And NASA has more here on the re-entry of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, which is expected to return to Earth's atmosphere late Sept. 23 or early Sept. 24 EDT. That's six years after the end what was a productive scientific life.
"Although the spacecraft will break into pieces during re-entry, not all of it will burn up in the atmosphere." That means it's going to fall to land or sea, and there is some risk, though it's extremely extremely small, that it will fall on you and kill you dead.
Real serious numbers now. Scientists have calculated that there is a 1 in 3,200 chance a piece will hit someone. And there is a 1 in 20 trillion chance that it will hits *you.*
Related NYT item here. My advice? Stay indoors and look at Boing Boing.
UPDATE: Orbital debris found!
[Shoop by Xeni.]
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posted Sep 23rd 2011 8:05AM 
In-app purchases via iTunes have apparently been failing in a big way for the last ten hours and app creators who depend on this heavily taxed income are getting antsy. We're hearing unconfirmed speculation that the problem may be connected to fake purchase receipts getting into the system. Whatever the cause, one developer told us the failure is "losing lots of sales" for apps that use receipt verification and is "threatening to more-or-less take down the entire IAP ecosystem." Seeing as Apple insists on this being the only route for in-app purchasing, they'd better fix it pretty darned quick. 
, in which Jobs is a central figure. 
By Brad Molen 
Is there still any lingering doubt that something big's getting cooked up in Overland Park in time for October 2nd? We've already seen leaked screenshots showing that Sprint's aiming to launch its CDMA-based Direct Connect service that day, as well as a Sprint-backed vid of the Motorola Admiral, the first smartphone to sport the new feature. Courtesy of SprintFeed, another gem has been unearthed: the Direct Connect-compatible Kyocera Duramax. Said to start at $100 with a two-year agreement, the rugged clamshell bears a great deal of resemblance to a large number of legacy iDEN handsets. It's nothing to write home about, but it still sports the proper military specs to keep it protected, as well as a 3 megapixel camera and a non-slip surface. Anyone who isn't looking for a smartphone but is in need of a Direct Connect device will want to keep a close eye on this one as we get closer to the day of destiny. Oh, and Sprint? The cat's out of the bag -- perhaps it's time to make it real.
LaHaine sez, "According to the first prognosis, the German Pirate Party has entered the state parliament of the city-state of Berlin with 8,5% of the votes, counting for 14 of a total of 149 seats." 
Math Girls is Hiroshi Yuki's immensely popular series of fiction and manga about math geeks ("Like Glee for math nerds"), and the stories themselves are a potted education in all sorts of mathematics. The first volume of Math Girls is to be published in English shortly by Bento Books, and they've posted a brief excerpt in PDF form. The site is short on actual details (publication date, ISBN, etc), but I'm looking forward to the book becoming reality nevertheless. 
For most of the last decade, Israeli soldiers have been making the transition back to civilian life after their compulsory military service by going on a drug-dazed recovery trip to India, where an invisible stream of modern global culture runs from the beaches of Goa to the mountains of Himachal Pradesh in the north. While most of the Israelis eventually return home after a year or so, many have stayed as permanent expat stewards of the stream. The Israeli military stream is changing course these days, and starting to flow through Thailand, where the same pattern of drug-use and conflict with the locals is being repeated. 
Seriously? If we don't let you into the club, it's now a form of cyberbullying? It makes you wonder what happened to these particular Senators when they were kids. 
In his new book Monsters in the Movies, out Monday, Landis explores a century of cinematic creatures, from the currently hot vampires and zombies to apes, genetic mutants, mad scientists, psychos and scary children. Scanning through the book, it's hard not to be taken by the evolution of how Hollywood monsters are created, from rudimentary make-up tricks to really slick technical feats. 
Yatzer discovered an exceptional two-piece collection by a fashion design student from the Berlin University of Arts; Alba Prat. Despite the fact that the particular work was limited in terms of quantity, one could see the potential of this particular designer. Her work involved two designs made in laser-cut, neoprene fabric, following clean lines and creating 3-D-like, cubic effects. The small collection took the name ''The Synthetic Oceans''. Today, Alba makes her much-expected step forward. She presents us with a larger collection of garments made for women, always stamped with her signature elements. Describing it in a few words, the collection features clean lines, sole colours and optical effects. Yet this time the collection takes the name ''Digitalized''. 
Signs and chants will likely call for an extension of the so-called millionaires' tax and a roll-back of state budget cuts. They will also likely show support for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's position that a proposed settlement between banks and attorneys general over troubled mortgage pools is too lenient. 
Update on a post from earlier this evening: The US Supreme Court has denied Troy Davis a stay of execution. 
As I've noted here before, Venkatesh Rao is a thought-provoking, profound thinker, and I always welcome his long, fascinating blog posts. When he sent me a copy of his slim book, Tempo, I was very excited to see it turn up in my mailbox. 
It ain't over till the LHC says so, which is why researchers at CERN are opening up their most recent OPERA experiment to the scientific community before officially releasing its findings. Why, you ask? Because the experiment could shatter one of the fundamentals of physics -- Einstein's theory of special relativity, which says nothing with mass can accelerate faster than the speed of light. While studying neutrino oscillations -- where particles shift from one type of subatomic particle (muon-neutrinos) to another (tau-neutrinos) -- scientists clocked a beam of muon-neutrinos outpacing the aforesaid ray of light by 60 nanoseconds. Calling the result "crazy," lead scientist Antonio Ereditato published the findings online, hoping to attract the attention of others who might shed some light on what it all means. We're not expecting a conclusive answer any time soon, but budding whiz-kids can get educated in the links below. 
[I]n 2008 Mark Boyle decided to try living for a year without money. His self-imposed rules were simple: he would close his bank account and not spend or receive money (including checks and credit cards). He would live off-grid—that meant he would produce his own energy for illumination, heat, food preparation, and communicating with the outside world. He sold his houseboat and used the proceeds (a few thousand dollars) to set things up. This included buying a $300 solar panel to keep his laptop and cell phone charged (he accepted incoming calls, which he could do without subscribing to a cell phone plan.) He obtained an old trailer for free from a woman who wanted to get rid of it. He made a deal with an organic farm to let him park the trailer on the land in exchange for a few hours work each day. He built a compost toilet near his trailer to harvest the “humanure” for his gardening needs. He set up a solar shower, which consisted of a black plastic bag and a rubber hose to bathe with. For heating the trailer he bought a wood-burning stove made from an upcycled propane tank, and for cooking he built a “rocket stove,” designed to produce high-heat using small pieces of wood. A bicycle provided transportation.