Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re: Security theater (Score 4, Informative) 224

The problem here isn't the science, it's the pork.

Pork has nothing to do with it and the science isn't all that bad.
The problem is that SPOT is a diet-version of Israel's behavioral screening program, which is what makes it a waste of money.

SPOT leaves out the naked profiling that Israel uses and it also completely neglects the intrusive (and lengthy) questioning of travelers.
Basically, the two pieces that make it at all effective.

To summarize, the Israeli system could never be fully transplanted into the USA because
1. It profiles based on race, religion, and country of origin
2. It is manpower intensive
3. It puts security before anything, including your family of 5 missing their flight.

Comment Re:Hasn't been involved with Greenpeace since 1985 (Score 1) 573

So the headline should read, "Oil industry funded think tank announces that a guy who used to belong to Greenpeace is a climate denialist."

Oh come on, give The Heartland Institute some credit.
They were also big players in the "tobacco doesn't give you cancer" and "taxes will give you cancer" movements.

Comment Re:Internet? (Score 1) 67

Maybe this is for mobile phones, but even then if a mobile phone can get to Facebook then it can obviously get to anywhere else on the internet.

The detail you're missing is "free"
Facebook either pays the mobile operator or creates a (advertising) revenue sharing partnership so that mobile access to Facebook is free to that telecom company's customers.

Pretty much exactly what the concept of Net Neutrality is intended to quash.

Comment Re:LiDAR solves for vegetation (Score 4, Informative) 31

Which class of laser are they using which can penetrate the canopy of a jungle?

The standard is 1064 nm infrared and 532 nm green (actually 1064nm doubled).
The IR is absorbed by water, hence the inclusion of a 532nm wavelength laser.

With a high enough pulse rate, you can penetrate multiple layers of canopy and get excellent resolution.

Also for the larger areas covered it seems like a fixed wing design might be more appropriate.

Fixed wing solutions are neither better nor worse than any other solution.
Planes need a plane, an airfield, a mechanic, fuel, a pilot, and an operator for the LIDAR system.

The benefit of using an octo-copter is that all you need is electricity to charge it.

Comment Re:Fossil fuel divestment makes for smart money (Score 1) 190

In the last decade coal consumption has sky rocketed.

Past performance is not an indication of future returns.
China is embarrassed by the choking pollution from its coal plants and is either replacing them with cleaner energy or moving them to the middle of no where.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/05/us-china-parliament-ndrc-idUSKBN0M108V20150305
Mar 5, 2015

The [Chinese] National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in its annual report on Thursday that it would implement policies aimed at reducing coal consumption and controlling the number of energy-intensive projects in polluted regions.

China is trying to strike a balance between improving its environment and restructuring away from an economy dominated by energy intensive industries like steel making and construction towards one focused more on consumption and the service sector.

Which is interesting that China is still pursuing the Nicaraguan canal so it can more easily access South America's resources.
Before the canal, China was considering building a railway across Columbia as an alternative to the Panama Canal choke point.

Comment Re:LOL damage broadband investment (Score 2) 347

Given that they have U-Verse in a lot of places, I believe they've actually been investing quite a bit.

They have been investing a lot, because laying fiber is very expensive.
But U-Verse is not in a lot of places.

If you look at where fiber has been brought to market (not just by AT&T), it's almost exclusively in cherry picked areas that can afford high prices.

Comment Re:Moderated comments like Slashdot? (Score 1) 255

Maybe have a slashdot-like karma system, where bad comments on the forums are modded down, and you build up good karma.

Then you have to worry about the down vote brigade. /.'s solution is many eyes and meta-moderation
Reddit's solution is to complain to the moderators. /.'s system is more open to injustice by dedicated trolls
Reddit's system, can have better outcomes, but requires manpower and trusted individuals.
Wikipedia's system requires politics and the ability to grind down the opposition.

There's no easy answer.

Comment Re:Anonymous, eh? (Score 1) 255

When rational thought becomes a religion the leaders and followers of that religion will go to war over any outsiders who dare question the religion well before they will attempt to straighten out the inconsistencies within that religion

And in case you are dense, I am equating the current foss environment with religion

From The Fine Article:

I have always stayed consistent on this topic: I believe all views and perspectives should be welcome if they are constructive and solutions-oriented. Feel free to rabidly disagree with me, but don't just come to me with complaints. Come with a desire to find solutions, and then we can work together.

Do you have any thoughts to propose that move the conversation from "here's a problem" to "here's a solution"?

Comment Re:Profit Margins on the Apple Watch Edition (Score 5, Informative) 450

Oh, and spot price is for 24-karat gold, each ounce of which makes 1-1/3rd an ounce of 18-karat gold. So... does one of these watches weigh 10 ounces?

Even better, the speculation is that Apple's gold watch is only technically 18-karat.
Why technically? Because the definition for 18-karat is that gold must make up 75% of the alloy's mass.

Apple patented a... not-alloy... that uses ceramic instead of metal. (PDF)
Since ceramic is significantly lighter by volume, Apple can use less gold and still meet the 75% gold-by-mass standard.

TLDR: Not all gold is created equal.

Comment First Line of Defense (Score 3, Insightful) 32

Don't use your fucking Point of Sale systems to browse the internet. Or check your E-mail. Or for anything other than inventory & payment.

This goes double for any computer that is used to access customer or patient records.

I see this all the time and it makes me cringe.
If you can't afford separate systems for you or your employees to dick around on,
then you sure as hell can't afford the fallout from getting pwned.

Comment Re:The U.S.A. is now a third world country (Score 1) 311

Maybe taking advantage of the shutdown to do a bit of inspection and maintainance turned up something that took a while to fix.

Entergy's Pilgrim plant has been consistently ranked by the NRC as one of the worst in the country.

It's much more likely that Entergy took advantage of the shutdown to fix things they should have taken care of a long time ago, but refused to deal with, because the plant could be unprofitable in the near future and they're trying to milk as much profit out of it as possible. It'll all show up in some NRC filing(s) sooner or later.

Comment Re:A precaution when done ahead of time. (Score 4, Informative) 311

Pilgrim is a reliable station still going strong after many years.

Lol @ reliable. Pilgrim has been on the NRC's worst-ten shit list for a few years now.

The same day the storm hit, the NRC sent Pilgrim a letter.
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1502/ML15026A069.pdf

Overall, the NRC has determined that your act ions have not provided the assurance level to fully meet all of the inspection objectives and have correspondingly determined that Pilgrim will remain in the Degraded Cornerstone of the Action Matrix by the assignment of two parallel White PI inspection findings. [Green, White, Yellow, Red, in increasing order of severity] [...] . Additionally, for one of the
root cause evaluations, inspectors determined that Entergy failed to investigate a deficient condition in accordance with corrective action program (CAP) requirements to ensure they fully understood all of the causes of one of the [four unplanned] scram events [that happened in 2013].

Reliable != multiple unplanned SCRAMs per year.

Anyways, on January 27, while the reactor was SCRAMing, these three things happened:

The High Pressure Coolant Injection System had to be secured due to failure of the gland seal motor.
The station diesel air compressor failed to start.
One of the four safety relief valves could not be operated manually from the control room.

Those safety relief valves are the ones that get used to vent pressure after the coolant injection system fails.

Pilgrim has problems. On top of all those problems, locals are spitting mad because the disaster plans fail to include scenarios like "giant blizzard shuts down all the roads and nobody can evacuate."

Comment Re:Have I lost my mind? (Score 2) 378

3) is easy to make (see above, do not try this at home, professional driver on closed course and all that)

Actually, people are doing it at home.

It's a SFW thing to search for, as long as you get your search terms right.
"diy" or "home" and "fecal transplant"

There's really no difference between what you can do at home and what a doctor can do for you, other than ordering up disease and parasite screening tests for your donor.

Comment Re:Translation... (Score 4, Insightful) 214

Therefore we will 'protest' by selling off an area of the business we have been planning to sell of for normal commercial reasons for quite some time, but using our highly paid group of lobbyists and spin doctors,

Lobbyists and spin doctors?
Any media who reports "Verizon blames net neutrality" is basically falling down on the job.
Journalists and editors are supposed to have some minimal obligation towards reporting the truth.

âoeWashington should be very thoughtful how they go forward here,â [Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam] said. âoeThis uncertainty is not good for investment, and itâ(TM)s not good for jobs here in America.â

The sale of the wireline operations has been in the works for several years, Verizon executives said.

Those should not be paragraphs 5 and 6.
Heck, "in the works for several years," should have been the headline.

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Working...