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Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 1143

by Drewdad (#45384105) Attached to: EPA Makes Most Wood Stoves Illegal

"Some fireplaces are so poor that they actually have negative efficiency."

Almost all fireplaces are negatively efficient. They radiate in only one direction (while a stove radiates in six), and most of the heat goes up the chimney. Meanwhile, cold air is being sucked in to replace the hot air going up the chimney. Stoves are designed to draw air from the outside of the house, rather than the interior.

Plus, if your house is well insulated (which means few air leaks), the fireplace can't draw well and you get a smoky house.

Comment Don't poke the peons (Score 3, Insightful) 218

by Drewdad (#45232713) Attached to: 87-Year-Old World War II Veteran Takes On the TSA

Poor schlub is just trying to take home a paycheck. He (or she) did not make the stupid rules; she (or he) just has smell feet all day.

Take the TSA to court, or send letters to your congresscritter, or something. Don't make life more miserable for the privates.

(Did I mention that the TSA is just a depression-era jobs program wrapped up in patriotism and fear?)

Submission + - On the way to 15 cents a Watt solar panels (phys.org) 2

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The cost of producing solar panels has been dropping for years with many technologies produced below $1/Watt in the last couple of years, an order of magnitude cost reduction. Thin film solar has led the way with alternative materials and methods compared to silicon-based panels, but scaled up production methods have allowed silicon to keep pace with this fierce competition so that the long sought grid parity is emerging in many markets using the most widely available silicon technology. A new development may lead to a further order of magnitude reduction in production costs. Last month is was revealed that perovskites behave much better than though in solar cells. Now, new measurements have helped to explain why that is and point to achievable energy conversion efficiency of 20%, similar to the best commercial silicon solar panels, but using very low cost manufacturing methods. Essentially, the tested organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite material is a much better semiconductor than previously thought possible: "In our work, we utilise ultrafast lasers to study the perovskite materials. We tracked how fast these materials react to light in quadrillionths of a second (roughly 100 billion times faster than a camera flash)," said the Singaporean photophysics expert from NTU's School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

"We discovered that in these perovskite materials, the electrons generated in the material by sunlight can travel quite far. This will allow us to make thicker solar cells which absorb more light and in turn generate more electricity."

The NTU physicist added that this unique characteristic of perovskite is quite remarkable since it is made from a simple solution method that normally produces low quality materials.

Submission + - How to social engineer a social network

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Social engineering has for a while now been cyber attackers' best bet to enter systems and compromise accounts when actual hacking doesn't work, or when they simply don't want to waste much time getting in. At this year's edition of Hack In The Box Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Ruhr University Bochum researcher Ashar Javad's demonstrated the possibilities offered by Facebook's "Lost my password" / trusted friends feature. His rather extensive presentation also contained a section on several attack vectors related to social networks that should be impossible to use by now.

Submission + - Accidentally Revealed Document Shows TSA Doesn't Think Terrorists Are Plotting (blogspot.com.au) 1

Submitted by quantr
quantr writes: Jonathan Corbett, a long-time vocal critic of TSA body scanners, has been engaged in a lawsuit against the government concerning the constitutionality of those scanners. In the course of the case, the TSA gave him classified documents, which he was ordered not to reveal. In using some of that information to make his case, he needed to file two copies of his brief: a public one with classified stuff redacted, and the full brief under seal, for the government and the courts to look at. Just one problem: someone over at Infowars noticed that apparently a clerk at the 11th Circuit appeals court forgot to file the document under seal, allowing them to find out what was under the redactions... Included in there is the following, apparently quoted from the TSA's own statements:
“As of mid-2011, terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports; instead, their focus is on fundraising, recruiting, and propagandizing.”
Elsewhere, the TSA appears to admit that "due to hardened cockpit doors and the willingness of passengers to challenge hijackers," it's unlikely that there's much value in terrorists trying to hijack a plane these days (amusingly, that statement is a clear echo of Bruce Schneier's statement criticizing the TSA's security theater — suggesting that the TSA flat out knows that airport security is nothing more than such theatrics).

Elsewhere, in the redacted portions, the TSA is quoted as admitting that "there have been no attempted domestic hijackings of any kind in the 12 years since 9/11."

Comment Re:Should be a tax on every transaction (Score 1) 251

by Drewdad (#44828937) Attached to: Flash Mobs of Trading Robots Coalescing To Rule Markets
I think there's already a "pay to play" feature in place, which is that the clearing house charges folks for making trades. The algorithms already have this built in to their models, so increasing the transaction price might create a little friction, but it's not going to stop people from writing software that tries to make money on the stock market. https://usequities.nyx.com/markets/nyse-equities/trading-fees

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