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Earth

African Villages Glow With Renewable Energy 172

Peace Corps Online writes "The NY Times reports that as small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries playing an epic, transformative role. With the advent of cheap solar panels and high-efficiency LED lights, which can light a room with just 4 watts of power instead of 60, these small solar systems now deliver useful electricity at a price that even the poor can afford. 'You're seeing herders in Inner Mongolia with solar cells on top of their yurts,' says energy adviser Dana Younger. In addition to small solar projects, renewable energy technologies designed for the poor include simple subterranean biogas chambers that make fuel and electricity from the manure of a few cows, and 'mini' hydroelectric dams that can harness the power of a local river for an entire village. 'It's a phenomenon that's sweeping the world; a huge number of these systems are being installed,' says Younger."
Image

Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed Screenshot-sm 1352

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!
The Military

Submission + - Devil Dogs use Solar Power in Afghanistan

Ponca City, We Love You writes: "US Marines, long known as innovators, are using cutting-edge energy technology that promises to make them leaner, meaner and a whole lot greener as the NY Times reports that in Afghanistan, with enemy fighters increasingly attacking American fuel supply convoys crossing the Khyber Pass from Pakistan, the military is pushing aggressively to develop, test and deploy renewable energy to decrease its need to transport fossil fuels. “Fossil fuel is the No. 1 thing we import to Afghanistan,” says Ray Mabus, the Navy secretary, “and guarding that fuel is keeping the troops from doing what they were sent there to do, to fight or engage local people.” The 150 Marines of Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, will be the first to take renewable technology into a battle zone, bringing portable solar panels that fold up into boxes; energy-conserving lights; solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity; solar chargers for computers and communications equipment replacing diesel and kerosene-based fuels that would ordinarily generate power to run their encampment. The new goal of the Devil Dogs is to make the more peripheral sites sustain themselves with the kind of renewable technology carried by Company I, since solar electricity can be generated right on the battlefield. The renewable technology that will power Company I costs about $50,000 to $70,000; a single diesel generator costs several thousand dollars. But when it costs hundreds of dollars to get each gallon of traditional fuel to base camps in Afghanistan, the investment is quickly defrayed. “It’s going to make Marines more lethal because they will be able to move from one place to the other without having to wait for a logistics convoy to follow them around on the battlefield,” says Capt. Adorjan Ferenczy, an engineer officer at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab."
Networking

Submission + - Research aims to ease large-scale network control (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: Simplifying large scale network environments is a complex task but one that a number of researchers and vendors are trying to undertake. This week researchers from Google, Nicira Networks and NEC under the guise of the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at UC Berkeley will present a research project at this week's USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation they are working on that they say will simplify network control and management implementations.
Programming

When Rewriting an App Actually Makes Sense 289

vlangber writes "Joel Spolsky wrote a famous blog post back in 2000 called 'Things You Should Never Do, Part I,' where he wrote the following: '[T]he single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make: They decided to rewrite the code from scratch.' Here is a story about a software company that decided to rewrite their application from scratch, and their experiences from that process."
Businesses

CBS and CNN Could Be Making News Together 124

crimeandpunishment writes "More proof of the profound impact cable, the Internet, and other outlets have had on broadcast news organizations. CBS and CNN, who have danced around the idea of a partnership for years, may be ready to move forward. Both news organizations have a lot at stake. Broadcast network news has a gloomy financial outlook, and CNN's ratings need a jump-start."
Transportation

Austria Converts Phone Booths To EV Chargers 161

separsons writes "Telekom Austria, a telecommunications company, aims to convert obsolete public phone booths into electric vehicle recharging stations. The company unveiled its first station yesterday in Vienna and hopes to create 29 more stations by the end of the year. The stations may not be super popular now, but they should be soon; Austria's motor vehicle association says the country will likely have 405,000 electric vehicles on the road by the year 2020."

Comment Re:Isn't Oil? (Score 1) 374

It is when you burn it outright or use it in a fuel cell

Not when it releases less energy than it took to create it. You won't find much free hydrogen on Earth.

Still, if you put Hydrogen under enough pressure, it fuses nicely into helium and releases lots of energy in the process

Which is nuclear power.

Comment Uh... (Score 1) 462

I don't have much time to play games. Matter of fact, my monthly budget is pretty much zero hours.

Yet, _if_ I sit down and play a game, I want to do it right.
When I still had time, barring Doom 1 & 2, I played through every single FPS which I ever played on hardest mode without losing a single health point (notable exception: in Doom 3, you exit an escalator and breathe some kind of gas. You need to switch off the gas outlet and do not have a hazmat suit at that point. Sucks. -- Also, I never made it through Half Life proper as there is one section where a squad of enemies is outside a warehouse and I could never kill _all_ enemies without losing health. I lost the savegame and as I spent more than a week on that one part where you fall trough the ground (not the large pipe; later), I never could get myself to start from scratch).

In Secret of Mana, I have several perfect savegames. In Chrono Trigger, I have 1 1/2 perfect save games. In Zelda 3, I have countless perfect savegames.

But take any random new-ish Zelda title. In Twilight Princess, to get all heart containers, you need to fish. I suck at that, but I made myself go through it. I even walked around looking for golden bugs for ages.

But the newest Zelda on DS, Spirit Tracks? You need to play for ages _after_ you beat the game, trying to get treasures so you can get all train parts. Same for ship parts in the Zelda before that.

And _that_ is what annoys me. If you create a way to collect all of X, do not make collecting X a goal in and as of itself. At least not if you force your paying customers to sit through hours and hours of monotonous, braindead _work_ to truly finish a game.
I would rather play a good game twice than slave away at finishing it once.

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