Hulleye Comes By!

Microsoft has agreed to make changes to Vista’s search utility after Google complained to the Justice Department that “Vista’s desktop search tool slowed down competing programs, including Google’s own free offering, and that it’s difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.”

Microsoft initially dismissed the allegations, saying regulators had reviewed the program before Vista launched. However, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary.

Tay al-Ard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tay al-Ard (طی الارض or طيّ الارض or طیّ الارض - literally “folding up of the earth”) is the name for thaumaturgical teleportation in the Islamic religious and philosophical tradition.

Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our cur

Z machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure.

Kefitzat Haderech - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Torah study and Jewish folklore, kefitzat haderech is the ability to jump instantaneously from one place to another or travel with unnatural speed.

Krasnikov Tube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

create a space warp behind the space ship as it travels at near lightspeed, and then use the “tube” thus created for the return trip - interesting property for the return trip: it gets you back home shortly after you left, no matter how far you go.

Seafarer’s professions and ranks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bridge (ship) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Binnacle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spithead and Nore mutinies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Naval officer ranks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Admiralty law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Royal Navy battleships - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The European Space Agency is looking for people who would like to go on a pretend trip to Mars — for about a year and a half.

The 520-day experiment involves a crew of six living in sealed modules at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow.

Promising a program “as close to a real Mars mission as possible,” the space agency plans to simulate a 250-day trip to Mars, 30 days to experience the planet and 240 days to make it back home.

Weightlessness and radiation are not included, but the simulated out-of-planet experience offers isolation, confinement, crowding, lack of privacy, high workload, boredom with available food, and limited communication with family, friends and mission control.

Still keen? You might be just what the agency needs if you are:

* Between ages 25 and 50.
* In good health.
* Highly motivated.
* Fluent in either English or Russian, preferably both.
* No taller than six-foot-one (185 cm).
* Experienced in medicine, biology, engineering and the like.
* A non-smoker with no addictions.
* Willing to be a medical and psychological test subject.
* A national and resident of a select list of countries — including Canada.

People with mental disorders, special diets, those considered too fat or too thin, or currently in jail need not apply.

Imagine that your child’s private school tuition bill of $20,000 is due and the only source you have for paying it is the sale of some of your stock holdings. Fortunately, you got in on the great Google godsend and purchased 100 shares at $200 each, for a total investment of $20,000, and the stock is now at $400 a share. Should you realize your net gain by selling half of your Google stock and paying off your bill? Or should you sell off that Ford stock you purchased ages ago for $40,000 at its current value of $20,000?

If you are like most people (myself included), you would sell your Google stock and hang on to your Ford stock in hopes of recovering your losses. This would be the wrong strategy. Why would you sell shares in a company whose stock is on the rise, and hang on to shares in a company whose stock is on the decline? The reason, in a phrase, is “loss aversion,” and the psychology behind it does not fit the model of Homo economicus, that figurative species of human characterized by unbounded rationality in decision making.

Keep reading at Scientific American.

So another book has been written about the army. Its the first study of the various profitable corporations that the Pakistan Army runs. The last I can see is that the book was banned and taken off the shelves, its launching ceremony was cancelled and all other hotels and auditoriums in Islamabad refused to allow the book launch because “the authorities” told them to. Please go out and buy the book. If you don’t wish to, you can download it here. The book was shared by the author to get her version of the truth to you, but please encourage her efforts. What is the scale of the corporate interests of the Pakistan Military? Is the Pakistan military the only one in the world that indulges in what author Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa calls “Milbus” - A “Military Business”? What are the implications of the military economy for Pakistan as a whole including its political and social costs?