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Man Builds Fully-Functional Boeing 737 Flight Simulator In His Son's Bedroom 128

Posted by samzenpus from the those-magnificent-men-in-their-flying-machines dept.
laejoh writes "An aeroplane enthusiast has taken his obsession a step further than most after using his son's bedroom to build a Boeing 737 flight simulator that exactly mimics the real thing. Laurent Aigon, 40, from Lacanau in France, has spent the last five years collecting and buying components from around the world with best friend and fellow enthusiast (obviously) Jean-Paul Dupuy. The pair spent thousands of euros on internet orders for bits and pieces to construct the simulator – which is so realistic that the Institute of Aircraft Maintenance at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport asked him to give a lecture on his achievement. Mr Aigon has since schooled himself in all the procedures for take off and landing and says he is able to fly his 'plane' just like a real-life pilot."
Science

Physicists Attempting To Test 'Time Crystals' 231

Posted by Soulskill from the where's-The-Doctor-when-you-need-him dept.
ceview writes "This story at Wired seems to have lots of people a bit confused: 'In February 2012, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek decided to go public with a strange and, he worried, somewhat embarrassing idea. Impossible as it seemed, Wilczek had developed an apparent proof of "time crystals" — physical structures that move in a repeating pattern, like minute hands rounding clocks, without expending energy or ever winding down. ... [A] Berkeley-led team will attempt to build a time crystal by injecting 100 calcium ions into a small chamber surrounded by electrodes. The electric field generated by the electrodes will corral the ions in a "trap" 100 microns wide, or roughly the width of a human hair. The scientists must precisely calibrate the electrodes to smooth out the field. Because like charges repel, the ions will space themselves evenly around the outer edge of the trap, forming a crystalline ring.' The experimental set up is incredibly delicate (Bose Einstein Condensate), so it implies this perpetual motion effect can't really be used to extract energy. What is your take on it? It's unlike to upend anything, as the article suggests, because at a quantum level things behave weirdly at the best of times. The heavy details are available at the arXiv."
Science

Is Non-Prescription ADHD Medication Use Ever Ethical? 487

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the there-go-your-tour-de-college-titles dept.
derekmead writes "College students' voracious appetite for study drugs like Adderall is widespread enough that it was one of the main topics of a marquee lecture on neuroethics at Society for Neuroscience's 2012 conference called 'The Impact of Neuroscience on Society: The Neuroethics of "Smart Drugs."' It was excellent stuff by Barbara Sahakian, faculty at Department of Psychicatry at the University of Cambridge. Her focus is on prescription drugs for diseases and conditions like Alzheimer's, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression, with the fundamental goal of understanding the neural basis of dysfunction to develop better drugs. Specifically, she wants to create drugs with no risk for substance abuse which means drugs that have no effect on dopamine. The true goal then of her research, fundamentally and briefly, is to repair the impaired. But doing so brings us to the discussion of how much repair is ethical when the repair can be disseminated to people who don't actually need it. Divisions abound on what is to be done. Some experts say that if people can boost their abilities to make up for what mother nature didn't give them, what's wrong with that? Others say that people shouldn't be using these drugs because they're designed for people with serious problems who really need help. So another question for the ethicists is whether cognitive enhancers will ultimately level the playing field or juice the opposing team."

Comment Re:Don't try (Score 1) 726

by Epsilon Moonshade (#40394081) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Science-Fiction/Fantasy For Kids?

I'm a bit late on this, but something he should keep in mind is that the Lucky Starr books are a bit dated in their science. I'm not sure if you're going for "fun read" or "get the kid into genuine science," but there are parts of some of them that are flat-out wrong.

"Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus" is the most obviously incorrect one, but I seem to recall that the original one ("Lucky Starr - Space Ranger") got some things wrong as well. Just something to keep in mind - a lot of Asimov's stuff has aged extremely well, but that particular series didn't.

Also, the pen name was Paul French - but the volume I have also has Asimov's name on it.

Comment This has been known for years... (Score 1) 307

by Epsilon Moonshade (#38211474) Attached to: Study Hints That Wi-Fi Near Testes Could Decrease Male Fertility

... as a rumor, at least.

I worked with high-power RF in the military for 5 years, and it was "common knowledge" that the SHF curse was alive and well. Men who worked with the radios had the "curse" of only having female children when they had kids at all. As such, I'm totally unsurprised at reading this.
Microsoft

Microsoft Killing Silverlight? 324

Posted by samzenpus from the so-long-farewell-Auf-wiedersehen-goodbye dept.
SharkLaser writes "Silverlight 5 might be last version released by Microsoft. Several industry insiders and partners for the last few weeks have heard from their own Microsoft sources that there won't be new versions released after Silverlight 5. Status on service packs and support for Silverlight is unclear, as Microsoft haven't yet released lifecycle support end date even for the previous Silverlight 4. By their support page they will give full year head-up before ending support. With Adobe ending development of Flash for mobile browsers and Microsoft ending development of Silverlight, HTML5 video looks a lot more promising. But will content providers be able to give out their material without DRM and how does HTML5 perform with non-video side of Flash and Silverlight?"

Comment Re:Wouldn't that take a lot from the game? (Score 1) 141

by Epsilon Moonshade (#37698998) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Project Scope For MLB Robot Umpires?

I'm just imagining Lou Piniella shouting at a robot umpire, taking off his cap, throwing it on the ground at the robot's feet, picking up a base, throwing it down the right field line, picking up the robot ump, carrying it with him, throwing the base some more, and repeating.

... it's funny, but it doesn't quite have the same impact.
The Internet

US Intelligence Mining Your Social Network Data 240

Posted by samzenpus from the government-friend-list dept.
bs0d3 writes "U.S. Intelligence has hired social scientists to mine the vast resources of the Internet — Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones. They intend to use this info to track sociological laws of human behavior — enabling them to predict political crises, revolutions and other forms of social and economic instability. Privacy advocates are deeply skeptical of the project, saying it reminds them of Total Information Awareness, a 9/11 Pentagon program that proposed hunting for potential attackers by identifying patterns in vast collections of public and private data: telephone calling records, e-mail, travel data, visa and passport information, and credit card transactions. In a recent budget proposal, the defense agency argues that its analysis can expose terrorist cells and other groups by tracking their meetings, rehearsals and sharing of material and money transfers."
DRM

Submission + - Capcom announces unreplayable game (dvice.com) 3

Submitted by Hatta
Hatta writes: Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D for the Nintendo 3DS will be an experience that can be completed once per customer. Using a single, unwipable save slot Capcom ensures that a second hand customer gets a second rate experience. If you buy this game used, you will be stuck with the previous owner's progress, unable to start the game fresh.

Submission + - Student suspended for posting on YouTube (theglobeandmail.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian student has been suspended from school and had the police called on him due to satirical animations that he posted to YouTube.

Jack Christie, a 12th-grade student at the Donald A. Wilson Secondary School in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, created the videos in his own time, off-campus.

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