Scientists Say “The Mars Base” is a Cosmic Ray Glitch!

Bio Station AlphaDog gone! And here I thought we had found the secret Mars Base! But no, it is cosmic rays! Sounds almost as much fun!

Science once again kills our dreams, claiming ‘Bio Station Alpha’ is cosmic ray glitch

“Well, that was fun while it lasted.

Science has come galloping up wagging its finger and telling us all to stop believing, because it already knows what ‘Bio Station Alpha’ is.

For those that believe US amateur astronomer David Martines, Bio Station Alpha is some kind of building on Mars made up of cylinders and appears to be painted red, white and blue.

He saw it on Google Earth’s Mars explorer and his video of the discovery is about to hit the one million mark on YouTube.

The object, according to Mr Martines, is ‘about 700 feet long and 150 feet wide’.

‘It’s very unusual in that it’s quite large,’ he said yesterday.

‘It could be a power station or it could be a biological containment or it could be a glorified garage. I hope it’s not a weapon.’

According to a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona, it isn’t.

Alfred McEwen, who is also the director of the Planetary Imaging Research Laboratory and therefore should know a bit about this type of thing, says it’s a — wait for it — glitch.

‘It looks like a linear streak artifact produced by a cosmic ray,’ he told Space.com, probably somewhat gleefully.

Cosmic energy from the stars can interfere with a camera’s image sensor, depositing electric charges in pixels. If it hits at the right angle, it can affect several pixels in a row, forming a bright streak.

When it’s converted to a JPEG, it smears out and looks pixellated.

Kind of like ‘cylinders’.

Ah. Boo.

But if you want to get angry at someone, save it for Google. According to Mr McEwen, they should know this and identify the source of such images — which could come from any number of orbiters or telescopes — for the rest of us trying to solve the mysteries of the universe.

‘I can’t tell whether this image was taken by Viking or what,’ he told Space.com.

‘The people at Google need to document what the heck they’re doing.’

Here’s part of what Martines said during the video:

This is a video of something I discovered on Google Mars quite by accident. I call it Bio-station Alpha, because I’m just assuming that something lives in it or has lived in it. It’s very unusual in that it’s quite large, it’s over 700 feet long and 150 feet wide, it looks like it’s a cylinder or made up of cylinders. It could be a power station or it could be a biological containment or it could be a glorified garage – hope it’s not a weapon. Whoever put it up there had a purpose I’m sure. I couldn’t imagine what the purpose was. I couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to live on Mars. It could be a way-station for weary space travelers. It could also belong to NASA, I don’t know that they would admit that. I don’t know if they could pull off such a project without all the people seeing all the material going up there. I sort of doubt NASA has anything to do with this. I don’t know if NASA even knows about this.

Yeah.

My question is: “Could all this just be a lame cover-up?” And, where is my tin-foil hat anyway?!?

Some Are Saying Apple iCloud is the End of DropBox…

I don’t think so! Apple iCloud may be a “me to” copy of DropBox, but it is for Apple-only devices. DropBox is cross-platform! I can’t see existing DropBox users leaving them for iCloud!

“There is some overlap, but the two services aren’t really comparable; iCloud is primarily aimed at making iOS devices & iTunes more convenient,” said Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, in an e-mailed statement. “There’s a big world beyond Apple, and our users love that Dropbox works just as well with your Android phone or PC as with your iPad or iPhone.”

I’d say so! Whether I am on a Mac, Linux box, or my Windows systems, I can use DropBox. Even my JoliCloud Cloud client netbook has Dropbox on it. So, I’d say DropBox is safe!

Oracle Donates OpenOffice to Apache Foundation

So, Oracle finally gave up on OpenOffice. Good for them. I just wish it hadn’t been so long a process!

Oracle Donates OpenOffice.org Open-Source Project to Apache

“In a surprising move, Oracle hands over the source code for OpenOffice, the popular open-source office-productivity suite to its erstwhile adversary, Apache.

The open-source office-productivity suite OpenOffice has a surprising new home: Apache. There was some speculation Oracle might donate the project to the The Document Foundation, the group of developers that split from OpenOffice to launch LibreOffice last fall.

OpenOffice will join Apache Software Foundation as an ‘incubator’ project, Oracle said June 1. As an incubator project, OpenOffice must mature and prove its viability and sustainability before graduating to full project status. Oracle has assigned the trademark to Apache, as well.

‘The Apache Software foundation’s model makes it possible for commercial and individual volunteer contributors to collaborate on open-source product development,’ Oracle said.

Oracle had promised that it would fully relinquish control over the open-source project and donate it to the community April 15. The company also appears to be trying to silence its critics who claim the database giant is anti-open source. Donating the code to venerable Apache, home of the popular Apache Web Server, proves that Oracle is committed to the developer and open-source communities, the company said.

“Donating OpenOffice.org to Apache gives this popular consumer software a mature, open and well-established infrastructure to continue well into the future,” said Luke Kowalski, the vice-president of Oracle’s corporate architecture group.

The move was surprising, as Oracle and Apache have had a contentious relationship over another open-source project, Java. Oracle subpoenaed Apache as part of its lawsuit against Google for violating Java patents in the Android mobile operating system. Oracle also blocked Apache’s Project Harmony from getting a Java license, which resulted in Apache quitting the Java Community Process in protest.

IBM relies heavily on OpenOffice and the ODF (Open Document Format) for its own Lotus Symphony office suite. The company, which had been lobbying for Oracle to spin off Open Office in the first place, immediately welcomed Oracle’s decision.