Comment Re:"Accidents" and "Refunds" (Score 1) 184
Right is relative. I doubt you'll hear their stockholders complaining.
10/04/2000 44.31
10/04/2010 33.03
Their price gouging isn't doing much for their stock price.
Comment Re:"Accidents" and "Refunds" (Score 4, Interesting) 184
Verizon never does the right thing.
While they are refunding the money for the accidental data usage, they are also imposing a mandatory $9.99 minimum data plan on every wireless customer with a browser capability on their cell phone to prevent this from being a problem in the future.
So they give back $90 million and collect $9.99 per line going forward.
Comment Re:Just Think.. (Score 1) 799
You mean the way the anti-war activists kept us from waging war in Viet Nam and Iraq ?
From the DOE website:
There are several reasons why there are no firm plans to build new nuclear power reactors. First among these in the short term is that many if not most regions of the Nation presently have surplus baseload generating capacity. There are exceptions to this conclusion. California imports much of its base load electricity needs but also effectively discourages new production from the typical base load power sources, coal and nuclear. This short term base load surplus must be worked off before any new nuclear construction can be seriously considered.
A longer-term reason why no nuclear power has been built is that the capital costs of building a new nuclear power plant have historically been high. There are also considerable financial costs and risks related to the long construction periods in the industry. The last completed nuclear reactor, Watts Bar-1, took 24 years to complete. There has been a history of regulatory uncertainty. The extreme case is the Shoreham plant on Long Island that was essentially completed before it was decided that it would not be allowed to operate. Policy issues such as spent fuel disposal methods, liability insurance questions, and overall safety concerns on the part of the public have also adversely affected nuclear construction.
Comment Slashdot is a strange place.... (Score 2, Insightful) 211
Water supplies in the US and around the world are being contaminated to unsafe levels by industrial waste, agricultural runoff and mining effluent on a daily basis.
Nobody cares until Intel can't use it to make chips? Slashdot is a strange place....
Submission + - An Impending Helium-3 Shortage?
necro81 writes: The NY Times is reporting that there may be an upcoming shortage of helium-3, and the effect that has on nuclear weapons detection. The gas is exceptionally rare on Earth; the primary source is from the decay of tritium. The end of the Cold War left humanity with a sizable stockpile of tritium but, with a half-life of just twelve years, a great deal of that tritium has since decayed.. As a result, the cost of helium-3 has shot up from $100/L to more than $2000/L in the last few years. Producing more requires a specially outfit nuclear reactor and extraction and purification facilities, which cannot be done overnight. Aside from the interest in helium-3 from the nuclear fusion community, it is used for several medical diagnostic tests as an MRI contrast. Because of its neutron-sensitivity, it is a critical component in a network of nuclear material detectors that are being rolled out at American ports.
Comment unamed man? (Score 2, Funny) 8
unamed man umount'ed ?
Comment Can it be true? (Score 2, Funny) 857
Next thing you know, they'll be selling desks without inkwells!
Comment Make a film! (Score 1) 899
Make a film about the life of a scientist - oh wait, that won't work:
Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America',
A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.
