Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Federal Funding is not contingent on speed limi (Score 1) 525

by ballpoint (#48500913) Attached to: Montana Lawmakers Propose 85 Mph Speed Limit On Interstates

Belgium ?

Where average speed limits are among the lowest in Europe, where speed camera's are EVERYWHERE and where police make it their first priority to deal out fines for driving 60 kph in a (inappropriate and clumsily signalled) 50 zone over dealing with a severe and country-wide burglary wave. Yet accident rates remain among the highest in Europe.

Belgians and Flemish in particular not being too different from Germans, it's proof that treating drivers like children results in drivers behaving like children.
Communications

SatNOGS Wins the 2014 Hackaday Prize For Satellite Networked Open Ground Station 21

Posted by samzenpus from the king-of-the-hill dept.
szczys writes SatNOGS has won the 2014 Hackaday Prize. The team of developers designed a satellite ground station which can be built with available tools, commodity parts, and modest skills. Data from each station can be shared via a networked protocol to benefit a much wider swath of humanity than one station could otherwise accomplish.

Comment Re:slightly off topic... (Score 1) 61

by ballpoint (#48339503) Attached to: The Largest Kuiper Belt Object Isn't Pluto Or Eris, But Triton

How do you pronounce "Kuiper?"

Is it like "cooper?"
Or is it like "kiper" - rhymes with hyper?

None of the above.

Take the 'eh' sound in the very beginning of 'earth', keep it completely flat and put it at the + marks in k+p+r, the first for 100ms and the second for 20ms.

You won't be too far off, though your final 'r' will still give you away.

Submission + - 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to the inventors of the blue LED

Submitted by grouchomarxist
grouchomarxist writes: The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, the inventors of the blue LED.

When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.

They succeeded where everyone else had failed. Akasaki worked together with Amano at the University of Nagoya, while Nakamura was employed at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Tokushima. Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.

White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. They are constantly improved, getting more efficient with higher luminous flux (measured in lumen) per unit electrical input power (measured in watt). The most recent record is just over 300 lm/W, which can be compared to 16 for regular light bulbs and close to 70 for fluorescent lamps. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth’s resources. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.

The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.

The invention of the blue LED is just twenty years old, but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all.

Shuji Nakamura went on to develop the white LED and the blue laser which is used in Blu-Ray devices.

Sci-Fi

The Physics of Space Battles 470

Posted by samzenpus from the dodging-the-laser dept.
An anonymous reader writes PBS' It's OK to be Smart made this interesting video showing us what is and isn't physically realistic or possible in the space battles we've watched on TV and the movies. From the article: "You're probably aware that most sci-fi space battles aren't realistic. The original Star Wars' Death Star scene was based on a World War II movie, for example. But have you wondered what it would really be like to duke it out in the void? PBS is more than happy to explain in its latest It's Okay To Be Smart video. As you'll see below, Newtonian physics would dictate battles that are more like Asteroids than the latest summer blockbuster. You'd need to thrust every time you wanted to change direction, and projectiles would trump lasers (which can't focus at long distances); you wouldn't hear any sound, either."

Comment Re:Not just Reno (Score 1) 444

by ballpoint (#47891405) Attached to: If Tesla Can Run Its Gigafactory On 100% Renewables, Why Can't Others?

...utilities failing could mean some price spikes and other problems.

Like no power being available at night, and unstable power during the day.

I'm amazed by the dumbfuckedness of solar panel owners who think the grid is an infinite source or sink, decoupled from the reality of production and demand.

Comment Re:Fukushima too (Score 1) 444

by ballpoint (#47891239) Attached to: If Tesla Can Run Its Gigafactory On 100% Renewables, Why Can't Others?

Ah, so nuclear power is safe only where people never get lazy?

Ah, so aviation is safe only where people never get lazy?
Ah, so eating out is safe only where people never get lazy?
Ah, so driving is safe only where people never get lazy?
Ah, so swimming is safe only where people never get lazy?

And so on, and so forth.

Something being intrinsically dangerous is not a reason by itself to stop doing it. Regulations and self preservation are among the tools to mitigate the risk to acceptable levels.

Comment Re:haven't watched it... (Score 1) 391

by ballpoint (#47727805) Attached to: UK Police Warn Sharing James Foley Killing Video Is a Crime

> Why would anyone actually want to watch it?

To better understand just how depraved the people are who made it.

I'm not joking. Supressing it gives them legitimacy - "the video the government is afraid you'll see" - but letting people watch it exposes the inhumanity of those who made it for everyone to see. The kind of people who might be convinced to join ISIS by watching this video are already so warped that censoring the video won't stop them. But no normal person is going to watch it and come away with anything but deep-seated disgust for the killers.

Quoting to improve visibility of an insightful AC post.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein

Close