devoid42 - Slashdot User

Largest US Power Storing Solar Array Goes Live 377

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 10, 2013 @07:07PM from the here-somes-the-sun dept.

Lucas123 writes "A solar power array that covers three square miles with 3,200 mirrored parabolic collectors went live this week, creating enough energy to power 70,000 homes in Arizona. The Solana Solar Power Plant, located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, was built at a cost of $2 billion, and financed in large part by a U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee. The array is the world's largest parabolic trough plant, meaning it uses parabolic shaped mirrors mounted on moving structures that track the sun and concentrate its heat. A first: a thermal energy storage system at the plant can provide electricity for six hours without the concurrent use of the solar field. Because it can store electricity, the plant can continue to provide power during the night and inclement weather."

Scientists Describe Internal Clocks That Don't Follow Day and Night Cycles 91

Posted by samzenpus on Friday September 27, 2013 @12:37AM from the up-all-night dept.

sciencehabit writes "Almost all organisms, from bacteria to mammals, have a circadian clock—a mechanism in their cells which keeps them in sync with Earth's day-and-night cycle. But many organisms follow other rhythms as well. Now, new research provides the first evidence that animals have molecular cycles independent of the circadian rhythm. They include a sea louse whose swimming patterns sync up with the tides, and a marine worm that matures and spawns in concert with the phases of the moon. The discoveries suggest that noncircadian clocks might be common and could explain a variety of biological rhythms."

Group Attacks Bad Software Patents Before They're Approved 82

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 18, 2013 @10:01PM from the not-on-our-watch dept.

Curupira writes "Ars Technica discusses how the Linux Defenders group are exercising the rights granted by the America Invents Act to identify and fight the patents that potentially threaten Linux and open source software. From the article: 'In a session at LinuxCon today, Linux Defenders director Andrea Casillas explained how the group is using rights granted by the new law to fight patent applications. A project of the Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center, and Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders examines the 6,000 new patent applications published each week, attempting to identify those that are potentially threatening to Linux and open source. Then, the group looks for prior art that would invalidate at least some of the claims in the patents.'"

Submission + - Samsung's legal fillings show pre-IPhone designs

Submitted by parallel_prankster on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @07:23PM

parallel_prankster writes: In it's legal fillings for the case against Apple Corp. Samsung has shown that it was considering putting to market in the summer of 2006, six months before the unveiling of the iPhone, a number of phone designs that have been claimed by Apple as stolen from the Iphone. It extends to more than just the hardware — Samsung was also working on interfaces that looks remarkably like iOS (actually, that look remarkably like PalmOS) — in the summer and fall of 2006. Again, before the iPhone was released. Samsung is being accused of stealing, even thought the company was clearly working on what it supposedly stole before the iPhone was even released. Samsung's phones bear more resemblance to its own pre-iPhone designs than to the iPhone, yet Apple and its supporters still insist Samsung is a thief. Another article on this is available here .

Submission + - 'Huge Spike' in US Viewers Using Proxy Servers to Watch BBC Olympic coverage (ibtimes.co.uk) 2

Submitted by

DavidGilbert99

on Tuesday July 31, 2012 @11:46AM

DavidGilbert99 writes: "NBC is the sole broadcaster of the London 2012n Olympics in the US, having paid $1.1bn for the privilege.

However the Twitter hastag #NBCfails quickly started trending last Friday, when it was revealed that NBC would only be showing delayed coverage of most events on TV, including Danny Boyle's opening ceremony.

While NBC is providing live streaming through its website, you need to have a valid cable subscription in order to view the events.

This has seen many tech savvy US viewers turning to proxy servers to view the BBC's Olympic coverage, which doesn't need any sign-in to view — once your IP address looks like it is coming from the UK.

One provider of VPN services, HideMyAss.com has seen a ten-fold increase in new customers signing up for their services since last Friday."

Comment Re:implied future GPL violation? (Score 1) 342

by devoid42 on Friday August 13, 2010 @04:18PM (#33245254) Attached to: The Future of OpenSolaris Revealed

Only to those they distribute the binaries too, if they ask for it. It doesn't mean they have to put it on the open internet.

Actually it does (well putting it on the open internet would be the cheapest way to) as per section 3.b.

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

Essentially if they distribute binary code containing GPL derivative they must provide source to 3rd parties that request it.

Comment Re:implied future GPL violation? (Score 1) 342

by devoid42 on Friday August 13, 2010 @03:37PM (#33244686) Attached to: The Future of OpenSolaris Revealed

And that case is exactly what I was talking about. The GPL'ed sections that they are using, use of those parts mandates that any changes they make to them are released along with binary release.

And thanks for the compliment, yea I know the parts under CDDL we might not see for a long time. I'm just concerned with the community contributed GPL portions that exist. The memo indicated that a portion of the desktop environment uses these.

Comment implied future GPL violation? (Score 1) 342

by devoid42 on Friday August 13, 2010 @03:23PM (#33244472) Attached to: The Future of OpenSolaris Revealed

We will distribute updates to approved CDDL or other open source- licensed code following full releases of our enterprise Solaris operating system.

Would be hard to chastise them though as they should have released the code before any actions could be taken. Though it bothers me that the intent is to delay source release for a market edge.

Comment I win (Score 0) 375

by devoid42 on Sunday July 18, 2010 @04:33PM (#32944886) Attached to: The Oldest Timestamp On a File I Created and Still Have Is...

touch -t 197101010000.00 myoldestfile

Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 06, 2010 @06:30AM from the you-must-become-the-frozen-water dept.

ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."

Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @05:34PM from the living-in-the-hive dept.

afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”

Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes 362

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 18, 2009 @08:20AM from the or-druid-as-the-case-may-be dept.

A feature at Gamasutra examines one of the foundations of many MMORPGs — the idea that class roles within such a game fall into three basic categories: tank, healer, and damage dealer. The article evaluates the pros and cons of such an arrangement and takes a look at some alternatives. "Eliminating specialized roles means that we do away with boxing a class into a single role. Without Tanks, each class would have features that would help them participate in and survive many different encounters like heavy armor, strong avoidance, or some class or magical abilities that allow them to disengage from direct combat. Without specialized DPS, all classes should be able to do damage in order to defeat enemies. Some classes might specialize in damage type, like area of effect (AoE) damage; others might be able to exploit enemy weaknesses, and some might just be good at swinging a sharpened bit of metal in the right direction at a rapid rate. This design isn't just about having each class able to fill any trinity role. MMO combat would feel more dynamic in this system. Every player would have to react to combat events and defend against attacks."

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