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+ - This Solar-Powered Toilet Torches Poop for Public Health-> 2

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes "The goal is to build a self-contained block of toilets, similar to Coca-Cola's community blocks, that can also provide clean water and power for phone charging—to essentially turn toilets into a community center.

"I think it's hard to make sanitation as sexy as a cell phone, but by integrating into the community and making it a hub, it can be something more popular," Linden said.

The toilet itself, called the Sol-Char, is a fascinating bit of engineering. In order to sanitize waste without the help of massive treatment facilities, Linden's team instead designed the toilet to scorch waste in a chamber heated by fiber optic cables that pipe in heat from solar collectors on the toilet's roof.

"A solar concentrator has all this light focused in on one centimeter. It'd be fine if we could bring everyone's fecal waste up to that one point, like burning it with a magnifying glass," Linden said. "But that's not practical, so we were thinking of other ways to concentrate that light.""
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Comment: Re:1993 (Score 1) 92

by Tablizer (#46494251) Attached to: How Data Storage Has Grown In the Past 60 Years

Indeed, if you have a time-tested system that does a certain job well, why change it? It's possible in older apps it wasn't possible to easily migrate to newer hardware because of compatibility differences. In fact, it's still a problem today, as apps written for older OS's often have issues being moved. Software is often the cost bottleneck, not hardware. Compatibility between hardware generations can be a bear.

Comment: 1952 typo? (Score 3, Informative) 92

by Tablizer (#46494217) Attached to: How Data Storage Has Grown In the Past 60 Years

in 1952, an IBM RAMAC 350 disk drive would have been able to hold only one .MP3 song

Where is that 1952 date coming from? It wasn't commercially available until about 1956, in limited quantities, and as best I can tell, it's from a research project that started in 1953 with the goal of testing the various storage possibilities, disk being one of many. Thus, it's not likely that working prototypes would be available until about 1954 or '55.

Comment: Re:Counting on Surplus (Score 1) 300

by Tablizer (#46494107) Attached to: NASA-Funded Study Investigates Collapse of Industrial Civilization

What exactly is "decentralization"? The oligopolies and monopolies that tend to result under reduced regulation is more centralization; it's just corporate centralization instead of gov't centralization. Is one better than the other? Having banks that are "too big to fail" is a nasty side-effect of such. (They are still too big, by the way.)

Jefferson warned about excessively large government AND excessively large corporations.

+ - Why Are There More Old Songs on iTunes than Old eBooks?->

Submitted by Paul J Heald
Paul J Heald writes "The vast majority of books and songs from the 20th Century are out-of-print. New data show music publishers doing an admirable job of digitizing older content, but book publishers fail miserably at putting old works in eBook form. New research by Paul Heald explains why."
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Science

Religion Is Good For Your Brain 405

Posted by timothy
from the still-looking-for-a-nice-atheist-church dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Sheila M. Elred writes in Discovery Magazine that a recent study has found that people at risk of depression were much less vulnerable if they identified as religious. Brain MRIs revealed that religious participants had thicker brain cortices than those who weren't as religious. 'One of the worst killers of brain cells is stress,' says Dr. Majid Fotuhi. 'Stress causes high levels of cortisol, and cortisol is toxic to the hippocampus. One way to reduce stress is through prayer. When you're praying and in the zone you feel a peace of mind and tranquility.' The reports concluded that a thicker cortex associated with a high importance of religion or spirituality may confer resilience to the development of depressive illness in individuals at high familial risk for major depression. The social element of attending religious services has also been linked to healthy brains. 'There's something magical about socializing,' says Fotuhi. 'It releases endorphins in the brain. It's hard to know whether it's through religion or a gathering of friends, but it improves brain health in the long term.'" (Read more, below.)

+ - Religion Is Good For Your Brain

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Sheila M. Elred writes in Discovery Magazine that a recent study has found that people at risk of depression were much less vulnerable if they identified as religious and brain MRIs revealed that religious participants had thicker brain cortices than those who weren’t as religious. “One of the worst killers of brain cells is stress,” says Dr. Majid Fotuhi. “Stress causes high levels of cortisol, and cortisol is toxic to the hippocampus. One way to reduce stress is through prayer. When you’re praying and in the zone you feel a peace of mind and tranquility.” The reports concluded that a thicker cortex associated with a high importance of religion or spirituality may confer resilience to the development of depressive illness in individuals at high familial risk for major depression. The social element of attending religious services has also been linked to healthy brains. “There’s something magical about socializing,” says Fotuhi. “It releases endorphins in the brain. It’s hard to know whether it's through religion or a gathering of friends, but it improves brain health in the long term." Listening to sermons and reading religious works like the Bible may also invoke a cognitive benefit. “You’re exercising your higher cortical function, thinking about complex concepts that require some imagination," says Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health at Duke University and a professor of psychiatry. According to Koenig the benefits of devout religious practice, particularly involvement in a faith community and religious commitment, are that people cope better. "In general, they cope with stress better, they experience greater well-being because they have more hope, they're more optimistic, they experience less depression, less anxiety, and they commit suicide less often. They don't drink alcohol as much, they don't use drugs as much, they don't smoke cigarettes as much, and they have healthier lifestyles. They have stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, probably better cardiovascular functioning, and probably a healthier hormonal environment physiologically—particularly with respect to cortisol and adrenaline And they live longer." So where does that leave non-believers? “Out of luck, I guess,” Koenig jokes. “Actually, I would suspect that people doing the types of things like religious people do — socializing, doing similarly complex cognitive tasks, would have similar benefits. But it is interesting that religion provides that whole package of things that people can adopt and pursue over time.” Dr Dan Blazer says the study is very interesting but is still exploratory and that spirituality may be a marker of something else, such as socioeconomic status. “It’s hard to study these things," concludes Fotuhi . "It’s why research has stayed away from them. But there does seem to be a strong link between spirituality and better brain health.”"

+ - Ask Slashdot: Best management interface on an IT appliance?

Submitted by tippen
tippen writes "The management user interface on most networking and storage appliances are, shall we say, not up to the snuff compared to modern websites or consumer products. What are the best examples of good UX design on an IT appliance that you've managed? What was it that made you love it?

What should companies (or designers) developing new products look to as best-in-class that they should be striving for?"
Communications

Goodbye, Google Voice 147

Posted by timothy
from the your-mileage-may-vary dept.
itwbennett writes "The trouble with Google Voice is that the way we use phones has changed — and it hasn't kept up with the times: 'Fewer people have a mobile phone and a business line and a home line that might make One Number For All so. Text message costs (which are actually close to nothing) are almost always bundled into contract costs. Automatic voice transcription, while still a mean feat, is no longer such a magic trick,' writes Kevin Purdy in a blog post explaining why he's breaking up with Google Voice. The main problem is that, despite some very cool features, Google Voice doesn't play well with others — even apps in its own family. And it doesn't look as though that's going to get better anytime soon." I've been very happy with Google Voice for a few years now, and one reason is the transcribed voice messages, which may get hilariously garbled sometimes, but are almost always correct enough to be useful.

+ - Goodby, Google Voice->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "The trouble with Google Voice is that the way we use phones has changed — and it hasn't kept up with the times: 'Fewer people have a mobile phone and a business line and a home line that might make One Number For All so. Text message costs (which are actually close to nothing) are almost always bundled into contract costs. Automatic voice transcription, while still a mean feat, is no longer such a magic trick,' writes Kevin Purdy in a blog post explaining why he's breaking up with Google Voice. The main problem is that, despite some very cool features, Google Voice doesn't play well with others — even apps in its own family. And it doesn't look as though that's going to get better anytime soon."
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Privacy

Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures 128

Posted by timothy
from the ok-mom-stop-running-away dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Those planning a weekend break in Budapest take note. From 15 March anyone taking photographs in Hungary is technically breaking the law if someone wanders into shot, under a new civil code that outlaws taking pictures without the permission of everyone in the photograph. According to the justice ministry, people taking pictures should look out for those 'who are not waving, or who are trying to hide or running out of shot.' Officials say expanding the law on consent to include the taking of photographs, in addition to their publication, merely codifies existing court practice. However, Hungary's photographers call the law vague and obstructive, saying it has left the country of Joseph Pulitzer and photography legend Robert Capa out of step with Europe."

+ - Hungary law requires photographers to ask permission to take pictures-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Those planning a weekend break in Budapest take note. From 15 March anyone taking photographs in Hungary is technically breaking the law if someone wanders into shot, under a new civil code that outlaws taking pictures without the permission of everyone in the photograph. According to the justice ministry, people taking pictures should look out for those "who are not waving, or who are trying to hide or running out of shot".

Officials say expanding the law on consent to include the taking of photographs, in addition to their publication, merely codifies existing court practice. However, Hungary's photographers call the law vague and obstructive, saying it has left the country of Joseph Pulitzer and photography legend Robert Capa out of step with Europe."
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If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape at about 30 miles/second. -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming

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