Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Absorbed not necessarily equal to electricity (Score 4, Insightful) 439

by Reverse Gear (#31312618) Attached to: Caltech Makes Flexible, 86% Efficient Solar Arrays
As far as I can figure from the article what is says is 95/86 of the light is absorbed, it doesn't say that all of this light is converted into electricity as is stated here on Slashdot. That is also impressive numbers and very interesting, but my guess is that the efficiency of the solar panel is going to be a lot lower than those numbers posted on the parent, most likely at least a factor 2 lower.
Science

New Most Precise Clock Based On Aluminum Ion 193

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the many-stitches-in-time dept.
eldavojohn writes "The National Institute for Standards and Technology has unveiled a new clock that will 'neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years,' making it an atomic clock twice as precise as the previous pacesetter, which was based on mercury atoms. Experts call it a 'milestone for atomic clocks.' The press release describes the workings: 'The logic clock is based on a single aluminum ion (electrically charged atom) trapped by electric fields and vibrating at ultraviolet light frequencies, which are 100,000 times higher than microwave frequencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world.' This makes the aluminum ion clock a contender to replace the standard cesium fountain clock (within 1 second in about 100 million years) as NIST's standard. For those of you asking 'So what?' the article describes the important applications such a device holds: 'The extreme precision offered by optical clocks is already providing record measurements of possible changes in the fundamental "constants" of nature, a line of inquiry that has important implications for cosmology and tests of the laws of physics, such as Einstein's theories of special and general relativity. Next-generation clocks might lead to new types of gravity sensors for exploring underground natural resources and fundamental studies of the Earth. Other possible applications may include ultra-precise autonomous navigation, such as landing planes by GPS.'"

Comment Re:Young earth creationists (Score 1) 326

by Reverse Gear (#23648249) Attached to: Bacteria Found Alive In Ice 120,000 Years Old
I agree that this should pose a problem for those who read the translations of the bible as a day meaning a literal day.
But it doesn't really make a difference for those who doesn't see "a day" as 24 hours as we know a day today. (Think about it, how would you define a day before the earth was created?).
Some of those who believes that the term "day" in Genesis and other places in the bible is this is Jehovah's Witnesses [warning religious content].
Anyhow I guess I am stupid to start discussing religion here on /. and trying to be serious about it, don't mean to be trolling. I just thought that saying that this is a problem for young creationists is true, but saying that it poses a problem for anyone who believes in the bible (or God?) is to take it a step to far.
Power

Submission + - Smallest gas turbine engine in the world 1

Submitted by
SK
SK writes: "A gas turbine engine measuring 10 cm in diameter and 15 cm in length, small enough to hold in one hand has been developed by a study group led by Tohoku University, Japan. The group succeeded in running such a small gas turbine engine and demonstrated the complete cycle for the first time in the world. The study group is working toward practical use of such a gas turbine engine as power sources of autonomous robots for disaster rescue and relief, and personal transportation vehicles indispensable in the aged (Japanese) society."
Math

Submission + - SeventeenOrBust - another 1 down, 7 to go

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "" The 'Seventeen or Bust' distributed computing project today announced the discovery of a massive prime number. The new prime is 3.9 million digits long and stands as the largest non-Mersenne prime ever discovered. It is the fifth largest-known prime overall and the tenth such discovery for the project in its five year history."

http://www.seventeenorbust.com/documents/press-050 507.mhtml

Another one down."
Graphics

Submission + - Compiz and Beryl teams consider merging

Submitted by mu22le
mu22le writes: The Compiz and Beryl teams are discussing a merger. Posts on the Compiz forum and Beryl mailing list indicate that the projects are discussing how to execute a merger and work together to deliver a single compositing window manager to give "bling" to the Linux desktop. Beryl forked from Compiz last year, at the time, the Beryl developers said that the split was amicable but necessary because the two projects had different goals. Now it looks like the projects have found common ground.
The Internet

Submission + - How social search is shaking things up.

Submitted by John stevens
John stevens writes: Recently, a new search engine 'Younanimous' has been getting alot of attention from bloggers and searchers alike. It functions by taking results from google, msn and yahoo and using the already sorted results, then applying a voting algorithm on top, to further sift through the results. Other notable features are Blacklisting, Alexa and Pagerank per query results and alot more. The question here is- Can you effectively sort through googles existing results and come up with more relative content, or are you just mashing up existing data?
Programming

Submission + - Work at home contractor? What do I need to know?

Submitted by BigCanOfTuna
BigCanOfTuna writes: As a developer that recently landed a contract that will have me working mainly out of my basement, what should I be prepared for? How is this going to be different than working in a cubicle for pointy-haired people? I imagine that I'll initially be more productive, but I can also see myself being distracted by other things such as Oprah and Slurpee runs. I need strategies for staying focused, staying connected, and most importantly...staying employed!
Microsoft

Submission + - Bill Gates Predicted Vista 20 Years Ago

Submitted by bobdole2k
bobdole2k writes: The Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo has recently uncovered a recording of a talk Bill Gates gave in 1989. In the talk, Gates makes reference to many features that are in, or were planned for, Vista. He talks about advanced piracy protection involving a 'network', as well as a relational file system, which WinFS was planned to be. The talk is available for download from the Waterloo CSC
Google

Submission + - Buses win over developers for Google

Submitted by
Reverse Gear
Reverse Gear writes: "The New York Times has an interesting article about how different kinds of fringe is starting to mean more in the fight for the best brains in Silicon Valley. The article mainly focuses on Google's high tech shuttle bus system which is quite extensive covering a huge portion of the San Fransisco Bay area and allows the employees to be much more efficient. 1/4 of the employees are now using this system. A Google software engineer quoted in the article:
"They could either charge for the food or cut it altogether, (...) If they cut the shuttle, it would be a disaster.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - ICT Patch for Withdrawal Symptoms on Shutdown Day

Submitted by
Moonaire
Moonaire writes: "Shutdown Day (March 24) is the day to see if one can survive for 24 hours without the computer/internet. This task is near impossible for uber geeks who'll get withdrawal symptoms and convulsions within the first hour. So, Moonaire has written down the 7 most important things any geek needs to prepare, in order to survive Shutdown Day. Item #1 is the ICT Patch. Just like how the nicotine patch helps to keep smokers off smoking, the ICT Patch is a small sticker of your favourite website that you stick on yourself, so you don't get withdrawal symptoms. Read at http://www.thecreativityclub.com/events/7-things-t o-prepare-for-shutdown-day/"
Windows

Submission + - Vista destroys image data of RAW files

Submitted by Anonymous Reader
Anonymous Reader writes: Canon has advised that the original image data of RAW images (such as title, subject, rating, tags, comments) shot with an EOS-1D or EOS-1Ds cameras may be lost when images are rotated or edited using Windows Explorer or Windows Gallery on Vista. The support notice can be found here
Education

Submission + - Museum IDs New Species of Dinosaur

Submitted by Uryugen
Uryugen writes: A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said. The dinosaur's horns, thick as a human arm, are like those of triceratops — which came 10 million years later. However, this animal belonged to a subfamily that usually had bony nubbins a few inches long above their eyes

Slashdot Top Deals

Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall

Close