Since the bombings in Kuta last year, poverty has increased in Bali, forcing many people into the sex trade. Now comes word that Australian pedophiles are heading to Bali because of lax enforcement and police willing to accept bribes. And so the children become unplanned victims of terrorists.

I really like checking out these treasure troves on the internet; little code snippets and applets that demonstrate techniques and concepts.

Math and Physics Applets – a fascinating collection of Java applets
blprnt.com – examples of Flash programming, very cool stuff
Maestro Headquarters – speaking of Java, here’s the software JPL is using to control the rover on Mars.

This is pretty cool, but very large: Maas Digital MER Animation (medium)

The history of @-sign in case anybody was curious.

So we are going to the moon and then to Mars? Great, another colossal sinkhole for taxpayer money.

Don’t get me wrong, I think space exploration is a worthy and noble goal. But unmanned probes do a great job at far less cost than lofting human astronauts into the great beyond. Let’s just face facts; outer space is a nasty place, inimical to human life. To keep our frail bodies alive in space requires massive amounts of shielding and storage for food, water and air. But robots excel at such dangerous missions and require no food, water or air and far less radiation shielding. And if the robot probe is destroyed it is regrettable, but no human lives are lost in a foolhardy endeavors.

And perhaps we should get our own house in order before we start despoiling alien worlds with our pollution and trash. So many things are wrong with our planet right now, I’d rather focus the money and energy on resolving those minor problems like overpopulation, starvation, poverty, AIDS, global warming, deforestation, mass extinction of species, pollution and the threat of nuclear annihilation. These are all tough, unglamorous problems, but if we get our ducks in a row here on Earth, then lets go to the moon. Until then, let’s keep tossing up these affordable robot probes to explore the far reaches of our solar system. There’s no hurry, the universe isn’t going anywhere soon. It will still be there when we are ready to leave our planetary confines.

A local family came to the rescue when 100 baby turtles waddled inland in Inarajan Wednesday evening. The collected the turtles and released them into the ocean after the critters got confused by their garage lights.