We The Lobby →

A crowd-sourced effort by common people to entice Congress the same way that corporations do: monetary compensation. Even assuming it doesn’t work in a direct way to help convince Congress to drop SOPA/PIPA outright, it does point out the absurdity of treating corporations as people.

NYT: Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? →

This has an obvious answer… [via MeFi]

"Broadening its challenge to the United States, the Chinese government on Thursday announced an ambitious five-year plan for space exploration that would move China closer to becoming a major rival at a time when the American program is in retreat."

NYT: China Unveils Ambitious Plan to Explore Space.

Mother Jones: OWS Occupies Movie-Set Replica of Itself, for Real →

Best part: it was a Law & Order set.

View high resolution

Explains why the MIT time-travelers’ conference lack of turnout was so disappointing. [at Letters of Note: Stephen Hawking on Time Travel]

Time-lapse video of the Earth shot from the International Space Station over the course of a couple of months. Pretty incredible. [via kottke.org]

explore: Polar Bears Webcam →

In the fall, polar bears apparently wait at the southwestern edge of Hudson Bay (the Canadian one) for it to freeze over. This is a webcam of that area. Sweet idea. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a polar bear yet, even though I think I am watching during peak viewing hours… [via io9]

"Arvind Kejriwal, Hazare’s top deputy, told me, “Gandhi said that whenever you do any protests, your demands should be very clear, and it should be very clear who is the authority who can fulfill that demand, so your protests should be directed at that authority.” If your movement lacks leadership at first, that is not necessarily a problem, he added, “because often leaders evolve. But the demands have to be very clear.” A sense of injustice and widening income gaps brought Occupy Wall Street into the street, “but exactly what needs to be done, which law needs to be changed and who are they demanding that from?” asked Kejriwal. “These things have to be answered quickly."

NYT: India and America, Two Peas in a Pod. Kejrival has hit upon what I think is the core weakness of the Occupy movement in the eyes of many: we don’t know what they are protesting for and whom they are protesting to about it.

Explosive Breach of Condit Dam (by Andy Maser). Somehow, I was more struck by what happened upstream of the dam… [via kottke.org]

View high resolution

SF Signal: Navigating NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books original. Amusing

VOA: Scientists Disarm AIDS Virus’ Attack on Immune System →

Still in the laboratory but the researchers seem to have found more information about the virus. Promising. [via Slashdot]

Reuters: Particles found to break speed of light →

Neutrinos were the particles going faster than the speed of light. If this study is confirmed as being properly executed, it would be quite a break from our current Einsteinian understanding of the universe… Exciting.

Shorpy's: Morningside Park 1904 →

The Conversation: Diamond planets, climate change and the scientific method →

Author is one of the co-discoverers of the diamond planet around a pulsar. He notes how different the reaction has been to his discovery of a diamond planet in comparison to how climatologists’ discoveries are received by the media. Sad.

Techdirt: EU Officially Seizes The Public Domain, Retroactively Extends Copyright →