Comment Re:Disbanding? (Score 1) 65
Heh. +1
Comment Re:And how much do we spend on Software Research? (Score 2) 287
I once heard it estimated that during the same time period as the Apollo Space program, American women spent more on cosmetics than what it cost to put a man on the Moon. Obviously, if women would just give up makeup for 5 or 10 years, we could easily afford to build a Mars base.
Comment Re:No we shouldnt (Score 2) 287
There are several other space-faring nations now. When you look up and see a Chinese base on the Moon, or Mars, then will it be time for the government to care?
Comment Re:They said that about cell phones (Score 1) 386
"Someone who, given the choice of spending $30K on a car that they fully control and can go anywhere they want at any speed they want – or another, likely more expensive buggy that will only travel on certain routes at slower speeds and with less options." Which car would you buy?"
Cell phones? They said that about horses when cars first came out! Given the choice between an intelligent, sure-footed creature that can travel over any terrain and a noisy, smelly, prone-to-breakdown mechanical contraption, which would you buy?
Comment Re:Whoops (Score 1) 183
why you so down on renewables? can't kill sunlight
Comment Re: western world full of frauds (Score 1) 183
Nice! Love it! We should all use the term berserk from now on. Especially a large scale thorium berserk.
Of course the plural is taken
Comment Brodmann Areas (Score 1) 91
Brodmann already counted the CPUs of the brain. They are called Brodmann areas. BA17, for example, is primary visual cortex. BA45 is Broca's area (speech). There are about 50. They are defined by differences in the micro-cellular architecture of the area. Most areas of cortex look roughly the same, but there are many differences, for example the input layers of primary sensory areas are larger than in other areas. Some areas have large output layers, or more inhibitory cells, etc.
The brain does have many distinct areas, asynchronously operating, highly connected with both local and long distance connections, and the areas themselves are composed of a rich mosaic of different cell types that continuously self-regulate, process information, and adapt.
Comment Re:Guess it's not the greatest day. (Score 1) 31
LOL
Comment Movie time! (Score 2) 212
I expect Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Uma Thurman, and Cameron Diaz (with cameos by Dolly Parton and Emma Watson) to make a movie about this immediately. "The Corona"
Comment Homeland Security vs CDC (Score 5, Interesting) 190
You all remember the recent smallpox discovery at the NIH
WTF?!
What possible business can H.S. have with vials of deadly diseases?
'The original smallpox samples, along with ten others that were unclearly labeled, were securely transferred to the CDC’s high-containment facility in Atlanta., the FDA said, and 32 other vials have already been destroyed. The remaining 279 were transferred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Bioforensic Analysis Center “for safeguarding.”'
A Physicist Says He Can Tornado-Proof the Midwest With 1,000-Foot Walls
501
meghan elizabeth writes: Temple physicist Rongjia Tao has a utopian proposal to build three massive, 1,000-foot-high, 165-foot-thick walls around the American Midwest, in order to keep the tornadoes out. Building three unfathomably massive anti-tornado walls would count as the infrastructure project of the decade, if not the century. It would be also be exceedingly expensive. "Building such walls is feasible," Tao says. "They are much easier than constructing a skyscraper. For example, in Philadelphia, the newly completed Comcast building has about 300-meter height. The wall with similar height as the Comcast building should be much easier to be constructed." Update: 06/28 04:14 GMT by T : Note: originally, this story said that Tao was at Drexel rather than Temple -- now corrected
Plaintiff In Tech Hiring Suit Asks Judge To Reject Settlement 215
An anonymous reader writes with news that Michael Devine, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing tech firms including Apple and Google of conspiring to keep salaries low, has asked the court to reject a $324 million settlement. "Apple has more than $150 billion in the bank, eclipsing the combined cash reserves of Israel and Britain. Google, Intel and Adobe have a total of about $80 billion stored up for a rainy day. Against such tremendous cash hoards, $324 million is chump change. But that is what the four technology companies have agreed to pay to settle a class action brought by their own employees. The suit, which was on track to go to trial in San Jose, Calif., at the end of May, promised weeks if not months of damaging revelations about how Silicon Valley executives conspired to suppress wages and limit competition. Details of the settlement are still under wraps. 'The class wants a chance at real justice,' he wrote. 'We want our day in court.' He noted that the settlement amount was about one-tenth of the estimated $3 billion lost in compensation by the 64,000 class members. In a successful trial, antitrust laws would triple that sum. 'As an analogy,' Mr. Devine wrote, 'if a shoplifter is caught on video stealing a $400 iPad from the Apple Store, would a fair and just resolution be for the shoplifter to pay Apple $40, keep the iPad, and walk away with no record or admission of wrongdoing? Of course not.' 'If the other class members join me in opposition, I believe we will be successful in convincing the court to give us our due process,' Mr. Devine said in an interview on Sunday. He has set up a website, Tech Worker Justice, and is looking for legal representation. Any challenge will take many months. The other three class representatives could not be reached for comment over the weekend."
Comment somafm (Score 1) 370
Comment Jake, Fred, we've been found out! (Score 1) 253
Dang modern science, guys, they found us! It'll only be a matter of time before they round us up. I mean, it's not like you all should be GRATEFUL to your elders but NO
