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Comment Re:Begs the questions... (Score 2) 148

by king_grumpy (#41226729) Attached to: Australian Attorney General Pushes Ahead With Gov't Web Snooping
The last election was extremely close and current government only got into power by making deals with independent and green (earth first not alien) politicians. Personally, I think it was the lack of a decent choice that lead to such a close vote. Neither party had any stand out policies or direction.

Comment Re:Solar (Score 2) 184

by king_grumpy (#41040811) Attached to: How To Line a Thermonuclear Reactor

But that's not going to happen because of the politics of shrill earth-firsters and others who don't understand nuclear and who think that every nuclear plant is Fukushima or Chernobyl.

Ensuring that greed doesn't ruin the planet for my grandkids is what keeps me wary of a nuclear answer for our energy needs. I'm sure there are safe ways to store waste so that in 100 years it hasn't leaked and trashed the environment. I'm also sure these ways cost more money than something that barely does the job but keeps the company profits growing year on year and allows the executives to pocket huge bonuses.

Comment Re:All for competitions (Score 1) 75

by king_grumpy (#39649795) Attached to: Expect a Flood of Competitions As US Tries To Spur Public Inventions

Patents are a non-issue unless you plan on commercializing a solution, and if that is the case, you (or the government) could license what is needed.

How do you find out which patents you've touched upon without paying for lawyers? How do you find the money to license said patents before you've made any money from your product?
Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Macintosh Trojan Infects 50 Systems (symantec.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dr. Web says 600,000 Macs have been infected by the Flashback Trojan — but Symantec says less than 50 systems as of April 6th. Who's telling the truth? Is Dr. Web just trying to garner media attention?
Technology

Submission + - 2014: The Year of the 20 MPH Elevator? (popsci.com)

Submitted by Cazekiel
Cazekiel writes: If you're susceptible to motion-sickness, you'd best avoid the 2,000-foot-high Shanghai Tower in China after 2014. The ear-popping technology has been developed by Mitsubishi Electric; illustrations of the components (including an 'emergency brake' that more than likely makes you become one with the ceiling if pulled) can be seen here. According to the article, the basement-to-the top, 1,850 foot journey is made in less than a minute. No word yet as to whether it will provide riders with seat-belts and vomit-bags.
Facebook

Submission + - Here's What Facebook Sends The Cops In Response To A Subpoena

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook already shares its Law Enforcement Guidelines publicly, but we’ve never actually seen the data Menlo Park sends over to the cops when it gets a formal subpoena for your profile information. Now we know. This appears to be the first time we get to see what a Facebook account report looks like.

The document was released by the The Boston Phoenix as part of a lengthy feature titled "Hunting the Craigslist Killer," which describes how an online investigation helped officials track down Philip Markoff. The man committed suicide, which meant the police didn’t care if the Facebook document was published elsewhere, after robbing two women and murdering a third.
Idle

Submission + - Just thinking women are nearby makes men dumber (gizmodo.co.uk)

Submitted by Spafticus
Spafticus writes: A study from Radboud University in the Netherlands suggests that men start faltering and exhibit a decline in mental performance as soon as they anticipate interacting with women. Interestingly, though, women face no such problems
Google

Submission + - DARPA director leaving the Pentagon for Google (rt.com) 1

Submitted by
SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: "One of the most top-secret Pentagon departments — the same that spawned America’s drones, military robots, electromagnetic guns and other sci-fi weaponry — is about to lose its top officer to Google.

Regina Dugan oversaw the development of some of the US military’s most marvelous high tech accomplishments as director of Darpa, but the head of the DoD’s research lab is parting ways with the Pentagon to take on a role with Google. Not even three years after she took on the role as the first female director of the America’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, Regina Dugan is now walking away to join the ranks of America’s other innovative powerhouse. Dugan will be relinquishing her top roll at the Defense Department’s Darpa program and trading in the Potomac River for Silicon Valley, and says it is a natural decision to move somewhere where the possibilities seem endless. Apparently within the cogs of the war machine, there is only so much left to explore."
Security

Submission + - The Consortium Hacks Porn Site (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Consortium is a new hacktivist group. It has introduced itself to the world by hacking the pornography website Digital Playground (NSFW). The Consortium stole 40,000 plain-text financial credentials (credit card numbers, names, CCV numbers, and expiration dates) as well as the personal information (e-mail addresses, usernames, and passwords) of 72,000 users. Last but not least, they gained root access to four of the site’s servers, which further let them access corporate e-mails, and listened in on the company’s conference calls.
Games

Submission + - Ten Computer Games Which Defined RPGs In The 1980s

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: 1980s' were huge for RPGs. This genre was one of the most defining game forms in the computer gaming world. A recently pubished article strolls down the memory lane to look back at ten classic computer games that both defined and extended the definition of the RPG in the 1980s. The roundup includes some obvious ones like Ultima and The Bard's Tale, and others which you may never have heard of.
Japan

Submission + - Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Martin Fackler writes that Japan’s nuclear regulators say that the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 45-foot tsunami that knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were far larger than anything that scientists had predicted, but some insiders from Japan’s tightly knit nuclear industry have stepped forward to say that Tepco and regulators had for years ignored warnings of the possibility of a larger-than-expected tsunami in northeastern Japan, and thus failed to take adequate countermeasures, such as raising wave walls or placing backup generators on higher ground. “March 11 exposed the true nature of Japan’s postwar system, that it is led by bureaucrats who stand on the side of industry, not the people,” says Shigeaki Koga, a former director of industrial policy at the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry. Eight years ago, as a member of an influential cabinet office committee on offshore earthquakes in northeastern Japan, Kunihiko Shimazaki, professor emeritus of seismology at the University of Tokyo, warned that Fukushima’s coast was vulnerable to tsunamis more than twice as tall as the forecasts of up to 17 feet put forth by regulators and Tepco but government bureaucrats running the committee moved quickly to exclude his views from debate as too speculative and “pending further research.” Then in 2008, Tepco's own engineers made three separate sets of calculations that showed that Fukushima Daiichi could be hit by tsunamis as high as 50 feet. “They completely ignored me in order to save Tepco money," says Shimazaki."

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