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Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Shadowrun MMO (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by
Christopher Cashell
Christopher Cashell writes: "There's an effort to build a new cross-platform Shadowrun MMO. They're planning on supporting all the major platforms, including Linux. They're planning two models, a purchase and play model, or a free-to-play model, depending on what you're looking for. Considering this along with the in-development (non-MMO) Shadowrun computer game, and it seems like we're seeing a bit of a resurgence in Shadowrun."
Idle

Submission + - Rare 'penis snake' exposed in Brazil with new dam (mongabay.com)

Submitted by terrancem
terrancem writes: A creature discovered by engineers building a dam in the Amazon is a type of caecilian, a limbless amphibian that resembles an earthworm or as some are noting, part of the male anatomy. The animal was discovered while draining a portion of the Madeira River — a major tributary of the Amazon — for a controversial hydroelectric project. Six individuals were found according to biologist Julian Tupan, who identified the species as Atretochoana eiselti. Little else is known about the species.

Submission + - Making renewable energy work: Storing what we don't use (fastcoexist.com)

Submitted by tanujt
tanujt writes: As is a major issue with every energy source, so do renewables suffer from it: what happens to the energy that we don't make use of but are still supplied? Well, it goes to waste. Danielle Fong of LightSail (a Berkley-based company) has a potential solution for wastage of solar energy: store it and return it to the grid when needed. And she does it without batteries: "Just use the electricity generated by your solar panel and/or windmill to power a compressor, pushing air into a tank. When you want your energy back, you release the air out of the tank, and use it to drive a generator, creating electricity."


What about the heat loss in compression/expansion? Fong says: "It became clear that what you wanted to do for maximum efficiency was keep the temperature as close to constant as possible in compression and expansion. It turned out nobody had figured out how to do that, and I read a Wikipedia article saying it was impossible to do it, and I said, ‘My god, that’s not true. You can just spray water in.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait. I could just spray water in.’ And thus the company and core idea was born."


So how does it work? : "Instead of wasting the heat, we collect it by spraying water into the air during the compression process. That keeps the temperature down, and it keeps the pressure down, so you have to put less energy in to compress the same amount of air. During expansion, spraying water sends heat back into the air, which keeps the pressure high, and increases the amount of energy you get back.” Science aside, the numbers don’t lie: LightSail’s process recovers 70% of the energy it puts out, pretty much doubling the efficiency of the standard compression method. "
Their website has more information about the technology they've developed, including some experimental calculations. This sounds like an innovative idea, although past experience has made me cynical about actual practicality or implementability of innovative ideas.
Hardware

Submission + - 40 Years of Tech Ads' Finest: '80 Mbytes of storage for under $12k!' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "After looking over four decades of Computerworld in print given the publication's 40th anniversary, we found some smokin' deals — and some really funny stuff: Guess which 80MB disk system costs less than $12k — and even better, 300MB for under $20k! What the heck is electronic mail? That's the question posed in this Honeywell ad, which explains: 'Simply put, it means high-speed information transportation.' What year do you think an advertisement would be using a model in hot pants? Headline hints: 'Univac 9700 Offers Compatibility, Price'; 'Technology Makes Move Out of Core City Feasible.'"

Submission + - Washington Pirate Party - PirateBox Meetup (pirate.is)

Submitted by
Mystakaphoros
Mystakaphoros writes: "Recently, the Washington branch of the Pirate Party met up to assemble some pretty swank PirateBoxes. Each PirateBox [http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox] creates an open wireless network that nearby devices can connect to and upload or download whatever they wish. An interesting alternative to P2P across the Internet?"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Retro SciFi kickstarter is off to a great start (pledgespacecommand.com)

Submitted by
minterbartolo
minterbartolo writes: "Remember those 50's retro SciFi that we all loved well now some of the creative minds behind Star Trek, BSG, Babylon 5 and more are working bringing back that style of quality science fiction in a series of movies. The kickstarter campaign is already off to a great start, but could still use your help.
Can a single episode of quality tv or movie change your life, Marc Zircee and the team think so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw8MGKanwgA
for press contacts and interviews http://spacecommand.e-presscenter.com/"
News

Submission + - Bioenergy Can't Compete With Our Taste for Meat (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Biomass fuels have long been hailed as a real solution to carbon emissions, and theoretically it makes total sense: If you grow crops like switchgrass to produce biodiesel, carbon that’s released from burning the fuel was old carbon dioxide that had been sucked out of the air, rather than “new” carbon released from burning fossil fuels. Basically, bioenergy production is a lot nearer to net-neutral than fossil fuels, and some startups like Cool Planet even claim they can make carbon-negative fuels.

Of course, even as the renewables market grows, some next-gen biofuel manufacturers are having trouble going commercial. In any case, bioenergy is still a small market sector, and as good as they sound (biofuels, for example, are an easier drop-in solution for cleaning up cars than developing new battery tech) they face an inherent conundrum: How, when our population continues to swell, can we grow more crops for bioenergy when we need farmland for food?

That’s the question posed by University of Exeter researchers Tom Powell and Tim Lenton in a new paper in Energy and Environmental Science. Their conclusion isn’t surprising: Worldwide, there’s already a ton of pressure to increase agricultural efficiency and produce more food, especially as the massive populaces of the BRIC countries become more affluent and demand more resource- and land-intensive products like meat."
Science

Submission + - Fossil turtles caught in flagrante delicto (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: Several pairs of 47-million-year-old fossil turtles found in Germany provide the first direct evidence for prehistoric vertebrate sex (the first indirect evidence being, presumably, that turtles exist).

Besides science writers a chance to have a bit of fun with the intro to their stories, the researchers also say the fossils can tell us about about the ecology of the ancient German lake where the turtles lived (Abstract).

Like their living cousins, the fossil turtles probably stopped swimming when they started mating. The pairs then sank through the water column, but Messel Lake held a hidden danger. Below the surface waters, palaeontologists have hypothesized, was a layer poisoned by volcanic gases or rotting organic material. Since the skin of some turtles can act as a respiratory membrane, the turtles were killed as the poisons accumulated in their bodies.

Comment Re:In a world... (Score 1) 713

by Mystakaphoros (#40380371) Attached to: David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy

I'm a semi-pro musician. Although the pay rates haven't been great, every bar/club/venue I know of that has live music pays to book bands/musicians to perform. Unless it's a "coffee house" type thing where anyone can just get up and perform.

I and many of my fellow not-signed-with-a-big-label musicians/bands give away recordings (CDs and free downloads). We live in the reality of today where recordings are only promotional tools, not an end product themselves.

Strat

I think I can count the number of times I've gotten paid to play in public on one hand. I sold some CDs to close friends, and then gave the rest I had away at most events. But I guess it's different in that I started the game knowing a) I could record my own music and b) that I was never going to become a millionaire this way.
Idle

Submission + - University Students Become Superheroes to Teach STEM Education

Submitted by
sjdupont
sjdupont writes: "A trio of University of South Florida engineering graduate students decided to make a change in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in an unusual and exciting way, by creating their own superhero personas and dressing in costumes as members of the Scientific League of Superheroes. Focused on elementary education, they have created a unique education program called the Superhero Training Network (http://www.superherotrainingnetwork.com/about.html), a curriculum-based designed for the classroom which focuses on teaching STEM topics while engaging students in a fun way. Fifth grade classrooms in Hillsborough County (Florida) pilot tested the series during the 2011-2012 school year and enjoyed visits from the scientific superheroes to experience scientific demonstrations and participate in hands-on activities. Response from teachers was outstanding claiming that the program had a very large ."

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