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Power

What Would Have Happened If Philae Were Nuclear Powered? 523

Posted by samzenpus from the still-going dept.
StartsWithABang writes After successfully landing on a comet with all 10 instruments intact, but failing to deploy its thrusters and harpoons to anchor onto the surface, Philae bounced, coming to rest in an area with woefully insufficient sunlight to keep it alive. After exhausting its primary battery, it went into hibernation, most likely never to wake again. We'll always be left to wonder what might have been if it had functioned optimally, and given us years of data rather than just 60 hours worth. The thing is, it wouldn't have needed to function optimally to give us years of data, if only it were better designed in one particular aspect: powered by Plutonium-238 instead of by solar panels.

Comment Re:"hate speech" (Score 1) 48

by smittyoneeach (#48423065) Attached to: 6) I believe in God.

In what way is he using the words "tyranny" or "cheat" in a non-hating way?

Well, there's always the title, itself: "The Tyranny of Cliches". Juxtaposing a violent word like 'tyranny' with 'cliche', should, in a thoughtful reader, invite some question as to what he's on about. "How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas" informs us that the cliches are rhetorical roadblocks to discourse:

Goldberg's revelations are meant not to compile an interesting batch of factoids to drop at dinner parties, but to illustrate his thesis: the left employs clichés in order to cloak its ruthless, ruinous ideological aims in the language of easy-listening rhetoric, all the while denying that it is promoting a program attempting to establish a technocratic all-encompassing state in the name of the pragmatism of Progressivism: "The greater good"; "Social justice"; "Violence never solves anything"; "Power corrupts."

Your attempt to label Goldberg "hate speech", itself, is an example of the sort of cliche Goldberg exposes.
Your purpose appears to be to silence, not engage in legitimate debate.
Space

Elusive Dark Matter May Be Detected With GPS Satellites 67

Posted by Soulskill from the when-they're-not-busy-telling-you-how-far-you-are-from-a-starbucks dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Two researchers say time disparities identified through the network of satellites that make up our modern GPS infrastructure can help detect dark matter. In a paper in the online version of the scientific journal Nature Physics, they write that dark matter may be organized as a large gas-like collection of topological defects, or energy cracks. "We propose to detect the defects, the dark matter, as they sweep through us with a network of sensitive atomic clocks. The idea is, where the clocks go out of synchronization, we would know that dark matter, the topological defect, has passed by." Another reader adds this article about research into dark energy: The particles of the standard model, some type of dark matter and dark energy, and the four fundamental forces. That's all there is, right? But that might not be the case at all. Dark energy may not simply be the energy inherent to space itself, but rather a dynamical property that emerges from the Universe: a sort of fifth force. This is speculation that's been around for over a decade, but there hasn't been a way to test it until now. If this is the case, it may be accessible and testable by simply using presently existing vacuum chamber technology
Android

NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Android Lollipop Update Performance Explored 57

Posted by timothy from the stats-and-figures dept.
MojoKid writes Last week, NVIDIA offered information regarding its Android Lollipop update for the SHIELD Tablet and also revealed a new game bundle for it. This week, NVIDIA gave members of the press early access to the Lollipop update and it will also be rolling out to the general public sometime later today. Some of the changes are subtle, but others are more significant and definitely give the tablet a different look and feel over the original Android KitKat release. Android Lollipop introduces a new "material design" that further flattens out the look of the OS. Google seems to have taken a more minimalist approach as everything from the keyboard to the settings menus have been cleaned up considerably. Many parts of the interface don't have any markings except for the absolute necessities. While the OS definitely feels more fluid and responsive, the default look isn't always better, depending on your personal view. The app tray for example has a plain, white background which looks kind of jarring if you've using a colorful background. And finding the proper touch points for things like a settings menu or clearing notifications isn't always clear. Performance-wise, NVIDIA's Shield Tablet showed significantly better performance on Lollipop for general compute tasks in benchmarks like Mobile XPRT but lagged behind Kit Kat in graphics performance slightly, which could be attributed to driver optimization.
Intel

Intel Announces Major Reorg To Combine Mobile and PC Divisions 75

Posted by Soulskill from the goes-together-like-peanut-butter-and-motor-oil dept.
MojoKid writes: For the past year, Intel has pursued what's known as a "contra-revenue" strategy in its mobile division, where product is deliberately sold at a loss to win market share and compete effectively. This has led to a huge rise in tablet shipments, but heavy losses inside Intel's mobile division. Today, the company announced that it would take steps to fold its mobile and conventional processors into a single operating division. While this helps shield the mobile segment from poor short-term results, it also reflects the reality that computing is something users now do across a wide range of devices and multiple operating systems. Intel may not have hit anything like the mobile targets it set out years ago, but long-term success in laptops, tablets, and smartphones remains integral to the company's finances. Desktops and conventional laptops are just one way people compute today and Intel needs to make certain it has a robust long-term presence in every major computing market.

Comment Re:"hate speech" (Score 1) 48

by smittyoneeach (#48408981) Attached to: 6) I believe in God.

He is most certainly not encouraging power sharing, socio-economic mobility, or understanding or communication with those from different walks of life or philosophical backgrounds.

Actually, his book The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas is a good overview of precisely how your ilk is pretty much the antithesis of communication.

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