DrFrasierCrane - Slashdot User

Comment Demolition Man (Score 1) 545

by DrFrasierCrane on Tuesday August 31, 2010 @01:16PM (#33427188) Attached to: Building Prisons Without Walls Using GPS Devices

My first thought after reading "in favor of a regimen of close, constant surveillance on the outside and swift, certain punishment for any deviations from an established, legally unobjectionable routine" was 1993's Demolition Man (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106697/).

Comment Do what Red Green does (Score 1) 386

by DrFrasierCrane on Thursday August 26, 2010 @11:48AM (#33381894) Attached to: Fun To Be Had With a 10-Foot Satellite Dish?

With a little duct tape, you turn it into a HUGE stir-fry. I'd suggest using vegetable oil instead of motor oil, though.

Comment Maybe so... (Score 1) 2

by DrFrasierCrane on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @03:20PM (#32830066) Attached to: Doctor Invents "Zero Gravity" Radiation Suit

...but "Zero Gravity" Radiation Suit sounds sexier. And, it's what the inventor called it.

Pixel Inventor Goes Back To the Drawing Board 304

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @03:11PM from the I-favor-little-triangles-myself dept.

lawpoop writes "Russell Kirsch, inventor of the square pixel, goes back to the drawing board. In the 1950s, he was part of a team that developed the square pixel. '"Squares was the logical thing to do," Kirsch says. "Of course, the logical thing was not the only possibility but we used squares. It was something very foolish that everyone in the world has been suffering from ever since.' Now retired and living in Portland, Oregon, Kirsch recently set out to make amends. Inspired by the mosaic builders of antiquity who constructed scenes of stunning detail with bits of tile, Kirsch has written a program that turns the chunky, clunky squares of a digital image into a smoother picture made of variably shaped pixels.'"

Submission + - Doctor Invents "Zero Gravity" Radiation Suit (wfaa.com) 2

Submitted by DrFrasierCrane on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @03:03PM

DrFrasierCrane writes: You think you feel weighed down when your dentist lays that lead apron on you to take X-rays: how about the doctors who deal with radiation treatments and have to wear those aprons all day long? A Dallas, Texas, doctor has created a "zero gravity" radiation suit for just that problem. From the article: "Physicians are supposed to wear a lead apron during those procedures. It is back-breakingly heavy and doesn't cover the body completely." The zero gravity suit eliminates the weight and the exposed openings.

Solar-Powered Plane Making 24-hour Flight 85

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @12:52PM from the good-luck-and-godspeed dept.

After technical glitches threw a kink in its schedule, Solar Impulse, the solar-powered plane first mentioned here in June, has finally taken off. Reader asukasoryu writes "An experimental solar-powered plane took off from western Switzerland on Wednesday for a 24-hour test flight — a key step in a historic effort to one day circle the globe using only energy collected from the sun. The plane left Payerne airfield shortly before 7 a.m. after overcoming an equipment problem that delayed a previous attempt. Although the goal is to show that emissions-free air travel is possible, the team says it doesn't see solar technology replacing conventional jet propulsion any time soon. Instead, the project is designed to test and promote new energy-efficient technologies." You can follow the flight's progress at the project's site.

'Robin Sage' Social Hoax Duped Military, Security Pros 191

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @12:08PM from the keep-mum-about-this-job dept.

ancientribe writes "A social networking experiment of a phony female military security professional known as 'Robin Sage' (named after a US Army Special Forces training exercise) worked way too well, fooling even the most security-savvy professionals on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It also led to the leakage of sensitive military information after an Army Ranger accepted 'Robin's' friend request on Facebook and his photos from Afghanistan exposed geolocation information accessible to 'Robin.' The researcher who conducted the experiment will show off his findings at the upcoming Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas, where the real woman pictured in the profiles is scheduled to introduce him for his presentation."

Student Wants Science To Name 'Hella' Big Number 193

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 07, 2010 @09:49AM from the big-way-big-and-hella-big dept.

thodelu writes "Austin Sendek, a 20-year-old UC Davis student, is trying to get scientists from Boise to Beijing to use the term 'hella' to denote the unimaginably huge, seldom-cited quantity of 10 to the 27th power. From the article: 'It started as a joke, but Sendek's Facebook petition: to the Consultative Committee on Units, a subdivision of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, has drawn more than 60,000 supporters. Its chances for formal adoption by the global weights-and-measures community are hella dim, but Google was so taken with Sendek's modest proposal that it incorporated "hella" in its online calculator.'"

Submission + - Russians Claim More Climate Data Was Manipulated (telegraph.co.uk) 6

Submitted by DustyShadow on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @06:27PM

DustyShadow writes: On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian-climate data. The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley CRU survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

Submission + - Scientists crack 'entire genetic code' of cancer (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Entropy98 on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @05:18PM

Entropy98 writes: From the article: "Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers — skin and lung — a move they say could revolutionise cancer care.

Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, say the Wellcome Trust team. The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure.

The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure.

From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke.

Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer."

Yet another step towards curing cancer. Though it will probably take many years to study so many mutations. My moneys still on viruses as the cure for cancer.

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