Two months ago an ethnic Korean delegate at Kazakhstan’s people’s assembly proposed that Nazarbayev should stay in power until 2020. The president answered: “Maybe, then, you’ll offer me an elixir of youth and energy – maybe you have such potions in Korea … I’m willing to go on until 2020, just find me an elixir.” (via Kazakhstan’s president urges scientists to find the elixir of life | World news | The Guardian)
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..two centuries worth of observation indicate a disproportionate amount of comets originate from the outer regions of the Oort Cloud as opposed to the areas closer to the Sun. A planet anywhere from one to four times the mass of Jupiter could be responsible for the gravitational influence that would create this imbalance. Matese points out that the probability that this effect is purely a statistical fluke is extremely small, which suggests there’s something strange going on out there in the outer Oort. Tyche might also be responsible for the unusually elongated orbit of the dwarf planet Sedna.
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If the planet exists, it would be located some 30,000 astronomical units away, meaning its distance from the Sun is 30,000 times that of Earth. It be extremely cold, with a temperature of about -73 degrees Celsius. At such a freezing temperature, Tyche would radiate no heat for us to detect, and its extreme distance would make it incredibly hard to spot. By comparison, Neptune is only 30 astronomical units away, and the Kuiper Belt is just 55 AU from the Sun. (via Gigantic hidden planet could be hurling comets at the rest of the solar system)
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As a consequence, popular German blog VZlog.de has said it will go offline on New Year’s Eve. VZlog.de states it doesn’t have the resources to check all of its content and comments, nor does it have the technical resources to slap an 18 certificate on it, make certain its readers are 18 and above using Postident, or simply put the site online at midnight and take it offline again in the early hours.
The blog, which covers popular German social notworking sites meinvz, studivz and schülervz and hailed by media pedagogues and officials, is mainly read by youngsters. Seventy percent of its readers are are under 18, its authors are ages 14 to 19, it is ad financed and will now be going offline.
It seems politicians don’t believe kids and teenagers in Germany have the level of competency to use the internet properly and so must be protected from it, despite clearly demonstrating the contrary.
It seems the only people set to profit are lawyers, who are going to have a field day next year. Lawyers are expected to start sending out cease and desist letters to websites, telling them they’re breaking the law and have to pay a couple of thousand euros.
(via Web age certificates law forces German blogs offline – The world’s dumbest internet law? | TechEye)
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The Committee to Nuke Elysium 