Comment Hybrids Don't Kill Pedestrians... (Score -1, Troll) 187
Taking my cue from the NRA:
Hybrids Don't Kill Pedestrians... People Kill Pedestrians...
Traffic-Flow Algorithm Can Reduce Fuel Consumption 328
thecarchik writes "New projects from German automakers Audi and BMW promise to ease congestion simply by looking at traffic signals and driving style, in an effort to smooth the flow of traffic. Through a test course in Munich, vehicles were able to post phenomenal fuel efficiency gains simply by adjusting the timing of traffic lights depending on traffic volume — to whatever speed provides a so-called 'green wave' of four or more synchronized signals."
Breaking the Squid Barrier 126
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."
Comment The Moon. Jupiter. Saturn. Venus. (Score 2, Informative) 377
The Moon. Jupiter and its moons. Saturn. Venus. The Orion Nebula. The Andromeda Galaxy.
And get out there and look at the dramatic and easy stuff. Jupiter and its moons is really cool to watch. And you just can't go wrong with the moon. All of the things I listed above should be easy to find with a small telescope. Looking for much more is going to be frustrating and boring for a group of students. Looking at stars is going to be very boring (stars look like points of light, even with the best telescopes). Go grab a copy of http://www.stellarium.org/ to help you find things and you should be good to go.
Code Review of Doom For the iPhone 161
Developer Fabien Sanglard has written a code review for id Software's iPhone port of Doom. It's an interesting look into how the original 1993 game (which he also reviewed to understand its rendering process) was adapted to a modern platform.
"Just like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom was rendering a screenframe pixel per pixel. The only way to do this on iPhone with an acceptable framerate would be to use CoreSurface/CoreSurface.h framework. But it is unfortunately restricted and using it would prevent distribution on the AppStore. The only solution is to use OpenGL, but this comes with a few challenges: Doom was faking 3D with a 2D map. OpenGL needs real 3D vertices. More than 3D vertices, OpenGL needs data to be sent as triangles (among other things because they are easy to rasterize). But Doom sectors were made of arbitrary forms. Doom 1993's perspective was also faked, it was actually closer to an orthogonal projection than a perspective projection. Doom was using VGA palette indexing to perform special effect (red for damage, silver for invulnerable...)."
Comment Neodymium Extracted from Titanium Dioxide waste (Score 1) 477
Fortunately, researchers from Leeds' Faculty of Engineering have discovered how to recover significant quantities of rare-earth oxides, present in titanium dioxide minerals....
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215101708.htm
Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
Comment Every cell is sacred! (Score 3, Funny) 284
Every cell is sacred! When a cell is wasted, God gets quite irate.
Comment The law on unintended consequences (Score 4, Funny) 91
Pointy Haired Boss: Our goal is to write bug-free software. I'll pay a ten dollar bonus for every bug you find and fix.
Dilbert: Yahoo!
Alice: We're rich
Wally: Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!
Pointy Haired Boss: I hope this drives the right behavior.
Wally: I'm gonna write me a new minivan this afternoon!
http://www.ourlocalstyle.com/images/uploadImages/2 006/05/13/dilbert_bugFixMinivan.gif
Dilbert: Yahoo!
Alice: We're rich
Wally: Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!
Pointy Haired Boss: I hope this drives the right behavior.
Wally: I'm gonna write me a new minivan this afternoon!
http://www.ourlocalstyle.com/images/uploadImages/
