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Gears of War III has already been inadvertently revealed, but that’s not the only game Epic Games has up its figurative sleeve. The other one, revealed by the cover of Game Informer, is a new shooter called Bulletstorm.

These photos were taken at Cape Point, one of the southernmost points of Africa (the actual honour belong to Cape Agulhas several miles to the east). This area is periodically wracked with strong winds and so it was when we visited. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop these kamikaze cormorants from trying to fly among the turbulent waters.

We found these cormorants at a different location – the pier to Robben Island, the infamous prison island where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were kept.

By most accounts, this year’s notorious Floatopia beach party in Santa Barbara was a little less wild this year thanks to a crackdown by authorities.

The annual event drew hundreds if not thousands of college students and young people, and the alcohol was apparently flowing, according to reports. But there were fewer problems, authorities said.

This year, authorities barricaded beach access points in the area — but KTLA News reported that revelers found other ways to the beach.

Last year, deputies handed out 78 citations for alcohol-related crimes and
made 13 arrests. Thirty-three participants
required hospital treatment for alcohol poisoning, heat exposure and
cuts. Two of them toppled off the bluffs that border the beach.

Started about five years ago with several hundred people drinking just
offshore on rubber rafts and inner tubes, the celebration has been a
barely planned rite of spring, with no formal sponsor, security or
provisions for emergency aid. It has inspired similar events, most
notably in San Diego.

In Santa Barbara, the 2009 edition was
bigger — and, to county officials, more environmentally damaging —
than before: "Without restroom facilities, many attendees simply used
the ocean, creating a large concentration of human waste that
threatened sea life," according to a statement from the Sheriff’s Department.

— Shelby Grad

Photo credit: KTLA

[JURIST] The US District Court for the District of Columbia late last week made public two previously unreleased rulings relating to habeas corpus claims by Guantanamo detainees. In a decision ordering the release of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Judge James Robertson held that the government had to release Slahi because it was unable to prove that he was part of, or provided support to, al-Qaeda at the time of his capture. Applying a test articulated by Judge John Bates in Hamlily v. Obama, which limited the detention of terrorism suspects who are not actual members of terrorist groups under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), and rejected the Obama administration’s “substantial support” standard, Robertson explained: habeas court may not permit a man to be held indefinitely upon suspicion, or because of the government’s prediction that he may do unlawful acts in the future – any more than a habeas court may rely upon its prediction that a man will not be dangerous in the future and order his release if he was lawfully detained in the first place. The question … was whether, at the time of his capture, was “part of” al-Qada. On the record before me, I cannot find that he was. The government plans to appeal the decision. On Thursday, the court released the decision of another judge in the habeas petition of Guantanamo detainee Muktar Yahya Najee al Warafi. The court rejected Warafi’s claim that his detention violated the AUMF and Article 24 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The court found that the government did have enough proof to hold him under the AUMF, and that the Geneva Conventions may not be invoked in a habeas proceeding. Also on Thursday, a third district court judge rejected the habeas petition of Yasin Qasem Muhammad Ismail, but the full decision has yet to be released.
The court originally ordered the release of Slahi in March. Slahi was once considered a key al-Qaeda leader and prosecutors had sought the death penalty against him. A prominent government prosecutor stepped down from the case because he did not support the alleged abusive treatment used against Slahi, which was investigated in a 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report. Last May, Judge Gladys Kessler applied the “substantially supported” standard for reviewing habeas petitions filed by detainees, making no reference to the “enemy combatant” classification used previously. Last April, Judge Reggie Walton adopted the “substantially supported” standard for authorizing and reviewing the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.

People here say much of Poland is still in shock about the tragedy that killed the country’s President, and the delegation accompanying him to a solemn ceremony in Katyn Forest.  The President and delegates had intended to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, in which more than 22,000 Polish officers, intelligentsia and others were killed by the Soviets, in an act that Moscow blamed the Nazis for, until the last decade of the last century.

The streets leading to the Presidential Palace are jammed with traffic, uncharacteristic for a Sunday, as people move to seek news and share grief.  The area outside the Palace is a sea of people, lighting candles, laying flowers, writing notes.  It is difficult to physically maneuver anywhere near the Palace. 

People carry flags.  There is a sense of a nation seeking unity and the comfort of others at a time of intense national loss.

The country observed two minutes of silence in honor of the dead, at midday.  The Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski and other government officials marked the silence outside the Parliament building.

Seeing the photographs of the dead lined up outside the Parliament is moving.  They are mostly official portraits of those who died, some smiling, some looking powerful, some hopeful, others just looking straight out., towards the lens. Men and women.  Young and old.  Looking at each individual picture really registers the magnitude of the catastrophe, and humanizes it.

I spoke with Waldemar Strzalkowski, an aide to the Acting President.  He organized the delegation from the Parliament that traveled on the tragic flight to Smolensk, Russia, near Katyn.

He describe his sorrow and the great loss to Poland, as so many  millions of people had cast votes for those who died.  He called the Poles a spiritual people, and said he expected them to come together now, and during the upcoming elections, brought forward by the tragedy.

More than one person here has said that Russia’s response to the catastrophe has been admirable, including Prime Minister Putin’s expressions of shared grief.  There was some speculation that the fact that the plane crashed in Russia, near a place where Soviets massacred Poles 70 years ago, would spark suspicions or reverse some of the work toward reconciliation that had been done.  That appears to have not happened at all.  Someone even said Polish-Russian relations were always shaped by the Katyn Massacre, in a very negative way.  This tragedy at Katyn and the Russian response to it may, in some way, shape Polish-Russian relations going forward, in a positive light, as two countries together share sorrow.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell issued condolences Sunday in both English and Polish following the deaths of the Polish president, his wife, and 95 others in a crash in heavy fog in Russia.

“The unspeakable loss for the people of Poland resonates with us all,” Rell said in a statement. “On behalf of Connecticut, I extend our deepest sympathies and prayers. Our state is very fortunate to have a vibrant Polish-American community, one that greatly contributes to the rich fabric of Connecticut and one that is in deep mourning today. We share in their profound grief.”
 
“Nasze  mysli i  modlitwy  sa  z  calym  Polskim  narodem  i  Polonia  w  USA  podczas  tego smutnego  i  ciezkiego  czasu. (Our thoughts and prayers are with the Polish community in Poland and the U.S. at this sad and difficult time).”                               

Filed under: Government/Legal, Recalls, Safety, Toyota

Automotive News reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could hit Toyota with another fine on top of the $16.4 million levied last week. As for that most recent fine, turns out that it could have been as much as $13.8 billion, based on Toyota having to pay a fine on each of the 2.3 million cars recalled. A statute, however, limits the amount to the one imposed.

NHTSA isunhappy about the timelines it’s putting together of events concerning Toyota’s pedal defects. The agency is also miffed about the recent revelation that a Japanese Toyota executive sent a letter last October ordering that engineering changes to accelerator pedals not be carried out in America, even though they were being made in other countries. For the time being, though, Toyota hasn’t yet confirmed whether it’ll will contest the first fine, and it’s clear what the possible second fine is meant to address. If all the involved parties would just get everything on the table, we might have a chance of wrapping this up in 2010.

[Source: Automotive News – sub req’d]

Report: Toyota pedal recall delay could spur new NHTSA fine originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Los Angeles Police Department is looking for a suspect who allegedly shot a woman Saturday night in Silver Lake.

The shooting occurred at 2375 Glendale Blvd. around 9:45 p.m. According to the LAPD, the victim, 32, and two other people were walking to their cars when the suspect approached them and tried to steal her purse.

Some type of altercation occurred, and the suspect fired one or two shots. The victim was hit in the arm and rushed to a nearly hospital. Her injury is not life threatening, authorities said.

The suspect fled and is still at large. He was last seen in the Silver Lake area wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt.

— Shelby Grad

Tom Toles cartoon today is about the other “Safety Warnings” we are ignoring about coal:

Unrestricted burning of fossil fuels just isn’t good for anyone’s safety (see “NRC: Burning fossil fuels costs the U.S. $120 billion a year — not counting mercury or climate impacts!“)

There has been a rumor around the Android world that the Droid Eris will be replaced by the HTC Incredible. This new screenshot seems to add fuel to the flame. If this screen is real then the Eris will stop being sold and supported in late May.

This is certainly bad news for everyone who recently purchased an Eris, if you are looking into getting one in the near future I would advise against it. Although, HTC themselves may decide to keep pushing updates to it and if not, there are some great devs that will surely continue to make custom ROM’s for it. On the bright side, those of you that have been waiting for the Incredible, it should be out within the next month.

[via berryscoop]

Working with the social investment group FEMSA, the government of Chiapas, Mexico is introducing sustainable disinfection technology to 175 local water systems, in support of the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals partnership to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease.  The new systems will be installed by MIOX Corp., a water treatment company that specializes in producing disinfection chemicals on site from salt, water and electricity rather than going the conventional route of trucking in supplies of chlorine.

By ditching chlorine shipments, the MIOX system significantly reduces the carbon footprint of transportation and  fuel consumption.  As for an overall improvement in sustainability, a few tweaks in the system could make an enormous difference.

(more…)

Julia Sugarbaker has gone away to the Great Interior Design Studio in the Sky……Actress Dixie Carter, who played an outspoken liberal on the ’80s sitcom Designing Women and in recent years received an Emmy nomination for a guest role on Desperate Housewives, has died. She was 70.

No info on the details about the time, place, and cause of Dixie’s passing over the weekend, but her husband of 25 years describes the loss as devastating.

“This has been a terrible blow to our family,” actor Hal Holbrook, 85, told Entertainment Tonight on Saturday. “We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy.”

Designing Women ran on CBS for seven seasons after debuting in 1986. The hit show — which featured Delta Burke and Meshach Taylor, and tackled tough issues like ageism, AIDS, and body image — revolved around the lives of four women and a man at an interior design firm in Atlanta. The Tennessee-born actress portrayed the tough-tongued Julia Sugarbaker, an advocate of liberal causes and women’s rights. Holbrook appeared on the show regularly in the late 1980s as Carter’s on-screen boyfriend, Reese Watson.

She also appeared on the final season of the 1980s sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. In 2007, Carter received an Emmy nomination for her guest role as the devious mother-in-law of Bree Hodge on ABC’s Desperate Housewives.

Indiana University researchers use carbon in the form of graphene to develop inexpensive solar cells. Their research will continue to refine the prototypes focusing on the cell efficiency. …

… “Li and his collaborators tried a different idea. By attaching a semi-rigid, semi-flexible, three-dimensional sidegroup to the sides of the graphene, they were able to keep graphene sheets as big as 168 carbon atoms from adhering to one another. With this method, they could make the graphene sheets from smaller molecules (bottom-up) so that they are uniform in size. To the scientists’ knowledge, it is the biggest stable graphene sheet ever made with the bottom-up approach. ” …

Via Indiana University: Carbon-based solar cell

Solar Cell Chemistry Research: “For this aspect of our research, concepts developed in supramolecular chemistry will be used to direct nanocrystal interactions and their consequent assembly. ”