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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - A Cheap, Ubiquitous Earthquake Warning System (ieee.org)

Submitted by Tekla Perry
Tekla Perry writes: Earthquake alert systems that give a 10 or 20 second warning of an impending temblor, enabling automatic systems to shut down and people to take cover, are hugely expensive to build and operate. (One estimate is $38.3 milllion for equipment to span California, and another $16.1 million annually to operate.) But a Palo Alto entrepreneur thinks he's got a way to sense earthquakes and provide alerts far more cheaply and with much greater resolution. And he's got money from the National Science Foundation to begin the first test of his system--covering the Bay Area from Santa Cruz to Napa and the cities of Hollister, Coalinga, and Parkfield. He starts that test next month.

Comment Re:The wet dream of Bill Gates (Score 1) 352

by moeinvt (#49561319) Attached to: The Future Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher

I loathe Microsoft, but they would do a lot better job than the government is doing. Heck, I think if you let McDonalds management take over education and treat each public school like a franchise it would be better than it is now.
You can argue about the quality of McDonalds food, but they've managed to create a business model where you can order a Big Mac, fries and a shake almost anywhere and have it taste like the same Big Mac, fries and a shake you get anywhere else. Why can't someone replicate the model so that you can teach kids the same basic skills with a consistent quality?
I'd like to see some REAL entrepreneurs develop an education business whose service was so popular with the customers (parents and students) that the founders did become millionaires and billionaires.

Comment Re:In other words... (Score 1) 285

if a disease can spread because it can find enough vectors since not enough vaccinate, you are also giving the disease time and space to tinker, and perhaps evolve a new strain that existing vaccines don't protect against

so: yup. but that's less superrich killing and more superstupid killing us

Comment Re:In other words... (Score 4, Interesting) 285

i always thought it would make a great conspiracy dystopian story where the superrich, with everything automated, don't need us anymore

so they simply kill us all off

the earth reduced to 700,000 souls from 7,000,000,000 in a matter of days (some sort of highly infectious agent?)

Comment Re:Cripple Linux? (Score 1) 174

by Wolfrider (#49557663) Attached to: Intel 'Compute Stick' PC-Over-HDMI Dongle Launched, Tested

--You can turn endless scrolling off in your Preferences. Besides it's one of the stupidest ideas ever, once you scroll past something 99% of the time you'll never want to see it again (and if you do there's the "previous page" link, not to mention a lot of times the *same content* gets reposted by different followers) and it's uselessly taking up resources. 2GB of RAM should be _fine_ for web browsing, if people would only design their webpages a little smarter.

Submission + - Robots Step Into the Backbreaking Agricultural Work that Immigrants Won't Do

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Ilan Brat reports at the WSJ that technological advances are making it possible for robots to handle the backbreaking job of gently plucking ripe strawberries from below deep-green leaves, just as the shrinking supply of available fruit pickers has made the technology more financially attractive. “It’s no longer a problem of how much does a strawberry harvester cost,” says Juan Bravo, inventor of Agrobot, the picking machine. “Now it’s about how much does it cost to leave a field unpicked, and that’s a lot more expensive.” The Agrobot costs about $100,000 and Bravo has a second, larger prototype in development. Other devices similarly are starting to assume delicate tasks in different parts of the fresh-produce industry, from planting vegetable seedlings to harvesting lettuce to transplanting roses. While farmers of corn and other commodity crops replaced most of their workers decades ago with giant combines, growers of produce and plants have largely stuck with human pickers—partly to avoid maladroit machines marring the blemish-free appearance of items that consumers see on store shelves. With workers in short supply, “the only way to get more out of the sunshine we have is to elevate the technology,” says Soren Bjorn.

American farmers have in recent years resorted to brought hundreds of thousands of workers in from Mexico on costly, temporary visas for such work. But the decades-old system needs to be replaced because “we don’t have the unlimited labor supply we once did,” says Rick Antle. "Americans themselves don't seem willing to take the harder farming jobs," says Charles Trauger, who has a farm in Nebraska. "Nobody's taking them. People want to live in the city instead of the farm. Hispanics who usually do that work are going to higher paying jobs in packing plants and other industrial areas." The labor shortage spurred Tanimura & Antle Fresh Foods, one of the country’s largest vegetable farmers, to buy a Spanish startup called Plant Tape, whose system transplants vegetable seedlings from greenhouse to field using strips of biodegradable material fed through a tractor-pulled planting device. “This is the least desirable job in the entire company,” says Becky Drumright. With machines, “there are no complaints whatsoever. The robots don’t have workers' compensation, they don’t take breaks.”

Comment Re:truly an inspiration. (Score 1) 494

by Shakrai (#49555973) Attached to: Woman Behind Pakistan's First Hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, Shot Dead

If I want to do stuff that doesn't involve deep thought, I play some mindless video game (like an old NES game with an emulator, or an old arcade game like Pac-Man), or I go hiking or biking, or maybe watch some silly TV show like Big Bang Theory.

And other people watch Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Some smoke weed. Some find themselves on mindless websites. I fail to see why those choices are any less valid than yours.

You also seem to know an awful lot about Duck Dynasty; are you a closeted fan? I've never seen an episode myself -- no CATV in the Shakrai household -- the little bit I know about it comes from those people that get offended over it, which amuses me because nobody is forcing them to watch it.

BTW, you may think Robertson is an idiot, but he's made millions of dollars while you tilt at windmills on Slashdot.

Comment Re:truly an inspiration. (Score 1) 494

by Shakrai (#49555941) Attached to: Woman Behind Pakistan's First Hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, Shot Dead

I guess I can believe one of two things:

1) You're a smug elitist.
2) You're clairvoyant enough to know what every single viewer of Duck Dynasty believes.

I used to watch 24; if we apply your logic that means I condone torture. Funny that, I always found the show appealing because it had lots of gunfights, explosions, the occasional set of tits, and didn't require me to think very hard.

Comment Re:truly an inspiration. (Score 2) 494

by Shakrai (#49555691) Attached to: Woman Behind Pakistan's First Hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, Shot Dead

If they have interests such as following the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty, and you have interests which include baroque music and classical literature, then it's safe to say that you're more intelligent than them.

An interest in Duck Dynasty is not mutually exclusive with an interest in classical literature. I don't much care for the former but we've all got our own outlets for those times when we just want to turn our brains off for a little while. Is watching Duck Dynasty any worse than playing GTA?

Slashdot Top Deals

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

Close