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Comment: stupid idea (Score 1) 111

by Luyseyal (#40100441) Attached to: "Part-Time" Scientists Aim To Build Autonomous Moon Rover

OK, so here's my incredibly stupid idea.

If you had access to a weather balloon, how much rocket would you need to eject an extremely small rover (RC car sized) out of Earth orbit onto an eventual moon landing?

Imagine the tiny rover is in a bouncy shell thing that will unfurl when it lands. Imagine you only care that the rover lands in under 5 years.

Call it a semipro moon bounce. Is this at all feasible?
-l

Science

MIT Creates Superhydrophobic Condiment Bottles 290

Posted by samzenpus
from the that's-some-fast-mustard dept.
An anonymous reader writes "First we had a superhydrophobic spray that meant no dirt or sweat could stick to your clothes. Then a hydrophobic nanocoating was created for circuit boards to make them water resistant. Now MIT has gone a step further and solved one of the ongoing problems of using condiments: they've figured out how to make a food-safe superhydrophobic coating for food packaging. It means ketchup and mayonnaise will no longer be stuck to the insides of the bottle, and therefore there will no longer be any waste. What's amusing is this seems to be a happy accident. The MIT team was actually investigating slippery coatings to stop gas and oil lines clogging as well as how to stop a surface from having ice form on it. Now their lab is filled with condiments for continued testing of their food-safe version."
Music

SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Tenenbaum Appeal 420

Posted by samzenpus
from the pay-up dept.
quantr writes "The Supreme Court has declined to hear Joel Tenenbaum's appeal. A jury in 2009 ordered Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs. A federal judge called the penalty constitutionally excessive, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it at the request of the Recording Industry Association of America. Tenenbaum's attorney, Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, said he's disappointed the high court won't hear the case. But he said the 1st Circuit instructed a judge to consider reducing the award without deciding any constitutional challenge. Nesson said 'Tenenbaum is just entering the job market and can't pay the penalty.'"
Social Networks

Facebook Shares Retreat Below IPO Price 471

Posted by samzenpus
from the back-to-reality dept.
First time accepted submitter gtirloni writes "Just days after wrapping up the biggest initial public offering in Silicon Valley history, shares of Facebook slumped 6% and tumbled below their issue price on Monday, a troubling signal for the newly-public social network. Facebook broke below its $38-a-share issue IPO price in the wake of a highly-anticipated offering that raised more than $16 billion, the second-largest domestic IPO after Visa's 2008 debut. Shares of Facebook were recently off 6.44% to $35.72."

Comment: Re:Uhhh... at WHAT price that is? (Score 1) 529

Interesting. Hadn't really considered the fact they're usually on the ceiling which is kind of obvious. Still, one plus is that they heat (near) where you need it, like a space heater, versus burning gas/oil for a whole house (or worse, electric furnace). As you probably know, 4 75W bulbs plus a human body will heat a small room (10x10) in no time and since you want the heat, it's not a negative. I absolutely agree that one or two 60W in a large open floorplan is not very efficient vs central heating.

That gives me a crazy idea for a transparent laminate floor, heated with a zillion incandescent bulbs underneath. If I knew Blender, I might do a 3D scene of that just for fun.

I live in Austin, TX, and am just speculating about cold climates. Take it with a road full of salt.
-l

Comment: Re:Cue huge pushback from the AMA in 3...2... (Score 1) 392

by Luyseyal (#39933755) Attached to: FDA May Let Patients Buy More Drugs Without Prescriptions

If engineers worked like doctors worked, you'd need a licensed professional engineer with a PhD to install a wireless router in your home.

Yeah, and don't get me started on the butt-chewing I got over changing the yellow fluorescent bulbs at work with daylight spectrum ones. Physical plant genuinely suggested you needed to be a licensed electrician to do it.

Fer cryin' out loud.
-l

Moon

Hubble To Use the Moon To View Transit of Venus 37

Posted by Soulskill
from the oh-yeah-it-was-easy-i-just-used-the-moon dept.
astroengine writes "As we recently discussed, on June 5 or 6 this year — the exact time and date depends on where you are in the world — Venus will be visible as a small black circle crossing the disk of the sun. Usually, the Hubble Space Telescope would have no business observing this event — the sun is too close for its optics. But plans are afoot for Hubble to observe the reflected sunlight bouncing off the lunar surface during the transit. As the sunlight will pass through the Venusian atmosphere, the transit will provide invaluable spectroscopic data about Venus' atmospheric composition. This, in turn, will help astronomers in characterizing the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars."
Idle

South Korea Plans Hashtag-Inspired Skyscraper 117

Posted by samzenpus
from the ampersand-estates dept.
cylonlover writes "The hashtag or "#" symbol has taken on a lot more use in recent years, especially with the rise of social media tools like Twitter, where it's used to highlight popular topics. So in a way, it's a fitting model for an apartment building designed to act as a self-contained neighborhood, which is exactly the idea behind the Cross # Towers planned for South Korea. Dutch architectural firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), is modeling the look of the proposed building after the familiar symbol, by placing two interlocking bridges between two skyscrapers, which will also support outdoor park areas to mimic the sort of spaces you'd normally find on the ground."

Comment: Re:Application Frame (Score 1) 737

by Luyseyal (#39881565) Attached to: Gimp 2.8 Finally Released

It may be following the conventions of an old Unix desktop environment that I'm not remembering

What, like TWM with Athena widgets or something? Heck, even today, you can launch xsane and other X programs and see the many-window model. The Unix model was more about multiple desktops with windows arranged however you felt like than one desktop with single-window applications you could pop up or minimize. You just switched the desktop and voila, new program[s], new windows, arranged however it was you arranged them.

The web browser specifically made this an untenable model after awhile. Having 16 Netscape windows open got annoying quick and you didn't necessarily keep 16 virtual desktops around unless you used Enlightenment... but I digress. Application switchers were useful for management. But I would argue that tabbed windows really made things saner.

I keep 5 virtual desktops. 3 are fullscreen application specific, 2 are general. I remap my shortcuts to Alt+F1 - Alt+F5 for switching because it's nicer than arrowing or whathaveyou.

Whew that was longer than intended.
-l

Space

Was Earth a Migratory Planet? 257

Posted by samzenpus
from the moving-to-a-better-orbit dept.
astroengine writes "Why our planet isn't a "snowball Earth" — a dilemma called the 'faint young sun paradox' — has foxed solar and planetary scientists for decades. Since the Earth's formation, a planet covered in ice should have stifled any kind of greenhouse effect, preventing our atmosphere from warming up and maintaining water in a liquid state. Now, David Minton of Purdue University has come up with a novel solution that, by his own admission, straddles science fact and fiction. Perhaps Earth evolved closer to the Sun and through some gravitational effect, it was pushed to a higher orbit as the Sun grew hotter. But watch out, if this is true, planetary chaos awaits."

Often things ARE as bad as they seem!