Eideard

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Scientists have produced what they say is the first complete map of how the ice moves across Antarctica.
Built from images acquired by radar satellites, the visualisation details all the great glaciers and the smaller ice streams that feed them…

It should aid the understanding of how the White Continent might evolve in the warmer world being forecast by climatologists.

“This is like seeing a map of all the oceans’ currents for the first time. It’s a game changer for glaciology,” said lead author Dr Eric Rignot. “We are seeing amazing flows from the heart of the continent that had never been described before”…

The map incorporates billions of radar data points collected between 1996 and 2009 by satellites belonging to Europe, Canada and Japan.

Ice drains from the interior via huge glaciers that calve icebergs into the sea…Ice velocities on the new map range from just few cm/year near places where the ice divides into different paths, to km/year on fast-moving glaciers and the ice shelves that float out from the edges of the continent.

RTFA for history and details. Interesting stuff.

Before the tornado

After – showing tornado track

Satellites provide a lot of useful information and the Landsat 5 satellite captured an image of the long damage track created on June 1, 2011 when a tornado tracked from Springfield to Sturbridge, Mass. An earlier image is now available from 2010 that enables people to more clearly see the damage path the June 2011 twister created on its eastward track.

A Landsat 5 satellite image from October 8, 2010 has been released from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that shows the area between Springfield and Sturbridge, Mass. where the tornado touched down.

The TTC bus driver was texting on a BlackBerry-like device while driving around 50 km/h when passenger Mike Schmitz took an iPhone photo of him.

The shot, taken on a 165 Weston Rd. North bus that was “full of people”, shows the driver focused on the device, and the orange needle of the bus speedometer pointing upwards…

The driver would alternate between holding the device with both hands and steering with his forearms, and driving with one hand while holding the device with the other and texting with his thumb, he said.

“This is incredibly serious,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross, who got a glimpse of the photo on Thursday. “It would appear … that he’s doing at least 50 km/h while texting, and his eyes are not on the road.”

The TTC has “a clear policy” when it comes to prohibiting its drivers from using personal electronic devices — such as cellphones, BlackBerrys and iPhones — while on the job, Ross said. “This is a serious breach of public safety,” he said, adding that drivers are not allowed to talk on cellphones or text even while the vehicle is stopped…

As of Oct. 26, 2009, Ontario drivers have been banned from talking on cellphones, texting or using hand-held electronic devices of any kind while behind the wheel.

A bit more than an oops! No one needs to see bus drivers volunteering for a Darwin Award.

Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone’s personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals.

Ministers want to make it mandatory for telephone and internet companies to keep details of all personal internet traffic for at least 12 months so it can be accessed for investigations into crime or other threats to public safety.

The Home Office last night admitted that the measure will mean companies have to store “a billion incidents of data exchange a day”. As the measure is the result of an EU directive, the data will be made available to public investigators across Europe.

The consultation paper published yesterday estimates that it will cost the internet industry over £50m to store the mountain of data.

When the measure was floated after the London bombings in 2005 by the then home secretary, Charles Clarke, it was justified on the grounds that it was needed to investigate terrorist plots and organised crime. But the Home Office document makes clear that the personal data will now be available for all sorts of crime and public order investigations and may even be used to prevent people self-harming.

You know Uncle Sugar will have to get his share of spy data. How can you possibly control the thoughts of any European nation without proper leadership from the International Standard in Thought Police?

Even though Euro and Brit constitutions haven’t the freedoms cast in stone that the US government is rapidly taking away – you’d think the lessons of Hitler and Stalin would have had some residual effect. Perhaps not?