Comment Re:Punishes fans? (Score 1) 216
Also the horses become much more pleasant to be around when they are breeding.
Funny, I'm the same way.
What? You like to watch horses breeding?
Comment Re:I believe solar thermal does benefit from scale (Score 1) 409
It is easy to turn electricity into heat (just run it through a resistor) but difficult to go the other way.
Pshaw! Just get yourself a resistor with a negative value.
Comment Re:And yet here I am (Score 1) 98
Here I am, in downtown Richmond...
You do know that they are talking about the average speed for the state..?
The way it breaks down in Virginia is:
You (and everybody else) = 3 Mbps The CIA in Langley = 2000 Tbps
State average = 13.7 Mbps
Though your post was likely meant to be humorous, there is some truth to it. The infrastructure here in NoVa is definitely influenced by the heavy presence of intelligence work.
Comment Re:And yet here I am (Score 1) 98
I sure don't.
Who are you with?
Your momma.
Comment Re:Oh good lord. (Score 1) 225
Dark matter is probably just civilizations that have built (advanced forms of) Dyson spheres around their stars.
Are the Dyson spheres so they can suck up all the cosmic dust?
Comment Re:Translated into English (Score 1) 306
I am left wondering how it could be $35K / cottage in Florida. Maybe it's to go off-grid altogether, thus requiring storage?
I'm not sure what a "cottage" is in Florida, but if I look at local prices (Central Europe), I see offers for off-grid PV installations (with storage) for cottages starting around $7k.
Florida likely needs a lot more A/C than Central Europe.
Comment Re:Translated into English (Score 1) 306
Heat, humidity, bugs, snakes, rabies. Also invasive species; the Nile Monitor Lizard looks like a real sweetie.
There's lots more (potential for) mosquito-borne disease -- yellow fever epidemics in the past, dengue showing up in Key West lately, and encephalitis is more common there than elsewhere. Termites are much more destructive down there, too. Sinkholes are common enough that you see billboard advertisements for lawyers to help sue for damage to your home.
Plus you're not the only person who had the bright idea of retiring there.
You forgot - Rick Scott, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio,
Wiring Programmers To Prevent Buggy Code 116
mikejuk (1801200) writes "Microsoft Researcher Andrew Begel, together with academic and industry colleagues have been trying to detect when developers are struggling as they work, in order to prevent bugs before they are introduced into code. A paper presented at the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering, reports on a study conducted with 15 professional programmers to see how well an eye-tracker, an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor, and an electroencephalography (EEG) sensor could be used to predict whether developers would find a task difficult. Difficult tasks are potential bug generators and finding a task difficult is the programming equivalent of going to sleep at the wheel. Going beyond this initial investigation researchers now need to decide how to support developers who are finding their work difficult. What isn't known yet is how developers will react if their actions are approaching bug-potential levels and an intervention is deemed necessary. Presumably the nature of the intervention also has to be worked out. So next time you sit down at your coding station consider that in the future they may be wanting to wire you up just to make sure you aren't a source of bugs. And what could possibly be the intervention?"
Floridian (and Southern) Governmental Regulations Are Unfriendly To Solar Power 306
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a story in the LA Times: "Few places in the country are so warm and bright as Mary Wilkerson's property on the beach near St. Petersburg, Fla., a city once noted in the Guinness Book of World Records for a 768-day stretch of sunny days. But while Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. Wilkerson discovered the paradox when she set out to harness sunlight into electricity for the vintage cottages she rents out at Indian Rocks Beach. She would have had an easier time installing solar panels, she found, if she had put the homes on a flatbed and transported them to chilly Massachusetts. While the precise rules vary from state to state, one explanation is the same: opposition from utilities grown nervous by the rapid encroachment of solar firms on their business."
What Do You Do When Your Mind-Numbing IT Job Should Be Automated? 228
jfruh writes Not everyone has a job like Homer Simpson, who's been replaced at various times by a brick tied to a lever and a chicken named Queenie. But many IT workers have come up against mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that probably could be automated. So: what do you do about it? Well, the answer depends on how much power you have in an organization and how much your bosses respect your opinion.
Comment Re:not really that hard, theoretically (Score -1, Offtopic) 177
Of course, I believe phrases like "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" are indisputably clear, and I'm astonished that people can find convoluted ways to try to tear it apart syntactically.and semantically.
I agree - as long as the bears don't mind you taking their arms.
Apple and Samsung Agree To Drop Cases Outside the US 46
mrspoonsi writes Apple and Samsung have agreed to withdraw all legal cases against each other outside the United States. The two rivals have sued each other over a range of patent disputes in nine countries outside the US, including the UK, South Korea, Japan and Germany. A joint statement said the agreement "does not involve any licensing arrangements", and they would continue to pursue existing cases in US courts. The two firms are the biggest players in the smartphone and tablet PC market. But they have been involved in a bitter legal battle, spread across various countries, which has escalated in recent years.
US Intelligence Wants Tools To Tell: Who's the Smartest of Them All? 162
coondoggie writes Can a tool or technology be applied to the brain and accurately predict out of a given group of people who will be the smartest? The research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is looking for exactly those kinds of tools."IARPA is looking to get a handle on the state of the art in brain-based predictors of future cognitive performance. In particular, IARPA is interested in non-invasive analyses of brain structure and/or function that can be used to predict who will best learn complex skills and accomplish tasks within real-world environments, and with outcome measures, that are relevant to national security.
Aaron's Law Is Doomed and the CFAA Is Still Broken 134
I Ate A Candle (3762149) writes Aaron's Law, named after the late internet activist Aaron Swartz, was supposed to fix U.S. hacking laws, which many deem dated and overly harsh. But the bill looks certain to wither in Congress, thanks to corporate lobbying, disagreements in Washington between key lawmakers and a simple lack of interest amongst the general population for changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Representative Zoe Lofgren blamed inactivity from the House Judiciary Committee headed up by Representative Bob Goodlatte, which has chosen not to discuss or vote on Aaron's Law. There is still an appetite for CFAA reform, thanks to complaints from the security community that their research efforts have been deemed illegal acts, perversely making the internet a less secure place. But with the likes of Oracle trying to stop it and with Congress unwilling to act, change looks some way away.
Comment Re:NIMBY at its finest (Score 1) 409
Ever read or see "The Stand?"
