Bloody Peasant - Slashdot User

Auditors Question TSA's Tech Spending, Security Solutions 239

Posted by Soulskill on Monday December 27, 2010 @08:12PM from the taxpayer-funded-fondlecrats dept.

Frosty P writes "Government auditors have faulted the TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, for failing to properly test and evaluate technology before spending money on it. The TSA spent about $36 million on devices that puffed air on travelers to 'sniff' them out for explosives residue. All 207 of those machines ended up in warehouses, abandoned as unable to perform as advertised, deployed in many airports before the TSA had fully tested them. Since it was founded in 2001, the TSA has spent roughly $14 billion in more than 20,900 transactions with dozens of contractors, including $8 billion for the famous new body scanners that have recently come under scrutiny for being unable to perform the task for which they are advertised. 'TSA has an obsession of finding a single box that will solve all its problems. They've spent and wasted money looking for that one box, and there is no such solution,' said John Huey, an airport security expert."

Satellite-Based Laser Hunts Woodpeckers From Space 53

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 27, 2010 @02:04PM from the where's-woody dept.

University of Idaho scientists have figured out a more effective way to track woodpecker populations than following the incessant laughter. They're using a laser onboard NASA's Icesat spacecraft to determine where the birds might be living. From the article: "NASA's Icesat satellite was initially intended for measuring glacial surfaces at the Earth's poles but has proven to be quite effective in measuring vegetation also. The satellite's laser bounces off of forest canopies, tree trunks and the ground making important characteristics about the forest easily measurable. For example, forest density is determined by the relative amount of light returned versus that which is returned from the ground. Once ideal woodpecker locations are identified 'we actually conduct ground-based woodpecker surveys in these locations as well to verify it,' says team-member Patrick Adam."

Comment Forth (Score 1) 763

by Bloody Peasant on Monday December 20, 2010 @04:40PM (#34620418) Attached to: OS I'd Most Like To See Make a Comeback

: comment Dude poll this seriously take ;

Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 16, 2010 @01:58PM from the fair-balanced-and-simple dept.

A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!

Download Firefox, Feed a Red Panda 90

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 07, 2010 @11:27AM from the have-a-sandwich dept.

KenW writes "Mozilla has launched a new marketing campaign to promote Firefox: adopting red pandas and putting them on live webcams. The company wants to underline the fact that the red panda is the mascot for its open source browser via a new section on its site called Firefox Live. It's clear that Mozilla is trying to think of new ways to promote its browser ahead of the launch of Firefox 4. The company has been struggling recently as Firefox steadily loses share to Google Chrome."

US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months' 322

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 22, 2010 @12:11PM from the dropping-the-football dept.

Martin Hellman writes "Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton's recently released memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, asserts that an aide to President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the 'nuclear football' during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence."

MIT Unveils Portable, Solar-Powered Water Desalination System 117

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 19, 2010 @01:07AM from the water-the-chances dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Field and Space Robotic Laboratory has designed a new solar-powered water desalination system to provide drinking water to disaster zones and disadvantaged parts of the planet. Desalination systems often require a lot of energy and a large infrastructure to support them, but MIT's compact system is able to cope due to its ingenious design. The system's photovoltaic panel is able to generate power for the pump, which in turn pushes undrinkable seawater through a permeable membrane. MIT's prototype can reportedly produce 80 gallons of drinking water per day, depending on weather conditions."

Comment 205 mph, eh? (Score 1) 334

by Bloody Peasant on Friday October 01, 2010 @06:45PM (#33766054) Attached to: Jaguar's Hybrid Jet-Powered Concept Car

Jaguar has developed a hybrid car that runs on gas turbines... Cnet UK reports the car can... reach 205 mph while emitting less CO2 than a Toyota Prius.

I didn't know a Prius could go 205 mph :-P

Songbird Fossil Virus May Help Predict Pandemics 42

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 29, 2010 @11:02PM from the oldest-medicine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers announced they found a fossil virus hiding in the most unexpected place: the chromosomes of several songbird species. This ancient virus resembles human hepatitis B virus. Finding this ancient virus will catalyze new lines of inquiry that may help scientists predict and prevent future human viral pandemics that originate in birds."

Microwave Map of Entire Moon Revealed 82

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @03:31PM from the quickest-route-mode dept.

Zothecula writes "The first complete microwave image of the Moon taken by Chinese lunar satellite Chang'E-1 has been revealed. Chang'E-1 is China's first scientific mission to explore planetary bodies beyond Earth and the on-board Lunar Microwave Radiometer has made it possible for the first time to globally map the Moon in microwave frequencies. Radar observations of the Moon are unable to provide thermal information, and microwave observations taken from Earth cannot reach the far side of the moon. So Chang'E-1's (CE-1) orbit was conducted at an altitude of 200km (124 miles) and allowed it to observe every location of the moon with a nadir view and at high spatial resolution."

NASA Preparing For Largest Hurricane Study Ever 28

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 13, 2010 @10:47AM from the assuming-they're-not-blowing-hot-air dept.

anonymous writes "Does lightning predict the intensity of a tropical storm? What role does dust from the Sahara play? Do hurricanes form from the large-scale environment around a tropical storm or from small-scale formations 100 kilometers from the center? A team from NASA, NOAA, and NSF plan to find out. Starting Saturday, the team will conduct the largest hurricane study every undertaken. Among other things, a better understanding of hurricanes has ramifications for weather prediction, building codes, insurance policies, and disaster planning." One recent study found that hurricane creation is affected by plankton in the ocean.

Comment Re:Short Study Timeframe (Score 1) 762

by Bloody Peasant on Monday August 09, 2010 @10:26PM (#33199246) Attached to: Just One Out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back In Gas Savings

If you look at the figures in the referenced PDF, and calculate the 10-year savings (assuming most Hybrid owners will keep their cars at least until the batteries need swapped out), surprise surprise, you get different results!

I can't insert a table here, 'cause that's a verboten element :-( but here's the basics. Take the difference between the MSRP and the total 5-year cost, double that, and add it back to the MSRP to get the 10-year cost. Also, calculate the percentage saving as the 10-year savings compared to the MSRP. When you do that, you get:

Merc S450: 10-year cost, $193,244; cost per year, $19,324
Merc S450 Hybrid: 10-year cost $184,630: cost per year, $18,464; Savings $8,614; Percent Savings: 8.13%
Toyota Matrix XR: 10-year cost $55,412; cost per year, $5,541
Toyota Prius Hybrid: 10-year cost $53,148; cost per year, $5,315; Savings $2,264; Percent Savings: 8.23%

While it's all lies, damn lies, and statistics, you get the idea. Your annual expenses are over three times less

with a Prius compared to a Merc Hybrid, and the percentage savings you get after 10 years in terms of the original sticker price is about the same or better.

Buckyballs Detected In Space 117

Posted by timothy on Friday July 23, 2010 @04:54AM from the you-may-know-his-work-from-epcot-center dept.

Rhodin writes "Fullerenes, also known as buckminsterfullerenes or 'buckyballs,' were detected about 6,500 light years from Earth in the cosmic dust of Tc 1 (PDF; abstract), an object known as a planetary nebula. 'We found what are now the largest molecules known to exist in space,' said astronomer Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'We are particularly excited because they have unique properties that make them important players for all sorts of physical and chemical processes going on in space.'" (More, below.)

Comment Re:We pay a lot more (Score 1) 332

by Bloody Peasant on Monday July 19, 2010 @10:45AM (#32950948) Attached to: WSJ's Mossberg Calls For a Tougher Broadband Plan

Just to insert a point of information:

I live in one of those rural areas. The only internet choices I have are

Dialup Modem
Satellite so-called "broadband", costs for Wildblue when bundled with dish network are:
- $49.95/month for 512 Kbits/second downlink (I forget the uplink)
- $69.95/month for 1 Mbit/second downlink
- $79.95/month for 1.5 Mbit/second downlink

And there's a 7.5 GByte/month "fair access policy" cap on usage for the lowest plan.

I don't live that far out in the booneys; it's a 20-minute commute to the nearest large town, and there's a significant small town about 5 miles north. But the local telecom company has shown no interest in getting any sort of high speed options to this neck of the woods. It's a lowish population density but not that low.

There might be other options on the horizon, so to speak, except the hills around the house block the existing wide area wireless network and wouldn't be kind to any new ones.

Fiber to my house? That would be cool, but unless they're pushed, the local telcos have no interest in doing this because the potential payout for the expenditure would be too long term for them (i.e., more than a fiscal quarter).

Comment Re:I get only an advertisement from the NYT link (Score 3, Insightful) 354

by Bloody Peasant on Saturday June 26, 2010 @10:44AM (#32702358) Attached to: High Depreciation May Slow Electric Car Acceptance

If EVs fail, it won't be because of lies about their resale value. EVs are in fact likely to have HIGHER resale value because they eliminate so much that can go wrong with the typical auto.

Indeed.

Also, I don't know why anyone hasn't brought up "Prius Resale Value" yet as a case in point. Or the expected versus actual battery life in'em; they've been around over 10 years now.

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