nobody wins - Lily Allen doesn't get the exposure and cash that American fame would bring her, Lily Allen's American fans don't get to see her in concert and everyone in Britain still isn't able to get rid of Lily Allen. Unless Lily Allen decides to go and tour Russia. Which she probably should, for our sakes.

The MTV VMAs haven't been kind to the British this year. After the MTV nominations were announced a couple of weeks ago, British nominee Amy Winehouse took all the drugs in the world and had to go to hospital and other British nominee Lily Allen was banned from all of America because she assaulted a photographer in June and couldn't get a visa. It's at times like this that we wish fellow MTV nominee Fergie was British too, because with this kind of luck she'd have probably fallen down the stairs or something.

Anyway, now it seems that Lily Allen Vs The American Immigration Department isn't quite as easy a fight as Lily Allen Vs Cheryl Cole or Lily Allen Vs Lady Sovereign, because the assault charge means Lily Allen still can't get a visa to work in America, and this has serious consequences for the future of her American career. Next month Lily Allen was due to go on an American tour - to make up for the last one that Lily Allen cancelled because she was a bit sad - but now that's had to be cancelled. Worse, Lily was due to perform at the MTV VMA ceremony next month with Kanye West and Common, which would have been the highlight of a show watched by hundreds of millions of record-buying fans, and MTV has only gone and ditched Lily Allen too. News reports:

Lily Allen has been dropped from the MTV Video Music Awards. The British pop star - who was banned from the US last month after having her visa revoked at Los Angeles airport - has been scrapped from the line-up for the Las Vegas ceremony on September 9 because of complications over her entry into the States. A source said: "MTV were desperate to get Lily and they're furious with her visa situation. They've decided to pull the plug because they didn't want to leave it to the last minute to find out if she could or couldn't make it."

But forget about the setback to Lily Allen's career - what about us? Now that Lily Allen is still banned from America it means she's stuck in this country and we have to keep reading stories about how Lily Allen drew a picture of some nice clothes or hides in carrier bags sometimes. At least all hope isn't lost for you American Lily Allen fans - to replicate the Lily Allen live experience all you need to do is kidnap a bear cub from the local zoo, superglue a slice of pepperoni to its chest to make it look like it's got a third nipple, slap it in a ballgown and make it dance to some warmed-up 1980s reggae. What could be easier than that, you lucky bastards?

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Skype blames Patch Tuesday for triggering blackout

2007-08-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

Skype Ltd. today blamed last week's Windows security updates for triggering a bug in its software that brought down the Internet telephony service for more than 48 hours.

Service was restored late Friday.

The Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption" beginning last Thursday, said spokesman Villu Arak in a statement posted on the company's site. "The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short time frame as they rebooted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update."

According to Arak, the large number of restarts started a chain reaction that brought down the service. After users' machines rebooted and came back online, Skype was hit with a "flood" of attempted log-ins that, combined with a smaller-than-usual number of systems available to handle the peer-to-peer traffic, caused the blackout.

"Skype has now identified and already introduced a number of improvements to its software to ensure that our users will not be similarly affected in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring," Arak added. The company did not specify what that combination of events may have been and did not explain how this month's updates were different from past rounds of patches.

For example, Microsoft Corp.'s security updates have been on their current schedule of the second Tuesday of each month since October 2003, before Skype left beta testing. And required restarts are the norm for many of Microsoft's security updates. Nor was the quantity of restarts last week -- five of August's nine updates required a reboot -- out of line with previous months. In July, for instance, four of six updates also restarted affected PCs.

Some Windows users weren't buying the explanation. "If a 'massive restart' was the cause of the problem, it should have happened long ago," said Marcus McCurdy in a comment posted on the istartedsomething blog. "Definitely calling BS on this one."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9031558&intsrc=news_ts_head

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

"High School Musical 2" proved the Disney Channel can boast of more than a one-hit TV wonder.

2007-08-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

'High School Musical 2' sets record

This undated file photo, originally provided by the Disney... (AP Photo/Disney Channel, Fred Hayes)

Friday's premiere drew an estimated audience of 17.2 million, which would make it the most-watched basic cable program ever, according to Nielsen Media Research. It more than doubled the viewership of the first movie, "High School Musical," which drew 7.7 million in 2006.

The basic cable record had been held by a "Monday Night Football" game on ESPN in 2006, which was watched by 16 million.

"High School Musical" has become a cultural phenomenon with hit records, concerts and newly minted young stars including Ashley Tisdale and Zac Efron. The sequel followed the summer adventures of students Sharpay and Troy and their fellow Wildcats of East High.

———

On the Net:

Disney Channel:

http://home.disney.go.com/tv/index

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

2007-08-20T11:03:00.008-07:00

Model pics with size-0 phone

JUST when you thought SONY ERICSSON couldn't come up with another stonking handset, they pull an ace out of the bag.

I use a Cyber-shot phone and love the top quality snaps they take but it's fair to say I'd prefer something a little bit more Kate Moss-like in shape.

So meet the K770i - at just 14.5mm thin, you'll hardly notice you are carrying it.

It boasts a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and 3x digital zoom like the firm's other top-range handset, although I'm not sure about the truffle brown colour!

There's a powerful photo light for snapping away indoors and with nearly a 2in screen, it's a reasonable size for viewing pictures back or doing a bit of editing via the phone itself.

You can even connect the K770i direct to a PictBridge-enabled printer.

Phonewise it has all the usual features you'd expect plus an FM radio with RDS and new stereo Bluetooth for hooking up a wireless headset to listen to music with much better sound than the old mono technology.

Out in the autumn, there's no price yet but it will be dependent on your network contract.

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover 'Tail' on Distant Star

2007-08-20T11:03:00.007-07:00

Image captured by Galex satellite shows 13 light year-long 'tail' trailing Mira

Images captured by a NASA science satellite reveal the star Mira has left in its wake a comet-like tail that is some 13 light years long — more than 120 trillion kilometers. It's a phenomenon that's never been seen before.

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite, known as Galex, was launched four years ago with the aim of studying the history of the universe, using a telescope equipped with ultraviolet detectors. Finding a gigantic tail on a fast-moving star was not something astronomers had anticipated. Chris Martin, the principal investigator on Galex, announced the discovery.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer has discovered that Mira has a vast, turbulent tail stretching across interstellar space," Martin told reporters. "And it's truly remarkable that this star, which has been studied for centuries, has surprised us with a completely new and unexpected phenomenon."

Mira's "tail" is composed of carbon, oxygen and other chemical elements. The discovery may help scientists understand how old, dying stars like Mira shed material that is later incorporated into new stars and planets. The astronomers calculate that the oldest parts of the tail were left behind tens of thousands of years ago, as the star grew and gravity weakened farther from its center.

"In fact, if we had had, 30,000 years ago — If Neanderthal man had had ultraviolet eyes and could look above the atmosphere, he could have seen the beginning of this tail forming," said Martin.

The age of the tail makes it something of a time capsule, says Columbia University astronomer Michael Shara, like the rings of a tree. "Because we have this tail that was generated over 30,000 years, we can look at small individual pieces of the tail and deduce what the mass loss rate was like and what the chemistry along the tail was, which gives us some hint as to the differentiation of elements in the atmosphere of Mira before it started to shed mass."

In addition to the tail, images from the Galex satellite show a curved shock wave in front of Mira as it speeds through the surrounding space at 130 kilometers per second. Astronomer Mark Siebert of the Carnegie Institution says that the bow shock, as they call it, and the random-looking tail behind the star resemble a picture of a bullet in supersonic flight. "In front of the bullet there's a leading shock, much like Mira's bow shock. And then trailing the bullet there's also a classic turbulent wake, which is very reminiscent of the structures that we see behind Mira."

Seibert says Mira is a very common type of star, so it may be that this kind of tail is actually not very rare and that more will be discovered. In any event, this one is the first.

Shara, the Columbia University astronomer, says the new and completely unexpected discovery is an example of what can happen as astronomy advances.

"Any time astronomers take a look at a new part of what we call observation space — that is, they start using a telescope which has much better angular resolution like Hubble, or much greater sensitivity in the ultraviolet like Galex, or a very large field of view like Galex — they tend to find something new, and that's exactly what's happened here," he said.

The astronomers say they are really just beginning to study this huge structure. They published their discovery in the journal Nature.

http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2007-08-20-voa29.cfm

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

2007-08-20T11:03:00.006-07:00

Sarah's X-rated sex advice

MEET Sarah Hedley, the Sun Online’s sauciest blogger yet.

Glamorous Sarah – who is Mates Condoms' sexpert and editor of Scarlet magazine – will be on hand to answer your sexual dilemmas and give your love life a boost with her sexy ideas.

Email her at sarah@the-sun.co.uk and she will do her best to give you advice.

Now read on to find out what she says about spanking, reaching orgasm and enjoying a saucy festive season.

Hello Sarah, I am now with my second sexual partner and I’m having difficulty reaching orgasm through penetrative sex. I’m worried it will put my new boyfriend off. What can I do?
Morticia

A whopping 70 percent of women can’t climax through penetrative sex without addition clitoral stimulation.

In other words, this is the norm, and if your partner is put off by it he probably just needs reassurance that his performance isn’t to blame.

Ultimately, the problem is unbelievably easy to fix: simply stroke your clitoris with your fingers or a vibrating toy during sex, or ask your partner to do it for you.

Smaller toys are best as they don’t get in the way or intimate our other halves, yet they have just as much impact. Works for me!

***********************************

Hi Sarah, how can I give my husband a triple-Xmas?Jo

Buy an adult porn film you can watch together. Some people are of the belief that women aren’t turned on by porn, but clinical studies where women’s sexual responses were monitored, show that we’re as physically aroused by visual stimuli as men are.

However, some porn films are downright offensive, so make sure you choose wisely and pick something that promises to cover a wide range of sex acts.

Agree that either one of you is free to hit ‘fast forward’ if something offends you, but also ask him to hit the ‘pause’ button when he sees something he really likes.

Then, if you’re willing, re-enact the scenes together – it’ll be the hottest Christmas of his life!

Hi Sarah. When my wife and I have sex I liked to be spanked. My wife says she likes it and that it turns her on seeing my flesh change colour. Is this wrong? Bill

Sexual activity between two consenting adults is never wrong.

Furthermore, sexual spanking is a very popular bedroom activity, particularly in this country – oversees it has been referred to as ‘the British fetish’ since Victorian times, and records of sexual spanking date as far back as 100 AD in Vatsyayana’s famous Sanskrit text, The Kama Sutra.

Now that you feel vindicated, why not go wild and experiment with different shaped whips and paddles? Your wife could use liquorice laces to whip you with, and then eat them afterwards.

***********************************

Dear Sarah, whenever I indulge in intercourse with my wife, the skin on my penis burns and the burning can last round two to three days, sometimes even a week. Can you suggest something to prevent this? Amir.

Amir, you must visit a doctor at once. While it’s possible that something as simple as genital dryness could be causing chaffing, which can feel like a burning sensation and be remedied by using lubricant, you need to have a GP rule out any other possible ailments.

In the meantime, if you must have sex wear something like Mates Natural condoms, which won’t reduce sensation for you, but will protect your old chap from further irritation.

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Skype outage: An unprecedented wake-up call

2007-08-20T11:03:00.005-07:00

Opinion - There are certain pieces of technology that in today's world we all pretty much rely on. Cellphones, PDAs, notebooks, the Internet. Whenever any of these are down, our lives are notably impacted. For many, the world of IM/VoIP is just such a tool. When Skype went down without a warning and has stayed down for over 36 hours, many users are beginning to think it's a bit much – and unacceptable.

Many Internet companies, especially services we love to use, have a get-out-of-jail-free card. We tend to forgive failures much easier than we would with any other non-Internet company. This continuous outage of the Skype service could be powerful enough event to change this scenario in less than two days.

Skype's online blog has a running status of the system state. So far they have indicated only two main systems are having problems: Sign in/registration, and peer-to-peer. That page also has a running blog of their efforts to restore the system. It reads, "The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user's own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network." That entry was posted yesterday at 10 pm GMT. They updated their blog again 4 hours later to say they were well on their way toward a fix. Then 15 hours later to say "...we are gradually moving to new shifts of fresh brains to help out those getting to well deserved few hours of sleep," indicating no real progress because they were still down. Then they posted again a few hours later. And again.

The most recent entry (posted at 11 am GMT) now reads:

"We're on the road to recovery. Skype is stabilizing, but this process may continue throughout the day. An encouraging number of users can now use Skype once again. We know we're not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now than we were yesterday. Finally, we'd like to dispel a couple of theories that we are still hearing. Neither Wednesday's planned maintenance of our web-based payment services nor any form of attack was related to the current sign-on issues in any way. We'll update you again as soon as we can. Thanks for hanging tight."

As of the time of this writing, Skype has been down for about 36 hours. We've seen intermittent access, but nothing reliable. No calls, no sign ins, no chats, no ability to keep in close contact with anyone we regularly Skype In/Out with. And it's beginning to cause a burn that may be irreparable.

Let's be realistic.

It's not like Skype is a tool some of us rarely use. For many Skype In/Out users it's an ongoing component of our business model. Some even use it as their primary means of keeping in contact with customers, family members and others. We're at a point where we rely on such technology. We expect it to just work. Yes, it is cheap or even free, but does that matter? It's a communication tool – communication is essential to our lives and if communication does not work as we are used to, there is a serious and disruptive problem.

I don' think anyone who might be upset today would be out of line for thinking that way. All of us could forgive the occasional 4-hour outage, maybe even 8-10 hours provided it occurred off our normal peak usage. But for 36 hours? In today's world? With software redundancy and backup servers? I mean, what is this problem at Skype all about?

It seems very clear this is more than just an "algorithm deficiency." If the entire Skype network can be taken down for 36 hours for some internal reason, then it's either outside of Skype's control or it would almost have to be by design. The networking admin folks, completely independently of any software dev teams, should've been able to go back to yesterday's backup and get it back up and running after the first 8-10 hours went by without a software fix/solution. In that model, maybe we would've lost our most recently added contacts, but it still would've worked.

It really makes one wonder just how fragile the system is and what Ebay is doing to keep it up and running. Due to the length of this outage I'm beginning to wonder in the back of my mind if there isn't some kind of political struggle taking place within Ebay between the Skype folks (based mostly in England) and the Ebay folks (based mostly in the U.S.). I doubt that's happening, but one can only speculate.

And if there is no involvement of Ebay in this whole outage, I am certain that Ebay is watching this thing with a very concerned mind. Skype is virtually self-destructing itself in front of Ebay's eyes. Skype might finally turn out to be the $4 billion mistake many thought when Ebay bought it.

These kinds of software outages are extremely rare. Even when contractors accidentally severe Internet backbone connections with big backhoes and such, they're usually back up in a few hours. And this "algorithm deficiency" is just amazing in its scope. I have been trying to think of any large service like Skype, with its 10+ million active users online at any given time, where it has been down for 36+ hours without any solution in sight. I can't think of any, and certainly none which have affected me personally like this.

We've heard those rumors that a malicious attack could have taken Skype down. We don't know if it did or not. And it doesn't really matter. Skype should be able to keep its service up no matter what happens in the backend. We shouldn't even have to discuss what may have happened.

That brings us to Skype's information policy. The last post updating us on what's going on was at 6 am EST today – almost 12 hours ago at the time of this writing. I believe that people who rely on this service have a right to find out what is going on more than twice a day. It clearly looks like Skype may not understand just how serious this problem is or even how to fix it. And the frightening part of that reality is it's their system.

I have no doubt that this outage will be a wakeup call for many users, small businesses and service providers. This outage showcases the vulnerability of VoIP overall, a young technology that wants to replace the good old phone. This outage can reach well beyond Skype, it can impact other services such as Microsoft's messengers, AOL's messengers and Yahoo's messenger as well.

Businesses certainly will think this whole thing over and think twice before making what obviously was a mistake again. In a best case scenario, only Skype will lose users and the trust it's built over the past few years. In a worst case scenario, the confidence in all VoIP messengers will be damaged. And I think that confidence component will be in the back of our minds for some time to come.

I wonder what the analysts will say once Skype is back up and the dust settles over the reasons why this has happened. I'd like to hear your thoughts and comments. Please post them below.

Update: August 18, 2007 - 6:00pm EDT

Several commenters have indicated that Skype is free and there is no justification for complaining about a free service. Skype has more than one model of use. Computer to computer is free. Land line to computer is free (SkypeIn). And computer to land-line (SkypeOut) is a pay-service and one of high value. Many companies rely on SkypeOut for their primary mode of communication and that's just a fact, be it right or wrong. Skype offers great advantage in cost savings, costing about 2 U.S. cents per minute. Skype Unlimited allows potentially even better savings. Skype also utilizes a computer resource that an employee or user would already have at their desk, along with a common shared Internet access which would also already be wired. There are several viable reasons to use something like Skype in a business model.

The primary complaint of this article is that in today's day and age, where we have redundancy, hot swappable components in servers, such as memory, processors, disks, networking cards, etc., a multi-billion dollar corporation should have a network admin team which would be able to redirect anything that would fail in their system in just a matter of minutes. In this case, Skype indicated it was a software error. And after months and months of use with nearly 10 million users per day, for any software algorithm deficiency to rear its head to such a degree that the entire system goes down for two business days is, to my knowledge, unprecedented and it should be unacceptable. If it truly was a software deficiency, then Skype's software developers weren't doing their job in the first place.

In speaking with various associates about this matter, the general consensus was that a one to four hour window of downtime would be acceptable for such a failure. Anything beyond that and in today's day and age there really is no excuse for it. As this particular event unfolded, two solid business days were affected. Sixteen hours of downtime can be significant depending on what you do for a business. A few hours here and there is pretty much acceptable and forgiveable in any business model. And if it's not, then you're paying a premium for the five nines of up-time. But apart from that premium, sixteen contiguous business hours moves away from the forgiveable and into the realm of "okay, it's time to rethink". And I think that's where many people should be about now.

Relying on any single-source vendor, be it for VoIP or anything else, is something that's proving undesirable regardless of the cost savings. At the very least, many people should be looking at what their back-up contingency plan will be.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33447/130/

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Nipple tassel naughtiness

2007-08-20T11:03:00.004-07:00

NAUGHTY! This week we’re bringing you a fantastic best-of addition of Sarah’s Sex Surgery, while the sexy Scarlet magazine editor is on her hols.

Glam Sarah – who is also Mates Condoms' sexpert – is on hand every week to answer your sexual problems and give your love life a makeover.

Email her at sarah@the-sun.co.uk and she will do her best to give you advice.

Now read on to see what she says about steamy positions and erotic sex toys.

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My boyfriend loves having sex on the floor but I’m fed up with the carpet burns. I don’t want to stop him having fun but I’m starting to think I need knee-pads. What should I do? Joanna

A little preparation goes a long way. Take the duvet from your bed and then scatter every pillow and cushion in your home on top of it to create a Moroccan-style floor-level sex nest.

Finally, it’s a good idea to vary the location of your lovemaking, always doing it in the same place can lead to monotony. Let your man know that and he may just come up with a few new ideas.

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My girlfriend says I should be more adventurous in bed, but I love the missionary position. Do you have any good ideas? Paul

We all love missionary position – it’s like chocolate, a staple pleasure of our nation.

But if all we could eat all day was chocolate we’d soon get sick of it.

What your girlfriend is probably trying to tell you is that she’d like to experiment a little more often.

As a compromise, keep missionary in your routine, but switch positions at some point to include woman-on-top or rear entry manoeuvres.

Also, try sessions where penetration is banned completely and the goal is to please each other using foreplay alone.

Doing this will open up a world of new sensations, and then next time you have sex in the missionary position it will be more exciting for both of you. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

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Our dog is ruining our sex life. My husband insists he sleeps in our room but then won’t have sex if he’s there. Ok, I don’t really want sex with the dog in the room but when I suggest we kick the dog out he says ‘he’ll get lonely’. How can I make him see it’s ruining our relationship. Louise

It’s my guess that your husband is using the dog as a smoke screen for his lack of libido and/or erection.

First you need to stop talking about the dog and start talking about the real issues. Take all pressure off him to have sex and be as understanding and supportive as possible; often when a man’s sex drive takes a dive he feels his entire masculine identity is at stake.

Loss of libido and impotence are both common ailments and will affect the majority of men at some stage in their lives. Contributing factors can include tiredness, stress, side effects from prescription drugs and unhealthy living i.e. bad diet, smoking, drinking and taking recreational drugs.

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My husband bought me crotchless pants for Christmas. At first I thought it was a joke, but now it seems he actually wants me to wear them. I can’t believe he’d actually find this sexy. How can I get around this without making him feel pervy for buying them? Lucy

You could say they chaff like cheese wire, or that they’re not your size, but you’ve bought a sexy alternative, then produce another item of lingerie that will make you both feel turned on.

The burlesque look is very hot right now - try nipple tassels with a matching underbust corset and full frill-bottom knickers (with crotch, thank you very much).

More importantly good lingerie like this really can improve your sex life – seeing your curves sculpted into an hour-glass extravaganza will boost your sexual confidence.

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What are love balls? My boyfriend keeps joking about how we should use them and I just laugh along but have no idea what they are, or what to do with them? Sarah

‘Love balls’ are matching sets of balls used for front or rear insertion for the purpose of sexual arousal.

They range from marble to gobstopper-sized, and come in a variety of materials from gold-plated metal to real-feel silicone, and some are stringed together with a final loop for easy removal (so there’s no embarrassing trip to A&E!).

Each ball is usually hollow with a small weight inside that rolls around as the wearer moves.

This movement is intended to tease, but is so subtle you’d have to be the sort of women who can orgasm from riding a bus to get any real satisfaction.

If you want to put them to the test, look for Ben Wa balls, Geisha balls, jiggle balls and duotone balls in high street and online sex shops. But don’t expect the earth to move.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006540004-2007380261,00.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

China Airlines plane catches fire at Okinawa airport

2007-08-20T11:03:00.003-07:00

A China Airlines plane became engulfed in flames Monday after one of its engine exploded upon landing on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, injuring two people, local media reported.

The left engine of Flight 120 belonging to the Taiwan airline caught fire around 10:30 am (0130 GMT) at Naha airport, but all its 157 passengers, including two infants, were able to evacuate the plane on emergency chutes. No passengers were injured.

One of the plane's eight crew members was hurt, however, as was a member of the ground crew.

One passenger was also taken to hospital after becoming ill following the evacuation from the Boeing 737-800, which left Taipei at 9:23 am.

The jet was taxiing on the tarmac when ground personnel alerted the pilot that the engine had caught fire, Taiwan authorities said. The plane's occupants were evacuated before the left engine exploded minutes after the plane was parked, a Japanese transport ministry official added.

Fire and black smoke engulfed the plane, which broke into three parts, before the blaze was extinguished an hour later.

Taiwan's ERA cable TV channel quoted some passengers as saying they heard an explosion in the engine before the fire.

The passengers were mostly Taiwan tourists but included 18 Japanese travellers. Two pilots and six flight attendants, one of whom is Japanese, was also on board.

According to a China Airlines spokesman, the flight operated normally from Taipei to Okinawa. Sun Hung-wen added at a news conference in Taipei that the airline plans to compensate the passengers for their lost baggage and cancelled trips.

Taiwan aviation authorities said they would dispatch a team of experts to Okinawa to investigate the fire.

'Experts from the Civil Aeronautics Administration [CAA], the Aviation Safety Council and China Airlines will fly to Okinawa this afternoon,' CAA Director General Chang Kuo-cheng said at a news conference.

Joining the investigators on their flight to Naha would also be Taiwan reporters and family members of Flight 120's passengers.

'As the accident occurred on Japanese soil, Japanese aeronautics authorities are in charge of the investigation, so we will assist them in the probe and will give them full cooperation,' Chang said.

Chang added that the Boeing 737-800 had undergone regular maintenance and showed no sign of malfunctioning from the time it left Taipei to its landing at Naha airport.

Chang said the Boeing 737-800 was delivered to China Airlines in July 2002 and had 13,666 flight hours on it. Its last safety check was on July 13, he said.

He said special checks that would include examination of the engines, fuel systems, wings, pumps and fuel ducts had been ordered on all of Taiwan's 15 737-800s, 12 of which belong to China Airlines.

Despite the fire, most of the Taiwan tourists on board planned to continue with their tour of Okinawa, even after their luggage and ID documents were burned, ERA TV reported.

China Airlines experienced a much worse accident on Japanese soil. In April 1994, one of its flights crashed in Nagoya, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/news/article_1345095.php/China_Airlines_plane_catches_fire_at_Okinawa_airport__Roundup_

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

2007-08-20T11:03:00.001-07:00

Tilera debuts its sixty-four core processor, melts faces

Chipmaker Tilera, clearly bored with the peasant-like core counts of two or four as offered by such pedestrian competition like Intel and AMD, has decided to turn the game up a notch with their latest diabolical creation: the 64-core processor.

That's right folks, Tilera's TILE64 is a new RISC CPU aimed at integrated systems like routers, switches, video conferencing, and set-top boxes that can best Intel's finest by a factor of 30, and casually rocks a bandwidth of something like 32TB per second.

The new chip circumvents bottleneck problems that can plague CPUs like Intel's multi-core processors by utilizing a unique "mesh" architecture which allows each core to be decentralized and thus able to communicate more freely with any partner in the grid.

Tilera believes the technology might open the door to hundreds or even thousands of cores using the new system. Of course, this is a RISC CPU, so clearly the applications in which it will be used differ somewhat from Intel's offerings, but nevertheless, it remains a tantalizing development in the world of multi-core R&D.

[Via TG Daily]

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

2007-08-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

Danni Minogue

STUNNING Dannii Minogue certainly has the X-Factor.

The busty Aussie babe joins the reality TV show’s panel for the fourth series this Saturday.

Talented Dannii, 35, has been singing and dancing for years and says she’ll know a potential winner when she sees one.

And of course it also helps that this week’s gorgeous Superbabe is rather easy on the eye.

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Apple, Vodafone discussing iPhone minutiae?

2007-08-18T19:56:00.001-07:00

Apple, Vodafone discussing iPhone minutiae?

While the Apple-Vodafone rumors have been swirling for months, an unnamed "source" has apparently found that the two firms are now breaking down the minute details that are holding back a (potentially) forthcoming launch. Most importantly, it seems that Vodafone doesn't want to "give up as much control" as did AT&T here in the States, and below is a brief list of reported "iPhone enhancements [that] carriers are looking for:"

Vodafone wants the YouTube application to "work much more like the Internet version."
Improvements to Outlook and Exchange support
Improved security and firewalls
Tweaks to Apple's WEP and WPA security key requirements
Web browser improvements, namely, the ability to simply "cut and paste"

So, there you have it -- now how's about we just start compromising and get a deal together for all the patient Europeans, yeah?

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Nokia soliciting ITC's help in barring US Qualcomm chip imports

2007-08-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Nokia soliciting ITC's help in barring US Qualcomm chip imports

In the case that simply seems to never end, Nokia and Qualcomm are at each other's throats yet again, and yes, it's still over those darned GSM / WCDMA and CDMA2000 chipsets. The latest development involves Nokia asking the US International Trade Commission to "bar the import of some Qualcomm chipsets to the United States, alleging that they are infringing five Nokia patents." Of note, it was stated that the ongoing battle is "worrying investors and the industry on both sides of the Atlantic," but at this point, we think the two are just collaborating to create the longest running, most uninteresting legal hissy fit in history.

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

In2Games bringing motion sensing to the PS2

2007-08-18T19:55:00.002-07:00

In2Games bringing motion sensing to the PS2

Although the battle for next-gen supremacy is in full swing, the best-selling console in the land remains the venerable PS2, so it was only a matter of time before developers tried to cash in on the buzz surrounding Wii by cranking out some motion-sensing titles for Sony's older machine. First up to the plate is In2Games, which will add to its existing motion sensing catalog with the announcement of Realplay Golf, Tennis, Pool, Racing, Bowling, and Puzzlesphere at the Leipzig Games Convention later this month. The $60 games each come with a custom motion sensing controller, enabling players to fill their homes with as many crazy peripherals as possible. We're all for more motion controlled games -- especially if the controllers are as hackable as the SIXAXIS and Wiimote -- but if In2Games really wanted to bring the next-gen experience to the PS2, they'd take out the rumble, no?

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Failing Our Geniuses

2007-08-18T19:55:00.001-07:00

Failing Our Geniuses

"Time has an interesting article about the failure of the US educational system to properly deal with gifted students. For example, up to ten times as much money is spent nationwide on educating 'developmentally disabled' students as gifted ones. Does No Child Left Behind mean that nobody can get ahead, either?"

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Journalists Sue HP For Invasion of Privacy

2007-08-18T19:52:00.001-07:00

Journalists Sue HP For Invasion of Privacy

"Four journalists and one of their family members are suing Hewlett-Packard for obtaining their personal phone records. The journalists filed lawsuits in California this week, claiming that HP invaded their privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and violated California's fair business rules. HP acknowledged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing last year that it investigated journalists in order to find out who inside the company had been leaking information to the press. The reporters' own publications have reported that HP representatives said they were disappointed the reporters did not take a settlement and decided to sue instead. The company said it plans to defend itself against the lawsuits."

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Forbes 400 Targeted by ID Thieves

2007-08-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

Forbes 400 Targeted by ID Thieves

"Numerous media outlets have been reporting this story about an ID theft ring which targeted the Forbes list of 400 richest Americans. It seems that Igor Klopov, a 24 year-old Russian citizen, was the ring leader and was caught after attempting to pick up $7 million in gold that he was using to launder the money. It goes to show that anyone can be the target of identity theft, as they even went after the President of Transunion, one of the credit reporting bureaus."

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

New search engine "listens" to music to help you find new tunes

2007-08-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

New search engine "listens" to music to help you find new tunes

Peer-recommendation services like Last.fm and Pandora are pretty good at leveraging the power of the community to help you discover new music, but a recent grant from the National Science Foundation to the College of Charleston aims to take the concept to the next level, by creating a search engine that "listens" to music and creates critical comparisons between works. The system, as described by Ars Technica, involves a neural network that is trained to recognized the composer and style of music, an evaluation engine that's supposed to simulate human taste, and a set of objective metrics like pitch, tempo, and and duration. The results are then combined and the system can then recommend matches to find similar music. The researchers have already demoed a similar system with good results, so here's hoping the grant money helps them refine things further -- we've been looking way too long for the next Wham!

[Image from O'Reilly's Digital Media Blog]

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Windows Home Server coming August 27th?

2007-08-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

Windows Home Server coming August 27th?

C'mon, don't act surprised -- it's not like you didn't know Windows Home Server was on the home stretch. Nevertheless, if a date promimently listed on Microsoft's own Support Lifecycle website is to be believed, WHS will be "generaly available" on August 27, 2007, and it also lists the mainstream support retirement date as October 9, 2012. Of course, we wouldn't place our bets on pre-fabricated boxes to start shipping with the software on the 27th, but if you hunt hard enough, you're likely to find it in one channel or another. Circle the date folks, yet another new flavor of Windows is nearly here.

[Via I Started Something]

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Inventec execs fail to disclose iPod order cuts, could face prison

2007-08-18T19:46:00.001-07:00

Inventec execs fail to disclose iPod order cuts, could face prison

Earlier this year, Inventec was raided as prosecutors began looking for evidence to support charges of alleged insider trading, and now it looks like nine of the firm's employees could be headed to the slammer. Taiwan's Banciao District Prosecutors Office "alleged that nine executives and one lower level employee failed to publicly reveal a steep drop in iPod orders until after they had sold off nearly $22.4 million worth of stock," and although the employees knew of the order cuts as early as January 19th, nothing was publicly revealed until mid-March. Purportedly, prosecutors "are seeking the stiffest penalties against the two top executives," and if the evidence sticks, we have all ideas that Inventec will be huntin' a new Chairman (and President, too) in the not-too-distant future.

[Via TUAW]

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Marilyn Monroe :From toddler to temptress

2007-08-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

From toddler to temptress

Newly discovered photographs show the making of an American idol: how Norma Jeane Baker grew up to become Marilyn Monroe

To see the photographs, click on the related links panel, below left

Poor little Norma Jeane – a lost little girl, unloved, unwanted, abandoned by a crazy mother, dumped on foster parents. Was it any wonder she grew up into the troubled woman we know as Marilyn Monroe? Actually, yes. As these rare images show, the reality of Marilyn’s early life was far sunnier than we have been led to believe. Far from being neglected, she was well looked after. As her foster mother said later, “We treated her like our own child because we loved her.”

The young Norma Jeane Baker showed few signs of the dazzling beauty that eventually made her one of the 20th century’s most talked-about women. As these previously unpublished photographs show, she was an ordinary Californian girl who went to the beach, played with animals, married young and got herself a job at a factory. But she had extraordinary ambition. And then Hollywood got hold of her.

The Monroe we know was moulded, manufactured and processed by the Hollywood studios. The cinema tycoons even made a claim on her past: it was important, from a marketing perspective, that the sex siren be portrayed as an impoverished urchin. Marilyn was a red-hot Cinderella, plucked from a near-destitute childhood. The truth is actually more prosaic.

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on June 1, 1926. Her father played no part in her life – some believe him to be Charles Stanley Gifford, one of the bosses at Consolidated Film Industries who had an affair with her mother, Gladys – and she took her surname from her mother’s husband, Martin Edward Mortensen (her mother changed Mortensen to Mortenson on her birth certificate). Gladys left Mortensen in 1925 and Marilyn was fostered out to the Bolender family, who lived in the blue-collar LA suburb of Hawthorne.

Contrary to the stories later put out by the Hollywood machine, Norma Jeane enjoyed a close relationship with both her mother and her foster parents; as these pictures show, her childhood was full of happy moments playing on the beach and in the fields.

Gladys, meanwhile, worked in Hollywood as a film cutter, and the attendant razzmatazz filtered down into their otherwise ordinary lives. At the Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service in 1932, Norma Jeane and dozens of her classmates formed a choir dressed in black and then white robes – pure showbiz. Yet not all was glossy contentment.

In 1933, Gladys arrived at the Bolenders to reclaim her daughter. Norma Jeane hid in a cupboard with the Bolender children, but Gladys insisted they should move in together. Financially, things were looking up – she presented her daughter with a white baby grand piano that Norma Jeane/Marilyn was to treasure for the rest of her life.

Within months, however, Norma Jeane’s world had shattered. Already troubled by the suicide of her grandfather, Gladys received another body blow when she learnt of her brother’s death from tuberculosis. The two events sent Norma Jeane’s mother over the edge; in her autobiography, My Story, Marilyn describes her mother being dragged off “screaming and laughing” to an asylum.

Her subsequent rootlessness became an imprimatur of much of Marilyn’s later life. She was moved from a succession of foster homes to an orphanage; not for the last time, she believed that marriage might offer at least a temporary escape from her unhappiness.

Her first marriage was to a local boy, James Dougherty. Norma Jeane was just 16, naive and unworldly. Neither was she housewife material – her cooking was catastrophic, and on one occasion Dougherty came home to find his wife trying to persuade a cow to come into the house so that it could get out of the rain.

The marriage soon foundered, as Norma Jeane made her first steps, initially into modelling and then on to Hollywood. The rest is well documented; the husbands, the lovers, the dependency, the squalid ending in Brentwood. Was she ever as happy as she seemed in those sun-kissed pictures from the 1920s and ’30s?

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article2283663.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Toshiba updates Satellite M200 notebook to Core 2 Duo

2007-08-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Toshiba updates Satellite M200 notebook to Core 2 Duo

Toshiba recently updated the M200, a 14.1-inch widescreen notebook aimed at sweet spot between the gaming behemoths and the sub-notebook styles of laptop. Kicking out the old Core Duo, the new M200 features a 14.1-inch 1280x800 widescreen display, a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo, an X1300 Radeon graphic card, 2GB of SDRAM, a 160GB Hard Disk drive, and a DVD burner multidrive. Alongside these specs are a/b/g/n wireless networking, and a 1.3 Megapixel webcam up top. Nothing particularly special, but then again these kind of updates never are.

[Via AVING]

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

How To Be A Modern Woman

2007-08-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

How To Be A Modern Woman

Francesca Beauman’s new guide answers all the most pressing questions facing a 21st-century woman, from whether to send a thank-you note after an orgy, to how to survive nuclear war

Francesca Beauman, writer, comedian, mother, is sitting in an Islington gastropub, eating goat’s cheese salad and explaining the etiquette of group sex.

“You mustn’t hog the best-looking person,” she explains in penetrating tones. “And you have to make sure everyone feels included. If you don’t fancy someone who approaches you, what you say is, ‘We’re OK, thanks.’”

I can feel myself getting slightly hot under the collar, but luckily the yummy mummies at the next table don’t seem to have heard. Or perhaps they simply agree with her, because according to Beauman, this sort of thing is part and parcel of the social scene nowadays.

Knowing exactly how to behave when, at a dinner party, the guests are expected to get very friendly (the accepted phrase is apparently a subtle “How about it?”) is just one of the nuggets of vital information to be gleaned from Beauman’s latest work, The Woman’s Book, an eclectic and entertaining collection of useful and not so useful facts – from the techniques for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and putting up a tent in the dark, to an analysis of Kate Moss’s hairdos over the years.

What you won’t find in here are the stock ingredients for a women’s style guide, as epitomised by the recent How to Walk in High Heels and The Goddess Guide. There is precious little about make-up or fashion, and nothing about keeping your man happy (unless you count the group sex).

“I just think those books are depressing,” Beauman confesses of her rivals. “They’re terribly aspirational, but they make women feel inadequate. And they’re a bit snobby; they assume all women can afford to blow £500 on a pair of Manolos. Even if you could afford to, why would you want to? Why wouldn’t you buy a beehive instead? Women aren’t just interested in bras and boyfriends.”

So her advice for brides-to-be is to be inspired by Marie Curie rather than Posh Spice in their choice of wedding dress – Curie got hitched in dark blue and then wore her dress to work in her labs until it gave up the ghost, she reveals.

In fact, what’s really interesting about Beauman’s book is what it says about the changing aspirations of young women. For nothing is quite so revelatory about an era’s zeitgeist as its style guide.

In the Mrs Beeton era, women aspired to thrift, efficiency and being able to whip up calf’s head au maître d’hôtel at a moment’s notice. By the roaring Twenties, with flappers flapping their hardest, Emily Post’s preoccupations were all about etiquette and the minutiae of party manners. In the austere Fifties, women returned to the home and learnt, in their manuals of housewifery, to scrub the floor all day, then put on their make-up and mix a Martini for the head of the house in the evenings. Then Shirley Conran invented the Superwoman (rallying cry: “Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom”), who had it all both domestically and professionally, even if she cut a few corners along the way.

More recently, two contrasting strands have emerged: the Domestic Goddess school of thought, with its emphasis on the joys of household management; and the glamour-focused guides for her single sisters. The Woman’s Book, by contrast, suggests that the twentysomething Heat generation may be rather more intelligent and socially aware than one might have previously believed.

Alongside Kinder, Kirche, Küche (here embodied in a mathematical formula Beauman has devised to work out whether you should marry your beloved or not, a guide to making a flat homely in 45 minutes using a daffodil in a milk bottle, and a fool-proof recipe for roast hedgehog), there are exhortations on one’s duty to vote, explanations of the main strands of Western philosophy and dire warnings about climate change. The book even tells you how to survive a nuclear attack – and makes it sound surprisingly easy.

“So much is expected of women today, more than at any other point in history,” explains the vivacious Beauman. “We’re expected to be able to discuss the intricacies of Barack Obama’s healthcare policy and wrestle an alligator to the ground and clean a pearl necklace, ideally in a pair of stilettos.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article2236931.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Middle America, Meet The Hackers

2007-08-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

Middle America, Meet The Hackers

Don't try to hack the hackers.

That's what Dateline NBC's Associate Producer Michelle Madigan learned at this year's DefCon, the largest gathering of hackers, crackers and security professionals in the world. Going undercover, she hoped to reveal cybercriminals talking openly about their illegal exploits. Instead, the sting backfired: A conference organizer outed her in a room filled with thousands of her would-be targets.

The crowd, usually a friendly group despite some vampirish clothes and complexions, wasn't pleased. As a few chanted "burn the witch," Madigan scurried out of the Riviera Hotel to her car, with about 150 hackers-turned-hecklers in pursuit.

In Pictures: Hacking Outside The Box

DefCon's inhospitable treatment of Madigan wasn't just because she was missing a press badge, says one conference spokesman who goes by the handle "Priest." She had also missed the point. By focusing on the bad apples, Priest says, Madigan was glossing over DefCon's true spirit: smart people getting together to mess around with technology.

"Middle America thinks we're stealing your social security numbers, raping your children and breaking into your bank account," he says. "The reality is, we are the ultimate explorers. We see a technology, and we want to know how it works."

That exploration goes well beyond invading the closed corners of the Internet. DefCon's more than 6,000 attendees hack everything: their cars, to increase horsepower and remove pesky safety and emissions controls; their brains, using biofeedback receptors attached to videogames to relieve anxiety disorders; even the war in Iraq. One Navy engineer gave a presentation detailing the nine months he spent hacking insurgent bombs, jamming their radio frequencies to prevent detonation.

"The people who built the Mars rovers are hackers," says Jeff Moss, also known as "Dark Tangent," the hacker who has organized DefCon for the last 15 years. "We generally like hacks that aren't nefarious, that involve figuring something out from the ground up. That's what we try to reward here."

That kind of harmless hacking was channeled into a variety of competitions at the conference, including a lockpicking contest and a game of capture the flag, in which teams earned points by stealing bits of each other's data.

Of course, DefCon still attracts some true "black hat" hackers, bent on learning the newest tools for illegal intrusion, sabotage, espionage and credit card theft. And what attracts cybercriminals also attracts cybercops; any attendee who can verify the identity of an undercover cop wins an "I Spotted the Fed" T-shirt.

But as the danger of online crime shifts from amateur hackers to organized cybergangs in Eastern Europe and Asia, the Feds are increasingly cooperative with DefCon's shenanigans. This year, at least six federal employees revealed themselves in press conferences and panel discussions. More bizarrely, two federal agents were married during the conference's closing ceremony.

In fact, DefCon's species of armchair hackers are more of a distraction for law enforcement than a real menace, says Jim Christy, director of future exploration at the Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center. He's more focused on the potential for major attacks on critical infrastructure or government Web sites, like the kind that rattled Estonia's government Web sites in May, or the "Titan Rain" attacks that penetrated the U.S. Department of Commerce and Department of State computers in past years.

"Run-of-the-mill individual hackers are just noise as we try to focus on the real problem," he says. "We have to investigate every threat, but we're often dealing with ankle biters."

When DefCon's hackers do venture into the illegal, it's often based on impulses that are more libertarian than malicious, says a hacker known as "Dead Addict," another of DefCon's organizers. "We simply don't take the law as a moral compass," he says.

Dead Addict, a lanky 34-year-old dressed in all black and a bowler hat, points out that he began using the Internet in the early '90s, even before the advent of Internet service providers. At the time, only users with university connections could legally connect. He, and many others without university accounts still found ways to borrow access, essentially breaking the law. In that sense, Dead Addict argues, Internet culture has always bent, and sometimes broken, the legal rules.

That's not to say that true cybercrime doesn't hold a certain temptation. Though Dead Addict now works for a major technology company, he says he was once offered a job with a so-called "online pharmacy."

"I politely declined," he says. "But if I'd taken that job, I'd probably be basking on some tropical beach right now."

Dead Addict says that many of the hackers that gave DefCon its renegade reputation in earlier days have now grown up and, like himself, launched legitimate careers in security with big-name tech companies. But a lucrative day job leaves DefCon's hackers to focus on what Dead Addict says is the original sense of hacking.

"It's about a passion for technology. It's thinking about what technology can do, rather than what it was originally intended to do," he says. "It's about a bunch of people with time on their hands saying, 'Wouldn't it be cool if ...?'"

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/2007/08/06/security-hacking-challenge-tech-cx_ag_0806toughhack.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

The world's strangest laws

2007-08-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

The world's strangest laws

Did you know it's illegal in France to name a pig Napoleon? Or that in Ohio you're not allowed to get a fish drunk? Alex Wade celebrates the spirit of the silly season with a list of the world's most ridiculous laws

25. It is illegal for a cab in the City of London to carry rabid dogs or corpses.

24. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.

23. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down.

22. In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon.

21. Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing.

20. In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle.

19. In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk.

18. Royal Navy ships that enter the Port of London must provide a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London.

17. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants – even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet.

16. In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark.

15. In Miami, Florida, it is illegal to skateboard in a police station.

14. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

13. In England, all men over the age of 14 must carry out two hours of longbow practice a day.

12. In London, Freemen are allowed to take a flock of sheep across London Bridge without being charged a toll; they are also allowed to drive geese down Cheapside.

11. In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad.

10. In the UK, a man who feels compelled to urinate in public can do so only if he aims for his rear wheel and keeps his right hand on his vehicle.

9. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed.

8. In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long.

7. In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset.

6. In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.

5. In Boulder, Colorado, it is illegal to kill a bird within the city limits and also to “own” a pet – the town’s citizens, legally speaking, are merely “pet minders”.

4. In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.

3. In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague.

2. In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but is forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination; he may only see their reflection in a mirror.

1. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King; the tail, on the other hand, belongs to the Queen - in case she needs the bones for her corset.

With thanks to: Donald Stewart at Faegre & Benson; John Barnett at Burges Salmon; Robert Crossley at Walker Morris; James Odds at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin; and Dan Kieran, author of I Fought The Law (Bantam Press).

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2251280.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Microtrends: Supergeek tattoos

2007-08-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

Microtrends: Supergeek tattoos

There’s something fantastically wrong about taking the ephemeral world of technology and etching it into your skin. But that doesn’t stop hundreds of supergeeks from getting supergeek tattoos.

When Doug Hardman got a rainbow-coloured Apple logo in 1996, it was unusual enough to merit a story in Wired magazine. That was before the iMac and the iPod spawned legions of Apple obsessives. Today, Apple tattoos are ubiquitous in geek circles. Microsoft tattoos do exist but they’re very rare.

Just slightly less common than Apple logos are characters from the golden era of video games – Pac-Man ghosts, Space Invaders and Super Mario (and another Mario ). It’s pure nostalgia, as the TV children of the 1980s and 1990s left home, got drunk and got ink. The geek (or Emo kid) equivalent of the little blue dolphin or the tiny rose, is <3 , which means “Less than three” and looks a bit like a heart turned on its side. Bless.

Once you’ve got your geek tat, you can show it off by uploading it to Body Modification Ezine [Warning - these pages have some fresh tattoos with a little bit of blood. Other parts of the site are VERY gruesome and adult only]. Popular tats include: long strings of binary numbers , bar codes , chunks of programming code, molecular structures (mainly serotonin or caffeine) and huge pi symbols. Whatever you’re thinking, someone else has been there first. The geekiest tattoo there? “Subatomic particles in a bubble chamber .”

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Teenager sues over childhood photo that appeared on pornographic DVD

2007-08-18T19:33:00.002-07:00

Teenager sues over childhood photo that appeared on pornographic DVD

British teenage photographer is suing an American film company after it used a self-portrait she took when she was 14 on the cover of a pornographic DVD.

Lara Jade Coton, who is now 18, discovered that a photograph of her wearing a ball dress and top hat was the cover art for Body Magic, a film distributed by TVX, a Texas-based company.

Ms Coton, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said that she was “absolutely horrified” and wrote to the company to ask for its removal and for compensation. The company responded: “Nice try, toots.”

Bob Burge, the head of TVX, said that he would remove her image from the DVD cover but not because of her claim. “Actually, removing your image will help improve the sell [sic] of the DVD,” he wrote. “So far it has bombed.”

Ms Coton told The Times that she had uploaded the image to her home page on Deviantart, a website used by artists to showcase their work. “That is the only place I put it, so they must have got it from there,” she said. “I complained directly to the company at first. I just got back a load of abuse. They blamed my picture for the poor sales of the DVD. They said, ‘You’re not even that well known. We’ve checked up on you’.”

Mr Burge, 66, acknowledged that he had used the image but claims that it is in the public domain. “The freelance guy who does the artwork for us, he says he found the picture on an adult porn site,” he said.

“I think we have been the most responsible company. I have a granddaughter, so do I sympathise? Yes. I don’t want her image used on a DVD cover.”

The company, which says it has an annual turnover of $60,000 (£30,000), removed the photograph from the DVD cover, but not from the DVD itself, according to Richard Harrison, Ms Coton’s lawyer. Mr Harrison claims to have been able to obtain six copies of the DVD despite assurances from TVX that it had removed the images. Ms Coton has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Tampa, Florida, which accuses TVX Films and Mr Burge of copyright infringement, civil conspiracy, misappropriation of her image, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Mr Harrison, of the law firm Allen Dell, said that when Ms Coton contacted the film company, Mr Burge had responded by ridiculing her. “Adding insult to injury, the company had the audacity to blame Lara Jade for the disappointing sales of its porn movie,” he said.

“We’re asking a jury to award damages, including punitive damages, for the outrageous conduct of Mr Burge and TVX. We’re also asking the court to stop these pornographers from using the picture and to impound any copies of the movie or other materials on which Lara Jade’s picture appears.

“If it’s not a crime to put a 14-year-old child on the cover of a porn video, it sure ought to be.”

Mr Harrison said the case showed how easily children could be victimised in the age of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. “This amazing technology allows us all to share our photos with friends and loved ones, but parents must real-ise that any picture a child puts on the internet is about three mouse clicks away from being stolen by anybody.”

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2253721.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Nokia warning over 46 million overheating mobile phone batteries

2007-08-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Nokia warning over 46 million overheating mobile phone batteries

Users of Nokia mobile phones have been urged to check their handsets after the company said that it would replace 46 million batteries after at least 100 of the components overheated while being recharged.

The “product advisory” from the Finnish company will raise further questions over the reliability of the lithium-ion battery technology commonly used in mobile gadgets. Last year, Sony was forced to recall nearly 10 million lithium-ion laptop computer batteries after pictures of one machine bursting into flames in an airport lounge were posted on the internet.

Nokia said that “no serious injuries or property damage have been reported” from its faulty batteries, but a spokeswoman added that it was possible that an overheating battery could cause damage to a surface on which it was left.

The alert issued by Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, covers a batch of its most widely-used batteries, with the model code BL-5C. The affected units were supplied by Matsushita, the Japanese electronics giant, between December 2005 and November 2006.

Nokia, which is the world's largest maker of mobile phones, was not able to give details on how many faulty batteries were thought to be in the UK. It is thought a flaw in the manufacturing process may have introduced impurities into the components, which have caused short circuits and overheating.

The recall is likely to cost Matsushita tens of millions of pounds, analysts suggested, depending on how many users opt to trade in potentially faulty components. Take up of the replacement offer could be limited, however, as most of the phones affected will now be nearing the end of their lifespan as consumers trade up to new models.

A greater threat could be posed to Nokia as it battles to protect its reputation in an increasingly fierce mobile market, analysts said.

The company prides itself on never having to issue a safety recall for a handset. Yesterday it pointed out that previous battery safety scares had been limited to Chinese counterfeit components, one of which is thought to have exploded in a handset and killed a Chinese man last month.

Richard Windsor, the Nomura telecoms analyst, said: "There is a possibility of damage to the Nokia brand, after the company developed a reputation for excellent reliability in recent years."

Martin Garner, of Ovum, the telecoms researchers, said: "The impact on Nokia is likely to be limited, unless, of course, footage of one of these batteries going up in some style is uploaded onto the web."

A total of at least 300 million BL-5C batteries have been made for Nokia by several suppliers, though only a portion of them are affected.

Sony's battery recall cost the Japanese group about 51 billion yen (£215 million) last year. Last month the company was forced to recall a further 10,000 Sony-made PC battery packs supplied to Toshiba because of fire risks.

Sanyo, another battery maker, has been hit by similar problems and in March said that it would share with Lenovo, the PC maker, the cost of recalling 205,000 Sanyo-made laptop batteries.

Shares in Nokia dipped on the news and were 1.2 per cent lower at €22.35 in morning deals.

Nokia said in a statement: “Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries subject to the product advisory could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge."

The BL-5C is one of 14 battery models used in Nokia products.

The company added: “Nokia is working closely with Matsushita and will be co-operating with relevant authorities to investigate this situation.”

To check whether a Nokia battery is one of those affected, click on this link

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2256925.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Skype outage hits 220 million users

2007-08-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Skype outage hits 220 million users

Skype, the online phone company, said today that an outage which left its users unable to make cheap calls was caused by a fault in its software

Skype, the online phone company, was today working to fix an outage that left its 220 million users unable to make cheap calls over the internet.

The company said this afternoon said that its service was stabilising but that it had not yet resolved the problem, which was apparently caused by a fault in its software that means users could not sign on.

"We’re on the road to recovery. Skype is stabilising, but this process may continue throughout the day - we're not out of the woods yet," a statement on Skype's website said.

Skype's chief security officer, Kurt Sauer, told the New York Times that what had happened was caused by "a unique set of events, the genesis of which is not entirely understood".

The flaw existed in every version of the Skype software that had been downloaded since 2003, engineers at the company said, but they were unsure as why the error, which had lain dormant for four years, had only affected the network now.

One theory put forward by voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) experts was that the network Skype users to connect its callers had been unable to cope with the problems of scale that have accompanied an increased number of users.

Skype uses peer-to-peer technology to connect calls rather than routing them through a central hub, but it also relies on a number of servers around the world, known as supernodes, which help the network run smoothly.

"There is a danger that services designed to be highly disruptive to traditional telecoms business models have been developed without sufficient regard for resilience," Mark Main, an analyst at Ovum, said.

Steve Blood, a VoIP analyst at Gartner, said Skype's innovation had been to harness the processing power of computers to make calls, but that the 'supernode technology' on which its network relied was prone to problems as more and more users were recruited.

As many as 220 million people have registered with Skype, which allows its members to call each other for free using their computer, and a smaller number also use the service to call traditional phones at cheaper than market rates.

Mr Blood said that the impact on business was likely to be minimal, however, because although many companies now advised their employees to use VoIP to make personal calls while abroad, most had not replaced traditional phone networks with VoIP.

"Businesses recognise the risks of Skype, which has been prone to flaky service - but it's a good way of keeping costs down, and now that many companies are asking employees to pick up the cost of personal calls while they're abroad, it's increasingly used for that purpose," he said.

Skype, which was bought by eBay for $2.6 billion two years ago, was not immediately available for comment today.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2277632.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Exposed: guess who has been polishing their Wikipedia entries?

2007-08-18T19:29:00.001-07:00

Exposed: guess who has been polishing their Wikipedia entries?

No hiding place after a new website shows that a rash of companies are editing entries on the world's most popular online reference work

A new website built by an American technology student has uncovered the lengths that companies apparently go to improve their public image by tweaking their entries on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that - famously - “anyone can edit”.

The WikiScanner site, developed by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, reveals changes to the online encyclopaedia by linking edits back to the computers from which they emanate using each computer’s unique IP address.

Mr Griffith, 24, says he created the site "to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organisations I dislike" - a mission he may well have succeeded in.

Among those he alleges have been updating their entries are Wal-Mart, the world’s largest grocer, AstraZeneca, the drugs giant, Britain's Labour Party, the CIA and the Vatican.

In one example he gives, a computer linked to an IP address registered to the Dow Chemical company is seen to have deleted a passage on the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984, which occurred at a plant operated by Union Carbide, now a wholly-owned Dow subsidiary.

WikiScanner cannot identify the individuals altering Wikipedia articles. It can show only that an edit was made by a person with access to an organisation’s network.

"Technically, we don't know whether it came from an agent of that company, however, we do know that edit came from someone with access to their network," Mr Griffith says on his site.

A slew of other companies' computers are also shown to have been used to polish Wikipedia entries.

ExxonMobil, the US oil giant, made sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. A claim that the company “has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen” is deleted and replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.

A web surfer using a machine on Wal-Mart’s network has amended a passage on the rates that the retailer pays its employees - to the benefit of the world's largest retailer.

A computer registered to Disney, the media giant, was used to delete a reference to criticism of the use of Digital Rights Management software, used by the group to safeguard digital media from piracy.

According to other Wikipedia pages laid bare by the Wikiscanner site, references to claims that Seroquel, a drug developed by AstraZeneca, which allegedly made teenagers “more likely to think about harming or killing themselves” were deleted by a user of a computer registered to the drug company.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2264150.ece

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

America's Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

2007-08-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

America's Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

It's like blue-eyed crooner Frank Sinatra once said: "It's nice work if you can get it."

While the U.S. economy remains strong, factory jobs are being outsourced, a slowing housing market has killed construction jobs over the past several months and manufacturing employment has been on a downward trend in recent years.

Yet, there's still good money to be made in the labor and service industries, commonly referred to as "blue-collar" jobs. That is, if you can overcome the long odds of landing a job as an elevator installer and repairer, a gig that could pay more than $63,000 a year.

In Pictures: Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

While some people might not immediately associate blue-collar occupations with higher-level formal education, some of these managers and supervisors must have extensive knowledge of business or sciences to perform the tasks of, for example, power plant operator or agricultural manager.

Power plant operators earn a median annual wage of $55,000, or $26.44 an hour. These workers control, operate or maintain machinery to generate electric power keeping your home or business juiced.

Farm, ranch and other agricultural managers make an annual wage of $52,070, or $25.03 an hour, to supervise the farming activities, get their hands dirty on occasion and handle some of the business and marketing. They perform all these tasks with the owner's consent, of course.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics had defined "blue-collar" and service occupations in America as precision production, craft and repair occupations; machine operators and inspectors; transportation and moving occupations; handlers, equipment cleaners, helpers and laborers; and service occupations.

The BLS data collected on these jobs after 2005 no longer categorizes them by the blue-collar moniker. The numbers shown in this article are from the most recent data collected (May 2006).

According to the BLS, the annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. For those occupations where there is not an hourly mean wage published, the annual wage has been directly calculated from the reported survey data.

At one point, the BLS listed some 200 jobs as blue collar that ran the gamut from auto mechanics to crane operators, from garbage collection to pest control.

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/compensation/2007/07/23/bluecollar-jobs-occupations-lead-careers-cx_mk_0723jobs.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

How To Network Like A Pro Online

2007-08-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

Some adages have earned their distinction--like the one that says it's not what you know but who you know that counts.

Fact is, skill and grit only get you so far. "Networking is not even a question of 'Should I?' It's a lifeblood," says Susan RoAne, author of How to Work a Room. "As an entrepreneur, if you don't have a network, you will keep reinventing the wheel.”

Networking has taken on a whole new meaning in the Internet age. Keeping up with the competition demands cultivating contacts at warp speed, and that means working your shtick online.

In Pictures: Top Tips For Building Your Online Network

There are plenty of tools--many of them free--and more are on the way. All help you stay connected to people you know and spark relationships with those you don't--including customers, suppliers, partners and advisers. If you aren't using these services already, sign up as soon as you finish reading this article. If you're no stranger to online networking, check out some of the more advanced services.

Online networking tools include the networks themselves--basically, webs of millions of people who are just a few clicks away from receiving an electronic message from anyone within the network--and the nifty little software applications that help to maintain and update those networks.

The most recognizable online networks are Facebook and News Corp.'s (nyse: NWS - news - people ) MySpace. Both are mainly aimed at the under-24 set, and neither is particularly designed as a business tool, though Facebook is trying to make a charge.

"There has been a lot of discussion about Facebook adding business profiles," says Austin Hill, a serial Internet entrepreneur and founder of Brudder Ventures, an angel investment firm. "The context allows for very different things. Facebook is a fun place, but I would feel awkward writing a large business proposal [in Facebook].”

As business networks go, LinkedIn trumps the competition. Formed in 2001, the free service now boasts 12.5 million users, including bigwigs at places like Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ), Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) and Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people ). In the handful of minutes it takes to fill out a simple profile (name, job description, contact information), LinkedIn can expand your Rolodex by thousands of names--making it just about the hottest happy hour around.

Example: Say you're looking for accounting services. Just type "accountant" into LinkedIn and up will pop a list of contacts with the word "accountant" in their personal profile. Depending on how much access that person has agreed to grant other members of the network, you may be able to contact her directly or--if you're not such a close "friend"--simply send a message via LinkedIn. Call it e-mail with a buffer.

"At my startup, there was one vendor at which we were trying to get access to one specific department, and it was impossible to find anyone who could help us," recalls Hill, who boasts more than 500 contacts on LinkedIn. "It was a large company and we just kept getting the run around. So we went on LinkedIn and started sending senior members of the company questions. Within two days we were in contact with the right group, with the right introduction and we were able to start doing business with them very quickly.”

LinkedIn's latest feature is the "Answers" section, which allows members to lob questions to their entire network; users also can tag the questions based on a particular topic. Those who answer rack up "expert" points, and responses from the most highly revered experts are featured on the "Answers" homepage.

Yet another benefit of LinkedIn: Each person on the network gets his own Web address (or URL), making him searchable by Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), so long as he includes his name in the URL.

If you run a home-based business and want to connect with millions of others like you, check out APsense.com. Launched three months ago, APsense now has a modest 13,000 users but is growing at roughly 100 users per day. Like LinkedIn, APsense lets users maintain personal profiles, and also offers access to common interest groups and a slew of business blogs.

One cool feature--called the "Hot or Not exchange"--gives members a chance to post full-page profiles of their businesses, including descriptions of products, customer testimonials and contact information. While you can't pay for such prime digital real estate (the featured businesses are chosen by algorithm), you can increase your odds by voting for other businesses that show up on the page. The more times you vote ("hot" or "not"), the greater your odds of being featured.

Then there are the nifty little applications that help you maintain those networks. One of these, Plaxo, now with some 15 million users, recognizes any changes to the contact information of any Plaxo member and automatically updates that data in, say, your Microsoft Outlook contact list. Plaxo's free service also includes birthday alerts and electronic cards. And for the height of convenience, Plaxo's Pulse service--launched this week--will aggregate all of your online social networks and send out an information "feed" that captures any new activity all on one page.

A nice complement to Plaxo is Anagram (found at GetAnagram.com). Instead of having to enter contact information into an e-mail program, this service will pull contact names and numbers right from the Web, your desktop or e-mail signatures and plunk them into the correct fields in an Outlook database or Palm personal digital assistant. The newest version of the software even gins up a digital map for a given address in your contact list. (Word of caution: The software is still a tad buggy.)

Finally, there's Twitter, a service that allows you to blast a two-sentence message via e-mail or text to all of your Twitter contacts. (Call it a mini-blog.) Like Pulse, Twitter comes in newsfeed form. If it sounds like a waste of time, some entrepreneurs swear by it. "I've used it for ad-hoc business meetings in cities when I'm traveling for a meeting," says entrepreneur Hill. "People come up to me at conferences all the time and ask me about things that I put on my feed.”

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/2007/08/09/google-microsoft-walmart-ent-tech-cx_ll_0809networking.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Chaos Is The New World Order

2007-08-18T19:25:00.001-07:00

Chaos Is The New World Order

The Internet has raised some tough philosophical problems: Are you and your Second Life avatar the same person? Was BonsaiKittens.com evil, even if it was a hoax? And does your crappy MySpace blog exist when no one is reading it?

David Weinberger has hit on one such question actually worth pondering: How will computers and the Internet change the way that we organize things and ideas?

In his latest book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, he offers a new answer: We don't organize them at all. Instead, like some eccentric professor, we keep our information strewn in messy piles on our desks and bookshelves, and yet we can still find exactly what we're looking for.

Take, for example, a sonnet by Shakespeare. Back when we depended on libraries full of dusty paper, the sonnet might have been found under "poetry," and then "English poetry," and then, after several minutes spent wandering through the archives, Shakespeare's shelves in the section devoted to "English sonnets of the 16th and 17th centuries." The sonnet we're looking for has a single spot in a branching hierarchy designed by someone's great-grandfather.

In what Weinberger calls "the new digital disorder," the sonnet gets thrown into a vat somewhere on the Web. But not before it's tagged with "metadata," which is nothing more than information about information. The sonnet might be labeled with "Shakespeare," and "English poetry." It might also be tagged with "that poem that Jane likes." And "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

And, for good measure, the rest of the poem's text, and every misspelling of Shakespeare, and every possible association anyone has ever had with summer's days and buds of May. The result is a messy clump of metadata that dwarfs the data in the poem itself. And the more metadata, the more likely that Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) will bring a user to his or her target within milliseconds of clicking "I Feel Lucky."

That may sound like an idea that belongs in a class about library science or, God forbid, a how-to guide to Web 2.0. But Weinberger goes much deeper. Starting with Plato, he traces the evolution of semantics from its origins. In early dialogues, Weinberger points out, Plato is already looking for the meaning of meaning, declaring that individual uses of words are defined by their connection to some perfect form. The bagel I had for breakfast is, for instance, just one instance of some eternal and unchanging "bagel" idea.

About 25 centuries later, Wittgenstein finally put an end to that nonsense by pointing out that words are based on "family resemblances." We understand the word "bagel," Wittgenstein argued, by seeing a family of different examples, which include bagels covered in sesame or poppy seeds, those made with pumpernickel or eggs, and even that square-shaped monstrosity, the squagel.

Weinberger shows how that philosophical evolution is finally being played out in our organization of information, or lack thereof. For the first time, we're not pretending that ideas and objects fit into a single perfect Platonic tree. Instead, we label YouTube videos and Flickr photos with every possible piece of metadata and toss them into the void, depending on that web of associations to identify our quarry when we want to haul it back up.

Family resemblances are the new card catalog. If Wittgenstein were alive today, he'd probably write another treatise titled I Told You So.

Weinberger argues that as metadata gets more long-winded and redundant, it also gets more effective. The same maxim, however, doesn't apply to books. Everything Is Miscellaneous stretches its insights, most of which are laid out in the initial pages, into a few too many chapters. But Weinberger's story-laden writing keeps readers from straying: He pulls together interesting moments in the history of data-organizers, ranging from Mortimer Jerome Adler's battle against alphabetization to the idea of a "memory palace" that began in the writing of Cicero.

In fact, Weinberger's history ends too soon. He dedicates his book "to the librarians," but gives scant credit to the librarians of the 21st century, namely Google and Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ). After all, someone has to sort through the chaos, latching onto metadata and reassembling the moments of temporary order that Web users depend on. Nor does Weinberger examine the places where metadata fails us: Image and audio recognition technologies, for instance, are only beginning to attach searchable tags to images and sounds that haven't been manually labeled with words.

But Weinberger has a real affection for the data architects of the past. Describing Aristotle's Metaphysics, he compares the book to a Bach keyboard piece, admiring both its "order and its unpredictability." And when Weinberger cites the British plant scientist Philip Stewart, he writes that Stewart's spiraled periodic table of the elements displays the "ancient and beautiful Greek idea that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm, that order is the same everywhere you look."

As the author of a book about the virtues of chaos, Weinberger may be putting the last brick in the tomb of that "ancient and beautiful Greek idea." But Everything Is Miscellaneous isn't just about the promises of a messy Internet. It's also a thoughtful obituary of history's librarians, an elegy for the last order of order.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/2007/08/09/book-review-miscellaneous-oped-cx_ag_0810miscellany.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Fake Steve Jobs Comes To Forbes.com

2007-08-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

"The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs," a satirical blog about Apple's iconic chief executive and purporting to be penned by him, will be published in association with Forbes.com starting Aug. 6.

"From Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart, satire has spoken truth to power as well as amused," said Forbes.com Editor Paul Maidment. "Fake Steve Jobs will add a different voice to Forbes.com, but one that is in the Forbes tradition for both."

The 14-month-old blog has intrigued and delighted Silicon Valley insiders with its arch comments on Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), the technology industry and the music business, and turned the hunt for the identity of its anonymous author, the Fake Steve Jobs, into a virtual party game.

Video: Meet The Real Fake Steve Jobs

A posting on the New York Times Web site Sunday named Daniel Lyons, a technology writer for Forbes, as the author who conceived and writes the blog. "I'm stunned that it's taken this long," Lyons, 46, told the newspaper. "I have not been that good at keeping it a secret. I've been sort of waiting for this call for months."

The ending of the guessing game has angered some bloggers. "With all of the real news that needs to be sleuthed by a talented reporter such as yourself, isn't it more than a little sophomoric to cover this at your paper and, at the same time, ruin a perfectly good bit of sport?" Matthew J posted to the Times' own Bits blog on Sunday.

Among those who had been mentioned by Silicon Valley gossips as possible authors were tech columnist Andy Ihnatko, comic actor Harry Shearer and tech bloggers Jack Miller, Charles Jade and Owen Thomas. (See "A List of Web Clips Speculating On Who Is The Real FSJ.")

"I have read a few of the Fake Steve Jobs things recently, and I think they're pretty funny," the real Steve Jobs was quoted as saying at The Wall Street Journal's D Conference.

What's next for Fake Steve Jobs? "Well, I'm taking a few days off to sit in a lake and do some yoga and meditation and non-thinking," he says. "Then I'm coming back next week, badder than ever."

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/2007/08/05/fsj-blog-apple-biz-media-cx_pm_0805fsj.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

US Army Unveils Hybrid-Electric Propulsion System

2007-08-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

US Army Unveils Hybrid-Electric Propulsion System

U.S. Army recently unveiled a new hybrid-electric propulsion system for use in a new line of manned ground vehicles (MGVs). The new line will have eight different variants, all using the same chassis. The unique feature of the new MGVs is that the traditional engine has been decoupled from the drive train and is used only to recharge the battery and power other systems within the vehicle.

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Planetary Fact Sheet Notes

2007-08-18T19:07:00.002-07:00

Planetary Fact Sheet Notes

Mass (10²⁴kg or 10²¹tons) - This is the mass of the planet in septillion (1 followed by 24 zeros) kilograms or sextillion (1 followed by 21 zeros) tons. Strictly speaking tons are measures of weight, not mass, but are used here to represent the mass of one ton of material under Earth gravity.

Diameter (km or miles) - The diameter of the planet at the equator, the distance through the center of the planet from one point on the equator to the opposite side, in kilometers or miles.

Density (kg/m³ or lbs/ft³) - The average density (mass divided by volume) of the whole planet (not including the atmosphere for the terrestrial planets) in kilograms per cubic meter or pounds per cubic foot.

Gravity (m/s² or ft/s²) - The gravitational acceleration on the surface at the equator in meters per second squared or feet per second squared, including the effects of rotation. For the gas giant planets the gravity is given at the 1 bar pressure level in the atmosphere. The gravity on Earth is designated as 1 "G", so the Earth ratio fact sheets gives the gravity of the other planets in G's.

Escape Velocity (km/s) - Initial velocity, in kilometers per second or miles per second, needed at the surface (at the 1 bar pressure level for the gas giants) to escape the body's gravitational pull, ignoring atmospheric drag.

Rotation Period (hours) - This is the time it takes for the planet to complete one rotation relative to the fixed background stars (not relative to the Sun) in hours. Negative numbers indicate retrograde (backwards relative to the Earth) rotation.

Length of Day (hours) - The average time in hours for the Sun to move from the noon position in the sky at a point on the equator back to the same position.

Distance from Sun (10⁶ km or 10⁶ miles) - This is the average distance from the planet to the Sun in millions of kilometers or millions of miles, also known as the semi-major axis. All planets have orbits which are elliptical, not perfectly circular, so there is a point in the orbit at which the planet is closest to the Sun, the perihelion, and a point furthest from the Sun, the aphelion. The average distance from the Sun is midway between these two values. The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is defined as 1 Astronomical Unit (AU), so the ratio table gives this distance in AU.
* For the Moon, the average distance from the Earth is given.

Perihelion, Aphelion (10⁶ km or 10⁶ miles) - The closest and furthest points in a planet's orbit about the Sun, see "Distance from Sun" above.
* For the Moon, the closest and furthest points to Earth are given, known as the "Perigee" and "Apogee" respectively.

Orbital Period (days) - This is the time in Earth days for a planet to orbit the Sun from one vernal equinox to the next. Also known as the tropical orbit period, this is equal to a year on Earth.
* For the Moon, the sidereal orbit period, the time to orbit once relative to the fixed background stars, is given. The time from full Moon to full Moon, or synodic period, is 29.53 days.

Orbital Velocity (km/s or miles/s) - The average velocity or speed of the planet as it orbits the Sun, in kilometers per second or miles per second.

Orbital Inclination (degrees) - The angle in degrees at which a planets orbit around the Sun is tilted relative to the ecliptic plane. The ecliptic plane is defined as the plane containing the Earth's orbit, so the Earth's inclination is 0.

Orbital Eccentricity - This is a measure of how far a planet's orbit about the Sun (or the Moon's orbit about the Earth) is from being circular. The larger the eccentricity, the more elongated is the orbit, an eccentricity of 0 means the orbit is a perfect circle. There are no units for eccentricity.

Axial Tilt (degrees) - The angle in degrees the axis of a planet (the imaginary line running through the center of the planet from the north to south poles) is tilted relative to a line perpendicular to the planet's orbit around the Sun.
*Venus rotates in a retrograde direction, opposite the other planets, so the tilt is almost 180 degrees, it is considered to be spinning with its "top", or north pole pointing "downward" (southward). Uranus rotates almost on its side relative to the orbit, Pluto is pointing slightly "down". The ratios with Earth refer to the axis without reference to north or south.

Mean Temperature (C or F) - This is the average temperature over the whole planet's surface (or for the gas giants at the one bar level) in degrees C (Celsius or Centigrade) or degrees F (Fahrenheit). For Mercury and the Moon, for example, this is an average over the sunlit (very hot) and dark (very cold) hemispheres and so is not representative of any given region on the planet, and most of the surface is quite different from this average value. As with the Earth, there will tend to be variations in temperature from the equator to the poles, from the day to night sides, and seasonal changes on most of the planets.

Surface Pressure (bars or atmospheres) - This is the atmospheric pressure (the weight of the atmosphere per unit area) at the surface of the planet in bars or atmospheres.
*The surfaces of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are deep in the atmosphere and the location and pressures are not known.

Number of Moons - This gives the number of IAU officially confirmed moons orbiting the planet. New moons are still being discovered.

Ring System? - This tells whether a planet has a set of rings around it, Saturn being the most obvious example.

Global Magnetic Field? - This tells whether the planet has a measurable large-scale magnetic field. Mars and the Moon have localized regional magnetic fields but no global field.

The term "terrestrial planets" refers to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, and Pluto.
The term "gas giants" refers to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/planetfact_notes.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Sun Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T19:07:00.001-07:00

Sun Fact Sheet

Sun/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                     Sun          Earth      Ratio (Sun/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                     1,989,100.      5.9736      333,000.   
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                    132,712.      0.3986      333,000. 
Volume (10¹² km³)                  1,412,000.      1.083     1,304,000.
Volumetric mean radius (km)         696,000.       6371.      109.2
Mean density (kg/m³)                1408.          5515.        0.255      
Surface gravity (eq.) (m/s²)         274.0         9.78        28.0    
Escape velocity (km/s)               617.6        11.19        55.2    
Ellipticity                         0.00005        0.0034       0.015
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)              0.059       0.3308       0.178     
Visual magnitude V(1,0)              -26.74       -3.86          - 
Absolute magnitude                    +4.83
Luminosity (10²⁴ J/s)                384.6
Mass conversion rate (10⁶ kg/s)     4300.        
Mean energy production (10^-3 J/kg)     0.1937
Surface emission (10⁶ J/m²s)          63.29
Spectral type                         G2 V

Model values at center of Sun:
Central pressure:     2.477 x 10¹¹ bar                
Central temperature:  1.571 x 10⁷ K
Central density:      1.622 x 10⁵ kg/m³

Rotational and Orbital parameters

                                          Sun        Earth      Ratio (Sun/Earth)
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)*         609.12       23.9345     25.449    
Obliquity to ecliptic (deg.)              7.25       23.45        0.309
Speed relative to nearby stars (km/s)    19.4

*This is the adopted period at 16 deg. latitude - the actual rotation rate varies with latitude L as:
( 14.37 - 2.33 sin² L - 1.56 sin⁴ L ) deg/day

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 286.13
Declination    :  63.87
Reference Date : 1.5 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)

Sun Observational Parameters

Apparent diameter from Earth
       At 1 A.U.(seconds of arc)  1919.
       Maximum (seconds of arc)   1952.
       Minimum (seconds of arc)   1887.
Distance from Earth
       Mean (10⁶ km)              149.6
       Minimum (10⁶ km)           147.1
       Maximum (10⁶ km)           152.1

Solar Magnetic Field

Typical magnetic field strengths for various parts of the Sun

Polar Field:  1 - 2 Gauss
Sunspots:  3000 Gauss
Prominences:  10 - 100 Gauss
Chromospheric plages:  200 Gauss
Bright chromospheric network:  25 Gauss
Ephemeral (unipolar) active regions:  20 Gauss

Solar Atmosphere

Surface Gas Pressure (top of photosphere): 0.868 mb 
Effective temperature: 5778 K
Temperature at bottom of photosphere:  6600 K
Temperature at top of photosphere:  4400 K
Temperature at top of chromosphere:  ~30,000 K
Photosphere thickness:  ~400 km
Chromosphere thickness:  ~2500 km
Sun Spot Cycle:  11.4 yr.

Photosphere Composition:
   Major elements: H - 90.965%, He - 8.889%
   Minor elements (ppm): O - 774, C - 330, Ne - 112, N - 102
     Fe - 43, Mg - 35, Si - 32, S - 15

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Mercury Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

Mercury Fact Sheet

Mercury/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Mercury        Earth      Ratio (Mercury/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                      0.3302        5.9736     0.0553   
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                   6.083       108.321      0.0562 
Equatorial radius (km)             2439.7        6378.1     0.383     
Polar radius (km)                   2439.7        6356.8     0.384     
Volumetric mean radius (km)         2439.7        6371.0     0.383
Ellipticity (Flattening)            0.0000        0.00335    0.000    
Mean density (kg/m³)                5427          5515       0.984      
Surface gravity (eq.) (m/s²)        3.70          9.80       0.378    
Surface acceleration (eq.) (m/s²)   3.70          9.78       0.378    
Escape velocity (km/s)              4.3          11.2        0.384    
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                   0.02203       0.3986     0.0553 
Bond albedo                         0.119         0.306      0.389
Visual geometric albedo             0.106         0.367      0.289   
Visual magnitude V(1,0)            -0.42         -3.86         - 
Solar irradiance (W/m²)             9126.6        1367.6     6.673    
Black-body temperature (K)           442.5         254.3     1.740
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)           0.33          0.3308     0.998     
J₂ (x 10^-6)                          60.         1082.63     0.055
Number of natural satellites           0             1
Planetary ring system                 No            No

Orbital parameters

                                   Mercury        Earth      Ratio (Mercury/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)             57.91        149.60       0.387    
Sidereal orbit period (days)        87.969       365.256      0.241
Tropical orbit period (days)        87.968       365.242      0.241
Perihelion (10⁶ km)                 46.00        147.09       0.313
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                   69.82        152.10       0.459
Synodic period (days)              115.88          -            -    
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)        47.87         29.78       1.607    
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)        58.98         30.29       1.947
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)        38.86         29.29       1.327
Orbit inclination (deg)              7.00          0.00         -  
Orbit eccentricity                   0.2056        0.0167    12.311   
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)    1407.6          23.9345    58.785     
Length of day (hrs)               4222.6          24.0000   175.942
Obliquity to orbit (deg)             0.01         23.45       0.0004

Mercury Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Unknown
Discovery Date:  Prehistoric

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)            77.3
       Maximum (10⁶ km)           221.9
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)    13.
       Minimum (seconds of arc)     4.5
Maximum visual magnitude            -1.9     
Mean values at inferior conjunction with Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)         91.70   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)   11.0

Mercury Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  0.38709893 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.20563069  
Orbital inclination (deg)            7.00487   
Longitude of ascending node (deg)   48.33167    
Longitude of perihelion (deg)       77.45645 
Mean Longitude (deg)               252.25084

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 281.01 - 0.003T
Declination    :  61.45 - 0.005T
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Mercurian Magnetosphere

Dipole field strength: 0.0033 gauss-Rh³
Dipole tilt to rotational axis: 169 degrees
Longitude of tilt: 285 degrees (from Mercury  I flyby)
                  115 degrees (from Mercury III flyby)

Note: Rh denotes Mercurian radii, 2,439 km

Mercury Atmosphere

Surface pressure: ~10^-15 bar (0.001 picobar) 
Average temperature: 440 K (167 C) (590-725 K, sunward side)
Total mass of atmosphere: <~1000 kg

Atmospheric composition: 42% Oxygen (O₂), 29% Sodium (Na),
22% Hydrogen (H₂), 6% Helium (He), 0.5% Potassium (K),
possible trace amounts of Argon (Ar), Carbon Dioxide (CO₂),
Water (H₂O), Nitrogen (N₂), Xenon (Xe), Krypton (Kr), Neon (Ne)

(The atmosphere of Mercury is essentially a vacuum. 
Compositional values are not well constrained, values from "Mercury", 
Vilas, Chapman, and Matthews, eds., University of Arizona Press, 1988)

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/mercuryfact.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Digital Dependence

2007-08-18T18:50:00.001-07:00

Digital Dependence

As you go about your life today, reflect, how many electronic devices have you used ? Laptops, handphones, Blackberrys, Ipods? Now imagine, one day, what if these devices were removed from you and you still have to continued your life as per normal.

I will bet my bottom dollar that most of you will not be able to survive “efficiently”. This is the price we pay of being too reliant on such gadgets, and gadgets for being too converged. We see this devices as virtual extensions of ourselves into the realm of cyber communications.

The devices we carry today are now more sophisticated than ever before. Take the new Nokia N95 for example, it is can function as a pocket computer, GPS receiver, normal handphone, MP3 player and loads more. With such features, one would think, is there a need for me to carry another device. Herein lies the problem, having just one device means convenience. And yet at the same time, it is all too convenient to lose that one device than to lose all 4. When that happens, we “cannot survive” as long as we are unconnected, or thats what conventional wisdom implies.

But one has to admit in this growing of technologically-advanced societies world-wide, accurate information has to be obtained fast and immediate. The constant pace of information that enters sometimes reach us may possibly even “overload” us. But ironically, some people like it that way, some even arrogantly claim that if we do not have access, to ask us to prove a way to succeed in life.

Now I'm not advocating that we should throw away our handphones and laptops, my point here is that all of you should sit down and reflect upon what is really necessary in our lives. Is it really important to stay connected 24/7? Or should you allocate more time to your neglected families and personal hobbies?

How I did I know this? Because I lost my handphone for an entire day before finding it back. In that span of 12 hours, I felt emotionally lost as I lost my ability to communicate with my friends who were physically out of sight. Thus, I realised all these. The invention of digital communicative devices, has made our lives much more complicated than ever before. And most of all, made us addicted to the taste of increased communication.

The blogger is a 16-year old college student from Singapore. He has always been trying ways and means to "legally" break past any computer/network systems he encounters. But he currently lacks skills in any programming/script languages.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/communityvoices/archives/2007/08/digital_depende.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Venus Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Venus Fact Sheet

Venus/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Venus          Earth     Ratio (Venus/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                      4.8685         5.9736         0.815
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                  92.843        108.321          0.857
Equatorial radius (km)            6051.8         6378.1          0.949    
Polar radius (km)                  6051.8         6356.8          0.952
Volumetric mean radius (km)        6051.8         6371.0          0.950
Ellipticity (Flattening)            0.000          0.00335        0.0 
Mean density (kg/m³)               5243           5515            0.951
Surface gravity (eq.) (m/s²)        8.87           9.80           0.905
Surface acceleration (eq.) (m/s²)   8.87           9.78           0.907
Escape velocity (km/s)             10.36          11.19           0.926
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                   0.3249         0.3986         0.815
Bond albedo                         0.750          0.306          2.45
Visual geometric albedo             0.65           0.367          1.77 
Visual magnitude V(1,0)            -4.40          -3.86             -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)            2613.9         1367.6          1.911
Black-body temperature (K)          231.7          254.3          0.911
Topographic range (km)               15             20            0.750
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)           0.33           0.3308         0.998
J₂ (x 10^-6)                         4.458       1082.63           0.004 
Number of natural satellites          0              1
Planetary ring system                No             No

Orbital parameters

                                   Venus           Earth     Ratio (Venus/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)           108.21          149.60          0.723  
Sidereal orbit period (days)      224.701         365.256         0.615
Tropical orbit period (days)      224.695         365.242         0.615
Perihelion (10⁶ km)               107.48          147.09          0.731      
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                 108.94          152.10          0.716
Synodic period (days)             583.92            -               -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)       35.02           29.78          1.176 
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)       35.26           30.29          1.164
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)       34.79           29.29          1.188
Orbit inclination (deg)             3.39            0.00            -
Orbit eccentricity                  0.0067          0.0167        0.401  
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)  -5832.5            23.9345        243.686
Length of day (hrs)              2802.0            24.0000        116.750
Obliquity to orbit (deg)          177.36           23.45         (0.113)

Venus Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Unknown
Discovery Date:  Prehistoric

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)            38.2
       Maximum (10⁶ km)           261.0
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)    66.0
       Minimum (seconds of arc)     9.7
Maximum visual magnitude            -4.6
Mean values at inferior conjunction with Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)         41.44   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)   60.2

Venus Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  0.72333199 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.00677323  
Orbital inclination (deg)            3.39471  
Longitude of ascending node (deg)   76.68069 
Longitude of perihelion (deg)      131.53298 
Mean Longitude (deg)               181.97973

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 272.76
Declination    :  67.16
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)

Venus Atmosphere

Surface pressure: 92 bars 
Surface density: ~65. kg/m³
Scale height: 15.9 km
Total mass of atmosphere:  ~4.8 x 10²⁰ kg
Average temperature: 737 K (464 C)
Diurnal temperature range: ~0
Wind speeds: 0.3 to 1.0 m/s (surface)
Mean molecular weight: 43.45 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (near surface, by volume):
   Major:       96.5% Carbon Dioxide (CO₂), 3.5% Nitrogen (N₂)
   Minor (ppm): Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) - 150; Argon (Ar) - 70; Water (H₂O) - 20;
                Carbon Monoxide (CO) - 17; Helium (He) - 12; Neon (Ne) - 7

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Near Earth Object Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:47:00.001-07:00

Near Earth Object Fact Sheet

Information on Selected Near Earth Objects

This list shows selected near Earth objects (NEO's) with close approaches to Earth in the past and predicted to the year 2100, as well as other NEO's of interest. The probability of any of these objects hitting the Earth on these approaches is essentially zero. There are no known NEO's on a collision course with the Earth. There is a possibility that an as yet undiscovered large NEO may hit the Earth, but the probability of this happening over the next 100 years is extremely small. For comparison with the closest approach data, the distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 0.0026 AU (1 AU = 149.6 million km).

                     Closest       Closest        H        Approx.       Orbital     Semimajor                   Orbital
  Asteroid         Approach       Approach      Abs.      Diameter      Period        Axis        Orbital      Inclination       Number
Number and Name       Date           (AU)        Mag.      (meters)       (yrs)        (AU)      Eccentricity     (deg)          and Name
---------------    -----------     --------      ----     ----------     -------     ---------   ------------   -----------    -------------  
     1937 UB      1937 Oct 30      0.0049       17.1        1250         2.29         1.738        0.649           6.4             1937 UB
     1989 UP      1938 Nov 18      0.0052       20.6         330         2.55         1.864        0.473           3.9             1989 UP 
     2004 UH1     1960 Oct 24      0.0011       28.2          10         0.93         0.954        0.397           3.7             2004 UH1
     1999 VP11    1965 Oct 21      0.0022       18.6         820         1.13         1.084        0.584          17.3             1999 VP11
     2000 LG6     1971 Jun  3      0.0041       29.0           7         0.88         0.916        0.112           2.8             2000 LG6
     2001 AV43    1973 Dec 24      0.0041       24.3          60         1.44         1.277        0.238           0.3             2001 AV43                
27002 1998 DV9     1975 Jan 31      0.0045       18.1        1040         2.31         1.745        0.434           8.7       27002 1998 DV9                 
4581 Asclepius    1989 Mar 22      0.0046       20.5         340         1.03         1.022        0.357           4.9        4581 Asclepius                
     2003 SW130   1990 Sep 19      0.0015       29.1           7         0.83         0.885        0.304           3.6             2003 SW130
     1991 BA      1991 Jan 18      0.0011       28.7           8         3.06         2.105        0.667           2.1             1991 BA
     1991 VG      1991 Dec 05      0.0031       28.4           9         1.04         1.027        0.049           1.4             1991 VG
     1993 KA2     1993 May 20      0.0010       29.0           7         3.33         2.229        0.770           3.2             1993 KA2
     1994 ES1     1994 Mar 15      0.0011       28.6           9         1.68         1.411        0.588           0.9             1994 ES1
     1994 XM1     1994 Dec 09      0.00070      28.2          10         2.98         2.068        0.568           4.6             1994 XM1
     1995 FF      1995 Mar 27      0.0029       26.4          22         3.54         2.323        0.707           0.6             1995 FF
     1996 JA1     1996 May 19      0.0030       21.0         270         4.11         2.565        0.701          22.0             1996 JA1
     2000 SG344   1999 May 06      0.0038       24.6           *         0.97         0.980        0.067           0.1             2000 SG344    
6489 Golevka      1999 Jun  2      0.0500       19.2         620         3.99         2.514        0.597           2.3        6489 Golevka
     2000 LG6     2000 Jun 02      0.0033       29.0           7         0.88         0.916        0.112           2.8             2000 LG6
4486 Mithra       2000 Aug 14      0.0465       15.4        3000         3.26         2.200        0.663           3.0        4486 Mithra
     2001 BA16    2001 Jan 15      0.0020       25.8          30         0.91         0.940        0.137           5.8             2001 BA16
     1998 WT24    2001 Dec 16      0.0124       17.7        1250         0.61         0.718        0.418           7.4             1998 WT24
4660 Nereus       2002 Jan 22      0.0290       18.3         950         1.82         1.489        0.360           1.4        4660 Nereus
     2002 CB26    2002 Feb 08      0.0032       26.5          20         2.73         1.953        0.723           6.8             2002 CB26 
     2002 EM7     2002 Mar 08      0.0031       24.4          60         0.89         0.921        0.363           1.5             2002 EM7
     2002 MN      2002 Jun 14      0.00080      23.3         100         2.44         1.814        0.497           1.0             2002 MN
     2002 NY40    2002 Aug 18      0.0035       18.7         780         2.91         2.039        0.710           5.8             2002 NY40
     2002 XV90    2002 Dec 11      0.00078      25.2          40         1.99         1.580        0.377          10.0             2002 XV90
     1993 KA2     2003 May 20      0.0027       29.0           7         3.33         2.229        0.770           3.2             1993 KA2
     1994 PM      2003 Aug 16      0.0250       17.8        1200         1.80         1.479        0.753          18.0             1994 PM
     2003 SQ222   2003 Sep 27      0.00056      30.0           4         1.85         1.506        0.519           3.6             2003 SQ222
     2003 SW130   2003 Sep 19      0.0011       29.1           7         0.83         0.885        0.304           3.6             2003 SW130     
     2003 UM3     2003 Oct 12      0.0019       28.0          11         1.61         1.371        0.440           1.5             2003 UM3
     2003 XJ7     2003 Dec  6      0.0010       26.3          22         1.39         1.243        0.466          18.2             2003 XJ7
     2004 FH      2004 Mar 18      0.00033      26.4          20         0.74         0.818        0.289           0.0             2004 FH
     2004 FY15    2004 Mar 27      0.0016       26.1          24         2.52         1.854        0.479           3.5             2004 FY15
     2004 FU162   2004 Mar 31      0.00008      28.7           8         0.75         0.827        0.392           4.2             2004 FU162
     2004 HE      2004 Apr 18      0.0018       26.8          18         2.36         1.774        0.608           9.5             2004 HE
     2004 OD4     2004 Jul 16      0.0011       26.9          17         2.91         2.037        0.515           4.4             2004 OD4
4179 Toutatis     2004 Sep 29      0.0104       15.3     4600 x 2400     1.10         2.511        0.634           0.5        4179 Toutatis
     2004 UH1     2004 Oct 24      0.0020       28.2          10         0.93         0.954        0.397           3.7             2004 UH1
     2004 YD5     2004 Dec 19      0.0023       29.3           6         3.43         2.273        0.783           3.6             2004 YD5
     2005 BS1     2005 Jan 13      0.0018       27.3          15         2.76         1.965        0.567           2.6             2005 BS1
     2005 FN      2005 Mar 18      0.00096      26.9          17         0.90         0.934        0.330           3.8             2005 FN
     2005 TK50    2005 Oct 10      0.00081      29.1           7         2.66         1.919        0.621           4.9             2005 TK50
     2005 UW5     2005 Oct 30      0.0013       27.5          14         1.65         1.398        0.395           2.9             2005 UW5
     2005 WN3     2005 Nov 26      0.00056      29.9           4         4.26         2.628        0.740           0.4             2005 WN3
     2005 XA8     2005 Dec  5      0.0015       25.6          33         1.70         1.425        0.440           4.8             2005 XA8
     2006 BF56    2006 Jan 29      0.0014       29.6           5         3.63         2.363        0.794           1.3             2006 BF56

     2004 XP14    2006 Jul 03      0.0029       19.3         595         1.09         1.057        0.157          32.9             2004 XP14
4450 Pan          2008 Feb 19      0.0408       17.2        1570         3.00         1.442        0.587           5.5        4450 Pan                  
     2001 TB      2010 Jan 15      0.0050       24.8          47         2.25         1.716        0.525           4.0             2001 TB                                                                        
 433 Eros         2012 Jan 31      0.1790       11.2    33000 x 13000    1.76         1.458        0.223          10.8         433 Eros
4660 Nereus       2021 Dec 11      0.0263       18.3         950         1.82         1.489        0.360           1.4        4660 Nereus
7482 1994 PC1     2022 Jan 18      0.0132       16.8        1900         1.56         1.346        0.328          33.5        7482 1994 PC1
7335 1989 JA      2022 May 27      0.0269       16.5        2000         2.35         1.770        0.484          15.2        7335 1989 JA                 
     1999 AN10    2027 Aug  7      0.0026       18.0        1100         1.76         1.459        0.562          39.9             1999 AN10
     2001 WN5     2028 Jun 26      0.0017       18.2         990         2.24         1.711        0.467           1.9             2001 WN5                                                                                                 
     2000 SG344   2029 Feb 16      0.0530       24.6           *         0.97         0.980        0.067           0.1             2000 SG344
99942 Apophis      2029 Apr 13      0.00024      19.2         620         0.89         0.922        0.191           3.3       99942 Apophis                                                                               
     1994 VH8     2031 Oct 29      0.0023       27.7          12         2.06         1.616        0.437           3.3             1994 VH8                                                                                                                            
     2005 TA      2034 Oct 04      0.0029       27.2          15         1.45         1.281        0.251           2.8             2005 TA                                                                                                      
99942 Apophis      2036 Apr 13      **           19.2         620         0.89         0.922        0.191           3.3       99942 Apophis                                                                                                          
4769 Castalia     2046 Aug 26      0.0251       16.9     1800 x 800      1.10         1.063        0.483           8.9        4769 Castalia 
1862 Apollo       2046 Nov 13      0.0353       16.3        1600         1.81         1.471        0.560           6.4        1862 Apollo 
4581 Asclepius    2051 Mar 24      0.0122       20.5         340         1.03         1.022        0.357           4.9        4581 Asclepius
1620 Geographos   2051 Aug 23      0.0479       15.6        2000         1.39         1.246        0.335          13.3        1620 Geographos
     2004 VZ      2056 Nov  8      0.0041       24.5          54         0.91         0.940        0.244          16.2             2004 VZ
4660 Nereus       2060 Feb 14      0.0080       18.3         940         1.82         1.489        0.360           1.4        4660 Nereus
     2000 QX69    2064 Aug 23      0.0025       24.2          63         1.02         1.011        0.271           4.6             2000 QX69                                                                                                                             
     2004 VZ      2066 Nov  8      0.0048       24.5          54         0.91        0.940        0.244          16.2             2004 VZ
     2000 SG344   2069 May  2      0.0013       24.6           *         0.97         0.980        0.067           0.1             2000 SG344
2340 Hathor       2069 Oct 21      0.0066       20.3         370         0.78         0.844        0.450           5.8        2340 Hathor
4179 Toutatis     2069 Nov  5      0.0199       15.3     4600 x 2400     3.98         2.511        0.634           0.5        4179 Toutatis
4660 Nereus       2071 Feb  4      0.0157       18.3         940         1.82         1.489        0.360           1.4        4660 Nereus
     2005 UW5     2076 Oct 30      0.0031       27.5          14         1.65         1.398        0.395           2.9             2005 UW5
     2002 CU11    2080 Aug 31      0.0043       18.3         950         1.35         1.220        0.296          48.8             2002 CU11
     1999 SF10    2083 Oct 11      0.0042       24.2          63         1.45         1.278        0.253           1.2             1999 SF10                                                                                                                
2340 Hathor       2086 Oct 21      0.0059       20.3         370         0.78         0.844        0.450           5.8        2340 Hathor
     2005 VL1     2087 Nov  3      0.0029       26.7          20         0.84         0.891        0.255           0.3             2005 VL1
1566 Icarus       2090 Jun 14      0.0357       16.4        1400         1.12         1.078        0.827          22.9        1566 Icarus
     2005 GY8     2092 Sep 23      0.0045       21.2         250         2.90         2.034        0.667           2.8             2005 GY8
     2005 YU55    2093 Nov  9      0.0027       22.0         170         1.22         1.141        0.429           0.5             2005 YU55                                                                                                              
3200 Phaethon     2093 Dec 14      0.0194       14.6        5000         1.43         1.271        0.890          22.1        3200 Phaethon
     2005 AU3     2097 Jan  4      0.0036       26.0          27         1.39         1.247        0.474           3.8             2005 AU3
     2000 SG344   2098 May  6      0.0050       24.6           *         0.97         0.980        0.067           0.1             2000 SG344

1036 Ganymed                                     9.3       32000         4.35         2.665        0.535          26.7        1036 Ganymed
9969 Braille                                    15.7     1000 x 2200     3.58         2.341        0.434          29.0        9969 Braille

* 2000 SG344 may be an Apollo rocket body in heliocentric orbit
** The orbit of 99942 Apophis will be altered by its close approach to Earth in 2029 and has a chance, estimated at 1 in 6250, of hitting the Earth in 2036.

433 Eros - Near-Earth asteroid studied by the NEAR mission, which went into orbit in February 2000. (2nd largest NEO)
1036 Ganymed - Largest Near-Earth Object, 32 km in diameter.
1566 Icarus - Highly eccentric Earth-crossing orbit.
1620 Geographos - Scheduled to be visited by Clementine before a computer malfunction cut the mission short.
4179 Toutatis - Double object, probably in contact, one 2.5 km and one 1.5 km diameter (estimated), imaged by Arecibo and Goldstone radar.
4769 Castalia - Double-lobed near-Earth asteroid, each lobe about .75 km diameter. Imaged by Arecibo radar.
9969 Braille - Near-Earth asteroid flown by on 28 July 1999 by the New Millenium Deep Space 1 spacecraft.
1998 SF36 - Near-Earth asteroid target of 2005 orbit and 2007 sample return by the Muses-C spacecraft.

Large Terrestrial Impact Craters

                                                         ~Age      ~Diameter 
 Crater Name       Location      Latitude  Longitude    (My)        (km)  
---------------  -------------    --------  ---------   --------   --------- 
Vredefort        South Africa      27.0 S     27.5 E     2023        300
Sudbury          Canada            46.6 N     81.2 W     1850        250
Chicxulub        Mexico            21.3 N     89.5 W       65        170
Manicougan       Canada            51.4 N     68.7 W      214        100
Popigai          Russia            71.7 N    111.7 E       35        100
Chesapeake Bay   United States     37.3 N     76.0 W       36         90
Acraman          Australia         32.0 S    135.5 E      590         90
Puchezh-Katunki  Russia            57.1 N     43.6 E      175         80
Morokweng        South Africa      26.5 S     23.5 E      145         70
Kara             Russia            69.2 N     65.0 E       73         65
Beaverhead       United States     44.6 N    113.0 W      600         60
Tookoonooka      Australia         27.1 S    142.8 E      128         55
Charlevoix       Canada            47.5 N     70.3 W      357         54
Kara-Kul         Tajikstan         39.0 N     73.5 E        5         52
Siljan           Sweden            61.0 N     14.9 E      368         52

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neofact.html

Crater information from The New Solar System, Beatty et al., Cambridge, 1999.http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Mars Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

Mars Fact Sheet

Mars/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Mars           Earth     Ratio (Mars/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                     0.64185         5.9736         0.107
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                 16.318         108.321          0.151 
Equatorial radius (km)            3397           6378.1          0.533
Polar radius (km)                  3375           6356.8          0.531
Volumetric mean radius (km)        3390           6371.0          0.532
Core radius (km)                   1700           3485            0.488
Ellipticity (Flattening)           0.00648         0.00335        1.93
Mean density (kg/m³)               3933           5515            0.713
Surface gravity (m/s²)             3.71            9.80           0.379
Surface acceleration (m/s²)        3.69            9.78           0.377
Escape velocity (km/s)             5.03           11.19           0.450
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                  0.04283         0.3986         0.107
Bond albedo                        0.250           0.306          0.817
Visual geometric albedo            0.150           0.367          0.409
Visual magnitude V(1,0)           -1.52           -3.86             -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)          589.2          1367.6            0.431
Black-body temperature (K)       210.1           254.3            0.826
Topographic range (km)               30             20            1.500
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)          0.366           0.3308         1.106
J₂ (x 10^-6)                     1960.45         1082.63           1.811
Number of natural satellites          2              1
Planetary ring system                No             No

Orbital parameters

                                   Mars           Earth     Ratio (Mars/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)          227.92          149.60           1.524
Sidereal orbit period (days)     686.980         365.256          1.881
Tropical orbit period (days)     686.973         365.242          1.881
Perihelion (10⁶ km)              206.62          147.09           1.405      
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                249.23          152.10           1.639
Synodic period (days)            779.94             -               -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)      24.13           29.78           0.810
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)      26.50           30.29           0.875
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)      21.97           29.29           0.750
Orbit inclination (deg)            1.850           0.000            -
Orbit eccentricity                 0.0935          0.0167         5.599
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)    24.6229         23.9345         1.029
Length of day (hrs)               24.6597         24.0000         1.027
Obliquity to orbit (deg)          25.19           23.45           1.074

Mars Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Unknown
Discovery Date:  Prehistoric

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)           55.7
       Maximum (10⁶ km)          401.3
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)   25.1
       Minimum (seconds of arc)    3.5
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)         78.39   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)   17.9
       Apparent visual magnitude            -2.0
Maximum apparent visual magnitude            -2.91

Mars Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  1.52366231 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.09341233  
Orbital inclination (deg)            1.85061  
Longitude of ascending node (deg)   49.57854 
Longitude of perihelion (deg)      336.04084  
Mean Longitude (deg)               355.45332

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 317.681 - 0.108T
Declination    :  52.886 - 0.061T
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Martian Atmosphere

Surface pressure:  6.36 mb at mean radius (variable from 4.0 to 8.7 mb depending on season) 
                  [6.9 mb to 9 mb (Viking 1 Lander site)]
Surface density: ~0.020 kg/m³
Scale height:  11.1 km
Total mass of atmosphere: ~2.5 x 10¹⁶ kg
Average temperature:  ~210 K (-63 C)
Diurnal temperature range: 184 K to 242 K (-89 to -31 C) (Viking 1 Lander site)
Wind speeds:  2-7 m/s (summer), 5-10 m/s (fall), 17-30 m/s (dust storm) (Viking Lander sites)
Mean molecular weight: 43.34 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume):
   Major      : Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) - 95.32% ; Nitrogen (N₂) - 2.7%
                Argon (Ar) - 1.6%; Oxygen (O₂) - 0.13%; Carbon Monoxide (CO) - 0.08%
   Minor (ppm): Water (H₂O) - 210; Nitrogen Oxide (NO) - 100; Neon (Ne) - 2.5;
                Hydrogen-Deuterium-Oxygen (HDO) - 0.85; Krypton (Kr) - 0.3;
   Xenon (Xe) - 0.08

Satellites of Mars

                                    Phobos         Deimos
Semi-major axis* (km)                9378          23459
Sidereal orbit period (days)        0.31891        1.26244
Sidereal rotation period (days)     0.31891        1.26244
Orbital inclination (deg)            1.08           1.79
Orbital eccentricity                0.0151         0.0005
Major axis radius (km)                13.4            7.5
Median axis radius (km)               11.2            6.1
Minor axis radius (km)                 9.2            5.2
Mass (10¹⁵ kg)                       10.6            2.4
Mean density (kg/m³)                 1900           1750
Geometric albedo                      0.07           0.08
Visual magnitude V(1,0)             +11.8          +12.89    
Apparent visual magnitude (V₀)        11.3           12.40     

*Mean orbital distance from the center of Mars.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html

http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/

Jupiter Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:08:00.002-07:00

Jupiter Fact Sheet

Jupiter/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Jupiter      Earth   Ratio (Jupiter/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                      1,898.6     5.9736      317.83
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                 143,128     108.321      1321.33
Radius (1 bar level) (km)
   Equatorial                     71,492       6,378.1      11.209   
   Polar                          66,854       6,356.8      10.517
Volumetric mean radius (km)        69,911       6,371.0      10.973
Ellipticity                         0.06487     0.00335      19.36
Mean density (kg/m³)                1,326       5,515         0.240
Gravity (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)        24.79        9.80          2.530
Acceleration (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)   23.12        9.78          2.364
Escape velocity (km/s)             59.5        11.19          5.32
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                 126.686       0.3986      317.8
Bond albedo                         0.343       0.306         1.12
Visual geometric albedo             0.52        0.367         1.42 
Visual magnitude V(1,0)            -9.40       -3.86           -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)            50.50     1367.6           0.037
Black-body temperature (K)        110.0       254.3           0.433
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)           0.254       0.3308        0.768
J₂ (x 10^-6)                        14,736    1082.63         13.611   
Number of natural satellites       63           1
Planetary ring system             Yes          No

Orbital parameters

                                   Jupiter      Earth   Ratio (Jupiter/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)             778.57      149.60        5.204  
Sidereal orbit period (days)      4,332.589     365.256      11.862  
Tropical orbit period (days)      4,330.595     365.242      11.857
Perihelion (10⁶ km)                 740.52      147.09        5.034     
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                   816.62      152.10        5.369
Synodic period (days)               398.88        -             -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)         13.07       29.78        0.439   
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)         13.72       30.29        0.453       
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)         12.44       29.29        0.425      
Orbit inclination (deg)               1.304       0.000         -
Orbit eccentricity                    0.0489      0.0167      2.928
Sidereal rotation period (hours)      9.9250*    23.9345      0.415 
Length of day (hrs)                   9.9259     24.0000      0.414
Obliquity to orbit (deg)              3.13       23.45        0.133

* System III (1965.0) coordinates

Jupiter Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Unknown
Discovery Date:  Prehistoric

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)          588.5
       Maximum (10⁶ km)          968.1
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)   49.0
       Minimum (seconds of arc)   29.8
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)        628.76   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)   46.9
       Apparent visual magnitude            -2.7     
Maximum apparent visual magnitude            -2.94

Jupiter Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  5.20336301 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.04839266  
Orbital inclination (deg)            1.30530 
Longitude of ascending node (deg)  100.55615  
Longitude of perihelion (deg)       14.75385  
Mean Longitude (deg)                34.40438

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 268.05 - 0.009T
Declination    :  64.49 + 0.003T
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Jovian Magnetosphere

Goddard Space Flight Center O4 Model

Dipole field strength: 4.28 gauss-Rj³
Dipole tilt to rotational axis: 9.6 degrees
Longitude of tilt: 201.7 degrees
Dipole offset (planet center to dipole center) distance: 0.131 Rj
Latitude/Longitude of offset vector: -8.0 degrees/148.57 degrees

Note: All latitudes/longitudes are given in Jovian System III (1965.0) coordinates.
Rj denotes Jovian radii, 71,398 km

Jovian Atmosphere

Surface Pressure: >>1000 bars 
Temperature at 1 bar: 165 K (-108 C)
Temperature at 0.1 bar: 112 K (-161 C)
Density at 1 bar: 0.16 kg/m³
Wind speeds
  Up to 150 m/s (<30 degrees latitude)
  Up to  40 m/s (>30 degrees latitude)
Scale height: 27 km
Mean molecular weight: 2.22 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume, uncertainty in parentheses)
   Major:       Molecular hydrogen (H₂) - 89.8% (2.0%); Helium (He) - 10.2% (2.0%)
   Minor (ppm): Methane (CH₄) - 3000 (1000); Ammonia (NH₃) - 260 (40);
                Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 28 (10); Ethane (C₂H₆) - 5.8 (1.5);
                Water (H₂O) - 4 (varies with pressure)
   Aerosols:    Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/jupiterfact.html

Neptune Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:08:00.001-07:00

Neptune Fact Sheet

Neptune/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Neptune      Earth   Ratio (Neptune/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                     102.43      5.9736        17.147
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                    6,254   108.321         57.74
Radius (1 bar level) (km)
   Equatorial                     24,764      6,378.1        3.883
   Polar                          24,341      6,356.8        3.829
Volumetric mean radius (km)        24,624      6,371.0        3.865
Ellipticity (Flattening)            0.01708    0.00335        5.10
Mean density (kg/m³)                1,638      5,515          0.297
Gravity (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)        11.15       9.80           1.14
Acceleration (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)   11.00       9.78           1.12
Escape velocity (km/s)             23.5       11.19           2.10
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                   6.8351     0.3986        17.15
Bond albedo                         0.290      0.306          0.95
Visual geometric albedo             0.41       0.367          1.12
Visual magnitude V(1,0)            -6.87      -3.86             -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)             1.51       1,367.6        0.0011
Black-body temperature (K)         46.6      254.3            0.183
J₂ (x 10^-6)                      3411.      1082.63           3.151   
Number of natural satellites       13          1
Planetary ring system             Yes         No

Orbital parameters

                                   Neptune      Earth   Ratio (Neptune/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)           4,495.06      149.60       30.047
Sidereal orbit period (days)     60,189.        365.256     164.79  
Tropical orbit period (days)     59,799.9       365.242     163.73
Perihelion (10⁶ km)               4,444.45      147.09       30.216    
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                 4,545.67      152.10       29.886
Synodic period (days)               367.49        -             -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)          5.43      29.78         0.182  
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)          5.50      30.29         0.182      
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)          5.37      29.29         0.183     
Orbit inclination (deg)               1.769       0.000         -
Orbit eccentricity                    0.0113      0.0167      0.677
Sidereal rotation period (hours)     16.11*      23.9345      0.673
Length of day (hrs)                  16.11       24.0000      0.671
Obliquity to orbit (deg)             28.32       23.45        1.208

* Magnetic coordinates (as determined by the Voyager 2 Radio Science experiment)

Neptune Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Johann Gottfried Galle  (based on predictions by 
                John Couch Adams and Urbain Leverrier)
Discovery Date:  23 September 1846

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)         4305.9
       Maximum (10⁶ km)         4687.3
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)    2.4
       Minimum (seconds of arc)    2.2
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)       4347.31   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)    2.3
       Apparent visual magnitude             7.8     
Maximum apparent visual magnitude             7.78

Neptune Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                 30.06896348 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.00858587  
Orbital inclination (deg)            1.76917 
Longitude of ascending node (deg)  131.72169  
Longitude of perihelion (deg)       44.97135 
Mean Longitude (deg)               304.88003

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 299.36 + 0.70 sin N
Declination    :  43.46 - 0.51 cos N
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
N = 359.28 + 549.308T degrees
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Neptunian Magnetosphere

Goddard Space Flight Center OTD (O8) Model

Dipole field strength: 0.142 gauss-Rn³
Dipole tilt to rotational axis: 46.9 degrees
Longitude of tilt: 288 degrees (IAU convention)
Dipole offset (planet center to dipole center) distance: 0.55 Rn

Note: Rn denotes Neptunian radii, here defined to be 24,765 km

Neptunian Atmosphere

Surface Pressure: >>1000 bars 
Temperature at 1 bar: 72 K (-201 C)
Temperature at 0.1 bar: 55 K (-218 C)
Density at 1 bar: 0.45 kg/m³
Wind speeds: 0-200 m/s
Scale height: 19.1 - 20.3 km
Mean molecular weight: 2.53 - 2.69 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume, uncertainty in parentheses)
   Major:       Molecular hydrogen (H₂) - 80.0% (3.2%); Helium (He) - 19.0% (3.2%);
                Methane (CH₄) 1.5% (0.5%)
   Minor (ppm): Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 192; Ethane (C₂H₆) - 1.5
   Aerosols:    Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide, methane ice(?)


http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neptunefact.html

Saturn Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:05:00.003-07:00

Saturn Fact Sheet

Saturn/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                     Saturn      Earth   Ratio (Saturn/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                      568.46       5.9736       95.159
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                    82,713    108.321       763.59
Radius (1 bar level) (km)
   Equatorial                       60,268      6,378.1       9.449  
   Polar                            54,364      6,356.8       8.552
Volumetric mean radius (km)          58,232      6,371.0       9.140
Ellipticity (Flattening)              0.09796    0.00335      29.24
Mean density (kg/m³)                    687      5,515         0.125
Gravity (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)          10.44       9.80          1.065
Acceleration (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)      8.96       9.78          0.916
Escape velocity (km/s)               35.5       11.19          3.172
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                    37.931      0.3986       95.16
Bond albedo                           0.342      0.306         1.12
Visual geometric albedo               0.47       0.367         1.28
Visual magnitude V(1,0)              -8.88      -3.86            -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)              14.90       1,367.6       0.011
Black-body temperature (K)           81.1      254.3           0.319
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)             0.210      0.3308        0.635
J₂ (x 10^-6)                      16,298.      1082.63         15.054   
Number of natural satellites         56          1
Planetary ring system               Yes         No

Orbital parameters

                                     Saturn      Earth   Ratio (Saturn/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)            1,433.53      149.60        9.582
Sidereal orbit period (days)      10,759.22      365.256      29.457  
Tropical orbit period (days)      10,746.94      365.242      29.424
Perihelion (10⁶ km)                1,352.55      147.09        9.195     
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                  1,514.50      152.10        9.957
Synodic period (days)                378.09        -             -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)           9.69       29.78        0.325   
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)          10.18       30.29        0.336       
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)           9.09       29.29        0.310      
Orbit inclination (deg)                2.485       0.000         -
Orbit eccentricity                     0.0565      0.0167      3.383
Sidereal rotation period (hours)      10.656*     23.9345      0.445
Length of day (hrs)                   10.656      24.0000      0.444
Obliquity to orbit (deg)              26.73       23.45        1.140

* Saturnian System III coordinates

Saturn Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Unknown
Discovery Date:  Prehistoric

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)         1195.5
       Maximum (10⁶ km)         1658.5
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)   20.1
       Minimum (seconds of arc)   14.5
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)       1277.42   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)   19.5
       Apparent visual magnitude             0.7
Maximum apparent visual magnitude             0.43

Saturn Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  9.53707032 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.05415060  
Orbital inclination (deg)            2.48446  
Longitude of ascending node (deg)  113.71504  
Longitude of perihelion (deg)       92.43194  
Mean Longitude (deg)                49.94432

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 40.5954 - 0.0577T
Declination    : 83.5380 - 0.0066T
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Saturnian Magnetosphere

Dipole field strength: 0.210 gauss-Rs³
Dipole tilt to rotational axis: < 1 degree
Dipole offset (planet center to dipole center) distance: 0.04 to 0.05 Rs northward

Note: Saturn's magnetic field has significant quadrapole and octapole moments, making approximation of the central field as an offset dipole difficult.
Rs denotes Saturnian radii, 60,330 km

Saturnian Atmosphere

Surface Pressure: >>1000 bars 
Temperature at 1 bar: 134 K (-139 C)
Temperature at 0.1 bar: 84 K (-189 C)
Density at 1 bar: 0.19 kg/m³
Wind speeds
  Up to 400 m/s (<30 degrees latitude)
  Up to 150 m/s (>30 degrees latitude)
Scale height: 59.5 km
Mean molecular weight: 2.07 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume, uncertainty in parentheses)
   Major:       Molecular hydrogen (H₂) - 96.3% (2.4%); Helium (He) - 3.25% (2.4%)
   Minor (ppm): Methane (CH₄) - 4500 (2000); Ammonia (NH₃) - 125 (75);
                Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 110 (58); Ethane (C₂H₆) - 7 (1.5)
   Aerosols:    Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide


http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/saturnfact.html

Uranus Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:05:00.002-07:00

Uranus Fact Sheet

Uranus/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                    Uranus      Earth   Ratio (Uranus/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                      86.832      5.9736        14.536
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                    6,833    108.321         63.08
Radius (1 bar level) (km)
   Equatorial                      25,559      6,378.1        4.007
   Polar                           24,973      6,356.8        3.929
Volumetric mean radius (km)         25,362      6,371.0        3.981
Ellipticity (Flattening)             0.02293    0.00335        6.84
Mean density (kg/m³)                 1,270      5,515          0.230
Gravity (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)          8.87       9.80           0.905
Acceleration (eq., 1 bar) (m/s²)     8.69       9.78           0.889
Escape velocity (km/s)              21.3       11.19           1.903
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                    5.794      0.3986        14.536
Bond albedo                          0.300      0.306          0.980
Visual geometric albedo              0.51       0.367          1.390
Visual magnitude V(1,0)             -7.19      -3.86             -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)              3.71       1,367.6        0.0027
Black-body temperature (K)          58.2      254.3            0.229
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)            0.225      0.3308         0.680
J₂ (x 10^-6)                       3343.43    1082.63           3.088   
Number of natural satellites        27          1
Planetary ring system              Yes         No

Orbital parameters

                                    Uranus      Earth   Ratio (Uranus/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)            2,872.46      149.60       19.201
Sidereal orbit period (days)      30,685.4       365.256      84.011  
Tropical orbit period (days)      30,588.740     365.242      83.749
Perihelion (10⁶ km)                2,741.30      147.09       18.637    
Aphelion (10⁶ km)                  3,003.62      152.10       19.748
Synodic period (days)                369.66        -             -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)           6.81       29.78        0.229   
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)           7.11       30.29        0.235       
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)           6.49       29.29        0.222      
Orbit inclination (deg)                0.772       0.000         -
Orbit eccentricity                     0.0457      0.0167      2.737
Sidereal rotation period (hours)     -17.24*      23.9345      0.720
Length of day (hrs)                   17.24       24.0000      0.718
Obliquity to orbit (deg)              97.77       23.45        4.169

* Magnetic coordinates (as determined by the Voyager 2 Radio Science experiment)

Uranus Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      William Herschel
Discovery Date:  13 March 1781

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)         2581.9
       Maximum (10⁶ km)         3157.3
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)    4.1
       Minimum (seconds of arc)    3.3
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)       2719.99   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)    3.9
       Apparent visual magnitude             5.5 
Maximum apparent visual magnitude             5.32

Uranus Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                 19.19126393 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.04716771  
Orbital inclination (deg)            0.76986  
Longitude of ascending node (deg)   74.22988 
Longitude of perihelion (deg)      170.96424 
Mean Longitude (deg)               313.23218

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 257.43
Declination    : -15.10
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)

Uranian Magnetosphere

Dipole field strength: 0.228 gauss-Ru³
Dipole tilt to rotational axis: 58.6 degrees
Dipole offset (planet center to dipole center) distance: 0.3 Ru along the rotation axis

Note: Ru denotes Uranian radii, here defined to be 25,600 km

Uranian Atmosphere

Surface Pressure: >>1000 bars 
Temperature at 1 bar: 76 K (-197 C)
Temperature at 0.1 bar: 53 K (-220 C)
Density at 1 bar: 0.42 kg/m³
Wind speeds: 0-200 m/s
Scale height: 27.7 km
Mean molecular weight: 2.64 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume, uncertainty in parentheses)
   Major:       Molecular hydrogen (H₂) - 82.5% (3.3%); Helium (He) - 15.2% (3.3%)
                Methane (CH₄) - 2.3%
   Minor (ppm): Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 148
   Aerosols:    Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide, methane ice(?)

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/uranusfact.html

Pluto Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:05:00.001-07:00

Pluto Fact Sheet

Pluto/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                  Pluto          Earth      Ratio (Pluto/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                    0.0125         5.9736         0.0021
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                 0.715        108.321          0.0066
Equatorial radius (km)            1195           6378.1        0.187
Polar radius (km)                  1195           6356.8        0.188
Volumetric mean radius (km)        1195           6371.0        0.188        
Ellipticity (Flattening)          0.0000         0.00335        0.0
Mean density (kg/m³)               1750           5515          0.317
Surface gravity (m/s²)            0.58           9.80           0.059
Surface acceleration (m/s²)       0.58           9.78           0.059
Escape velocity (km/s)            1.2           11.19           0.107
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                 0.00083        0.3986         0.0021 
Bond albedo                    0.4 - 0.6         0.306        1.3 - 2.0
Visual geometric albedo        0.5 - 0.7         0.367        1.4 - 1.9
Visual magnitude V(1,0)          -1.0           -3.86             -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)           0.89           1367.6         0.0007
Black-body temperature (K)       37.5          254.3            0.147
Number of natural satellites      3*             1
Planetary ring system            No             No

* The two newly discovered moons of Pluto have been named
Nix and Hydra.

Orbital parameters

                                  Pluto           Earth      Ratio (Pluto/Earth)
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)         5906.38          149.60          39.482
Sidereal orbit period (days)     90,465          365.256        247.68
Tropical orbit period (days)     90,588          365.242        248.02
Perihelion (10⁶ km)             4436.82          147.09          30.164      
Aphelion (10⁶ km)               7375.93          152.10          48.494
Synodic period (days)            366.73             -              -
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)       4.72           29.78           0.158
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)       6.10           30.29           0.201    
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)       3.71           29.29           0.127   
Orbit inclination (deg)           17.16            0.000           -
Orbit eccentricity                 0.2488          0.0167        14.899
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)  -153.2928         23.9345         6.405
Length of day (hrs)              153.2820         24.0000         6.387
Obliquity to orbit (deg)         122.53           23.45          (2.451)

Pluto Observational Parameters

Discoverer:      Clyde Tombaugh
Discovery Date:  18 February 1930

Distance from Earth
       Minimum (10⁶ km)         4284.7
       Maximum (10⁶ km)         7528.0
Apparent diameter from Earth
       Maximum (seconds of arc)    0.11
       Minimum (seconds of arc)    0.06
Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (10⁶ km)       5750.54   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)    0.08
       Apparent visual magnitude            15.1     
Maximum apparent visual magnitude            13.65

Pluto Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                 39.48168677 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.24880766 
Orbital inclination (deg)           17.14175 
Longitude of ascending node (deg)  110.30347 
Longitude of perihelion (deg)      224.06676 
Mean longitude (deg)               238.92881

On 11 February 1999 at 11:22 UT (6:22 a.m. EST), Pluto passed Neptune as the
furthest planet from the Sun once again and will remain so until 5 April 2231.

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension: 313.02
Declination    :   9.09
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)

Pluto Atmosphere

Surface Pressure: ~3 microbar
Average temperature: ~50 K (-223 C)
Scale height: ~60 km
Mean molecular weight: ~16-25 g/mole
Atmospheric composition:  Methane (CH₄), Nitrogen (N₂)

Charon

Mean distance from Pluto (km)     19,600       
Sidereal orbit period (days)        6.38725       
Sidereal rotation period (days)     6.38725       
Orbital inclination to Pluto (deg)  0.0      
Orbital eccentricity                0.0
Equatorial radius (km)              593         
Mass (10²¹ kg)                      1.62       
Mean density (kg/m³)               1850
Surface gravity (m/s²)              0.31
Escape velocity (km/s)              0.60 
Geometric albedo                    0.38
Apparent visual magnitude          16.8

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html

Comet Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Comet Fact Sheet

Information on Selected Comets

The image shown is a view of the nucleus of Comet Halley taken by the Giotto spacecraft. Below is a table of information on selected comets, and at the bottom of the page are comments on the comets.

                         Orbital   Perihelion   Perihelion   Semi-Major     Orbital        Orbital     Absolute
 Number & Name           Period       Date       Distance       Axis      Eccentricity   Inclination   Magnitude
 -------------           -------   ----------   ----------   ----------   ------------   -----------   ---------
 1P Halley             76.1 yrs.  1986-02-09    0.587 AU     17.94 AU        0.967       162.2 deg.      5.5                                                                                       
 2P Encke               3.30 yrs. 2003-12-28    0.340 AU      2.21 AU        0.847        11.8 deg.      9.8                                                                                            
 6P d'Arrest            6.51 yrs. 2008-08-01    1.346 AU      3.49 AU        0.614        19.5 deg.      8.5  
 9P Tempel 1            5.51 yrs. 2005-07-05    1.500 AU      3.12 AU        0.519        10.5 deg.     12.0
19P Borrelly            6.86 yrs. 2001-09-14    1.358 AU      3.61 AU        0.624        30.3 deg.     11.9
21P Giacobini-Zinner    6.52 yrs. 1998-11-21    0.996 AU      3.52 AU        0.706        31.8 deg.      9.0                         
26P Grigg-Skjellerup    5.09 yrs. 1992-07-22    0.989 AU      2.96 AU        0.664        21.1 deg.     12.5                                                                                                      
27P Crommelin          27.89 yrs. 1984-09-01    0.743 AU      9.20 AU        0.919        29.0 deg.     12.0                                                                               
45P Honda-Mrkos         
       -Pajdusakova     5.29 yrs. 1995-12-25    0.528 AU      3.02 AU        0.825         4.3 deg.     13.5
46P Wirtanen            5.46 yrs. 2013-10-21    1.063 AU      3.12 AU        0.652        11.7 deg.      9.0                         
55P Tempel-Tuttle      32.92 yrs. 1998-02-28    0.982 AU     10.33 AU        0.906       162.5 deg.      9.0                                                                   
67P Churyumov
        -Gerasimenko    6.57 yrs. 2002-08-18    1.292 AU      3.51 AU        0.632         7.1 deg.
73P Schwassmann         5.36 yrs. 2006-06-02    0.937 AU      3.06 AU        0.694        11.4 deg.     11.7
       -Wachmann 3
75P Kohoutek            6.24 yrs. 1973-12-28    1.571 AU      3.4 AU         0.537         5.4 deg.     12.1   
76P West-Kohoutek
           -Ikemura     6.46 yrs. 2000-06-01    1.596 AU      3.45 AU        0.540        30.5 deg.     10.6
81P Wild 2              6.39 yrs. 2003-09-25    1.583 AU      3.44 AU        0.540         3.2 deg.      6.5                                       
95P Chiron             50.7 yrs.  1996-02-14    8.46 AU      13.7 AU         0.383         7 deg.    
107P Wilson-Harrington   4.29 yrs. 2001-03-26    1.000 AU      2.64 AU        0.623         2.8 deg.      9.0
    Hale-Bopp          4000. yrs. 1997-03-31    0.914 AU      250. AU        0.995        89.4 deg.     -1.0
    Hyakutake        ~40000. yrs. 1996-05-01    0.230 AU    ~1165. AU        0.9998      124.9 deg.

Halley - Subject of the International Halley Watch (IHW), a coordinated effort of ground-based and spacecraft observations.
Encke - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 12 November 2003. Radar observations made by Arecibo Observatory in 1980 indicated a radius of 0.4 to 4.0 km.
d'Arrest - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 16 August 2008.
Tempel 1 - Planned flyby and projectile impact by the Deep Impact mission on 4 July 2005.
Borrelly - Target of Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 2001.
Giacobini-Zinner - Target of ICE flyby on 11 Sep 1985 within 7800 km.
Grigg-Skjellerup - Target of Giotto flyby (within 200 km) on 10 July 1992.
Crommelin - Subject of 1984 test of the IHW network.
Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova - Originally planned target of Sakigake flyby at 10,000 km on 3 Feb 1996.
Wirtanen - Originally scheduled to be visited by the ESA Rosetta mission in 2011. Mission rerouted.
Temple-Tuttle - Originally planned target of Suisei flyby on 28 Feb 1998.
Churyumov-Gerasimenko - Planned target of Rosetta mission in Nov 2014.
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 - Planned encounter by CONTOUR mission on 18 June 2006. Split into three large pieces in 1995.
Kohoutek - Observed by Skylab astronauts in Dec 1973 and Jan 1974.
West-Kohoutek-Ikemura - Original target of New Millenium Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 2000.
Wild 2 - Target of the Discovery coma sample return mission, Stardust , in Jan 2004.
Wilson-Harrington - At one time a possible target of Deep Space 1 spacecraft in 2001.
Chiron - Comet/asteroid, also known as asteroid 2060 Chiron. Subject of the Chiron Perihelion Campaign
Hale-Bopp - Discovered in July 1995. Bright comet, made closest approach to Earth on 22 March 1997.
Hyakutake - Discovered in January 1996. Bright comet, passed within 0.1 AU of Earth on 25 March 1996.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/cometfact.html

Chiron Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

Chiron Fact Sheet

Information on Comet 95P/Chiron / Minor Planet (2060) Chiron

Perihelion Date: 14 February 1996, 18:06 UT
Perihelion Distance: 8.4639422 AU
Date of Perihelion Opposition: 01 April 1996 (closest approach to Earth)
Orbital Period: 50.7 years
Eccentricity: 0.3831118
Inclination: 6.93540 degrees
Semi-Major Axis: ~13.70354 AU
Aphelion: ~18.94314 AU
Mass: 2 x 10¹⁸ to 10¹⁹ kg
Diameter: 148 to 208 km
Rotation Period: ~5.9 hours
Asteroid Classification: B-type
Discoverer: Charles Kowal
Date of Discovery: 01 November 1977 (on a photographic plate taken 18 October)

Osculating Orbital Elements

B1950.0 reference frame, Epoch 2450100.5 (17 Jan 1996) Semi-Major Axis: 13.7053530 AU
Eccentricity: 0.3831649
Inclination: 6.93524 deg.
Longitude of Ascending Node: 208.65735 deg.
Longitude of Perihelion: 339.58061 deg.
Mean Anomaly: 359.46170 deg.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/chironfact.html

Moon Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Moon Fact Sheet

Moon/Earth Comparison

Bulk parameters

                                   Moon         Earth      Ratio (Moon/Earth)
Mass (10²⁴ kg)                    0.07349       5.9736     0.0123   
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)                 2.1958      108.321      0.0203
Equatorial radius (km)            1738.1        6378.1    0.2725     
Polar radius (km)                  1736.0        6356.8    0.2731
Volumetric mean radius (km)        1737.1        6371.0    0.2727
Ellipticity (Flattening)          0.0012        0.00335    0.36   
Mean density (kg/m³)               3350          5515      0.607     
Surface gravity (m/s²)            1.62          9.80       0.165   
Surface acceleration (m/s²)       1.62          9.78       0.166   
Escape velocity (km/s)            2.38         11.2        0.213   
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)                 0.0049        0.3986     0.0123
Bond albedo                       0.11          0.306      0.360
Visual geometric albedo           0.12          0.367      0.330   
Visual magnitude V(1,0)          +0.21         -3.86          -
Solar irradiance (W/m²)            1367.6        1367.6    1.000     
Black-body temperature (K)          274.5         254.3    1.079     
Topographic range (km)               16            20      0.800     
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)         0.394         0.3308     1.191
J₂ (x 10^-6)                     202.7        1082.63        0.187

Orbital parameters (for orbit about the Earth)

                                    Moon        
Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)             0.3844                
Perigee (10⁶ km)*                   0.3633
Apogee (10⁶ km)*                    0.4055
Revolution period (days)           27.3217           
Synodic period (days)              29.53              
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)        1.023                 
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)        1.076
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)        0.964
Inclination to ecliptic (deg)       5.145
Inclination to equator (deg)       18.28 - 28.58                   
Orbit eccentricity                  0.0549             
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)    655.728               
Obliquity to orbit (deg)            6.68                  
Recession rate from Earth (cm/yr)   3.8

Mean values at opposition from Earth
       Distance from Earth (equator, km)   378,000   
       Apparent diameter (seconds of arc)     1896
       Apparent visual magnitude               -12.74    

* These represent mean apogee and perigee for the lunar orbit. 
The orbit changes over the course of the year so the distance
from the Moon to Earth roughly ranges from 357,000 km to 407,000 km.

Lunar Atmosphere

Diurnal temperature range: >100 K to <400 K  (roughly -250 F to +250 F)
Total mass of atmosphere:  ~25,000 kg
Surface pressure (night): 3 x 10^-15 bar  (2 x 10^-12 torr)
Abundance at surface: 2 x 10⁵ particles/cm³

Estimated Composition (particles per cubic cm):
   Helium 4 (⁴He) - 40,000 ; Neon 20 (²⁰Ne) - 40,000 ; Hydrogen (H₂) - 35,000
   Argon 40 (⁴⁰Ar) - 30,000 ; Neon 22 (²²Ne) - 5,000 ; Argon 36 (³⁶Ar) - 2,000
   Methane - 1000 ; Ammonia - 1000 ; Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) - 1000
   Trace Oxygen (O⁺), Aluminum (Al⁺), Silicon (Si⁺)
   Possible Phosphorus (P⁺), Sodium (Na⁺), Magnesium (Mg⁺)

Composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere is poorly known and variable,
these are estimates of the upper limits of the nighttime ambient atmosphere
composition.  Daytime levels were difficult to measure due to heating and
outgassing of Apollo surface experiments.

Earth Fact Sheet

2007-08-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Earth Fact Sheet

Bulk parameters

Mass (10²⁴ kg)                 5.9736
Volume (10¹⁰ km³)             108.321  
Equatorial radius (km)         6378.1   
Polar radius (km)               6356.8        
Volumetric mean radius (km)     6371.0
Core radius (km)                3485
Ellipticity (Flattening)        0.00335     
Mean density (kg/m³)            5515     
Surface gravity (m/s²)          9.798 
Surface acceleration (m/s²)     9.780       
Escape velocity (km/s)         11.186
GM (x 10⁶ km³/s²)               0.3986     
Bond albedo                     0.306 
Visual geometric albedo         0.367
Visual magnitude V(1,0)        -3.86
Solar irradiance (W/m²)         1367.6   
Black-body temperature (K)       254.3   
Topographic range (km)            20
Moment of inertia (I/MR²)       0.3308
J₂ (x 10^-6)                    1082.63     
Number of natural satellites       1         
Planetary ring system             No

Orbital parameters

Semimajor axis (10⁶ km)         149.60   
Sidereal orbit period (days)    365.256
Tropical orbit period (days)    365.242   
Perihelion (10⁶ km)             147.09       
Aphelion (10⁶ km)               152.10
Mean orbital velocity (km/s)     29.78       
Max. orbital velocity (km/s)     30.29
Min. orbital velocity (km/s)     29.29
Orbit inclination (deg)           0.000    
Orbit eccentricity                0.0167    
Sidereal rotation period (hrs)   23.9345   
Length of day (hrs)              24.0000
Obliquity to orbit (deg)         23.45

Earth Mean Orbital Elements (J2000)

Semimajor axis (AU)                  1.00000011 
Orbital eccentricity                 0.01671022  
Orbital inclination (deg)            0.00005 
Longitude of ascending node (deg)  -11.26064 
Longitude of perihelion (deg)      102.94719 
Mean Longitude (deg)               100.46435

North Pole of Rotation

Right Ascension:  0.00 - 0.641T
Declination    : 90.00 - 0.557T
Reference Date : 12:00 UT 1 Jan 2000 (JD 2451545.0)
T = Julian centuries from reference date

Terrestrial Magnetosphere

Dipole field strength: 0.3076 gauss-Re³
Latitude/Longitude of dipole N: 78.6 degrees N/70.1 degrees W
Dipole offset (planet center to dipole center) distance: 0.0725 Re
Latitude/Longitude of offset vector: 18.3 degrees N/147.8 degrees E

Note: Re denotes Earth radii, 6,378 km

Terrestrial Atmosphere

Surface pressure: 1014 mb
Surface density: 1.217 kg/m³
Scale height: 8.5 km
Total mass of atmosphere:  5.1 x 10¹⁸ kg
Total mass of hydrosphere:  1.4 x 10²¹ kg
Average temperature:  288 K (15 C)
Diurnal temperature range: 283 K to 293 K (10 to 20 C)
Wind speeds: 0 to 100 m/s
Mean molecular weight: 28.97 g/mole
Atmospheric composition (by volume, dry air):
   Major      : 78.084% Nitrogen (N₂), 20.946% Oxygen (O₂),
   Minor (ppm): Argon (Ar) - 9340; Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) - 380
                Neon (Ne) - 18.18; Helium (He) - 5.24; CH₄ - 1.7
                Krypton (Kr) - 1.14; Hydrogen (H₂) - 0.55
   Water is highly variable, typically makes up about 1%

source:http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html

Open Source — Selling Software That Sells Itself

2007-08-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Open Source — Selling Software That Sells Itself

"Open source is changing not just how companies make software, but how they sell it. Alfresco's Matt Asay explains the new sales cycle and the skills that today's software sales people need to close deals. [...] 'But you know what? We have worked with Microsoft on interop without doing any sort of a patent deal; as has Sugar and MySQL and Zend and these other companies. We work directly with Microsoft for a customer of ours to insure SQL Server integration with Alfresco. Didn't have to sign any patent deal with them to get that done. We both had a mutual customer. It was in our mutual interest. We both wanted to make money, therefore we did it. But the patent thing is a complete smoke and mirrors, I don't want to say trick, but it has nothing to do with interoperability. No matter how much Microsoft may repeat that, it has nothing to do with interoperability.'"

AT&T Crippling BlAT&T Crippling BlackBerry for iPhone?

2007-08-18T17:49:00.001-07:00

AT&T Crippling BlackBerry for iPhone?

"BlackBerryCool got a tip that not only was AT&T removing GPS functionality from their version of the BlackBerry 8820, they're doing it so it won't show up the iPhone. While carriers crippling phones to stop them from competing with pay-per-use services is nothing new, this might be the first time they've done it to make their other products seem less diminished."

Did Russian Hackers Crash Skype?

2007-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Did Russian Hackers Crash Skype?

An anonymous reader sends us to the www.xakep.ru forum where a poster claims that the worldwide Skype crash was caused by Russian hackers (in Russian). The claim is that they found a local buffer overflow vulnerability caused by sending a long string to the Skype authorization server. You can try Google's beta Russian-to-English translation, but the interesting part is the exploit code, and that's more readable in the original. The Washington Post reported that Skype has denied this rumor.

Google's growing list of domains

2007-08-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Google's growing list of domains

Have you ever wondered how many domain names Google owns? Currently Google owns 520 domain names. Their domain collection has been growing over the last couple years because of all of the companies they started and have bought. Some of these domain names are not in Google's name, but in the company's name that they purchased. If you see any domains missing or inaccuracies, feel free and leave a comment.

21150.com
3576.net
38389438.com
466453.com
7sou.com
95539.com

adsbygoogle.com
adsense.net
adwords.com
adwords.net
adwords.org
adwordselect.com
adwordsexample.com
adwordsgoogle.com
adwordsselect.com
adwords-select.com
adwordsselect.net
adwordsselect.org
akwan.com
allevil.org
altos.us
android.com
answergoogle.com
answer-google.com
answersgoogle.com
answers-google.com
appliedsemantics.com
appsem.com
apsem.com
arabgoogle.com
arabicgoogle.com
askgoogle.com
atlantis9.org
averitablebevy.com

bakuhatsu.net
bigcitysmallbank.com
blogger.com
blogspot.com
bon-vivant.net
book300.com

canalportugal.info
cashexperiment.com
catalogsgoogle.com
chinagoogle.com
clinilab.net
cobrasearch.com
conversionuniversity.com
crotales.com

dbanks.org
deja.com
deja.net
dejadiscussion.com
dejadiscussions.com
deja-discussions.com
dejanews.com
dejanews.net
dejanews.org
dejastinks.com
dejastinks.net
dejasucks.net
dejatracker.com
deja-tracker.com
delsolpm.net
divesfl.com
dmarc.net
dodgeball.com
dontswitch.com

e17.org
earthender.com
earthender.net
earthrender.com
earthrender.net
earthstream.com
earthviewer.com
earthviewer.net
earthviewer.org
elgoog.com
elgoog.net
elgoog.org
eperfumez.com
e-perfumez.com
expire.ws

firehunt.com
floralartbyamy.com
foofle.com
fourth-party.com
fourthparty.net
fourth-party.net
fourthparty.org
fourth-party.org
fridata.net
froogel.com
froogle.com
froogol.com
frooogle.com

g00gle.com
gbrowser.com
gbrowser.net
gbrowser.org
gcalendar.com
gchat.biz
gchat.us
gdrive.com
gethealed.org
gewgle.com
gewgol.com
gg-center.net
ggoogle.com
ggooglers.net
ggooglers.org
ghut.org
gigagoogle.com
gigagoogle.net
gigagoogle.org
globalgamerscenter.net
globalgamers-center.net
globalgames-center.net
gmail.com
gmmgjd.net
gmmgjd.org
gmmgjdwap.com
gmodule.com
gmodules.com
gngjd.com
gogle.com
gogole.com
googel.com
googil.com
google.biz
google.com
google.info
google.net
google.org
google.us
google.ws
google1.com
google2.com
google3.com
google4mp3.com
googleaccelerator.com
googleaccess.com
google-access.com
googleadsense.com
googleadservices.com
googleadult.com
googleadvancedsearch.com
googleanalytic.com
googleanalyticas.com
googleanalytics.com
google-analytics.com
googleanswer.com
google-answer.com
googleanswers.com
google-answers.com
googlearabic.com
googlearchive.com
googlearchives.com
googlearth.com
googlebase.com
googlebay.com
googleblog.biz
googleblog.com
googleblog.info
googleblog.net
googleblog.org
googleblows.com
googleblows.net
googleblows.org
googlebot.com
googlebox.biz
googlebox.com
googlebox.info
googlebox.net
googlebox.org
googlebrowserbutton.com
googlebrowserbuttons.com
googlebucks.com
googlebutton.com
googlebutton.net
googlebutton.org
googlebuttons.com
googlebuy.com
googlebuy.info
googlebuy.net
googlebuy.org
googlebuyers.com
googlecache.com
googlecalendar.net
googlecatalog.com
googlecatalogs.com
googleclips.com
googlecom.com
google-compute.com
googlecompute.com
googlecompute.net
googlecompute.org
googlecomputers.com
googlecomputing.com
google-computing.com
googledesktop.com
google-desktop.com
googledigital.info
googledigital.net
googledigital.org
googledirectory.com
googledirectory.net
googledirectory.org
googledoodle.com
googledoodle.net
googledoodle.org
googlee.com
googleearth.com
googleearth.info
googleearth.net
googleearth.org
googlefoundation.com
googlefoundation.net
googlefoundation.org
googlegear.com
googlegear.net
googlegear.org
googlegoods.com
googlegroups.com
googleguy.com
googleimageads.com
googleimages.com
googleimagesearch.com
google-inc.com
googleinstantmessenger.com
googleit.com
googleit.net
googleit.org
googlejobs.com
googlejobs.net
googlejournals.com
googlelabs.info
googlelabs.net
googlelabs.org
googlelecture.com
googlelibrary.com
googlelibrary.info
googlelibrary.net
googlelibrary.org
googlelocal.net
googlelocal.org
googlemagazines.com
googlemagazines.info
googlemagazines.net
googlemagazines.org
googlemail.biz
googlemail.com
googlemail.info
googlemail.org
googlemail.us
googlemaps.com
googlemaps.org
googlemastercard.com
googleme.com
googlemicrofilm.com
googlemicrofilm.info
googlemicrofilm.net
googlemicrofilm.org
googlemotherfucker.com
googlemovie.info
googlemovie.net
googlemovie.org
googlemovies.info
googlemovies.net
googlemovies.org
googlemusic.com
googlenews.net
googlenews.org
googlenum.com
googleoogle.com
googleoogle.net
googleoogle.org
googlepage.org
googlepapers.com
googlepapers.info
googlepapers.net
googlepapers.org
googleplex.com
googleplex.org
googleplus.com
googleporn.com
googleprint.biz
googleprint.com
googleprint.info
googleprint.net
googleprint.org
googleprint.us
googleproxy.com
googlequiz.com
googlequiz.net
googlequiz.org
googlereader.com
google-reader.com
googlereader.info
google-reader.info
googlereader.net
google-reader.net
googlereader.org
google-reader.org
googleregistrar.com
googlesatellite.com
googlesatellite.info
googlesatellite.net
googlesatellite.org
googlescholar.com
googlesearch.com
googlesearch.net
googleseek.com
googlesex.com
googlesex.info
googleshopping.com
googleshopping.net
googleshopping.org
googlesidebar.com
googlesidebar.net
googlesidebar.org
googlesimplex.com
googlesms.biz
googlesms.info
googlesms.net
googlesms.org
googlesms.us
googlesponsoredlinks.com
googlestore.com
googlestuff.com
google-stuff.com
googlesucks.com
googlesucks.net
googlesucks.org
googlesyndication.com
googletalk.info
googletalk.net
googletalk.org
googletoolbar.com
googletv.com
googletv.net
googletv.org
googlevideo.biz
googlevillage.com
googlewifi.info
googlewifi.net
googlewifi.org
googlewireless.info
googlewireless.net
googlewireless.org
googleworld.org
googli.com
googlie.com
googlr.com
goolge.com
gooogle.com
gotgoogle.com
gppgle.com
gppglr.com
groupsgoogle.com
gtalkr.com
guugle.com
guugle.org
guyindia.com

habsplanet.com
ho.org
howtobuyaweddingring.com

igoogle.com
igoogle.net
igoogle.org
infrareddesigns.com
issamghanwi.com

jamesallen.org
janinaordmann.com
janina-ordmann.com
jenniferwanderer.com
jennifer-wanderer.com
jinjilake.net

kaltix.com
kaltix.net
kaltix.org
kangkang.biz
karsanadolulisesi.com
karsfenlisesi.com
kazimierczuk.net
kedrowski.com
keyhole.com
keyholecorp.com
keyholecorp.net
keyholecorp.org
kimphotosoftware.com

latiff.biz
lifescapeinc.com
loizzos.com
lorcanmurray.com
lrgx.com

m4cs.net
mainechaos.com
margin15.com
markfong.com
measuremap.com
measuremap.net
measuremap.org
minzhu.org
mobilegoogle.info
mobilegoogle.net
mobilegoogle.org
my-deja.com
mydeja.net
my-deja.net
mydejanews.com
my-dejanews.com
mygoogle.com
my-google.com
mygoogle.net
my-google.net
mygoogle.org
my-google.org
mypicasa.com

namingsolutions.com
ngoogle.com
nncc.info
non-org.net
numgoogle.com
nwiz.biz

ogogle.com
oingo.com
orcit.com
orcut.com
orkat.com
orkut.biz
orkut.com
orkut.info
orkut.org
ozhorde.com

pageadgooglesyndication.com
philipdryan.com
picasa.com
picasa.net
picasasoftware.com
piccasa.net
porngoogle.com
pyra.com

q8planet.com

rapidrefocus.com
renquan.org
requesttimeoff.com
richardsbrain.com

seeabc.com
seedandsaplings.com
sellwood.net
sergeybrin.com
sergeybrin.net
sergeybrin.org
signacon.net
silverflute.net
simpel.org
smartprogrammer.com
smartprogrammer.net
sobacka.com
sumitbudhiraja.com
sumutpos.com
support-reverse-smileys.com
syncraconstruction.com

talageo.com
talkcentral.org
tampe.info
tapata.net
team7365.com
telageo.com
testgmacrfc.com
thecarbonneaus.net
thedinnerpartynetwork.com
timeoffrequest.com
timeoffrequests.com
timphanmem.com
tongwen.net
tongwen.org
toolbargoogle.com
triple-sss.com
tvsearch.com

urchin.com
urching.com
urchinstats.com
utlemming.org

veritablebevy.com

wapgmmgjd.com
wapgoogle.com
wappdapag.com
webservicehost.com
wherewas.com
writely.com
wwapgmmgjd.com
wwwadwordsselect.com
wwwadwords-select.com
wwwgoogle.com
wwwgooglecom.com
wwwgoogleoogle.com
wwwgooglesyndication.com
wwwpicasa.com
wwwpicassa.com
wwwpicassa.net
wwwpiccasa.com
wwwpiccasa.net
wwwpiccassa.com
wwwpiccassa.net
wwwwgoogle.com

xjpop.com
xn--yvonne-schrder-5pb.com
xn--yvonneschrder-rmb.com
xvid-x.org
xzcz.com

yourmailhost.net

zipdash.com
ziqing.net

Updated Entries
gdrive.com
googledrive.com
google.dk
google.se
google.co.nz
google.ca
google.cn
google.com.pr
google.com.ca
google.com.ch
google.fi
google.co.in
google.co.uk
google.lv
google.co.hu
google.lk
gmale.com
google.com.au
google.ru
google.nl
adwords.nl
google.be
adwords.be
google.de
gogle.de
googel.de
google.ro
google.kz
google.by
googlelyrics.com
goog1e.com
google.no
blogger.eu
google.pl
google.com.pl
google.es
google.pt
google.com.br
google.vc
google.co.za
google.tm
google.com.my
google.bg
frooglegoogle.com
google.co.jp
google.ie
google.co.ck
google.com.mx
googleshoppinglist.com
googlereviews.com
googlewishlist.com
saturngoogle.com
earthgoogle.com
mercurygoogle.com
venusgoogle.com
marsgoogle.com
jupitergoogle.com
uranusgoogle.com
neptunegoogle.com
plutogoogle.com
googlegalactic.com
googlesolarsystem.com
google.com.om
google.fr
google.mu
google.com.ph
google.com.jm
googlemini.com.cn

source:http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/googles-growing-list-of-domains.html#numbers

rohit brt

2007-08-18T17:31:00.000-07:00