51193431
submission
s122604 writes:
From the article: "Last Wednesday, the Fed announced that it would not be tapering its bond buying program. This news was released at precisely 2 pm in Washington "as measured by the national atomic clock." It takes 7 milliseconds for this information to get to Chicago. However, several huge orders that were based on the Fed's decision were placed on Chicago exchanges 2-3 milliseconds after 2 pm. How did this happen?"
43492337
submission
s122604 writes:
Automakers aren't too happy about a recent U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal, which uses part of the wireless spectrum assigned to vehicle-to-vehicle technology for Wi-Fi instead.
The FCC announced that it plans to free up 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use in an effort to address the U.S.' spectrum crisis. This could potentially lead to Wi-Fi speeds faster than 1 gigabit per second.
22574428
submission
s122604 writes:
For the first time in almost 30 years, a US carmaker is planning to market a non-truck diesel vehicle in the US. Estimated MPG for the automatic transmission version is in the mid 40's, which is better than the only other small diesel sedan sold in the US (the Volkswagon Jetta), and slightly better than their gasoline powered "Eco" model... I'd like to know what the MPG on the 6 speed manual version is.
17489964
submission
s122604 writes:
"General Electric Co., saying it wants to help spark the electric vehicle industry, said Thursday that it would purchase 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet by 2015. The Fairfield, Conn., company said its strategy represented the largest-ever electric-vehicle commitment by a company or organization. The plan includes buying 12,000 Chevrolet Volts, which General Motors Co. will start selling by year-end."
Considering the first year run of the volt was slated around 30,000, this is very significant. This should help the vehicles achieve an economy of scale that makes wider adoption more viable.
16715456
submission
s122604 writes:
"A large investor using an automated trading software to sell futures contracts sparked the brief-but-historic stock market "flash crash" on May 6, according to a report by federal regulators released Friday. In the 104-page report, staff members at Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said an unnamed investor used a trading algorithm to sell orders for futures contracts called E-Minis, which traders use to bet on the future performance of stocks in the S&P 500 index."
Not the sofware's fault (as the title implies) it did exactly what it was told.
Stop loss orders have their place, but this incident shows the value of a man in the loop.
Still, I wish I was one of the lucky ones who got to pick of Proctor and Gamble stock for 39 dollars a share.
16213546
submission
s122604 writes:
From the article "In the global race to see who can offer the fastest Internet service, an unlikely challenger has emerged: Chattanooga, Tenn.
The city-owned utility, EPB, plans to announce on Monday that by the end of this year it will offer ultra-high-speed Internet service of up to one gigabit a second."
If one were to ask what city in the US would be the first to a gigabit, I doubt many would have answered "Chattanooga". Note, its also a municipal utility, in the south, were fears of "creeping socialism" allegedly run deep.
15842788
submission
s122604 writes:
From the story "Chile miners soon to 'see' loved ones over video link". It sounds just like a local connection to the surface. If you can get a functional fiber link down there, why not provide full internet connectivity? Should that happen, it brings up a lot of interesting considerations. The filtering of information that they receive would essentially be impossible. Also, celebrity status, and all the good and bad that brings, would find them even before they left the hole. It would be one heck of a time killer though...
14013260
submission
s122604 writes:
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories continue work on creating hydrocarbon based fuels from CO2 using a solar powered reactor. This has been seen as a potential source of underway replenishment for naval operations, but this effort seems to be oriented to fixed-point production and incorporation into the domestic energy infrastructure:
"The Sandia team has created a machine called the "Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5)", which captures carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust fumes."
13778942
submission
s122604 writes:
"The Obama administration said Sunday it intends to nearly double the available amount of wireless communications spectrum over the next 10 years in an effort to keep up with the ever-growing demand for high-speed video and data transmission to cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices." — Stating the obvious but "spectrum" in finite, so this means an adjustment of band plans. Who wins? who loses? Not really stated.
13484944
submission
s122604 writes:
Gentoo linux IRC server distribution shipping with malware for several months. Windows version of same software unaffected.
The author does a lot of chiding of the linux user community for its apparent "smugness". There's a lot of things I could point out here, such as that this was a corrupted repository, not a drive-by-download or similar vector. Still, it is a good reminder about not fully trusting repositories...
12788870
submission
s122604 writes:
Defense consortium hypersonic vehicle breaks a record:
"Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated. The Air Force said the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.
Joe Vogel, Boeing's director of hypersonics, said, "This is a new world record and sets the foundation for several hypersonic applications, including access to space, reconnaissance, strike, global reach and commercial transportation."
With this and the X-47B, there seems to be a renewed interest in extreme performance (in terms of flight envelope) vehicles..
12164460
submission
s122604 writes:
Stock market's extraordinary volatility may have been caused by fat-fingered entry.
Article is reporting that the catalyst for today's extradorinary price swing (at one point the Dow lost almost 9 percent in less than an hour) may have been because a trader entered a 'B' for billions instead of an 'M' for millions on a trade of Procter and Gamble:
"According to multiple sources, a trader entered a "b" for billion instead of an "m" for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble, a component in the Dow. (CNBC's Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff."
br.
Unbelievable there are no safeguards to protect against this.
8541680
submission
s122604 writes:
"How well will General Motors' Chevrolet Volt drive once it gets past its 40 mile all-electric driving range and starts to rely on power generated by its gasoline engine? That's been a question for both critics and fans of the Volt, and with just 11 months to go before this car hits the market, I got the answer."
Performance review of the Chevy Volt, paying particular attention to what happens after the initial plug-in capacity has been depleted. The review indicates that the performance is adequate, if not better than expected.
If the volt can deliver technically, especially with the possibility of it it retailing for less than expected ( http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100107-708608.html?mod=WSJ_earnings_MIDDLETopHeadlines), does GM have a potential hit on its hands?
