Comment Re:Easy solution for the scientists^Polar Bears (Score 1) 48
Are you SURE polar bears are in serious decline?
This sounds suspiciously like something a seal would say.
Comment Easy solution for the scientists (Score 2) 48
Change the scope of to study to be the migration patterns of seals who are good at finding pinging fish.
Comment Re:Every time I hear the word "cloud" my brain hur (Score 1) 45
To be fair, there is room for distinctions inside the cloud metaphor. Regular cloud services will now be called the "cumulus" cloud, and the Internet2 service is the "cirrostratus" cloud, because it has faster winds.
Comment Re:This is just wrong. (Score 2) 700
OK, your main argument is wrong. Second-sourcing is when a company licences its IP to another manufacturer.
There was no licencing here.
Comment Re:waste of time (Score 1) 380
Ammonia is toxic and isn't renewable.
No, it's gasoline that is toxic and not renewable. Ammonia is manufactured from air and water.
Comment Re:Reminds me of one engineer's maxim (Score 1) 501
In theory, the difference between practice and theory is due to practical considerations that theorists find it impractical to fit into their theories.
In practice, theory uses the practice of theorizing about practical matters, while not noticing that the theoretical method practically distorts the theory beyond application to practice.
Theoretically then, the practical facts are that theory is in practice good for predicting what happens in theory, but impractical as a theory with direct implications for practice, except where theory states that the practice is sufficiently close to the theory to make any difference, for all practical purposes, theoretically zero.
In practice this does not happen very often.
Comment Re:Even more amazing (Score 1) 80
Further, if the density of the pizza is p, the Earth's mass times the gravitational constant is u, and the pizza's distance to the center of the Earth is l, the force on that pizza is p*i*z*z*a*p*u / l*l.
Comment Airborne 3D printer (Score 1) 77
That's what I am waiting for.
Comment pizza and pi (Score 1) 218
If you eat pie today, you will increase your circumference by 2*pi*dr.
And if the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness a is pi*z*z*a, and its density is p, and the Earth's mass times the gravitational constant is u and its distance from the center is l, the force pulling on that pizza is pi*z*z*a*p*u / l*l.
Impact Crater Origin of Mars Meteorites Discovered 11
astroengine writes "Out of the thousands of craters scarring the face of Mars, one has emerged as the likely source of most of the Martian meteorites that have been recovered on Earth, a new study shows. Researchers pinpoint Mojave Crater, a 34 mile (55 kilometer) wide basin on the planet's equator, as the origin of the so-called 'shergottites' meteorites, a family that includes about 75 percent of the roughly 150 known Martian meteorites. The crater is located slightly north and east of Meridian Planum, where NASA's Mars rover Opportunity landed in January 2004."
Comment Re:The size of a euro coin? (Score 2) 77
This being a European project you should be coloured impressed.
Comment The size of a euro coin? (Score 2, Funny) 77
What is that in Metric? Wait, I mean American?
Secret New UAS Shows Stealth, Efficiency Advances 87
Fnord666 writes in with this link about one the development of a new unmanned toy for the U.S. Air Force. "A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015. Funded through the Air Force's classified budget, the program to build this new UAS, dubbed the RQ-180, was awarded to Northrop Grumman after a competition that included Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The aircraft will conduct the penetrating ISR mission that has been left unaddressed, and under wide debate, since retirement of the Lockheed SR-71 in 1998."
Comment Re:"evoking the deepest fears of sci fi" (Score 1) 76
Scariest looking military humanoid robot yet: PETMAN. It is used to test protective clothing in hazardous environments instead of using people (if the suit breaks!)
Comment Re:Renewable Doesn't Mean Invincible (Score 1) 78
I'd rather be asking why they are bothering to have cooling towers,
That part was explained in TFS. It is because after the expanding pressurized hot water expands into steam past turbines, they cool it and run the condensing steam past turbines a second time to get even more energy out of it. Clever.
