Comment Re:Just like the onion predicted the 5 bladed razo (Score 1) 216
It's from the very first episode of SNL.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/7...
Comment CGI (Score 4, Interesting) 390
Most of the trailer is CGI, which makes sense at this point. The movie won't be released for another year, so this early on most of the finished shots would be fairly generic CGI stuff that was being worked on in parallel to the main shooting. The hard part is all the editing and incorporating CGI into the shots with the actors, and they've only just wrapped up the shooting this month. That's what they'll be working on for the next several months.
One thing about the lightsaber scene, at first I was like "that's a lame gimmicky lightsaber", but then looking at it more closely, it doesn't have a pure even glow like a normal lightsaber. It looks more like fire and less refined. So my hunch is that sith guy had to figure out how to fabricate the weapon on his own without any guidance, so it's this crude, barely controlled weapon that has to vent extra energy so it doesn't blow up or melt or something. Yeah, that was a pretty geeky analysis.
Comment Re:why biometric? (Score 1) 127
Exactly. Biometrics make even less sense because this is a clean room. Use clip on RFID tags on the end of their shirtsleeves or some other physical location that allows the RFID tag to be read while the worker is at the station.
Comment Re:Clock -- Time is running out! (Score 2) 50
"Sanborn also confirmed that should he die before the entire sculpture becomes deciphered, there will be someone able to confirm the solution."
Comment Re:Funny Timing (Score 1) 61
I just fired up an old beat up micro I had laying around last week. At the time it was released, the micro had one of the highest DPI color screens I'd ever seen. Still the SP is my favorite. It was the first Gameboy of any kind with an actual backlit screen, and it was beautiful to behold. Games looked so vibrant and clear compared to the Gameboy Advanced, that they almost didn't event seem like they were the same games. The clamshell design was also new and suited to the device perfectly. When closed it wasn't much larger than the screen, and the cartridge fit flush into the device - it was nice and compact when closed. It was also the first gameboy with an integrated rechargeable battery, and it seemed to last for ages. Really, the SP was the most revolutionary single portable gaming device produced by Nintendo. The one and only thing the SP lacked, which was due to the CPU / cartridge hardware being designed well before the SP came out, was a hibernate / suspend type capability when closed (it still seems to me they could have managed that somehow).
Comment Owning stock (Score 2) 203
Is it common stock or non-voting? If common stock then I would think they would want the school to have a vote in what the energy companies do. Regardless, if it's a wise investment that is generating profit, then it really doesn't matter. It's not like selling the stock is going to hurt the company or the stock value. I guess some people just can't sleep at night over these kinds of things.
Comment Re:With a RTG, it couldn't have got to the comet. (Score 5, Interesting) 523
No matter how you build them, nuclear Radioisotope Thermal Generators are heavy.
That's totally inaccurate. I went into details about this a couple days ago when Philae was discussed here. In that case someone said that because it took 10 years to arrive at the comet, an RTG couldn't have been used. I'll just copy/paste my other post since it already covers your statement.
The lander only uses 32 watts of power. The MMRTG used in Curiosity provides 125 watts of power initially, and 100 watts after 14 years. The mass of that specific RTG (the MMRTG, 45kg) would be too great for use in Philae, but then it also produces 3 times more energy than needed (even after 14 years). RTGs have been made in many sizes for many different applications, so it would simply have been a matter of designing an RTG that produces 40-45 watts of power after 10 years.
However, one of the main uses of the 32 watts of power required by Philae is just to keep the batteries warm so they don't fail. RTGs produce more "waste" heat than they do electricity. For example, the MMRTG used in the Curiosity rover produces 2 kW of heat, of which 125 W is converted to electricity. The extra heat is used to keep the various temperature-sensitive parts of the rover nice and warm so they don't fail. With Philae, a good portion of the 32 watts of the solar power it requires is just to keep the battery warm. So if an RTG were used, it wouldn't even need to produce 32 watts of electricity since it can keep the lander warm directly.
Looking at the mass and wattage produced, the RTGs ("SNAP-19") in the Pioneer probes would have been just about perfect for Philae. They produce 40 watts of power and weigh 13.6 kg. Philae's current electrical system weighs 12.2 kg, so that's at least in the ballpark. The RTGs on the surface of the moon, as manually placed by Apollo astronauts's would have been a bit heavy at 20 kg. One of those RTGs was still producing 90% of its power after 10 years.
The SNAP-9A used in the Transit 5B-2 navigation satellite launched in 1963 weighed 12.3 kg and produced 25 watts of power. That looks about like a perfect fit for Philae, and I'm sure more efficient thermocouplers are available today that could further reduce the weight.
Comment Physical constraints (Score 1) 335
I know they were looking at this in a very theoretical way, but in the real world there are of course physical constraints. We already have "robots" that kill people autonomously, in the form of guided missiles, cruise missiles and smart bombs. However, I think in this case we're talking about identifying an object as a human, and then killing that human. The most simple form of this, which is what we're likely to see in use next, is an autonomous gun turret. However, with any sort of weapon of this kind, it is very easy to apply physical constraints. For example, a gun turret could be mounted to protect the no-man's-land in a specific perimeter of a military base. It would be designed and mounted so that it cannot physically rotate 360 degrees, for example, and thus could not target friendly soldiers inside the base. Whenever a person needed to go out into the zone the weapon patrols, the weapon would be physically deactivated - removing power, a physical block preventing it from moving, the removal of ammunition, etc.
Now if we're talking about free-ranging robots than go out and kill, then that's a bit more complex, although as long as humans are the ones creating the robots, we can always build in physical constraints. For example the ability to disable power to the robot using a circuit that is totally external to and in no way connected to the robot's actual logic or control.
Comment Re:RTG (Score 4, Informative) 88
It took ten years to get the Rosetta mission to the comet. By then a RTG would be fairly depleted too.
That isn't a legitimate reason to not use RTG for Philae. The lander only uses 32 watts of power. The MMRTG used in Curiosity provides 125 watts of power initially, and 100 watts after 14 years. The mass of that specific RTG (the MMRTG) would be too great for use in Philae, but then it also produces 3 times more energy than needed (even after 14 years). RTGs have been made in many sizes for many different applications, so it would simply have been a matter of designing an RTG that produces 40-45 watts of power after 10 years.
However, one of the main uses of the 32 watts of power required by Philae is just to keep the batteries warm so they don't fail. RTGs produce more "waste" heat than they do electricity. For example, the MMRTG used in the Curiosity rover produces 2 kW of heat, of which 125 W is converted to electricity. The extra heat is used to keep the various temperature-sensitive parts of the rover nice and warm so they don't fail. With Philae, a good portion of the 32 watts of the solar power it requires is just to keep the battery warm. So if an RTG were used, it wouldn't even need to produce 32 watts of electricity since it can keep the lander warm directly.
Looking at the mass and wattage produced, the RTGs ("SNAP-19") in the Pioneer probes would have been just about perfect for Philae. They produce 40 watts of power and weigh 13.6 kg. Philae's current electrical system weighs 12.2 kg, so that's at least in the ballpark. The RTGs on the surface of the moon, as manually placed by Apollo astronauts's would have been a bit heavy at 20 kg. One of those RTGs was still producing 90% of its power after 10 years.
Regardless, the fact that the Philae mission would last more than 10 years is not a reason to not have used RTG. Other issues (obtaining the radioactive material, environmentalists throwing a fit, inexperience of the ESA with that kind of power source, delays in production, etc) certainly dictated that an RTG wasn't used, but it was most certainly not due to any technical limitation.
The Downside to Low Gas Prices 554
HughPickens.com writes Pat Garofalo writes in an op-ed in US News & World Report that with the recent drop in oil prices, there's something policymakers can do that will offset at least some of the negative effects of the currently low prices, while also removing a constant thorn in the side of American transportation and infrastructure policy: Raise the gas tax. The current 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax has not been raised since 1993, making it about 11 cents per gallon today, in constant dollars. Plus, as fuel efficiency has gotten better and Americans have started driving less, the tax has naturally raised less revenue anyway. And that's a problem because the tax fills the Highway Trust Fund, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, broke so that in recent years Congress has had to patch it time and time again to fill the gap. According to the Tax Policy Center's Howard Gleckman, if Congress doesn't make a move, "it will fumble one of those rare opportunities when the economic and policy stars align almost perfectly." The increase can be phased in slowly, a few cents per month, perhaps, so that the price of gas doesn't jump overnight. When prices eventually do creep back up thanks to economic factors, hopefully the tax will hardly be noticed.
Consumers are already starting to buy the sort of gas-guzzling vehicles, including Hummers, that had been going out of style as gas prices rose; that's bad for both the environment and consumers, because gas prices are inevitably going to increase again. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, taxes last year, even before the current drop in prices, made up 12 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, down from 28 percent in 2000. And compared to other developed countries, US gas taxes are pretty much a joke. While we're at it, an even better idea, as a recent report from the Urban Institute makes clear, would be indexing the gas tax to inflation, so this problem doesn't consistently arise. "The status quo simply isn't sustainable, from an infrastructure or environmental perspective," concludes Garofalo. "So raise the gas tax now; someday down the line, it will look like a brilliant move."
Consumers are already starting to buy the sort of gas-guzzling vehicles, including Hummers, that had been going out of style as gas prices rose; that's bad for both the environment and consumers, because gas prices are inevitably going to increase again. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, taxes last year, even before the current drop in prices, made up 12 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, down from 28 percent in 2000. And compared to other developed countries, US gas taxes are pretty much a joke. While we're at it, an even better idea, as a recent report from the Urban Institute makes clear, would be indexing the gas tax to inflation, so this problem doesn't consistently arise. "The status quo simply isn't sustainable, from an infrastructure or environmental perspective," concludes Garofalo. "So raise the gas tax now; someday down the line, it will look like a brilliant move."
Will Lyft and Uber's Shared-Ride Service Hurt Public Transit? 237
An anonymous reader writes Lyft and Uber have already undercut the price of a taxi in most markets, but with this new service, both are now taking aim at public transit systems. By attempting to offer a viable alternative to the bus and metro, Lyft and Uber are offering new options to consumers in a space where few existed before. As Timothy Lee writes at Vox, "Until recently, there weren't many services in this 'in between' category. If you were going to the airport, you could get a shared-ride van. And some urban areas had dollar vans. But these were limited services in niche markets." If you're traveling with multiple people over short distances, Lyft Line and UberPool can be quite affordable, but it's still not cheap enough.
Comment Good news? (Score 3, Interesting) 127
This is probably good news. Obama makes a public statement urging the FCC to step in and enforce net neutrality, and the FCC suddenly delays a decision they were about to make. That means the decision had already been made and it was that the FCC was not going to intervene. Now they are reconsidering and thus they want more time to figure out what all Obama's request entails.
Comment No, Citizens United predates Hillary's run (Score 2) 224
The Military's Latest Enemy: Climate Change 163
Lasrick writes A surprising report from the Pentagon last month places climate change squarely among the seemingly endless concerns of the US military. Although a Wall Street Journal editorial misrepresented the report in an editorial (subtitled 'Hagel wants to retool the military to stop glaciers from melting'), the report itself is straightforward and addresses practical military issues such as land management of bases and training facilities. "So, this plan is not really about mobilizing against melting glaciers; it's more like making sure our ships have viable facilities from which to launch bombs against ISIS. And the report doesn't just focus on home, though. It casts a wider eye towards how a changing climate will affect defense missions in the future."
When We Don't Like the Solution, We Deny the Problem 282
Ichijo writes: A new study (abstract) from Duke University tested whether the desirability of a solution affects beliefs in the existence of the associated problem. Researchers found that 'yes, people will deny the problem when they don't like the solution. Quoting: "Participants in the experiment, including both self-identified Republicans and Democrats, read a statement asserting that global temperatures will rise 3.2 degrees in the 21st century. They were then asked to evaluate a proposed policy solution to address the warming. When the policy solution emphasized a tax on carbon emissions or some other form of government regulation, which is generally opposed by Republican ideology, only 22 percent of Republicans said they believed the temperatures would rise at least as much as indicated by the scientific statement they read.
But when the proposed policy solution emphasized the free market, such as with innovative green technology, 55 percent of Republicans agreed with the scientific statement. The researchers found liberal-leaning individuals exhibited a similar aversion to solutions they viewed as politically undesirable in an experiment involving violent home break-ins. When the proposed solution called for looser versus tighter gun-control laws, those with more liberal gun-control ideologies were more likely to downplay the frequency of violent home break-ins."
But when the proposed policy solution emphasized the free market, such as with innovative green technology, 55 percent of Republicans agreed with the scientific statement. The researchers found liberal-leaning individuals exhibited a similar aversion to solutions they viewed as politically undesirable in an experiment involving violent home break-ins. When the proposed solution called for looser versus tighter gun-control laws, those with more liberal gun-control ideologies were more likely to downplay the frequency of violent home break-ins."
