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Comment Re:"HTML5 Programming"? (Score 1) 90

Parent said:

"Get off my lawn!"

I am afraid you have not kept up with XMLHttpRequest and the whole scripting activities currently involved in developing a modern website. It is even said that website development is so complex nowadays[citation needed] that separate professional functions have to divide up the work: designers, programmers, testers, moderators and, of course, trolls.

I too long for the good ol' days of websites being displayed equally "beautifully" in NCSA's Mosaic or ISC's Lynx. STOP vomiting flashing text, animated gifs, flash ads and floating DIVs, DAMMIT!

Comment Re:-Sigh- (Score 1) 561

They have a point, we should shut down the sun to protect us from all that harmful radiation. As a bonus Global Warming will no longer be an issue.

Mod this UP! We should also shut down the universe which emits so much of these damn radiations, and eventually 'live' in an absolute zero absolute maximum entropy state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body

Comment Re:I'd like to enjoy my tea and poetry.... (Score 1) 561

We have the "Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire" (Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute) and the "Autorité de sûreté nucléaire" (Nuclear Safety Authority) which are the official organizations for the safety of the nuclear installations in France. They are supposedly independent from the industry and the government. Their credibility suffers from a precedent during the Chernobyl catastrophe when the Health ministry's central bureau of protection against ionizing radiation director, Pierre Pellerin, consistently and continuously said the radioactive cloud would not have any impact and no safety precautions should be taken, while all neighbor countries (even Spain and Great Britain which were further down the route of the cloud) had measured elevated radiation on produce.
The CRIIRAD "Commission de recherche et d'information indépendantes sur la radioactivité" (Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity) is the most independant organization since it is not official and uses publicly available data and measures made by independently owned detectors.

About the intrusion by Greenpeace, I find their action disingenuous: the Genarmerie Nationale has now dedicated special groups to the protection of all nuclear plants since this summer, but this takes time to be put in place; other Greenpeace activists have tried to break into several other facilities but were arrested by the local law enforcement (or possibly the said special Gendearmerie groups); furthermore elected officials and experts conducted a live and surprise safety exercise not weeks ago to assess the measures put in place against floods and earthquakes (operation Opera during the night of December 1st).

Comment Re:What if it turned out the other way? (Score 0) 561

The problem the Fukushima events showed evidently is that you do not have to make the nuclear reactor go critical and explode to cause a major radiological catastrophe: you just have to cut the power to the control room and safety system that prevents the reactor to sustain and limit its heating-cooling cycle.

Therefore protection against any intrusion or incident is paramount to the safety of the plant, therefore security should be airtight.

Parent post has it right: the Gendarmerie Nationale is in charge of the protection from intrusion into nuclear plants and other facilities and even NBC protection.

http://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/index.php/fre/sites/Gendarmerie/Presentation/securite/The-BRNC-facet

Nuclear plants are also surrounded by restricted air zone enforced by SAM and fast jet interception. See this (french) animation:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2011/12/05/01016-20111205ARTFIG00591-comment-sont-protegees-les-centrales-nucleaires.php

User Journal

Journal Journal: In Time (2011) by A. Niccol 1

Interesting idea: what if "time is money" was put to the test? What would the rich do with their time and what would it mean for the poor to have so little?
At first I was a little distressed at the idea that time would run against you since the day you were born but fortunately the film shows at some point that babies (even those born in poor districts) have a clock showing "0": the clock starts ticking at 25. What do people do until they are 25? Well poor people, even poor children as sh

The Military

Submission + - The F-35 story (bloomberg.com) 1

phyzz writes: "After 10 years in development and numerous cost and schedule overruns, the JSF program aimed at replacing several aircrafts from three major military services and partner nations with a fifth generation aircraft capable of STOVL as sustained supersonic flight in an affordable package finally gets some test points validated, yet faces an uphill fight against budget reductions. Bloomberg has this interesting story about the program's troubled past."
AMD

Submission + - Intel launches i7-2700k as a "response" to new Bul (eweek.com)

noobermin writes: They wrote:

Intel’s i7-2700K is the giant chip maker’s fastest chip based on its own Sandy Bridge architecture, which began appearing in Intel processors in January. The chip clocks in at 3.5GHz—which can climb to 3.9GHz, when leveraging Intel’s Turbo Boost technology—and is meant to challenge AMD’s most powerful FX chips.

It costs about 100 USD more than the new FXs

Australia

Submission + - UK Introduces Changes to Immigration Sponsorship M (topimmigrationadvisor.com)

An anonymous reader writes: UK Border Agency (UKBA) will introduce changes to the sponsorship management system (SMS) on 1 October 2011, which will change how people apply for Restricted Certificates of Sponsorship (RCoS) under Tier 2 General visa category.

Those who already have a sponsorship management system account can submit or withdraw applications for RCoS under Tier 2 General category, track the progress and outcome of their applications, or make a new RCoS application. Existing account users will also be able to view their RCoS allocation, including the number of RCoS assigned.

Comment Re:Starting-point (Score 1) 173

Too bad their website is such a cluttered mess built on what appears to be a default CMS template.

I fail to see how this would be detrimental to usability : I am completely comfortable with the layout of the website, if not a little overwhelmed by text and ads...

Not all websites must be Web 3.14 with CSS and AJAX spewing all over the place and a completely separate navigation and history paradigm from you web browser (I hate when I cannot see precisely each "page" I visited on the web, unless of course it is a "news" site inc. Slashdot or Facebook).

Keep it Simple, people ! I want to be able to disable Javascript and every other plugins in my browser and still be allowed to consume the web content, otherwise I won't bother and pick up a good book (THAT's good old nice usability)

Comment Re:Where have I seen this before (Score 1) 259

The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere where temperature goes hotter the higher you go since the ozone gas releases heat when broken into monoatomic oxygen and diatomic oxygen by the ultraviolet rays of the Sun.

I suppose the parent estimated that some heat was also absorbed from the troposphere (the layer directly below the stratosphere, and the lowest of the layers, where all meteorological events take place). Since the greenhouse gases are in the troposphere, they shield the stratosphere from the heat radiating from the Earth back to space.

Technology

Submission + - CF6 Jet Engine Celebrates 40 Years in Service (gereports.com)

An anonymous reader writes: GE Aviation’s CF6, its first commercially successful jet engine, celebrated 40 years in service on August 5. The CF6 ushered in decades of engine leadership that continues: at this summer’s Paris Air Show, CFM International, the joint venture between GE and Snecma, announced a record-setting $27 billion in orders for its new LEAP engine. Like many great successes, the CF6’s was the product of initial setbacks with GE’s first commercial engine, the CJ805. But the company learned from its early mistakes. “Do it right the first time you’re going to have it around for a long time to come,” said Gerhard Neumann, the former chief executive of GE Aviation. In April 1968, American Airlines and United Airlines chose the CF6-6, GE’s new 40,000 pound thrust engine, for their new fleets of Douglas DC-10 Series 10 aircraft. On August 5, 1971, American’s DC-10, powered by the CF6-6, made its first passenger flight, from Los Angeles to Chicago.
Cellphones

Submission + - Verizon Makes It Easy To Go Over Your Data Cap (itworld.com) 1

jfruhlinger writes: "Verizon Wireless has revamped its video service; many Android phones can now stream a full episodes from a number of current TV shows. You can even choose to just buy access for a day if you don't see yourself using the service often. Sounds great, right? Well, except for the part where all of Verizon's current smartphone plans have data caps — and the new service makes it awfully easy to go over them and incur overage charges."
The Internet

Submission + - Former Wikileaks spokesman destroyed documents (activepolitic.com) 2

bs0d3 writes: Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims to have destroyed more than 3,500 unpublished files that had been sent from unknown informants and are now apparently lost irrevocably. Among the files destroyed include the U.S. gov's "no-fly list" and inside information from 20 right wing organizations. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is now known as one of the founders of openleaks.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Chief: All CEOs Reluctant to Invest in R&D

theodp writes: In his Centennial Conversation at the Computer History Museum, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano emphasized the importance of investing in R&D, even in a down economy. 'Shareholder expectations for higher returns don't diminish when the economy stutters,' said Sam. 'And yet, Tom Watson Sr. actually increased research investment during the Great Depression.' Palmisano added, 'I will tell you that my own instinctive reflex isn't to continue investing $6 billion a year during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In that regard, I'm like all CEOs.' Yes, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Sam Palmisano is no Tom Watson. And while he didn't mention it in his speech, just days earlier, Palmisano exercised an option for 300,000 IBM shares at $97.59, which were immediately unloaded for more than $50 million at prices ranging from $178.72-$183.63 (IBM closed Friday at $157.54). Watson, by the way, famously refused to grant stock options to himself and other execs.

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