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Comment: prices have dropped 300%.... (Score 5, Informative) 347

by vincefn (#42326325) Attached to: SSD Prices Continue 3-Year Plunge
For some models, the prices have dropped 300% over the past three years

Great, so this means that in 2012, to get some SSD disk you will be paid twice the price you would have paid to get them in 2009 ?

Sounds interesting, just the kind of storage I need for my perpetual motion simulations !

Comment: Re:Just use encryption. (Score 5, Informative) 166

by vincefn (#41447357) Attached to: Plans For Widespread Monitoring of Communication In Europe Revealed

You mean, just like it is in France? Where using encryption to encode your mail is considered criminal?????

Nice trolling: encryption is perfectly legal in France. The French chapter of the Free Software Foundation even took care of getting an official approval for encryption tools like GnuPG and OpenSSL. See http://fsffrance.org/dcssi/dcssi.fr.html#dossiers (link in French)

And for a governmental source, look at the ssi.gouv.fr website, specifically on:
http://www.ssi.gouv.fr/fr/reglementation-ssi/cryptologie/index.html (link in French)
first paragraph states:"Under article 30 of Law 2004-575 of June 21st, 2004 on confidence in the digital economy, the use of cryptology is free in France."

Space

+ - Hubble To Use the Moon To View Transit of Venus->

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes "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."
Link to Original Source

+ - 16th-Century Map May Provide New Clues About The Fate Of The Roanoke Colony->

Submitted by JoeRobe
JoeRobe writes "Roanoke Colony (on the coast of North Carolina) disappeared sometime between 1587 and 1590, with the only clue to its fate being the word "Croatoan" carved into a wooden post. Now, as if straight out of an Indiana Jones script, new clues to the whereabouts of the lost colony may have been discovered on a 16th-century map. The British Museum has re-examined the watercolor map to find a hidden symbol under a patch, in the shape of a 4-pointed star. The star likely indicates the location of an existing or intended fort that the settlers may have retreated to after abandoning the colony. Adding to the mystery, the patch overlaying the star may have been added in order to hide it from the "spy-riddled English court.""
Link to Original Source

Comment: Ptychography: great method, not new (Score 5, Informative) 90

by vincefn (#39280769) Attached to: Sheffield Scientists Have Revolutionized the Electron Microscope

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

Comment: Google exonerated... but not buyers of AdWords (Score 5, Informative) 39

by vincefn (#31596502) Attached to: Google Wins European Trademark Victory
The summary and the linked article are extremely incomplete ! Yes, Google was essentially exonerated from the charges - i.e. is not held responsible for the chosen adwords. But the buyers of adwords (the advertisers) can still be held responsible. To quote the WSJ article: Google isn't liable for trademark infringement when it sells linked ads to a brand's competitor. The court held that the search giant is merely a host for ads and that it is an advertiser's responsibility to make clear if its product is different from that searched for.

The good thing is that google's service/business is acknowledged as a neutral one. But the advertisers can still be held responsible if they use the trademarked brand without the right to do so.

Comment: Review article on nano toxicity (Score 1) 239

by vincefn (#24158011) Attached to: Nanomaterials More Dangerous Than We Think
The following review can be interesting: Nanomaterials and nanoparticles: Sources and toxicity

Biointerphases -- December 2007 -- Volume 2, Issue 4, pp. MR17-MR71

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=VIRT01000017000017000001000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes&type=ALERT

55 pages though - not for those who don't like to RTFA...

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.

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