Agree with your comments. There are many instances where cases of missing people and other similar events get no coverage. In fact the same week that she went missing, another went missing as well, and got no coverage (being mildly mentally disabled being a partial cause - i don't think they've found her yet). But then again, they then got coverage solely because they didn't...

I should have been clearer in my post. It is uncommon in Melboune (Australias 2nd largest city) for a female person to be raped and killed by a total stranger.

There were some news stories about the statistics at the time.

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

October 14 2012 18:29 GMT

#1662

Yarhj

24 Posts

October 14 2012 18:30 GMT

#1663

Note: The images are a bit large, so I've spoilered them. You know what to do.

This thread is a bit heavy on the poignant depressing side of things. It's certainly important to understand the consequences of wars, poverty, and general human failings, but it's also important to appreciate the things people can accomplish when they work together. Most of the pictures I've seen in this thread give the impression that the sum total of thousands of years of striving and struggling has been war, oppression, and strife, but that is not the whole story.

In the spirit of showing that the world isn't all bombs and wars and starvation, here are a few pictures from the recent Mars landing. I checked through all the pages since the landing and I only saw one Curiosity picture, but I may have missed some that were spoilered, so apologies if these are reposts.

+ Show Spoiler +

Original source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15980.html

The Curiosity mars lander on its way to Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter grabbed these shots as Curiosity was descending to the surface. The descent was complicated by the thin martian atmosphere -- too thick to simply descend with retro rockets, too thin to use parachutes all the way down. A compromise solution was implemented, where the lander deployed supersonic parachutes to slow itself to below the speed of sound, then used rockets to hover above the surface. The rover itself was winched down from the hovering platform, after which time the platform shot off in a different direction to avoid crashing on top of the rover.

This is the kind of stuff you expect Wile. E. Coyote to come up with, but it was the best way to get such a large payload to the surface of Mars. It worked, and now we have another robotic car driving around on another planet (ANOTHER PLANET).

+ Show Spoiler +

Here we have a hi-res image of the lander's heat shield, taken during atmospheric entry. The heat shield protected the rover from the intense heat generated as the whole assembly hurtled through the atmosphere. Once the lander slowed from 13000mph to about 1000mph the heat shield was jettisoned, the supersonic parachutes were deployed, and Curiosity immediately began snapping pictures.

Bear in mind that all of this is completely autonomous -- it takes about 7 minutes for a signal sent from Mars to get to us around here, so the lander had to coordinate the entire re-entry process on its own.

Ok I'm cheating a bit on this next one, but it's just too cool not to include. A few days after the landing, someone stitched all the still photos from the landing together into an HD video.
(Video) Curiosity Mars Landing

This next image comes from something that's happening right now. Felix Baumgartner has just landed after his record-breaking stratospheric jump. He set out to be the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall -- word isn't in yet on whether he actually broke the sound barrier, but it's an incredible feat nonetheless. I grabbed this image of him on his way out of the capsule, 38 kilometers above the surface of the earth.

+ Show Spoiler +

I'll leave you with some words that define, for me, the spirit of humanity.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Eisregen

Germany967 Posts

October 14 2012 20:50 GMT

#1664

Talking bout Baumgartner, I gotta add this here =)

[image loading]

B.I.G.

3251 Posts

October 14 2012 21:19 GMT

#1665

On October 08 2012 01:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote:

Show nested quote +

Very powerful photo, depressing what Iranian women are going through today as well. But I must also succumb to human nature and say that that photo is incredibly sexy.

Thats what makes it a good one

revel8

United Kingdom3022 Posts

October 14 2012 21:24 GMT

#1666

On October 15 2012 05:50 Eisregen wrote:
Talking bout Baumgartner, I gotta add this here =)

[image loading]

Wow, paparrazi get everywhere! ;+D

tw!tch

United States563 Posts

October 14 2012 21:55 GMT

#1667

Thanks for the lander details Yarhj! Very cool.

MountainDewJunkie

United States10344 Posts

October 14 2012 22:06 GMT

#1668

That walk is strange... what exactly are they supporting? That they're angry a girl was raped and killed? What do they think walking will accomplish? It won't deter future rapes and killings... Would so many people walk for this?

It's amazing what people in the first world will march for, and what they won't.

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

October 15 2012 21:30 GMT

#1669

A Syrian man cries while holding the body of his son near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Syria, on October 3, 2012.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, second from right, confronts Soviet delegate Valerian Zorin, first on left, with a display of reconnaissance photographs during emergency session of the U.N. Security Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York, on October 25, 1962.

A composite image of three photograph taken on October 23, 1962, during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis. From left, Soviet foreign deputy minister Valerian A. Zorin; Cuba's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mario Garcia-Inchaustegui; and U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson.

Manit0u

Poland17432 Posts

October 17 2012 19:27 GMT

#1670

KeZtRaL

United States21 Posts

October 18 2012 02:09 GMT

#1671

Iraning hostage crisis. Lasted 444 days before the people there were released from being blindfolded and shot at with blanks nearly every day. Great movie ARGO just came out about this. Should really check it CLICK ME FOR INFO

TapetalKarma

United States127 Posts

October 19 2012 16:18 GMT

#1672

i like all the warnings people have gotten for trying to lighten the mood or even a guy warned for putting a sad face in response to a sad picture
and just wait im about to get one too because im complaining on how the mods do thing.. ohhh noo =[

User was temp banned for this post.

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

October 19 2012 21:15 GMT

#1673

10th Gurkhas during the Battle of Imphal.

Probe1

United States17920 Posts

October 19 2012 21:27 GMT

#1674

A Hamas militant holds a weapon during a march in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, marking the anniversary of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, October 18, 2012. Last year, Israel freed more than 1,000 jailed Palestinians in a swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Clarity_nl

Netherlands6826 Posts

October 19 2012 21:33 GMT

#1675

On October 11 2012 15:44 Tewks44 wrote:
One of the wonders of the modern world

[image loading]

Although it is nearly (if not entirely) impossible to map the entire Internet, this is a fairly complete image of what we would describe as "the Internet." It is color coded based on who manages certain hubs. The giants such as AT&T and Google are yellow, while less popular providers are red/orange.

Would you happen to have a source? Thanks!