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Comment Re:Going to have a hard time topping modern remake (Score 1) 173

Beg to differ on that. http://www.oolite.org/ is an open, modernized version of Elite, and has lots of 'old geezers' practically creaming their pants when they discover and play it for the fist time.
Just look at their bulletin boards for all the kudos being strewn around to the developers.
DRM

Submission + - Is it okay to pirate digital versions of physical media you already own? (pottermore.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Harry Potter books are due to be released in ebook format. I am going to assume that the digital versions of these books will have their DRM removed and find themselves shared illegally. I personally own two copies of the books and several copies of the movies (some DVDs, all the Blu-rays). I ask the Slashdot community, have I "earned the right" to acquire these ebooks without actually paying for them?
Science

Submission + - Slices of Einstein's Brain Show "the Mind as Matter" (scienceworldreport.com)

An anonymous reader writes: We've pickled it, desiccated it, drilled it, mummified it, chopped it and sliced it over centuries, yet as the most complex entity in the known universe, the human brain remains a mysterious fascination.

With samples of Albert Einstein's preserved brain on slides, and specimens from other famous and infamous heads such as the English mathematician Charles Babbage and notorious mass murderer William Burke, an exhibition opening in London this week is seeking to tap into that intrigue.

Science

Submission + - The hunt for fusion power heats up (extremetech.com)

MrSeb writes: "You’ve heard of the Manhattan Project — the Allied research and development program that resulted in two nuclear bombs being dropped on Japan and the end of World War II — and now it’s time to learn about one of its successors, Project Matterhorn, a Cold War program to control and harness thermonuclear reactions to create fusion power. Started in 1951, and renamed (and declassified) in 1961 to the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL), scientists have been trying for decades to overcome a very fundamental issue: fusion power, in its current form, doesn’t actually produce more thermal energy than the electrical energy required to keep the reaction going. A recent discovery made by Bruce Koel at the PPPL might be exactly what we're looking for, though. Basically, to keep fusion going you need to sustain a temperature of around 11 million degrees Celsius, which requires a huge amount of electricity. Fusion chambers are usually lined with heat-resistant carbon tiles in an attempt to reduce wastage, but the problem is that protons and neutrons escaping from the fusion reaction hit the wall, cool down, and then bounce back into the reaction, reducing the temperature. Electricity must then be used to increase the temperature back to 11 million Celsius. By using a thin layer of lithium around the fusion chamber, Bruce Koel from the PPPL has found that these "cold" neutrons and protons can be absorbed, meaning less electricity is required to keep the reaction going. Koel hopes that this will lead to smaller, more efficient fusion power plants. In the meantime, of course, California's National Ignition Facility is on the verge of reaching ignition — and ITER in France is still 7 years from completion, and 14 years from actually fusing fuel."

Submission + - Liquid metal batteries may be the solution to renewable energy (youtube.com)

MMatessa writes: What's the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun's not out and the wind's not blowing. In this talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: "We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap."
Privacy

Submission + - Google backs Yahoo in privacy fight with DOJ (cnet.com)

PatPending writes: Does e-mail stored in the cloud have the same level of protection as the same information stored by a person at home?

No, according to the Obama administration's Assistant U.S. Attorney Pegeen Rhyne, who wrote in a government motion filed last month, "Previously opened e-mail is not in 'electronic storage.' This court should therefore require Yahoo to comply with the order and produce the specified communications in the targeted accounts." (The Justice Department's position is that what's known as a 2703(d) order--not as privacy-protective as the rules for search warrants--should let police read e-mail.)

Books

Submission + - 12 More of the Best Free Linux Books (linuxlinks.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Many computer users have an insatiable appetite to deepen their understanding of computer operating systems and computer software. Linux users are no different in that respect. At the same time as developing a huge range of open source software, the Linux community fortunately has also written a vast range of documentation in the form of books, guides, tutorials, HOWTOs, man pages, and other help to aid the learning process. Some of this documentation is intended specifically for a newcomer to Linux, or those that are seeking to move away from a proprietary world and embrace freedom.

There are literally thousands of Linux books which are available to purchase from any good (online) book shop. However, the focus of this article is to highlight champion Linux books which make an invaluable contribution to learning about Linux, and which are also available to download without charge.

We have tried to select a fairly diverse selection of books in this article so that there should be something of interest here for any type of user whatever their level of computing knowledge.

Comment Good coming from public data (Score 1) 176

It is worth recognizing that the major breakthrough in this work in finding the long-running Framingham Heart Study data. This database had been collected for a different purpose. If this data has been anonymized; if they had destroyed the forrns naming a friend when a new form had been completed; or had destroyed the entire database when the original study aims had been met to preserve the privicy of the individuals, then this work would not have been possible.

This is not to say that all databases are good. We have seen recently how many of our personal details are available of we fly or book a hotel. There are people in the UK who want to make a national register of all children, in the belief that the entire database won't make it out of the building on a memory stick in the first week. But there are details I do not mind contributing to the common good. I would not post my medical details, but I would not mind my medical records being transferred when I move or change doctors, and I would certainly wish people to wring any good that could be wrung from such data. No man is an island, yerknow?

Maybe I am naive and idealistic. Maybe I should be guided by all the grumpy, mean, and suspicious people that seem to fill all London some days. But then again, no - they are all going to get fat and die, aren't they? Hah! Yess!! Roll on the day!!!

Comment Re:ROI (Score 1) 710

Right - the bulbs last forever. Except, they DON'T!

Those CFL's that are supposed to last 5 to 10 years tend to burn out before the first year. The LED's that are supposed to last 10 to 20 years do a little better, but I've replaced them. Some have lasted as little as 2 years, others 5 years.

Keep in mind, these things weren't around 20 years ago. Maybe - oh - 12 years ago, possibly 15 I first started noticing the things on heavy trucks. Only 3 or 4 years ago, they started hitting the market bigtime in flashlights and such. They've been in computers and various displays a little longer. The wife's "Alien" computer has about six of those things in it, two are burnt out - at about 4 years of age.

If quality control were reliable, I might agree with those "cost savings". Since QC sucks, I simply do NOT see those savings everyone talks about.

One of the networks ran a thing during the news hour on those CFL's, showing that my experience is about normal.

Comment Re:Hope they put a capacitor in there (Score 1) 710

I don't see the advantage of full wave rectification, except possibly to meet power regulations. A pulsed LED actually appears brighter to the human eye, and provided the average power through it is the same as a full wave rectified model then the brightness should be the same*. The only real reasons for going full wave rectified and smoothed is either where power regulations specify certain restrictions on power harmonics (imagine if every device was half wave rectified in the world, then the power supply would be loaded at some points in the cycle more than others, and you would no longer get a nice clean sine wave), or where you want a constant voltage to make design of the rest of the circuit easier (eg. digital electronics).
.

* LED's can be an exception to this in certain cases, since the number of photons produced per second is not linear to the instantaneous current.

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