59534561
submission
KentuckyFC writes:
In June 1972, nuclear scientists at the Pierrelatte uranium enrichment plant in south-east France noticed a strange deficit in the amount of uranium-235 they were processing. That’s a serious problem in a uranium enrichment plant where every gram of fissionable material has to be carefully accounted for. The ensuing investigation found that the anomaly originated in the ore from the Oklo uranium mine in Gabon, which contained only 0.600% uranium-235 compared to 0.7202% for all other ore on the planet. It turned out that this ore was depleted because it had gone critical some 2 billion years earlier, creating a self-sustaining nuclear reaction that lasted for 300,000 years and using up the missing uranium-235 in the process. Since then, scientists have studied this natural reactor to better understand how buried nuclear waste spreads through the environment and also to discover whether the laws of physics that govern nuclear reactions may have changed in the 1.5 billion years since the reactor switched off. Now a review of the science that has come out of Oklo shows how important this work has become but also reveals that there is limited potential to gather more data. After an initial flurry of interest in Oklo, mining continued and the natural reactors--surely among the most extraordinary natural phenomena on the planet-- have all been mined out.
59449257
submission
NapalmV writes:
Using technology designed to find nuclear warheads and submarines, an Adelaide-based exploration company believes it may have located the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
59403691
submission
Billly Gates writes:
With the death of XP it is no surprise if other ancient software with it such as IE 6 no longer become supported. However, IE 8 is still the de factor standard browser right now for the majority of internet users. This is especially in China and enterprises world wide who are not ready for HMTL 5 yet and need support for unsigned ActiveX controls and older encryption standards for specific sites.
Microsoft no longer supports IE 8 and will perform security updates according to its default homepage for first time IE use.
Where I work we use unprotected mode as it is to run sites designed for IE 7 and for state governments who still use quirks mode for Medicare processing.
Now IE has it's first known vulnerability since the EOL for both Windows XP and now IE 8. Should we IT professionals worry? We were given no advanced notice unlike XP!
59174621
submission
Zothecula writes:
Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have designed and manufactured circuits that can reach speeds of up to 245 THz, tens of thousands of times faster than contemporary microprocessors. The results open up possible new design routes for plasmonic-electronics, that combine nano-electronics with the fast operating speed of optics.
59173929
submission
ananyo writes:
Overall working hours have fallen over the past century. But the rich have begun to work longer hours than the poor. In 1965 men with a college degree, who tend to be richer, had a bit more leisure time than men who had only completed high school. But by 2005 the college-educated had eight hours less of it a week than the high-school grads. Figures from the American Time Use Survey, released last year, show that Americans with a bachelor’s degree or above work two hours more each day than those without a high-school diploma. Other research shows that the share of college-educated American men regularly working more than 50 hours a week rose from 24% in 1979 to 28% in 2006, but fell for high-school dropouts. The rich, it seems, are no longer the class of leisure.
The reasons are complex but include rising income inequality but also the availability of more intellectually stimulating, well-remunerated work.
58925199
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
StarCraft II is popular among competitive gamers for having the depth necessary to reward differences in skill. A new study has found that your ability keep up with the game's frantic pace starts to decline at age 24. This is relevant to more than just StarCraft II players: 'While many high-performance athletes start to show age-related declines at a young age, those are often attributed to physical as opposed to brain aging. ... While previous lab tests have shown faster reaction times for simple individual tasks, it was never clear how much relevance those had to complex, real-world tasks such as driving. Thompson noted that Starcraft is complex and quite similar to real-life tasks such as managing 911 calls at an emergency dispatch centre, so the findings may be directly relevant. However, game performance was much easier to analyze than many real-life situations because the game generates detailed logs of every move. In a way, Thompson said, the study is a good demonstration of what kinds of insights can be gleaned from the "cool data sets" generated by our digital lives.'
58923651
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
We've heard a few brief accounts recently of the housing situation in San Francisco, and how it's leading to protests, gentrification, and bad blood between long-time residents and the newer tech crowd. It's a complicated issue, and none of the reports so far have really done it justice. Now, TechCrunch has posted a ludicrously long article explaining exactly what's going on, from regulations forbidding Google to move people into Mountain View instead, to the political battle to get more housing built, to the compromises that have already been made. It's a long read, but well-researched and interesting. It concludes: 'The crisis we’re seeing is the result of decades of choices, and while the tech industry is a sexy, attention-grabbing target, it cannot shoulder blame for this alone. Unless a new direction emerges, this will keep getting worse until the next economic crash, and then it will re-surface again eight years later. Or it will keep spilling over into Oakland, which is a whole other Pandora’s box of gentrification issues. The high housing costs aren't healthy for the city, nor are they healthy for the industry. Both thrive on a constant flow of ideas and people.'
58911555
submission
CanHasDIY writes:
In his yet-to-be-released book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, John Paul Stevens, who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court for 35 years, believes he has the key to stopping the seeming recent spate of mass killings — amend the Constitution to exclude private citizens from armament ownership. Specifically, he recommends adding 5 words to the 2nd Amendment, so that it would read as follows:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.”
What I find interesting is how Stevens maintains that the Amendment only protects armament ownership for those actively serving in a state or federal military unit, in spite of the fact that the Amendment specifically names "the People" as a benefactor (just like the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) and of course, ignoring the traditional definition of the term militia.
I'm personally curious as to what his other 5 suggested changes are, but I guess we'll have towait until the end of April to find out.
58844655
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Lasrick (2629253) writes
"Tom Wigley is one of the world's top climate scientists, and in this interview he explains his outspoken support for both nuclear energy and research into climate engineering. Wigley was one of the first scientists to break the taboo on public discussion of climate engineering as a possible response to global warming; in a 2006 paper in the journal Science, he proposed a combined geoengineering-mitigation strategy that would address the problem of increasing ocean acidity, as well as the problem of climate change. In this interview, he argues that renewable energy alone will not be sufficient to address the climate challenge, because it cannot be scaled up quickly and cheaply enough, and that opposition to nuclear power 'threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change.'"
58394735
submission
Smiffa2001 writes:
The BBC are reporting that five-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel from San Diego has uncovered a (frankly embarrassing) security flaw within the XBOX ONE log in screen. Apparently by entering an incorrect password in the first prompt and then filling the second field with spaces, a user can log in without knowing a password to an account.
Young Kristoffer's Dad has submitted the flaw to Microsoft — who have patched the flaw — and have generously provided four free games, $50, a year-long subscription to Xbox Live and an entry on their list of Security Researcher Acknowledgements.
57874935
submission
Camahueto writes:
A couple of days ago we were talking in the table about Google street view, and I say something that, after listening again was stupid: "Google street view let you view in more than 360 degrees around". After that I tried to explain myself, but it was impossible. So, I would like to ask: How can I say that you can view 360 degrees in three axis, like in Google street view? Is it "360 degrees x 3" or what?
57601495
submission
Dega704 writes:
Crytek sent out a press release today announcing they will be showing off CryEngine Linux support. Found in a press release today, "During presentations and hands-on demos at Crytek's GDC booth, attendees can see for the first time ever full native Linux support in the new CRYENGINE. The CRYENGINE all-in-one game engine is also updated with the innovative features used to recreate the stunning Roman Empire seen in Ryse – including the brand new Physically Based Shading render pipeline, which uses real-world physics simulation to create amazingly realistic lighting and materials in CRYENGINE games."
57601431
submission
Sean0michael writes:
Recently I had a friend lose their entire electronic collection of music and movies by erasing a RAID array on their home server. He had 20TB of data on his rack at home that had survived a dozen hard drive failures over the years. But he didn't have a good way to backup that much data, so he never took one. Now he wishes he had.
Asking around among our tech-savvy friends though, no one has a good answer to the question, "how would you backup 20TB of data?". It's not like you could just plug in an external drive, and using any cloud service would be terribly expensive. Blu-Ray discs can hold a lot of data, but that's a lot of time (and money) spent burning discs that you likely will never need. Tape drives are another possibility, but are they right for this kind of problem? I don' t know. There might be something else out there, but I still have no feasible solution.
So I ask fellow slashdotters: for a home user, how do you backup 20TB of Data?
57188845
submission
trialjudge writes:
The other day "Rachel from Credit Services" called for the 81st time this week. I just happened to be practicing blowing on my whistle, and I'm afraid the sound greatly annoyed whoever I was talking to.
For those of you who don't know Rachel, see http://business.time.com/2012/...
I would never intentionally damage "Rachel from Card Services"'s equipment, but I was just idly wondering if there is something low tech I can do better than a whistle.
An M-80 would be great, but it leaves a stinky residue in the house. Slam a book on the table? Do any of you tech geniuses know anything that might persuade them to stop calling, while not hurting my cheap telephone?
Thanks!!!!
