37870157
submission
doug141 writes:
A Colorado county put bar codes on printed ballots in a last minute effort to comply with a rule about eliminating identifying markings. Citizens sued, because the bar codes can still be traced back to individual voters. In a surprise ruling, Denver U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello said the U.S. Constitution did not contain a "fundamental right" to secret ballots, the citizens could not show their voting rights had been violated, nor that they might suffer any specific injury from the bar codes.
36436567
submission
doug141 writes:
For 1/6th the cost of the war in Afghanistan, the US could build a national water grid that mitigates flooding in the midwest and provides arid western states with water. It would pay for itself in a single major flood event, and make your food cheaper.
28417475
submission
doug141 writes:
What mod option would you most prefer to see added to slashdot?
1) -1 strawman
2) -1 ad hominem
3) -1 non sequitur
4) -1 argument from authority
5) -1 confusion of correlation and causation
27203798
submission
doug141 writes:
In standard solar cells, much energy is lost (as heat) from photons mismatched to the capability of silicon to capture them. A new technique uses a pentacene layer to down-convert each hot (un-captureable) electron to two electrons that can be captured by standard silicon cells.
26508462
submission
doug141 writes:
Scientists are releasing genetically modifies male mosquitoes that produce flightless female offspring. The male offspring go on to wipe out another generation of females.This is similar to the way screwworms were eradicated in the U.S., except with nature itself making more of the modified males.
Field trials are already underway.
23798280
submission
doug141 writes:
Analyzing for a difference is easy. But analyzing a difference of a differences is done incorrectly half the time in studies published in neuroscience journals.
Nieuwenhuis looked at 513 papers published in five prestigious neuroscience journals over two years. In half the 157 studies where this error could have been made, it was. They broadened their search to 120 cellular and molecular articles in Nature Neuroscience, during 2009 and 2010: they found 25 studies committing this fallacy, and not one single paper analysed differences in effect sizes correctly.
23416312
submission
doug141 writes:
Salter sinks, which are wave power pumps, could cool hurricane-producing surface waters just enough to reduce hurricanes to any desired level. They can be made out of old tires so cheaply, the payback in reduced hurricane damage happens the first year.
23261894
submission
doug141 writes:
Black holes are predicted to evaporate slowly in 3 spacial dimensions, but much faster if string theory's many-dimensions is true. A black hole/pulsar binary system, if found, could show how fast black holes evaporate, and thus how many dimensions make our universe.
22735152
submission
doug141 writes:
NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show far more heat released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study predicts less global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted.
21288446
submission
doug141 writes:
GameStop encourages customers who pre-ordered more than a year ago to verify their reservation with their local store. 'Provided the customer has a receipt, we will honor even those pre-orders taken long ago. At this time, we expect that all pre-order customers will receive Duke's Big Package at time of purchase, regardless of when the reservation was made.'
10247748
submission
doug141 writes:
The Jetpack is constructed from carbon fiber composite, has a dry weight of 250 lbs (excluding safety equipment) and measures 5 ft high x 5.5 ft wide x 5 ft long. It's driven by a 2.0 L V4 2 stroke engine rated at 200 hp (150 kw), can reach 8000 ft (estimated) and each of the two 1.7 ft wide rotors is made from carbon / Kevlar composite. At $86,000 it is pitched at the level of a high-end car. As sales and production volume increase they expect this to drop to the price of a mid-range car. A 10% deposit buys you a production slot for 12 months hence; progress payments are made during manufacture with final payment due on delivery.
9639396
submission
doug141 writes:
How many times have you violated copyright in the last 12 months?
0
1-9
10-99
100-999
1000 or more
6866702
submission
doug141 writes:
The new book Superfreakenomics
(Levitt & Dubner) discusses two geoengineering concepts from
Intellectual Ventures
that are incredibly cheap compared to their impact:
The first
system, still under computer testing, uses simple buoys, placed
in the seasonally warm ocean waters that breed hurricanes, powered by
wave action, to slowly pump the warm water down about 100 feet to the
much colder water. The resulting very-slightly cooler surface water
would reduce the intensity of hurricanes (eliminating them is equally
possible, but not desired). At $1 billion the system would cost far
less than the damage caused by a single hurricane season.
The second
system offers to cool the planet for only $250 million. The world
output of sulfur dioxide (volcanoes, humans, sea spray, other
sources) is 200 million tons, but it's all in the troposphere. In
1991, the heavily studied Mt. Pinatubo eruption sent some sulfur
dioxide into the stratosphere and cooled the world. Modeling shows a
mere 100,000 tons per year of SO2, which is a garden-hose-like 34
gallons per minute, and one twentieth of one percent of the world
troposphere emissions, would reverse arctic warming and reduce
northern hemisphere warming. If the system is shut off the
stratosphere would return to normal in a couple of years, just as
it did after the Pinatubo eruption, so the
whatcouldpossiblygowrong argument is weak. Several delivery systems
could work such as a long chain of hoses, pumps and balloons, or a
tall lightweight chimney held by weather balloons.
The book also brings to light two
interesting facts about global warming:
1) Eating locally grown food over mass
produced food actually increases greenhouse emissions, because only
11 percent of of food emissions are transportation related (and
delivery from producer to retailer is only 4%). A full 80% of food
related emissions are from production, and big farms are far more
efficient than small farms.
2) The world's cows, sheep and other
cud-chewers are responsible for 50% more greenhouse gas than the
entire transportation sector, due to methane being 25 times
more potent than CO2. Forgoing beef for one day a week is better than
switching to a hybrid vehicle.
5561497
submission
doug141 writes:
The four-star Crowne Plaza near Venice mistakenly offered rooms for 1 cent. 1,400 room nights were booked and will be honored. The hotel stands to lose $129,000.
3359519
submission
doug141 writes:
Two clocks
this accurate, if placed on adjacent tables with a 1 centimeter
height difference, would get out of sync due to general relativity
alone. Also, they can be used to determine if our universe's fine
structure constant has, in fact, been constant.
