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Submission + - NASA, Boeing flaunt high-tech wing that could alter future aircraft design (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: NASA and Boeing this week showed off new technology that could go a long way toward reducing the size, weight and drag of future, greener aircraft. NASA and Boeing said they recently completed tests of technology they call Active Flow Control, which places small, computer controlled devices known as actuators on the surface of a wing that then blow air in a sweeping motion along the span of the aircraft's surface.

Submission + - U.S. 5X battery research sets three paths for replacing lithium (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: One year ago this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $120 million plan to develop a technology capable of radically extending battery life. "We want to change the game, basically," said George Crabtree, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a physics professor who is leading the effort. The goal is to develop a battery that can deliver five times the performance, measured in energy density, that's also five times cheaper, and do it in five years. They are looking at three research areas. Researchers are considering replacing the lithium with magnesium that has two charges, or aluminum, which has three charges. Another approach investigates replacing the intercalation step with a true chemical reaction. A third approach is the use of liquids to replace crystalline anodes and cathodes, which opens up more space for working ions.

Comment Re:Missing the point (Score 2) 198

by mcgrew (#45426858) Attached to: SourceForge Appeals To Readers For Help Nixing Bad Ad Actors

Agreed, that's one reason people ditch Windows. Windows users are use to that sort of bullshit, open source folks won't stand for it.

SourceForge, this shit needs to stop. Advertising is fine, but damn it, leave the trickery to the corporate... oh, oh... Dice owns SourceForge now, doesn't it?

SourceForge is SO screwed...

Comment Unforgiven (Score 1) 233

by mcgrew (#45426762) Attached to: ATF Tests Show 3D Printed Guns Can Explode

I'm thinking of the scene in the western where the Sheriff is telling the writer what he got wrong in his story. "And BLAM! It blows his hand off, which was a failing common to that model."

I can see making one just to see it work, but in a vice with a string on its trigger. You'd be a fool to shoot a gun with a plastic barrel while holding it. Even steel breaks sometimes.

Submission + - Global Warming Since 1997 Underestimated by Half

Submitted by Layzej
Layzej writes: A new paper shows that global temperature rise of the past 15 years has been greatly underestimated. The reason is that the weather station network covers only about 85% of the planet. Satellite data shows that the parts of the Earth that are not covered by the surface station network, especially the arctic, have warmed exceptionally fast over the last 15 years. Most temperature reconstructions simply omit any region not covered. A temperature reconstruction developed by NASA somewhat addresses the gaps by filling in missing data using temperatures from the nearest available observations. Now Kevin Cowtan (University of York) and Robert Way (University of Ottawa) have developed a new method to fill the data gaps using satellite data.

The researchers describe their methods and findings in this youtube video. "The most important part of our work was testing the skill of each of these approaches in reconstructing unobserved temperatures. To do this we took the observed data and further reduced the coverage by setting aside some of the observations. We then reconstructed the global temperatures using each method in turn. Finally, we compared the reconstructed temperatures to the observed temperatures where they are available... While infilling works well over the oceans, the hybrid model works particularly well at restoring temperatures in the vicinity of the unobserved regions."

The authors note that "While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change."

Comment Re:pointless (Score 2) 307

by mcgrew (#45426030) Attached to: Alfred Poor Says HDTV Manufacturers are Hurting (Video)

I have no interest in a "3D" TV, and until I saw this I didn't have any interest in a new TV, since the old one works fine.

That said, maybe I will, since I can get a 60 inch set $200 cheaper than the 42 inch 720p I bought in 2002... even though it still works fine.

But then again, maybe they'll go down more? Electronics have been getting cheaper all my life. In 1976 I paid $600 for a 25 inch set.

Nah, I'll wait until this one breaks.

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