Comment Re:Duh (Score 5, Insightful) 438
No.
What I would really like to see is the risk analysis report. How cautionary were the warnings of the engineers and how did the pencil pushers at the top translate this as an acceptable risk?
Submission + - Gamma-ray burst is most distant object ever seen (cosmosmagazine.com)
zentropa writes: Australian science magazine COSMOS reports: It took 13 billion years to reach Earth, but astronomers have seen the light of an exploding mega-star that is the most distant object ever detected, two studies report.
Submission + - China to Build 600 MW Wind Farm in Texas
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese banks will provide $1.5 billion to a consortium of Chinese and American companies to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas, using turbines made in China. “This wind farm project came about thanks to the openness of the United States for investments in the field of renewable energy,” says John S. Lin, chief operating officer of A-Power Energy Generation Systems, which is part of the consortium building the project. The wind farm will be built on 36,000 acres in West Texas, and will use 240 2.5-megawatt turbines providing enough power to meet the electrical needs of between 135,000 and 180,000 American homes. The wind farm will be the first instance of a Chinese manufacturer exporting wind turbines to the United States, says Yang Yazhou, vice mayor of the city of Shenyang, where the wind turbines will be manufactured. Cappy McGarr, managing partner of US Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity firm that is lead partner on the 600-megawatt development, says the partnership will seek tax credits and support from the federal stimulus package, which should amount to millions of dollars. McGarr says the project should create 2,800 jobs — of which 15% would be in the US and the rest in China, where Shenyang employs 800 people. The project a "win-win-win for everyone. We're two great countries and we need to work together," says McGarr. China aims to be the front runner in wind- and solar-power generation and Thomas Friedman writes that China's decision to go green "is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik.""
Submission + - SSL Still Mostly Misunderstood (darkreading.com)
An anonymous reader writes: People still don't understand SSL. This isn't much of a surprise... no one expects that grandma and grandpa know how to what SSL is and what it does. What is surprising and downright scary is that most IT professionals don't understand SSL, and many consider it to be the be-all, end-all of security in their organization. With all the tools out their to manipulate SSL connections and the browser vendors unable to settle on a single method of showing if a site is secured by SSL or not, is it any wonder that no one gets it? Security researchers Tyler Reguly, Mike Zusman, Jay Graver and Robert 'RSnake' Hansen recently discussed some of these issues at SecTOR security conference in Toronto.
Submission + - Butterfly Wings Could Lead To Better Solar Cells (gizmag.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have developed a technique to replicate biological structures, such as butterfly wings, on a nano scale. They focused on the tiny nano-sized photonic structures that are found in the insects’ cuticle, and which give insects their iridescence — that slightly metallic sheen that also seems to shift in color depending on the viewing angle. By replicating the biotemplate of butterfly wings, the researchers hope to be able to make various optically-active structures, such as optical diffusers or coverings that maximize solar cell absorption.
Comment Re:Running out of juice (Score 1) 139
I'm wondering if this is a viable concern.
From the Kindle web site.
Battery Life: Read on a single charge for up to 4 days with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to two weeks. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as shopping the Kindle Store and downloading content. In low-coverage areas or in EDGE/GPRS-only coverage, wireless usage will consume battery power more quickly
Does one need more than 4 day to 2 weeks between chargings?
Submission + - Interview with Steve Ballmer on Dutch TV (omroep.nl)
tsa writes: Yesterday there was an interesting and very funny interview with Steve Ballmer on our national TV. The audience were 600 students of our Erasmus University, who were allowed to ask questions. There is a small part that is in Dutch because Steve happened to have a Belgian teacher for a while. She tells us what kind of a kid he was when he was 8 years old. During the interview Steve gets some tough questions that he answeres like a pro. Despite the fact that they don't ask him about the chair, it's worth watching!
Submission + - Startup Publishes Mathematics of Brain Circuits 2
braingal writes: The brain’s core algorithm for intelligent thought and action is closer to being cracked, thanks to a new mathematical model of cortical function. The model, developed by the Silicon Valley startup company Numenta, is described in a paper entitled “Towards a Mathematical Theory of Cortical Micro-circuits” in the October issue of PLoS Computational Biology . The model provides detailed, testable predictions about many enigmatic features of cortical circuitry. It also makes predictions about the systematic errors and illusions that living brains exhibit and has implications for understanding mental disorders. There are technological ramifications as well: an accurate model of the cortical algorithm may accelerate the creation of intelligent machines ( Singularity...here we come!!) by revealing which details of the neural circuitry are functionally relevant.
Submission + - Image Recognition Neural Networks (sourceforge.net)
sevarac writes: The latest release of Java Neural Network Framework Neuroph v2.3 comes with ready-to-use image recognition support. It provides GUI tool for training multi layer perceptrons for image recognition, and easy to use API to deploy these neural networks in end-user applications. This image recognition approach has been successfully used by DotA AutoScript tool, and now it is released as open source. With this Java library basic image recognition can be performed in just few lines of code. The developers have published howto article and online demo which can be used to train image recognition neural networks online.
Submission + - Bruce Sterling reviews new Pirate Party manifesto (wired.com)
vkg writes: He's as terse as ever, but the Pirate's Platform is short, to the point, and quite interesting. What would happen if the pirate movement became more than a single issue party and moved in the direction outlined here?
Submission + - Student Faces Prison for Disrupting Oil Auctions
pickens writes: Hugh Pickens writes:
The NY Times reports that last December Tim DeChristopher went to a federal auction of oil and gas leases offered in the Bush administration's closing days and even then the subject of protests and lawsuits — and bid on contracts that he had neither the money nor intent to actually fulfill. "My intention was to cause as much of a disruption to the auction as I could," says DeChristopher, a 27-year-old student at the University of Utah. "Making that decision — that keeping the oil in the ground was worth going to prison — that was the decision I made." DeChristopher is now charged with two felony counts of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms even as most of the specific leases DeChristopher protested — many of them near national parks or monuments — have not only been deferred or taken off the table by federal land managers in the Obama administration but also scathingly disavowed. "There was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration that led to the kinds of shortcuts we have demonstrated," says Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. DeChristopher praised Salazar's decision, saying it represents government taking a "serious stance in the defense of our land and climate." Federal prosecutors argue that whether DeChristopher was on some level correct in opposing the leases is irrelevant and DeChristopher now faces up to five years in prison on each of the two counts and up to $750,000 in fines. DeChristopher's attorney has asked the judge to allow a so-called necessity defense at the trial.enabling DeChristopher to argue that he faced a "choice of evils" that justified breaking the law. "Bush and the [Bureau of Land Management] should be on trial here," says DeChristopher's lawyer.
The NY Times reports that last December Tim DeChristopher went to a federal auction of oil and gas leases offered in the Bush administration's closing days and even then the subject of protests and lawsuits — and bid on contracts that he had neither the money nor intent to actually fulfill. "My intention was to cause as much of a disruption to the auction as I could," says DeChristopher, a 27-year-old student at the University of Utah. "Making that decision — that keeping the oil in the ground was worth going to prison — that was the decision I made." DeChristopher is now charged with two felony counts of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms even as most of the specific leases DeChristopher protested — many of them near national parks or monuments — have not only been deferred or taken off the table by federal land managers in the Obama administration but also scathingly disavowed. "There was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration that led to the kinds of shortcuts we have demonstrated," says Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. DeChristopher praised Salazar's decision, saying it represents government taking a "serious stance in the defense of our land and climate." Federal prosecutors argue that whether DeChristopher was on some level correct in opposing the leases is irrelevant and DeChristopher now faces up to five years in prison on each of the two counts and up to $750,000 in fines. DeChristopher's attorney has asked the judge to allow a so-called necessity defense at the trial.enabling DeChristopher to argue that he faced a "choice of evils" that justified breaking the law. "Bush and the [Bureau of Land Management] should be on trial here," says DeChristopher's lawyer.
Submission + - An Electron Microscope for Your Home? (wired.com)
CuteSteveJobs writes: Could Microscopy be in for a new golden age? Wired previews the desktop-sized Hitachi TM-100 Electron Microscope. Light microscopes can magnify up to 400X (1,000X albeit at lower quality) — just enough to see bacteria as shapes — but this one offers 20X to 10,000X giving some amazing pictures. Unlike traditional electron microscopes, this one plugs into a domestic power socket and specimens don't need any special preparation; It's point-and-shoot much like your typical digital camera. So easy, a grade-schooler could use it and earlier this year that's what happened: The kids at Iwanuma Elementary School in Miyagi, Japan got their own electron microscope. At $60,000 you'll have to give up on the BMW, but the hope is with economy of scale (so far 1,000 have sold) and miniaturization the price will continue to drop. The only bad news? It runs XP.
Comment Re:OSS is evil. (Score 5, Informative) 818
This entire story is possibly based on erroneous information.
http://www.bigspring.k12.pa.us/news.php?action=view_article&article_id=2130
Feed New York Times: Man Sentenced to 110 Years for Hacking and Extortion (nytimes.com)
Ivory D. Dickerson was sentenced to 110 years in prison after admitting that he and a co-conspirator hacked into computers used by young girls and used illicitly gained data to blackmail them.
Feed The Register: Mother launches attack on epilepsy inducing video games (theregister.com)
Wants safety checks
Videogame developers may be forced to cut scenes from their offerings if tests show they could cause epileptic seizures, if a British mother's campaign for a change in the law is successful.
