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Submission + - A running start really can improve your golf game

StartsWithABang writes: It was an idea made famous by the movie Happy Gilmore, but the physics behind it is actually sound: getting a running start, even a slow one, should theoretically be able to improve your driving distance by about 10% off the tee. But there's a big different between physics-in-theory and physics-and-physiology-in-practice, at least, in many cases. This time, however, they line up beautifully, as a running start really can help your golf game!

Comment Modded flamebait? (Score 1) 58

Vote fraud happens. They threw out that particular election but I don't think any of the people who committed fraud were ever charged. And dozens of precincts in Philadelphia haven't had a single vote for a Republican presidential candidate in decades.

Stinson's absentee ballot campaign led to hundreds of improper votes, mostly in the district's Latino and African American neighborhoods. Those improper votes included forgeries and instances in which workers either marked ballots for voters, told them how to vote, or never showed them the ballot that was cast in their names.

But Democrats will tell you there has never been any significant voter fraud (although you might want to look up a guy named Landslide Lyndon) and that there is no need for voters to present an id card.

Submission + - Messenger's Mercury trip ends with a bang, and silence (bbc.com)

mpicpp writes: Nasa's Messenger mission to Mercury has reached its explosive conclusion, after 10 years in space and four in orbit.
Now fully out of fuel, the spacecraft smashed into a region near Mercury's north pole, out of sight from Earth, at about 20:00 GMT on Thursday.
Mission scientists confirmed the impact minutes later, when the craft's next possible communication pass was silent.
Messenger reached Mercury in 2011 and far exceeded its primary mission plan of one year in orbit.

That mission ended with an inevitable collision: Messenger slammed into our Solar System's hottest planet at 8,750mph (14,000km/h) — 12 times quicker than the speed of sound.

The impact will have completely obliterated this history-making craft. And it only happened because Mercury has no thick atmosphere to burn up incoming objects — the same reason its surface is so pock-marked by impact craters.

According to calculations, the 513kg, three-metre craft will have blasted a brand new crater the size of a tennis court. But that lasting monument is far too small to be visible from Earth.

Submission + - Results are in from psychology's largest reproducibility test: 39/100 reproduced (nature.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A crowd-sourced effort to replicate 100 psychology studies has successfully reproduced findings from 39 of them. Some psychologists say this shows the field has a replicability problem. Others say the results are "not bad at all". The results are nuanced: 24 non-replications had findings at least "moderately similar" to the original paper but which didn't quite reach statistical significance.

Comment Re:Uhuh. (Score -1, Flamebait) 58

British parliamentary democracy has many problems, but voter corruption has never been identified as one of them

"Never identified" because there was no way to identify i maybe?

Kind of like voting precincts here in the US that had 100% of the vote go to Obama. No fraud was identified there. Or the people who complained that they registered to vote but when they went to the polls they learned that they had already filed an absentee ballot - thoughtfully filled out by the person who had visited their house to register them. No fraud identified there either.

Comment Re:Show me the math on the Tesla. (Score 1) 280

practically no one uses oil to produce electricity

But practically everyone uses natural gas and/or coal. so the point is well taken.

Of course if it is a windy night the coal plants might just give up and shut down overnight

You can't "just shutdown" a coal fired generation plant. What you can do is dump the excess power to ground.

Submission + - Notorious "Patent Troll" to be the Commencement Speaker at UCLA

onproton writes: This week Nathan Myhrvold, widely criticized for his industry role as a “patent troll,” was announced as the commencement speaker at UCLA’s graduation ceremony. The UCLA student newspaper quickly responded with a piece protesting the selection, describing Myhrvold’s company, Intellectual Ventures, as “the most hated company in tech.” Intellectual Ventures has purchased more than 70,000 patents, many of which are either sold to other identified patent trolls, or used by its shell corporations in litigation to extort companies actually involved in product development. These kinds of predatory organizations have resulted in a major decline in venture capital investment in startups, and as the “Daily Bruin” points out, make a mockery out of the legal processes involving intellectual property.

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