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Comment Re:more importantly... (Score 1) 63

Yes it can, but only temporarily. Severed limbs still have living cells in them. Applying an electric charge to them *will* make them move, although this process uses the existing neural pathways to deliver the charge (similar to how the body does it). These pathways run out of steam pretty quickly though, so it'd probably only work for a few minutes after the limb was removed.

Comment Re:Speaking from a Recent BuckyBalls Customer (Score 2, Informative) 475

Playing the devil's advocate here, the flaking that you're experiencing will happen with all Neodymium Iron Boron magnets with nickel platting. The underlying metals are highly brittle, which means that continuous clacking together will eventually break off small pieces of the NdFeB under the nickel coating. This metal sand will no longer support the shape of the original coating, leading to warping, weakening, and eventually flaking of the nickel coating. The only thing that really determines the endurance is the depth of the coating, and Zen makes no claims that the depth of their coating is better (only that it's more shiny and possibly more uniform).
As a disclaimer, I have not owned either zen or buckyball's magnets (although it's very possible that I've gotten magnets from the same supplier). I'm just a fan of the NdFeB magnets and have a moderate-large amount of experience with them.

Comment Re:Pigeon bandwidth is high (Score 2, Interesting) 298

LTO tapes aren't your best choice for data density anymore. Right now your most dense LTO drive can store 1.5TB, whereas your most dense microSD card can store 32GB.
MicroSD Cards => .0014m * .032m * .024m = 0.000001075m^3 =>32GB / 1.075 * 10^-6m^3 = 2.98 * 10^7 GB/m^3
LTO Drive => .102m * .1054m * .0215m = 0.000231142m^3 => 1536GB / 2.31142 * 10^-4m^3 = 6.65 * 10^6 GB/m^3

Comment Smart (Score 2, Interesting) 204

If the "grade insurance" option isn't used much, it looks like a good way to get college kids to work. Direct monetary benefit was one of the reasons my GPA shot up my Junior and Senior year (I had a job that payed me more for better grades).
Math

Possible Issues With the P != NP Proof 147

An anonymous reader writes "We previously discussed news that Vinay Deolalikar, a Principal Research Scientist at HP Labs, wrote a paper that claimed to prove P is not equal to NP. Dick Lipton, a Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech, analyzed the idea of the proof on his blog. In a recent post, he explains that there have been many serious objections raised about the proof. The post summarizes the issues that need to be answered in any subsequent development, and additional concerns are raised in the comment section."

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