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Submission + - Venus' crust heals too fast for plate tectonics

An anonymous reader writes: Without plate tectonics, carbon would build up in the atmosphere. Venus, which does not have tectonics, shows the results: an atmosphere that is 96 percent carbon dioxide. It's toxic. Yet Venus is about the same size and composition as our planet, so why doesn't it have plate tectonics? Some researchers made a model to explore how Earth initiated plate movements, and these same researchers made one model of its neighbor for comparison. A 1.5-billion-year-old Earth and a similarly aged Venus were modeled as a hot, mushy material made of tiny particles of rock. The model uses physics at the one-millimeter rock grain scale to explain how the whole planet behaves. According to David Bercovici, a geophysicist at Yale who was an author on the paper, the model also shows how plate tectonics emerged on Earth but not on her twin.

Submission + - Boeing's Phantom Badger Packs a Lot of Combat Vehicle Into a Small Package (gizmag.com) 2

Zothecula writes: The US military fields some pretty impressive vehicles, but they aren't worth much if they don’t fit on the aircraft intended to transport them. Last month, the US Navy removed one obstacle when it cleared the Boeing Phantom Badger combat support vehicle for transport inside a V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. After a battery of tests, including form-fit checks, pressure tests and structural evaluations of over four G’s, the modular vehicle was a step closer to deployment by the US Marine Corps and US Air Force Special Operations.

Submission + - Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Paul Monies reports at NewsOK that Oklahoma's legislature has passed a bill that allows regulated utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to charge a higher base rate to customers who generate solar and wind energy and send their excess power back into the grid reversing a 1977 law that forbade utilities to charge extra to solar users. "Renewable energy fed back into the grid is ultimately doing utility companies a service," says John Aziz. "Solar generates in the daytime, when demand for electricity is highest, thereby alleviating pressure during peak demand."

The state’s major electric utilities backed the bill but couldn’t provide figures on how much customers already using distributed generation are getting subsidized by other customers. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma have about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. They have about 500 customers using distributed generation. Kathleen O’Shea, OG&E spokeswoman, said few distributed generation customers want to sever their ties to the grid. “If there’s something wrong with their panel or it’s really cloudy, they need our electricity, and it’s going to be there for them,” O’Shea said. “We just want to make sure they’re paying their fair amount of that maintenance cost.” The prospect of widespread adoption of rooftop solar worries many utilities. A report last year by the industry’s research group, the Edison Electric Institute, warns of the risks posed by rooftop solar (PDF). “When customers have the opportunity to reduce their use of a product or find another provider of such service, utility earnings growth is threatened,” the report said. “As this threat to growth becomes more evident, investors will become less attracted to investments in the utility sector.”

Submission + - AMD Not Trying To Get Its Chips Into Low-Cost Tablets (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: While Intel is going after low-end Android tablets in a big way chipmaking x86 rival AMD is taking a more judicious approach, looking to focus on the high end. "This idea of contra revenue is foreign to us," said AMD's CEO, referring to Intel's strategy of selling chips at a loss to boost market share. But will Intel's vast resources keep AMD in its niche?

Comment Re:I recently switched. couldnt be happier. (Score 2) 312

The guy behind me bought his own sit-stand desk a couple of weeks ago. There wasn't any company program, he just decided that his back was worth the $500 to him. He stood almost half the day for the first couple of days, now he sits the whole day again. I told him that if he felt better after a couple of weeks I'd buy one too, but of course, sitting down is exactly the same as sitting down!

Comment Re:E = (T2-T1) / T1 (Score 1) 174

The same principle apply to steam engines as to thermoelectric devices. Steam engines are very well studied, so there is a lot more data/manuals/advice/working knowledge about them. We choose which knowledge to use and which to discard based on their applicability to the task at hand.

The thermoelectric effect is dependent upon a difference in temperature. To get more power, you need a bigger difference in temperature. Engines do produce a lot of waste heat, but they generally do not get to a high enough temperature to reasonably extract enough of it to justify your capital costs. Thus the comparison to waste steam from steam engines, you can collect and use it, but often you won't get enough out of it to be worthwhile.

Comment Re:The difference... (Score 1) 140

Well, if she's padding her boobs, I can see that she wouldn't want that information becoming public, but as the sister comment alluded to, it could just be a baseless accusation without some form of evidence.

Also, seeing a picture of something is completely different than hearing a description. I assume you probably visit the bathroom a few times a day. I have a reasonable idea what you do in there and I could form a decent description of what you do, but you would be upset if someone showed me a picture wouldn't you? Also, you might have a desire to share that moment with some specific people (maybe you're into that kind of thing), but the idea that the person with whom you choose to share that moment has to be balanced by the probability of them taking pictures or videos and sharing it with people you might not even know. Having to make that kind of judgement will limit the number of those moments that will happen, which makes life just a little less fun.

Comment Good News (Score 2) 1633

The good part of this that I see is that he is advocating changing the constitution and not just ignoring it. The constitution can and should be amended to account for changing values, changing technology and different external influences. Once you start ignoring the constitution, then what rules do the government need to follow? Change the constitution to what it "should" say, then we all know what we're doing, what's expected of us, and where to go next.

Submission + - The Eloi Are Evolving (telegraph.co.uk)

TchrBabe writes: In a new twist reminiscent of HG Wells "The Time Machine", current children are growing up without the requisite physical skills that you would expect. Instead of playing with toys, the use of tablets, smart phones, and other electronic devices as "teaching aids" and babysitters is limiting their physical dexterity. So by extrapolation, the digital divide could lead to the stratification of society on another level — those who can compute, and those who can "do". Sounds like the Eloi and the Morlocks aren't that far behind.

Submission + - Leak: Amazon Phone With 3D Display (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: Apparently Amazon thinks we want 3D screens on our phones. Yesterday Boy Genius Report leaked images of what is supposed to be a phone coming from Amazon (BGR has all the nitty-gritty — and not yet official in any way — specs). The phone apparently has six cameras.... One on the back and one on the front for traditional photos and selfies. Then there are 4 more on the front that are intended to do facial tracking in order to properly display a 3D user interface. As blogger Peter Smith points out, 'that's an improvement over the 3DS which requires you to hold the device in the 'sweet spot' for the 3D effect to work properly.' But it also sounds like an expensive system both in terms of hardware and processing cycles.

Submission + - The EPA admits it doesn't have the data to justify its environmental regulations (frontpagemag.com) 1

schwit1 writes: In a stunning admission, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy revealed to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the agency neither possesses, nor can produce, all of the scientific data used to justify the rules and regulations they have imposed on Americans via the Clean Air Act.

The EPA was subpoenaed by Congress for the data it uses, and they responded to say that what they have doesn’t really provide any proof that their regulations are necessary. But they then add that they are going to continue imposing their regulations anyway.

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