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Comment Re:Gimmick (Score 5, Insightful) 710

by Rehnberg (#30623018) Attached to: Thorium, the Next Nuclear Fuel?

and worth it even if thorium is slightly inferior as a fuel. In short, it can be a PR win.

Based on the article, I'm not sure that thorium is an inferior fuel. At the very least, it seems more efficient and more abundant, as well as less dangerous than uranium. To me, that's more important than raw power output, especially given that thorium cannot be weaponized.

Comment Because nuclear is still "scary" (Score 5, Interesting) 710

by Rehnberg (#30623006) Attached to: Thorium, the Next Nuclear Fuel?
I brought this article up in my government class a few weeks ago (we spend more time discussing what the government is doing than how it's set up), and I couldn't convince a single person that this new kind of reactor was safe. Let's face it: years of not building reactors combined with years of scare tactics from our government about other countries building reactors can't be undone with science. Propaganda > Science
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Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday 410

Posted by samzenpus from the targets-only-no-shooting-birds dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."
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Woman Fired For Using Uppercase In Email 364

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-type-angry dept.
tomachi writes "An accountant in NZ has been awarded $17,000 NZD for unfair dismissal after her boss fired her without warning for using uppercase letters in a single email to co-workers. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: 'To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.' Her boss deemed the capital letters too confrontational for her co-workers to read after they woke up from naptime."
Security

Report That OS X Snow Leopard May Include Antivirus 335

Posted by kdawson from the pinch-salt-toss-over-shoulder dept.
File this firmly in the "rumor" category for now. the JoshMeister writes (in the third person) "Mac antivirus company Intego broke the story this morning that Apple is apparently including antivirus functionality in its upcoming operating system, Snow Leopard. But which antivirus engine is Apple using? Security researcher Joshua Long discusses the likely candidates."

Comment Hm... (Score 1) 157

by Rehnberg (#29182257) Attached to: Air Force & NASA Fire Off Green Rocket
Does this mean that we could send all the stuff we need to launch a rocket to the moon, assemble it there, then make the fuel and launch it from the moon? It seems to me that doing this would save quite a bit of fuel and allow us to go farther into space.

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