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Comment Campfire Power (Score 1) 157

by Quantus347 (#37317206) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Classroom Eco-Projects Suited To Alaska?
Ive had good luck with demonstrations in Alaska of Sterling Engines and other external combustion technologies. They are quite popular for Alaskan audiences since the majority of the state has no central power grid, and in many cases no traditional running water, but will have a wood fire burning most of the year. Sterling engines for power generation, or even simple circulation systems that can be used to heat water for bathing (we filled a canoe with water and rigged a pedal power pump to circulate the water through a coil of copper tubing buried in the coals of a campfire)
Music

Submission + - Mari Kimura SUBHARMONICS violin String Theory (makeahistory.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In April 1994, at a solo recital given by Mari Kimura in New York City, subharmonics were introduced to the musical community as a revolutionary bowing technique to extend the violin's range by a full octave below on the open G string without changing the tuning. Subharmonics require precise control of the bow pressure and speed, in order to freely utilize this extended bowing technique. Subharmonics can be used as a musical element for composers to explore additional possibilities for the violin and other string instruments. As the technique has grown significantly since the initial discovery more than 15 years ago, it was apparent that Subharmonics needed a closer look in the most controlled environment. ....
Security

Submission + - Many Stuxnet Bugs Still Unpatched by Siemens (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The media storm over the Stuxnet worm may have passed, but many of the software holes that were used by the worm remain unpatched and leave Siemens customers open to a wide range of potentially damaging cyber attacks, according to industrial control system expert Ralph Langner.
Langner said that the media paid too much attention to the four, zero day Windows vulnerabilities that enabled the Stuxnet worm, but overlooked the other security holes used by the worm. Unlike the Windows vulnerabilities, which Microsoft quickly fixed, many of the holes in Siemens' products remain unpatched, he contends.

Langner enumerates three types of exploits used by Stuxnet — only one category of which (Windows operating system exploits) have been closed. The other two are Windows applications exploits aimed at Siemens Siemens Simatic Manager and the Siemens WinCC SCADA application, and controller exploits aimed at Siemens S70-300 and 400 series controllers.
Security

Submission + - Sex, Lies and Cyber-crime Surveys (microsoft.com)

Submitted by isoloisti
isoloisti writes: In surveys men claim to have had more female sex partners than women claim male partners, which is impossible. The reason? A few self-described Don Juans who tell whoppers pull the average way up, and errors don't cancel. Cyber-crime estimates are hopelessly exaggerated for exactly the same reason according to a new study to appear at the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security. The authors write: “‘You should never trust user input’ says one standard text on writing secure code. It is ironic then that our cyber-crime survey estimates rely almost exclusively on unverified user input. A practice that is regarded as unacceptable in writing code is ubiquitous in forming the estimates that drive policy." In many cases 75% of the estimate comes from the unverified self-reported answers of one or two people.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Infinity Blade for iOS nets $10 million in profits (edibleapple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Infinity Blade from Epic was one of the most successful app launches in iTunes history when it debuted late last year. With extremely positive reviews and a reasonable price point, the game grossed over $1.6 million in revenue in just its first few days out on the market. Since then, sales have remained steady enough to net over $10 million in revenue.
NASA

Submission + - Edge of Solar System Filled with Bubbles (space.com)

Submitted by
cultiv8
cultiv8 writes: "The edge of our solar system is filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles, according to new NASA research.

Scientists made the discovery by using a new computer model, which is based on data from NASA's twin Voyager probes. The unmanned Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which launched in 1977, are plying the outer reaches of our solar system, a region known as the heliosheath.

The new discovery suggests that researchers will need to revise their views about the solar system's edge, NASA officials said. A more detailed picture of this region is key to our understanding of how fast-moving particles known as cosmic rays are spawned, and how they reach near-Earth space."
DRM

Submission + - DRM is counterproductive (techrepublic.com)

Submitted by dwreid
dwreid writes: It's interesting to see a mainstream technical site such as TechRepublic call out that DRM provides no benefit but does increase costs and punish legitimate customers.

Submission + - Supreme Court Removes "Willful Ignorance" Defense (scotusblog.com)

Submitted by Windrip
Windrip writes: The Supremes provide yet another way for patent holders to crush their opponents.
Consider the affirmation of the Federal Court ruling in Global Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A.. This decision has ramifications far beyond the infringement:

The plaintiff SEB (the respondent in this case) holds a patent on a design for a deep-fat fryer; the defendant Global Tech (here, the petitioner) reverse-engineered SEBâ(TM)s fryer and marketed a competing fryer.

You really want to rethink your "I don't read patents to avoid damages" strategy: The U.S. Supreme Court has now flat-lined that advice

But the remainder of the opinion is quite interesting. Adopting a suggestion from the oral argument, the Court (with only Justice Kennedy dissenting) held that the judgment of the Federal Circuit nevertheless could be affirmed on the basis of Global Techâ(TM)s willful blindness.
... What is novel about this (and what will make this one of the most commonly cited decisions of the Term) is the Court's explanation for the first time that criminal statutes which require proof of knowing or willful conduct are satisfied by proof of willful blindness.

Submission + - The War On Photography: Legal Analysis (ssrn.com)

Submitted by YIAAL
YIAAL writes: We've seen increasing numbers of stories about photographers facing arrest or assault by police and security officers simply for taking pictures — often pictures of law enforcement misconduct. Although photographers have a legal right to take pictures in pretty much any public place, this article by Morgan Manning concludes that the legal remedies for violations of that right are inadequate and often entirely unworkable. Is law-enforcement education the solution, or do we need new civil rights laws — maybe with attorney fees and heavy damages — to protect photographers from being hassled?
Microsoft

Submission + - Protogon? Please name it something else. (neowin.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Windows 8 reportedly will have a new file system named "Protogon", virtually ensuring any football player upon hearing a tech support nerd utter the word "protogon" will instantly beat the nerd to a bloody pulp for sounding so stupidly nerdy.

Submission + - Bitcoin & The End of State-Controlled Money: Q (youtube.com)

Submitted by
hookskat
hookskat writes: "Bitcoin is the world's first fully decentralized, peer-to-peer (p2p) virtual currency. It allows users to make anonymous and untraceable cash transactions anywhere in the world without any sort of real-world intermediary. So unlike PayPal and other online services, it can't be squeezed in the same way by governments or other control agents.

Created in 2009 by a shadowy figure who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, there are currently about 6 million bitcoins in circulation. That number will eventually rise, in regular intervals, to a total of 21 million by 2033. A money system without any sort of central bank? A currency whose supply increases at a steady and predictable rate according to a concept elucidated by the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman?

Just how revolutionary is Bitcoin?

Reason.tv sat down with Mercatus Senior Research Fellow Jerry Brito to learn how Bitcoin operates and what the implications are for traditional state-based fiat currencies. "Whether Bitcoin succeeds or fails is neither here nor there," says Brito, who predicts that currencies in the future will almost certainly be deregulated and decentralized — with or without governments' consent."
Music

Submission + - MuseScore makes Open Goldberg Variations available (musescore.com)

Submitted by
rDouglass
rDouglass writes: "MuseScore, the open source music notation project, has created a new edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and a set of online tools that facilitates the public scholarly review of the work. The review period is intended to help the MuseScore team identify any problems with the score. The score can be viewed and played in the browser. Annotations and discussions for each part of the score enable review and corrections. Downloadable versions include MuseScore, MusicXML, MIDI, mp3, or PDF. Video scores (YouTube videos that are synchronized to play with the score) let the score be viewed in the context of individual performances. MuseScore is a partner in the Open Goldberg Variations Project, a crowd-funded effort to place a definitive score and recording of the work into the public domain in such a way as to make them widely and freely available, without usage restrictions (Creative Commons Zero). German pianist Kimiko Ishizka will produce the studio recording of the work later this year. Funding continues on Kickstarter until June 3, 2011."
Science

Submission + - 2011 World Science Festival Begins in NYC (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: For the next five days, New Yorkers will be learning about science not from a PowerPoint presentation but by watching it firsthand. The World Science Festival is taking over New York City from June 1 to 5, bringing together scientists, celebrities, researchers and more to discuss the fascinating world of science. Celebrating its fourth year, the fledgling festival has turned into a seasoned veteran, attracting over 185,000 attendants last year, and the festival creators expect the numbers to be even more impressive this year.

The main goal of the festival: to highlight a topic that creators feel hasn't been given proper credit in both the media and mainstream society.

Submission + - Power grid demand matching using flywheels (cnet.com)

Submitted by
hackertourist
hackertourist writes: "A novel type of electricity storage was recently added to the New York power grid. The unit, supplied by Beacon Power uses flywheels to store energy. The unit is intended to replace gas turbines in supplying short-term peaks in power demand (also known as frequency regulation). It can supply up to 20 MW, using 200 flywheels."

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