Comment Re:No Denial Here But What Are the Reasons? (Score 0) 1255
Unbelievably, people are actually commenting on the Marge Simpson Poses For Playboy thread, so maybe there's something to this.
Submission + - Carbon Capture Works at Wisconsin Coal Plant
pickens writes: Hugh Pickens writes:
Thomas Content writes in the Milwauke Journal Sentinel that a coal-fired power plant in southeastern Wisconsin has been successful in grabbing 90% of greenhouse gas using chilled ammonia to capture carbon dioxide from the smokestack. The technology is one of several being tested by utilities that are seeking to ways to continue burning coal from their existing fleet of coal plants even if the United States embarks on a national plan to slash emissions of greenhouse gases. "One of the biggest challenges facing our industry is the development of cost effective technology that will allow us to capture carbon from the operation of power plants around the world," says Gale Klappa, chairman and chief executive of We Energies. The next phase of testing at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia will go one step further by testing not only the capture but the sequestration of the carbon dioxide where the gas will be compressed, pipelined, and injected into two different saline reservoirs located approximately 8,000 feet beneath the plant site. The experiment, which the company says could begin in the next few days, is riveting the world's coal-fired electricity sector, which is under growing pressure to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. The technology is certain to devour a substantial amount of the plant's energy output — optimists say 15 percent, and skeptics, 30 percent leaving less electricity available to send out to the power grid and utility customers. "Key questions around energy consumption — a key driver of cost — and other important technical issues will be addressed as larger-scale demonstrations work to fully optimize the technology."
Thomas Content writes in the Milwauke Journal Sentinel that a coal-fired power plant in southeastern Wisconsin has been successful in grabbing 90% of greenhouse gas using chilled ammonia to capture carbon dioxide from the smokestack. The technology is one of several being tested by utilities that are seeking to ways to continue burning coal from their existing fleet of coal plants even if the United States embarks on a national plan to slash emissions of greenhouse gases. "One of the biggest challenges facing our industry is the development of cost effective technology that will allow us to capture carbon from the operation of power plants around the world," says Gale Klappa, chairman and chief executive of We Energies. The next phase of testing at the Mountaineer power plant in West Virginia will go one step further by testing not only the capture but the sequestration of the carbon dioxide where the gas will be compressed, pipelined, and injected into two different saline reservoirs located approximately 8,000 feet beneath the plant site. The experiment, which the company says could begin in the next few days, is riveting the world's coal-fired electricity sector, which is under growing pressure to develop technology to capture and store carbon dioxide. The technology is certain to devour a substantial amount of the plant's energy output — optimists say 15 percent, and skeptics, 30 percent leaving less electricity available to send out to the power grid and utility customers. "Key questions around energy consumption — a key driver of cost — and other important technical issues will be addressed as larger-scale demonstrations work to fully optimize the technology."
Comment Ted Dziuba (Score 5, Insightful) 619
Who?
Also:
Who cares?
Submission + - Student Faces Prison for Disrupting Oil Auctions
pickens writes: Hugh Pickens writes:
The NY Times reports that last December Tim DeChristopher went to a federal auction of oil and gas leases offered in the Bush administration's closing days and even then the subject of protests and lawsuits — and bid on contracts that he had neither the money nor intent to actually fulfill. "My intention was to cause as much of a disruption to the auction as I could," says DeChristopher, a 27-year-old student at the University of Utah. "Making that decision — that keeping the oil in the ground was worth going to prison — that was the decision I made." DeChristopher is now charged with two felony counts of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms even as most of the specific leases DeChristopher protested — many of them near national parks or monuments — have not only been deferred or taken off the table by federal land managers in the Obama administration but also scathingly disavowed. "There was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration that led to the kinds of shortcuts we have demonstrated," says Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. DeChristopher praised Salazar's decision, saying it represents government taking a "serious stance in the defense of our land and climate." Federal prosecutors argue that whether DeChristopher was on some level correct in opposing the leases is irrelevant and DeChristopher now faces up to five years in prison on each of the two counts and up to $750,000 in fines. DeChristopher's attorney has asked the judge to allow a so-called necessity defense at the trial.enabling DeChristopher to argue that he faced a "choice of evils" that justified breaking the law. "Bush and the [Bureau of Land Management] should be on trial here," says DeChristopher's lawyer.
The NY Times reports that last December Tim DeChristopher went to a federal auction of oil and gas leases offered in the Bush administration's closing days and even then the subject of protests and lawsuits — and bid on contracts that he had neither the money nor intent to actually fulfill. "My intention was to cause as much of a disruption to the auction as I could," says DeChristopher, a 27-year-old student at the University of Utah. "Making that decision — that keeping the oil in the ground was worth going to prison — that was the decision I made." DeChristopher is now charged with two felony counts of interfering with an auction and making false statements on bidding forms even as most of the specific leases DeChristopher protested — many of them near national parks or monuments — have not only been deferred or taken off the table by federal land managers in the Obama administration but also scathingly disavowed. "There was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration that led to the kinds of shortcuts we have demonstrated," says Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. DeChristopher praised Salazar's decision, saying it represents government taking a "serious stance in the defense of our land and climate." Federal prosecutors argue that whether DeChristopher was on some level correct in opposing the leases is irrelevant and DeChristopher now faces up to five years in prison on each of the two counts and up to $750,000 in fines. DeChristopher's attorney has asked the judge to allow a so-called necessity defense at the trial.enabling DeChristopher to argue that he faced a "choice of evils" that justified breaking the law. "Bush and the [Bureau of Land Management] should be on trial here," says DeChristopher's lawyer.
Submission + - NSA building data warehouses to store Yottabytes (nybooks.com)
bitemykarma writes: The New York Review of Books has an article titled "Who's in Big Brother's Database?" by James Bamford, which is a review of the book "The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency" by Matthew M. Aid.
Here's the teaser for the review:
"At three times the size of the CIA, the ultra-secret National Security Agency is the US government's sprawling eavesdropping apparatus, recording trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, data trails, web searches, parking receipts, and other digital "pocket litter." To house this information, it is now building a vast windowless library on a remote edge of Utah's high desert and a stadium-sized data archive in San Antonio, Texas. But while the NSA is drowning in untranslated, indecipherable, and mostly unusable surveillance data, its most urgent problem may be its severe shortage of electrical power."
Here's the teaser for the review:
"At three times the size of the CIA, the ultra-secret National Security Agency is the US government's sprawling eavesdropping apparatus, recording trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, data trails, web searches, parking receipts, and other digital "pocket litter." To house this information, it is now building a vast windowless library on a remote edge of Utah's high desert and a stadium-sized data archive in San Antonio, Texas. But while the NSA is drowning in untranslated, indecipherable, and mostly unusable surveillance data, its most urgent problem may be its severe shortage of electrical power."
Comment The old games are the best (Score 0, Insightful) 107
Good deal.
Submission + - Hulu desktop on linux (hulu.com) 2
CheshireFerk-o writes: "To much surprise and great pleasure hulu desktop has been released on linux. It includes all the features of the other clients including LIRC remote support, its nice to see another mainstream company showing support."
Submission + - Sun Releases New Update to Solaris 10 OS (net-security.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Sun Microsystems announced the Solaris 10 10/09 Operating System. The Solaris 10 OS has been extended with new performance and power efficiency enhancements, more streamlined management of system installations, updates and fixes, new updates for Solaris ZFS and advancements to further leverage the functionality of the latest SPARC and x86 based systems. Solaris 10 10/09 provides new features, fixes and hardware support in an easy-to-install manner, preserving full compatibility with over 11,000 third-party products and customer applications, including Oracle database and application software.
Submission + - Yahoo provided Iran with names of 200,000
rcamans writes: October 8th, 2009
"ZDnet's Richard Koman accuses Yahoo of having collaborated with the Iranian regime during the recent post-election protests. Koman says the online giant provided names and emails for some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users to authorities so that those same authorities would "unban" Yahoo on the state-controlled internet. The blog post does not include a response by Yahoo to the allegations, but promises "to provide further proof as the story unfolds." Snip:
This is according to a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog. My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information. These sources say that Yahoo representatives met with Iranian Internet authorities after Google and Yahoo were shut down during the protests and agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo." This quote from ZDNET @ http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/09/yahoo-accused-of-hav.html#more
Yahoo has not yet responded to these claims, and they are not substantiated. Can anyone out there help substantiate these?
"ZDnet's Richard Koman accuses Yahoo of having collaborated with the Iranian regime during the recent post-election protests. Koman says the online giant provided names and emails for some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users to authorities so that those same authorities would "unban" Yahoo on the state-controlled internet. The blog post does not include a response by Yahoo to the allegations, but promises "to provide further proof as the story unfolds." Snip:
This is according to a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog. My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information. These sources say that Yahoo representatives met with Iranian Internet authorities after Google and Yahoo were shut down during the protests and agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo." This quote from ZDNET @ http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/09/yahoo-accused-of-hav.html#more
Yahoo has not yet responded to these claims, and they are not substantiated. Can anyone out there help substantiate these?
Submission + - SPAM: A.I. Researcher Offers Singularity Survival Tips
destinyland writes: A.I. researcher Ben Goertzel reports back from the 2009 Singularity Summit in New York. Stephen Wolfram discussed Wolfram|Alpha, an IBM researcher described brain emulation, and Intel CTO Justin Rattner spoke "on his firm's potential role in the Singularity." But in this follow-up article, Ben Goertzel describes what he learned in a day-long workshop/discussion group on averting catastrophic outcomes: his list of "11 ways to avoid a bad Singularity." For example, tip #5 suggests that humanity should simply refrain from building any artificial intelligences that are autonomous...
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Comment Free Market != Capitalism and Ferdinand Magellan (Score -1) 133
What you describe is not capitalism, it is a free market. Capitalism is the financing of an enterprise with the expectation of a return on investment.
For instance Christopher de Haro, and Charles V financed the 1519 voyage of Ferdinand Magellan. de Haro put up the money for 1/4 share, and Chuck put up the other 3/4 of the cost of the voyage.
In other words they owned stock in Magellan's corporation, expecting to eventually receive 1/4 and 3/4 share of the spoils respectively. The same thing goes on today when we buy stock share in a corporation.
Submission + - Pop star banned from sharing his own songs (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: The music industry's crackdown on illegal-file sharing is hitting artists themselves, after Edwyn Collins was banned from uploading his own songs to MySpace. Collins's wife and manager, Grace Maxwell, was thwarted when she attempted to upload the star's 1994 hit, A Girl Like You, to his MySpace page — even though the Scottish singer owns the copyright to all his own music. "I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian MySpace copyright re-education page. Quite chilling, actually." Maxwell was eventually told that Warner Bros were laying claim to the track. "MySpace is not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright," she said.
Comment Re:Not even October 22 yet... (Score -1) 332
Good post, and
Honestly, Unix users probably use them more simply because the average Unix user is far more knowledgeable about computers and their usage than the average Windows user
is a given, but I think you have a different definition of
dawn of time
than most of us.
Comment Re:Perl has died in industry (mod away, kids) (Score -1) 235
I guess "flamebait" is slashdotspeak for disagree.
Comment Re:Perl has died in industry (mod away, kids) (Score -1, Flamebait) 235
Ok, I know this will be modded flamebait or troll, but really. Think about why do these scripting ("dynamic", bah) languages come and go.
It appears to me that some kids don't want to mess around with compilers and such. They value programming speed over stability and maintainability. Don't think so? Look at a Python program sometime and compare the ratio of comment lines to code lines in comparison to software written by an adult in a compiled language.
But my real point is an answer to why people aren't using perl so much anymore; they grew up.
The new kids are using Python, PHP, Ruby, or whatever is the latest excuse not to actually compile code into something stable and maintainale.
