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Comment Once compromised, it's a two way street.. (Score 5, Interesting) 147

Once you break into a admin's computer, with his credentials, it's a two way street.. One can plant evidence just as well as detect it..

Now that this info is public knowledge, any accused should levy a defense that the NSA planted the evidence, since they have the ability and the court has no way of identifying planted information verses unapproved activity.

Advice to NSA admins, I know it is a cushy job, but find another job NOT in the government, the NSA is on a witch-hunt it's only a matter of time before they turn innocent bystanders into criminals.

Comment Re:Celebrity Death Match (Score 1) 878

Radioactive fallout doesn't obey political boundary's.

It's not the N-weapons themselves, (couple of thousand megatons worth, on each side, yield split between fission(%50), fusion(50% relatively clean)), which will make real mess. But the 400+ Nuclear power plants around the globe melting down and/or being destroyed as a result.

Each nuclear power plant has several hundred megatons worth of highly radioactive fission byproducts stored inside the reactor and next to them in spent fuel rods. As demonstrated in Fukushima, all it takes is an extended loss of electricity to start the melt down process.

A megaton's worth of fission byproducts is created for every ~0.4TWh of electricity produced. Production of electricity via nuclear power worldwide is currently in the range of ~2200TWh. Thus ~5500 Megatons of potential fission fallout per year is added to an pre-existing inventory of ~150,000 Megatons, awaiting to deal humanity a coup de grÃce.

Comment Re:Optimum scenarios (Score 1) 145

"The most likely cause was one of a the pilots going insane,", A more likely outcome is that the a radicalized pilot of MH370 decided on course murder/suicide after attending the sham trial of Malaysiaâ(TM)s opposition leader a few hours before takeoff.

Seams to me, if one were to make a simple assumption that the plane was on auto pilot for the last few hours(pilot suicide, anoxia), the Geostationary SAT ping times from those previous fixes would narrow the search scope considerably. I.E. Mathematically wise, one data point, verses five or six data points, would make a huge difference.

Google

Gmail's 'Unsubscribe' Tool Comes Out of the Weeds 129

itwbennett writes "Starting this week, a new, clearly marked 'unsubscribe' link will appear at the top of the header field in marketers' emails. Previously only appearing for a small percentage of users, the feature will now be made available for most promotional messages with unsubscribe options, Google said on Thursday. Email recipients do not need to take action for the links to appear."

Comment Re:It will just continue like this... (Score 0) 157

Bzzzt.. wrong-o, this a Pacific wide scale disaster, various ocean layers don't mix as much as they hoped it would.

Sr-90 (beta emitter, calcium replacement has a half life of 28.79 years.. I.E. three decades later nearly half of the original material remains..

Cs-137 both a Beta and Gamma emitter, has a half life of 30.17 years.. Again half of the original amount will still be around in 30 years..

There is a significant risk the Fukishima Area will get too hot for humans, or electronics to work in/around. Thus insuring nearly all the contents of the reactors and spent fuel pools end up in the environment.

Note: Where there is high levels of Beta radiation from Sr-90 their will also be high levels of Gamma radiation from Cs-137, no protective suit, nor reasonable amount of lead shielding will protect from high levels of Gamma radiation. It would take 3" of solid lead shielding to reduce Cs-137 Gamma radiation component by 100x (which is not enough)..

Comment College as we know it.. is obsolete. (Score 4, Interesting) 597

Traditional college is vastly overrated and a waste of huge amounts of resources. Most grads don't end up having jobs related to their major.

It's just a matter of time before most classrooms will be replaced by remote learning . Leaving only the lab-work to be completed in some rented facility.

Instead of trying to find new ways(taxes) to prop up a overpriced, obsolete, low ROI, educational system, we should go forward and cost reduce the whole Enchilada. Deploy a national fibre network to every occupied structure within reason, similar to the old rural electrification act brought electricity to most farms.

Besides educational aspects of a national fibre network. I will bet their will be large number of societal fringe benefits, reduced travel needs, lower levels of communicable diseases, reduced crime, reduced infrastructure requirements, etc. Remember the benefits that occurred when President Clinton removed SA from GPS sats, that act spawned entirely new industries overnight.

So don't look at patching up our backwards educational system, go forward into the future.

Comment Re:The Unanswered Question (Score 1) 846

Did it ever occur to you that the biggest variance will be what mankind does in response to this building climate crises?

How much CO2 and CH4 will be in the atmosphere in 2040? How much SO2, NO2 will the world be dumping into atmosphere come 2040? Will the average Chinese citizen loose ten years of average lifespan to pollution, or will they clean up their act?

What will be the state of the glaciers, and icecaps in northern and southern hemispheres? How will the lack of them affect climate? These are real big questions that go into uncharted territory.

Comment Re:More Info on ISON (Score 1) 39

"ISON is currently moving at 117 km/s!

But, ISON is going to be exposed to roughly a million times the solar flux we have near Earth for several hours. I.E. 1/100th the distance, cubed.. or 100^3 increased solar flux.. I don't expect it to survive those conditions.

.

Comment Re:You want a whitelisting device. (Score 1) 497

I recommend that he purchase some Panasonic DECT cordless phones with talking caller id. Program the Pana directory with the names and numbers of your frequent callers. When your friends and family call, you will here their name announced and know to answer the call.

note: Calls from Cell phones are usually ID themselves by # number only, but Pana phones will announce the preprogrammed name for the number.

If you want to take a step further, port your land line number to an Andriod smart cell phone and bluetooth to Pana's.. Smart phones can block a nearly unlimited amount of telephone numbers.

When the scammers call on a blocked number the cell phone pick's up on the the first ring and dumps them into voice mail(which you leave un-setup).. Your phones won't even ring, and it won't cost you anything, but it will cost the scammers a connection fee. Without the possibility of of any productive results, this will steadily decrease the number of rouge callers over time.

Comment Re:Typhoon Ida (1958) was more intense (Score 2) 160

Super typhoon Ida achieved it's maximum intensity well out at sea when it had a tiny eye, similar to Wilma when it rapidly intensified in it's early stages. Ida subsequently lost most of energy before it landfall in Japan as a cat-3.

Meanwhile Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall at near peak intensity with an eye wall diameter of nearly 20km..

.

Comment Re:And nothing of value was lost... (Score 4, Interesting) 330

Agreed, I'm using up the last of my SKYPE balance, still use it for calling 800 numbers(which are still free), but that's about it.

Just got Google chat to phone via gmail working, which took some doing to get around the browser id check. Now, I can call phones in the USA for free, while skype charges $0.049 to connect and $0.023/min.

Comment Re:Nuclear is the only viable solution (Score 1, Interesting) 324

It's not ready yet. Thorium perhaps in time.

Nuclear power is a dead end, Thorium-232 is not fissile, it must be first breed into U-233 (which is fissile), that process takes an enormous flux of of free neutrons(U-235, Pu-239). It's a chicken verses the egg problem.

Note: Breeder reactors are far more dangerous and operate much closer to the edge. They incorporate fewer safety features, (metallic fuel instead of ceramic oxides, etc), in order to maximize neutron flux.

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