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Comment Hard part still remains (Score 5, Insightful) 162

Temperature is actually more important than the energy density in this case. At 650C never mind 900C, you'll still have a lot of trouble with heat--material have an unfortunate tendency to expand and warp (or, worse, snap) at that kind of temperature. Thus, you may be able to turn your car on and off only dozens of times before the SOFC breaks down. This is the real reason why SOFC has never been seriously considered for cars--SOFC has always been relatively compact for the amount of energy they produce (except for the apparatus you'd need to get rid of the huge amounts of heat).

Now, 650C is easy, at least if you are using natural gas as feedstock. (Gasoline may be somewhat more difficult, but not impossible.) Other solid oxide fuel cells that are trying to enter the market operate at or near that temperature range. 350C, though--wow. That will be remarkable, and may indeed be able to brings in an era of fuel cell vehicles, but it'll involve whole new set of chemistry, and I won't believe it until I see it.

Comment Re:Why the big long trains? (Score 1) 387

Highly-utilitized systems like the shinkansen are already often running near track capacity, and shorter trains couldn't be run any more frequently in many cases.

The Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen route is so crowded now that they only allow 16-car trainsets on the tracks. I suspect the only reason they won't make the trainsets even longer is because they don't have the physical room to extend station platforms.

Comment Re:Nothing to see here (Score 1) 664

Not to cool down the core but to prevent the spent fuel rods from starting up again.

No, the spent rods won't start up again, in the sense of reaching criticality. There's a reason why they're called "spent rods." They do melt down without cooling, however, and that was a big concern because, as you point out, they weren't covered by anything but water.

PHP

SolarPHP 1.0 Released 125

HvitRavn writes "SolarPHP 1.0 stable was released by Paul M. Jones today. SolarPHP is an application framework and library, and is a serious contender alongside Zend Framework, Symphony, and similar frameworks. SolarPHP has in the recent years been the cause of heated debate in the PHP community due to provocative benchmark results posted on Paul M. Jones' blog."
NASA

Ares Manager Steve Cook Resigns From NASA 153

FleaPlus writes "Steve Cook, project manager for the Ares I-X, Ares I, and Ares V rockets, announced that he will resign from NASA MSFC after 19 years at the agency, leaving for an executive position at Dynetics, Inc. This raises doubts about the future of the Ares program, which has been plagued with development problems and massive cost/schedule overruns since its inception. Steve Cook also oversaw the (since discredited) 2005 ESAS study which scrapped NASA's prior plans to adapt already-existing commercial rockets for human/beyond-LEO exploration in favor of internally developing the Ares rockets."
Cellphones

Verizon Tells Cops "Your Money Or Your Life" 593

Mike writes "A 62-year-old man had a mental breakdown and ran off after grabbing several bottles of pills from his house. The cops asked Verizon to help trace the man using his cellphone, but Verizon refused, saying that they couldn't turn on his phone because he had an unpaid bill for $20. After an 11-hour search (during which time the sheriff's department was trying to figure out how to pay the bill), the man was found, unconscious. 'I was more concerned for the person's life,' Sheriff Dale Williams said. 'It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill.' Score another win for the Verizon Customer Service team."

Comment Re:In a word... (Score 1) 1385

Coming from Japan, the most frustrating aspect of Acela is that it routinely runs late, due to having to share tracks with those damned freighter trains. The Shinkansen's average delay is measured in seconds; the Japanese routinely plan trips with 5 minute transit time because they can trust the trains to arrive on time.

The main reason Shinkansen trains are fast and on time is because the main routes run on dedicated tracks. On the Yamagata and Akita lines, they do share tracks with local passenger trains, but Shinkansen gets preferred right-of-way.

This, incidentally, is why splitting track and train ownership is a bad idea for high speed rail. Neither side can take full ownership in assuring the most convenience to the end users, which is what generates revenue at the end of the day.

Comment Re:What's the appeal? (Score 1) 582

You appear to have selected and orc hunter, about as bland an experience as possible.

Level 1-6 should take about an hour and take place all in a tiny portion of one zone (of which there are 40-60 in the game, with everything from lush jungle to winter wonderland, to medieval castles, to strange biodomes)

You gave up on a game after an hour? I assume you are not a big devotee of the original Warcraft series (the RTS), or the lore/storyline that goes with them? As you advance along, there really is a plot describing what is happening in the world and the different conflicts that are playing out before you. In the end-game you are actually part of the conflict.

The Internet

ICANN Takes a Step Toward Ending Domain Tasting 155

An anonymous reader writes "For years, domain squatters have exploited an ICANN loophole: whenever a domain name is registered, ICANN collects a 20-cent fee from the registrar. To allow for non-paying customers, the registrar can return it five days later for a full refund. The loophole has let unscrupulous registrars constantly create and refund domain-squatting websites, selling 'what you need when you need it' advertising. The problem has grown so bad that every month the world's top three domain squatters, all located in Miami with the same address and represented by the same lawyer, recycle 11 million domain names. After years of complaints, ICANN has finally begun moving on the problem. On April 17 ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization voted to make the ICANN 20-cent fee non-refundable. If the ICANN board ratifies this position in June, those top three squatters will be getting a monthly bill for $2.2M. News of the ICANN changes has been applauded by legitimate Internet businesses, tired of having to choose nonsense names because all the good ones have been squatted. ICANN has published an analysis of the economics of ending domain squatting."

Comment Re:Who cares about Final Fantasy anymore? (Score 1) 136

For example, how can I get a character to continue to steal until they get certain item and then stop and switch to attacking? Or to steal only once from a certain monster for the whole battle, even if that monster has less then 100% health.
I can't dig up the source right now, but I remember the developers saying in a Japanese interview that this omission is deliberate. It'd have been trivial for them to add "Monster holding treasure" as a gambit target, but they chose not to make the game not too easy. Yes, you can program your characters to beat monsters in your sleep; no, you can't sleep your way through the game if you also want to optimize treasure collection. It's mean-spirited, yes, but don't assume they haven't thought through it.

By the way, if other characters are attacking monsters before your thief can target them, your gambit isn't precise enough. I'll leave the solution as an exercise for the reader.

Power

Submission + - Inventor of Instant Noodles Dies

Jack Action writes: Momofuku Ando, the inventor of "Chicken Ramen" — the original instant noodle — has died at age 96. Mr. Ando introduced his "Ramen" series of noodles in 1958 to help ease post-WWII food shortages in Japan, and they became an "instant" success. Mr Ando's noodles went into outer space in 2005 on the Space Shuttle ("Space Ram"), and a museum dedicated to his invention was opened in Japan in 1999. They also changed the lives of countless college students and geeks everywhere, and for many are the symbol of non-Western fast food. On this day of the inventor's passing, what are your thoughts on his legacy to the world?
User Journal

Journal Journal: friends

So today I tried to use the "Friends" system.
We'll see if it does anything at all.

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