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British Pizza Chain To Install Cones of Silence 122

Posted by samzenpus from the sound-of-silence dept.
itwbennett writes "British pizza chain Pizza Express is installing iPod docks and soundproof domes in booths of their new iPizzeria stores. 'The idea is that you can plug in your iPod and play whatever music you like without disturbing other diners,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'But I'm sure it'd work for talking about government secrets and other spy stuff, too.'"
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Cooking With Your USB Ports 188

Posted by samzenpus from the sorry-your-dinner-crashed dept.
tekgoblin writes "Wow, I would never have thought to try and cook food with the power that a standard USB port provides, but someone did. A standard port provides 5V of power, give or take a little. I am not even sure what it takes to heat a small hotplate, but I am sure it is more than 5V. It looks like the guy tied together around 30 USB cables powered by his PC to power this small hotplate. But believe it or not, it seems to have cooked the meat perfectly."
Music

Astronaut Sues Dido For Album Cover 264

Posted by samzenpus from the get-me-off-that-thing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Astronaut Bruce McCandless is suing Dido for her album cover that uses a famous NASA photograph of a tiny, tiny, tiny McCandless floating in space. McCandless doesn't own the copyright on the photo, so he's claiming it's a violation of his publicity rights ... except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him."
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Selling Incandescent Light Bulbs As Heating Devices 557

Posted by samzenpus from the a-bulb-by-any-othe-name dept.
Csiko writes "The European Union has banned by law trading of incandescent light bulbs due to their bad efficiency/ecology (most of the energy is transformed into heat). A company is now trying to bypass this restriction by offering their incandescent light bulb products as a heating device (article in German) instead of a light device. Still, their 'heat balls' give light as well as heating. So — every law can be bypassed if you have some creativity!"
Medicine

High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover 646

Posted by samzenpus from the same-great-taste dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
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Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178

Posted by samzenpus from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Australia

Fine-Structure Constant Maybe Not So Constant 105

Posted by samzenpus from the variety-is-the-spice-of-life dept.
Kilrah_il writes "The fine-structure constant, a coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, has been measured lately by scientists from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and has been found to change slightly in light sent from quasars in galaxies as far back as 12 billion years ago. Although the results look promising, caution is advised: 'This would be sensational if it were real, but I'm still not completely convinced that it's not simply systematic errors' in the data, comments cosmologist Max Tegmark of MIT. Craig Hogan of the University of Chicago and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., acknowledges that 'it's a competent team and a thorough analysis.' But because the work has such profound implications for physics and requires such a high level of precision measurements, 'it needs more proof before we'll believe it.'"
Classic Games (Games)

The Best Video Games On Awful Systems 272

Posted by Soulskill from the diamond-in-the-rough dept.
Buffalo55 writes "For the most part, classic games manage to reappear on different systems. Just look at Nintendo. The publisher has done an excellent job bringing NES, SNES, Genesis and even old school Neo Geo titles to the Wii's Virtual Console, while Microsoft's Game Room brings the best of Atari's 2600 into the living room. Of course, not every console was a success. The '90s, in particular, saw quite a few flops from companies like Panasonic, Sega and Atari. Just because a system is a failure, though, doesn't mean all of its games suck. On the contrary, most of these machines have a few gems that fell between the cracks once the console croaked." What overlooked game on a failed platform would you like to see revived?

Comment Re:Bad Science (Score 1) 323

by evilpenguin (#33190226) Attached to: 100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier

That's why I asked the question. I think you are talking about watts/m^2 averaged over 24 hours and I'm talking about watts/m^2 at solar noon. In other words, I think both figures are correct because they are different figures. I did use the phrase "factual error," and I really should not have because I think it was me missing the "real figure" you were using. And my original question was free of accusation because I was genuinely only asking for clarification. So this is, I think, an example of violent agreement. So please ignore my loaded reply (which also wasn't intended as an accusation because it still wasn't clear to me).

So, to sum up, sorry for the rhetoric, and thanks for the clarification.

I was trying to figure out why your insolation number was so much less than what I have personally observed and your number makes sense for a diurnal average (which is what you were using, yes?)

Thanks!

Comment Re:Bad Science (Score 1, Interesting) 323

by evilpenguin (#33178014) Attached to: 100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier

That's beautiful, except the 1300 watt figure is already an average. I'm by no means an expert, but I have had a long time interest in solar PV, and the energy at the surface where I live for a flat plate collector aimed at solar noon is quite close to 1000 watts per square meter. Now, a mono or plycrystalline silicon panel, with its indirect bandgap absorption is only going to collect something on the order of 1/5 to 1/10 of that energy, but that doesn't change the fact that it is there.

I actually agree with the overall gist of the original poster's argument. I just think when your rhetoric is expressing agitation at "bad science" and you then go on to make an argument that contains a serious error of fact, well, it undermines one's authority.

I'm not jumping on a high horse here myself. I once in a loud and angry online debate confused hydrocarbons and carbohydrates. We all make mistakes. I expressed mine as a question. I wanted to understand where the figure came from because it didn't match my direct experience with PVs at 45 degrees north.
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Volkswagen Creates Sewage-Powered Beetle 83

Posted by samzenpus from the 35-miles-per-burrito dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Volkswagen is giving new meaning to the term 'Dung Beetle' with a prototype able to cover 10,000 miles annually on the waste from 70 households. The Bio-Bug was launched by Wessex Water, which is generating methane from human waste at a sewage treatment works near Bristol. 'Our site has been producing biogas for many years, which we use to generate electricity to power the site and export to the National Grid,' says one company official. 'We decided to power a vehicle on the gas, offering a sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels which we so heavily rely on in the UK.' The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association says the launch of the Bio-Bug proves that biomethane from sewage sludge can be used as fuel. 'This is a very exciting and forward-thinking project demonstrating the myriad benefits of anaerobic digestion (releasing energy from waste). Biomethane cars could be just as important as electric cars.'"

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