Submission + - Cheap Science (1337arts.com)
futuresmkt writes: MIT nerds demonstrate their skills again
Comment Sign me up (Score 1) 917
I have always said I would sign up for the one way trip in a heartbeat. To be the first to set foot on another planet... pick up and examine an extra-terrestrial sample first hand... THAT would be an adventure worth a lifetime. Even if I had to chew the little red pill in 6 months when my supplies ran out, so be it.
Not that that would be an issue... I've seen enough sci fi to know that the first guy to contact the aliens always comes back as their evil leader!
Not that that would be an issue... I've seen enough sci fi to know that the first guy to contact the aliens always comes back as their evil leader!
Submission + - SPAM: NASA probe blasts 461 gigabytes of moon data daily 1
coondoggie writes: "On its current space scouting mission, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is using a pumped up communications device to deliver 461 gigabytes of data and images per day, at a rate of up to 100 Mbps.
As the first high data rate K-band transmitter to fly on a NASA spacecraft, the 13-inch-long tube, called a Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier, is making it possible for NASA scientists to receive massive amounts of images and data about the moon's surface and environment.
The amplifier was built by L-3 Communications Electron Technologies in conjunction with NASA's Glenn Research Center. The device uses electrodes in a vacuum tube to amplify microwave signals to high power. It's ideal for sending large amounts of data over a long distance because it provides more power and more efficiency than its alternative, the transistor amplifier, NASA stated.
[spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Physics learns why time goes only one direction (arstechnica.com)
Death Metal writes: "Maccone has taken a slightly different view of this problem by looking at correlations. Imagine I do something that increases entropy slightly, and my wife observes the results of my actions and records the consequent increase in entropy--we will leave the fight over who should tidy up the mess out of the story.
Now, I can choose a set of operations that can return the entropy to its previously low value. However, doing so involves not just reversing my actions, but also reversing all correlated systems. In other words, I have to wipe my wife's memory of the event and her subsequent recording of it. If she wrote it on a piece of paper, I have to wipe the paper clean etc, etc. But at the end of it, there would be no record of the event ever having occurred.
The upshot is that entropy-decreasing events can occur, but can never be observed from within the system. You can extend this to the universe, which may well be a closed system: we are within it and, even though events that reduce the entire entropy of the universe are possible, we can never observe such things."
Now, I can choose a set of operations that can return the entropy to its previously low value. However, doing so involves not just reversing my actions, but also reversing all correlated systems. In other words, I have to wipe my wife's memory of the event and her subsequent recording of it. If she wrote it on a piece of paper, I have to wipe the paper clean etc, etc. But at the end of it, there would be no record of the event ever having occurred.
The upshot is that entropy-decreasing events can occur, but can never be observed from within the system. You can extend this to the universe, which may well be a closed system: we are within it and, even though events that reduce the entire entropy of the universe are possible, we can never observe such things."
Submission + - VSTOL craft crashes on test flight (thestar.com.my)
Comment Oi... 'free speech, free speech' isn't reality.. (Score 0, Flamebait) 847
I see a lot of the posts here as being the classic one sided view. End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community who will you call? You'll call the police. But of course most people want some magical force to come protect them but get upset when certain additional rights are required by that force to do its job properly. A police officer's family is just as vulnerable as yours and in my opinion that information should be protected. We unfortunately don't have laws in this country to affect irresponsible but legal activities so this situation provides a catch 22.
Yes, I know all the 'freedom of speech' people will outcry on this but in reality that is in some ways a imperfect idea. Yes freedom of speech is highly important in a free society, however there are limits to it if you wish to also have a stable community. These officers choose to do this job and deal daily with all the crap the rest of us like to pretend doesn't exist. They do this as a career choice, no one made them. In a case like this I have no problems cutting them some slack to protect their and their family's safety interests. If this means letting them find some law to use to stop a wack-job jeopardizing their safety and ability to do their job efficiently, so be it. It's an imperfect world. It would be FAR more imperfect if you didn't have someone to police the rules.
Yes, I know all the 'freedom of speech' people will outcry on this but in reality that is in some ways a imperfect idea. Yes freedom of speech is highly important in a free society, however there are limits to it if you wish to also have a stable community. These officers choose to do this job and deal daily with all the crap the rest of us like to pretend doesn't exist. They do this as a career choice, no one made them. In a case like this I have no problems cutting them some slack to protect their and their family's safety interests. If this means letting them find some law to use to stop a wack-job jeopardizing their safety and ability to do their job efficiently, so be it. It's an imperfect world. It would be FAR more imperfect if you didn't have someone to police the rules.
Comment Re:Being an asshole makes people angry, film at 11 (Score 1) 895
So you understand the concept of the research then. He verified that social communities follow the same basic trends and contain the same 'flaws' as real life social tribes. Quite franky I don't think this was necessarily an assumed outcome and testing it was valid. Several unique elements to online games could have come into play. The expense of participation, the personal desire to achieve over your anonymous 'friends', the limited real life consequence for actions, the restrictions of the environment, the common goal nature of the rules, etc. Any of these factors may have swayed the social structure in the online gaming community away from the norms of human nature. He proved that in general we're still aggressive inconsiderate lumps of meat even in a virtual world.
Comment It's pure genius... (Score 1) 295
It's not evil at all. They are secretly buying up land in Nevada and Arizona and hoping that the entire state of California will drop into the ocean. Then they will own the western coast, build a new silicon valley, and set up massive off-shore server farms driven by wave power. From there it's a small leap to world dominance! Evil? I think not... just Genius!
Just don't tell Superman or he'll spin the earth backwards until the Internet is back to Mosaic and Excite.
Submission + - Iran Moves to End 'Facebook Revolution'
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Times reports that the Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organisations and websites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation's president. Reports from Tehran say that social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter were taken down after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed victory. SMS text messaging, a preferred medium of communication for young Iranians, has also been disabled. This is widely suspected to be the result of government interference, but could equally be caused by the poor quality of the network and the heavy demand it is experiencing. "The blocking of access to foreign news media has been stepped up. In addition to the blocking of the BBC's website, the Farsi-language satellite broadcasts of the Voice of America and BBC — which are very popular in Iran — have been partially jammed," says Reporters Without Borders, the media organisation that campaigns for a free press around the world. "The Internet is now very slow, like the mobile phone network. YouTube and Facebook are hard to access and pro-reform sites. . . are completely inaccessible." Mir Hussein Moussavi, the presidential challenger whom President Ahmedinejad claims to have defeated with 63.4 per cent of the vote and fellow presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi have urged the population not to accept the "rigged results." There have been violent clashes between opposition supporters and security forces, with at least one death in the capital."
Comment Downloaded... (Score 1) 1
The article says 'downloaded'... not 'installed'. So do your bit for charity and download IE... then do your bit for the Internet at large and uninstall it.
Comment Thanks Xenu (Score 1) 1
Obviously the word "SCIENTIST" is being used quite loosely here. Then again the SCIENTologists believe Xenu trapped billions of souls here... perhaps he was having second thoughts and decided to save us all.
Submission + - Bank without case-sensitive passwords 3
Anonymous Coward writes: "I logged into my Charter One bank account when I noticed that my CAPS lock was on. I was curious if it was enabled before or after I typed in my password, so I logged out and then back in ignoring all casing. To my surprise it still went through. A friend who uses a completely different bank confirmed that his account password is also not case sensitive. Are banking systems running such old hardware that they simply do not support case sensitivity, or is this just due to a bad design? Maybe your bank account has poor security too. I find it disturbing that Slashdot has better online security than my bank."
Submission + - Apple tries to murder FireWire--and fails (technologizer.com)
Harry writes: "Last October, Apple quietly removed FireWire from its new 13-inch MacBook--and there were howls of protest from FireWire fans who said the company had made a mistake. This week, the company just as quietly acknowledged that it had goofed: Its new 13-inch laptop (redubbed the MacBookPro) announced at WWDC sports a FireWire-800 port. It may be the first major example of Apple doing away with a technology and then reviving it--it's as if it had brought back the floppy drive in the second-generation iMac."
Submission + - Download IE8 or Microsoft Will Let Children Starve 1
theodp writes: "Remember National Lampoon's famous If-You-Don't-Buy-This-Magazine-We'll-Shoot-This-Dog cover? As it kicked off its new 'Browser for the Better' campaign, Microsoft took a page from the Lampoon's playbook, announcing it will provide 8 meals to hungry children and adults for every completed download of Internet Explorer 8. CNET reports that Microsoft will donate $1 million to a food bank if 869,565 people in the U.S. use a special website to download IE8 by Aug. 8, 2009 (8-8, get it?). Microsoft adds that all meals must be claimed by June 30, 2010. How can something so right feel so wrong?"
Submission + - New Mersenne Prime found
radiot88 writes: "NPR's Science Friday just reported that the 47th Mersenne Prime has been found and that it is a smaller number than the 46th Mersenne. It sounded like it was found on an Intel based home style PC."
