"It's probably the case that in 50 years, technology will be so seamless, we won't really notice it," Google's Executive Chairman explains.…
 Reuters Top News (@Reuters)6/30/12 1:06 PM Video: Robot developed in Japan never loses when playing "Rock, Paper, Scissors" against a human reut.rs/LGY0qp |
The Earth's "sloshing molten core" is one of the reasons given by some for the non-uniform slowing down (oh oh) of said Earth's rotation, resulting in the need for a leap second — that's right, one extra second added to the last minute of June, which is tonight. This very night.
So how are you going to spend your extra second?
Leap Second on Saturday Will Cause 61-Second Minute | Space.com
…try preparing a seconds pendulum by hanging a small weight on a string about 39.1 inches (99.3 centimeters) long. Adjust the string length beforehand until the swings exactly match the time signal ticks. If the beeps denoting the start of each minute occur at the left extreme of a swing before the final (UTC) minute of June, they will be heard at the right extremes thereafter. (Although the swing amplitude will be steadily dying down, this does not affect a free pendulum's oscillation period.)
Or, you could just tuck in and get an extra second of sleep. How geeky are you, anyway?
Mathematicians produce their best work at about the same time they produce their children…
Dyson, Turing's Cathedral
The fact is that we've never heavily relied on Persian Gulf oil, and if we had chosen to, we could have cut Middle East imports to zero based solely on our drop in consumption over the past few years. Far from trying to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, we've made a conscious decision to keep buying it.
Mother Jones
The trouble started early for CNN. Congressional correspondent Kate Boulduan read out part of the Court's ruling, which said that the individual mandate could not be upheld using the Commerce Clause. Disastrously, though, it failed to pick up the other part of the ruling, which said that it could be upheld as a tax.
HuffPo
"The Romney message is that he is the amorphous economic messiah come to save us all from the flailing of the inexperienced and ineffectual president. He can create jobs and make the economy grow, somehow. He can cut government spending and cut taxes, somehow. He can fix immigration and education, somehow. He can do a better job of dealing with the healthcare system and our entitlement programs, somehow.
But how, specifically? Just make him president and all will be revealed, too late for voters to rebel, leaving time only for regret. That is the Romney strategy: Obfuscate and delay. Stay loose and elusive. Hide in the fog until the search party passes."
Prince Charles is paying tens of thousands of pounds a year for Kate Middleton's glamorous outfits.
From the Daily Beast
"The biggest oil spill you've never heard of"
Water from the usually tame creek had inundated his yard, the way it often did after heavy rains. But this time a black goo coated swaths of his golf course-green grass. It stopped just 10 feet from the metal cap that marked his drinking water well. Walking on the tarry mess was like stepping on chewing gum.
The law isn't popular -- because, inexplicably, the administration has made no effort to sell it.
Atlantic
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday ripped President Obama’s new deportation directive when he offered his minority opinion on the Arizona immigration ruling.…
…Scalia questioned the administration’s motives, arguing that it didn’t make sense for the U.S. to sue to prevent a state from implementing partial immigration reform, while unilaterally enforcing another set of partial reforms.
“But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforceing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind,” Scalia wrote.…
The Hill
What was outrageous under a Republican has become executive branch business-as-usual under a Democrat.
