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2865055 comment

Comment Re:INCORRECT Correlation (Score 2, Insightful) 570

by chaotixx on Monday December 29, 2008 @11:29AM (#26258071) Attached to: What Carriers Don't Want You To Know About Texting

Wow. Quit sleeping through your econ classes.

Charging 3 different customers different prices for the same product is called discrimination. Great if you can get away with it (sometimes called a senior citizen or student discount), but not how most businesses operate.

The grandparent was correct, and you pretty much agree with the post in your second paragraph there. Text message market should be in perfect competition. Text messages from Sprint are exactly the same as those from Verizon, they are perfect substitutes. In a correctly functioning market, market forces will push commodities with perfect substitutes down to the marginal cost. Marginal cost is the price it takes to create the last widget, or in this case text message. As per the article, text messages cost almost nothing, therefore, the price of text messages should be almost nothing. The fact that this is not the case indicates that the market is not functioning correctly.

1323497 story

Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice 320

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 23, 2008 @07:57AM from the where's-the-cheese dept.

Ostracus writes "It sounds like science fiction, but scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. After exposing mice to emotionally powerful stimuli, such as a mild shock to their paws, the scientists then observed how well or poorly the animals subsequently recalled the particular trauma as their brain's expression of CaMKII was manipulated up and down. When the brain was made to overproduce CaMKII at the exact moment the mouse was prodded to retrieve the traumatic memory, the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared to be fully erased."

1185405 story

LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction 293

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 18, 2008 @08:53PM from the it's-only-broken-if-you-look dept.

Ortega-Starfire writes "A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online. No one at CERN reported any problems, and they only released this data once the Associated Press sent people to investigate rumors of problems. I guess it's hard to just sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug."

2407679 comment

Comment Re:Chopsticks, for crying out loud (Score 1) 576

by chaotixx on Thursday June 05, 2008 @07:33PM (#23676201) Attached to: Favorite Utensil

Try to keep the orange Cheeto dust off your hands by using a fork. Maybe then you'll see the advantage of chopsticks.

692729 story

Space Station Toilets Poop Out 207

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @08:52AM from the so-many-jokes dept.

otter42 writes "The International Space Station's toilet has gone kaput. It seems that the system for separating solid and liquid waste has developed a fault. 'Solids' go where they're supposed to, but 'liquids' don't. The astronauts have bypassed the '"the troublesome hardware" for urine collection with a "special receptacle."' Something tells me they're glad the failure wasn't the other way around." Update: 05/28 21:54 GMT by T : According to a post on Engadget, the toilet's now been repaired.

578702 story

The Army's $10M Spy Bat Still Too Big 199

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday March 18, 2008 @12:43PM from the who-hasn't-had-that-problem dept.

Lucas123 writes "The University of Michigan's Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (COM-BAT) is working on building a robot bat that would perform long-range reconnaissance for the U.S. Army, but U.Mich is currently struggling with miniaturizing components in order to make the bat small enough to be stealthy. 'The focus is to shrink down many electronics that while currently available would only be good if the US Army wanted, say, a 12-foot spy-bat.' Some components need to be 1,000 times smaller than they currently are. The Army's $10 million grant proposal calls for the bat to be six inches in length, weigh four ounces and use just one watt of power. The bat is supposed to be powered by a lithium-ion battery, charged by solar and wind energy, as well as simple vibrations."

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