Comment Re:Explaining is not predicting (Score 1) 348
Postdiction, as it is called, isn't always valueless. One of the strongest arguments for Genereal Relativity was that it explained Mercury's orbit.
Comment Re:Geothermal is where we are headed (Score 1) 883
Geothermal is only practical when the hot rocks are a lot closer to the surface, like in Iceland. Sure, drilling wells that deep isn't impossible, but it is expensive, and you can only get so much power out of a single well.
Comment nostalgia isn't what it used to be.. (Score 2, Interesting) 430
When you remember those halcyon days in which the the state of the art of search was WAIS. I'll take today's internet, warts and all, thanks.
Fusion-Fission System Burns Hot Radioactive Waste 432
An anonymous reader writes "A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed that can be used in some traditional fission reactors to process radioactive waste and reduce the amount of waste produced by 99%. This process uses magnetic bottle techniques developed from fusion research. This seems like the first viable solution to the radioactive waste problem of traditional nuclear reactors. This could be a big breakthrough in the search for environmentally friendly energy sources. Lots of work remains to take the concept to an engineering prototype and then to a production reactor."
Inventor Builds Robot Wife
469
Inventor Le Trung must really like the book "The Stepford Wives," because he has built the dream of every lonely man without hope, a robot wife. Le's wife, Aiko, starts the day by reading him the newspaper headlines and they go for a drives in the countryside. Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn't strayed into the bedroom, but a few tweaks could turn her into a sexual partner, even redesigning her to have a simulated orgasm. *Shudder*
Comment misleading summary (duh) (Score 1) 317
This wasn't a good test for cosmic censorship, and wasn't intended as such, from my reading of TFA. A better test would have been two counter rotating holes striking slightly off center.
Anyway, it says nothing about unrelated simulations that have shown that naked singularities are likely.
Sorry about the new scientist link, but all the other references I found were unhelpful journal articles.
Anyway, it says nothing about unrelated simulations that have shown that naked singularities are likely.
Sorry about the new scientist link, but all the other references I found were unhelpful journal articles.
Submission + - Sussman on engineering robust software systems
John Kraemer writes: "MIT's Gerald Sussman (the inventor of the Scheme programming language and author of the classic programming text "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs") has written an essay on how to engineer robust software systems. The topic is common, but his proposals are classic MIT AI lab stuff, including programmer-extensible generic operators, combinator-based modular components, and continuation-passing flow control. Heady material, but well explained — if you want some mind-stretching ideas about how to organize large-scale software this is worth a look."
