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Submission + - My Power Cooperative Doesn't Offer Net Metering. (vec.org) 2

Submitted by tetrahedrassface
tetrahedrassface writes: I'm a resident of rural Tennessee and love it. However despite the loow electricity rates, I'm wanting to install a 10KW grid tie solar system. Last week I spoke with the lady in charge of VEC's solar program that's in partnership with TVA's Green Switch program. The lady said that Volunteer Energy would likely not be renewing the contract with TVA for solar energy production and they were not required to do net metering. To be fare a call to TVA was then made by me and they were quite surprised thqat VEC would not be renewing their solar initiative. Today a call to Volunteer Energy again revealed that their CEO is holding out on renewing the contract with TVA, and that my request for net metering doesn't have to be honored. According to the Energy Law of 2005 every public electric company has to comply with a written request for net metering. Is my electric company willfully skirting the law in order to not support solar? How can I best broach the topic and the Federal mandate that all public electricity providers allow for net metering?
Privacy

Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests 362

Posted by timothy from the at-least-the're-telling-you dept.
alphadogg writes "The website for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) now tells visitors it will not honor their browsers' do-not-track requests as a form of protest against the technology pushed by privacy groups and parts of the U.S. government. The tech-focused think tank on Friday implemented a new website feature that detects whether visitors have do-not-track features enabled in their browsers and tells them their request has been denied. 'Do Not Track is a detrimental policy that undermines the economic foundation of the Internet,' Daniel Castro, senior analyst at the ITIF wrote in a blog post. 'Advertising revenue supports most of the free content, services, and apps available on the Internet.'"

Submission + - Hacking Urban Noise

Submitted by b1tbkt
b1tbkt writes: I live at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in our City (pop. 350k). Although I've replaced all windows, insulated, and caulked every square inch of the place, the fire trucks and cars with obnoxious stereos still regularly intrude on my home office. Most of the noise comes in through the windows. I'm considering mounting an oblong parabolic reflector in the ceiling above the windows with a steady feed of white or brownian noise directed into it (eg., via small speaker placed within the reflector) to create a 'wall' of sound that would act as a buffer to the outside world. Active noise cancellation would be nice, too, but that's probably more than I want to take on. I don't see any products on the market for this sort of thing. Does anyone have any experiences to share with similar homebrew noise remediation efforts?
Government

US Department of Homeland Security Looking For a Few Good Drones 92

Posted by samzenpus from the do-you-have-what-it-takes? dept.
coondoggie writes "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week issued a call for unmanned systems makers to participate in a program that will ultimately determine their safety and performance for use in first responder, law enforcement and border security situations. In a twist that will certainly raise some eyebrows, the results of the program — called the Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS) — will remain unavailable to the public, which, considering how involved the actual public may be with these drones is unfortunate."
Privacy

Submission + - Calif. Employers Can't Ask For Your Facebook Password (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
J053
J053 writes: "California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a pair of privacy bills making it illegal for employers and colleges to demand access to social media accounts.

Brown announced on Thursday that he signed AB1844 by Assemblywoman Nora Campos, a Democrat from San Jose. The bill prohibits employers from demanding user names and passwords from employees and job applicants.

A companion bill applies to colleges and universities."
NASA

Submission + - NASA Orion Splashdown Safety Tests Completed (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
DevotedSkeptic
DevotedSkeptic writes: "The 18,000-pound test article that mimics the size and weight of NASA's Orion spacecraft crew module recently completed a final series of water impact tests in the Hydro Impact Basin at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

The campaign of swing and vertical drops simulated various water landing scenarios to account for different velocities, parachute deployments, entry angles, wave heights and wind conditions the spacecraft may encounter when landing in the Pacific Ocean. The next round of water impact testing is scheduled to begin in late 2013 using a full-sized model that was built to validate the flight vehicle's production processes and tools.

Orion will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before and be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed. It will fly its first flight test, designated Exploration Flight Test 1, in 2014. The spacecraft will travel more than 3,600 miles into space — 15 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station — and reach speeds of more than 20,000 mph before returning to Earth. This unmanned flight test will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Several Orion systems, including the heat shield and parachutes at speeds generated during a return from deep space, will be tested.

In 2017, Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence in the solar system."
Mars

Rover Finds Ancient Streambed On Martian Surface 180

Posted by samzenpus from the low-flow-planet dept.
sighted writes "NASA reports that its Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously — and for a sustained amount of time — across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is, of course, earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but NASA says this evidence, images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels, is the first of its kind."
Government

Submission + - Electronic Surveillance by US Law Enforcement Agencies Rising Steeply (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: According to data obtained by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), surveillance of emails and other forms of Internet communications without warrants has increased substantially over the last two years. Documents, obtained by ACLU after months of litigation, reveal that there has been a whopping 361 per cent increase in “pen register” and “trap-and-trace” orders between 2009 and 2011. ACLU has appealed to US congress to bring in more judicial oversight of pen register and trap-and-trace orders as agencies don’t require a warrant to obtain such orders.
AMD

AMD Partners With BlueStacks To Bring Android Apps To PCs 143

Posted by timothy from the just-pinch-your-mouse dept.
eldavojohn writes "News outlets are reporting that AMD has partnered with BlueStacks to bring Android apps to AppZone Player, something that will apparently allow the more than 500,000 mobile apps to run on your PC. From their announcement: 'What's special about the player on AMD-based products? There are many challenges with running apps that were originally designed for phones or tablets on a PC that in most cases has a larger screen and higher resolution display. To solve this, BlueStacks has designed and optimized the player for AMD Radeon graphics and in particular, our OpenGL drivers found in our APUs and GPUs so you get a great 'big-screen' experience. Additionally, the apps are integrated into AppZone, our online showcase and one-stop-shop for apps accelerated by AMD technology.' Unfortunately this appears to only work on AMD-based PCs (although nowhere does it say that it won't work on Intel CPUs or non-Radeon GPUs). Also no word on how they overcame the difference between a mouse and touchscreen (think pinch to zoom)."
Mars

Submission + - Curiosity Rover Finds "Ancient Streambed" Proving Mars Once Had Water (twitter.com) 3

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: As NPR reports, NASA's Curiosity Rover has tweeted pictures of proof of water on Mars. Indications arose earlier this year but researchers are now calling this proof of a stream ankle to hip deep running at about three feet per second judging by the pictures. The shapes prove these rocks were weathered as they were transported by something and the sizes tell you that that something couldn't be wind.
Security

Submission + - Penetration Testing for the Masses 2

Submitted by compumike
compumike writes: Every week we read about companies being hacked through insecure websites. Big companies have in-house security teams, but a new browser-based website penetration testing tool can scan, attack, and detect the biggest threats, such as SQL injection, XSS, and other vulnerabilities, finding holes in more than 90% of websites scanned — even in frameworks like Django and Rails. Can expensive security consultants be replaced by an army of machines providing website security for the masses?
Businesses

What Should Start-Ups Do With the Brilliant Jerk? 480

Posted by timothy from the put-them-in-management-with-the-other-jerks dept.
First time accepted submitter glowend writes "Cliff Oxford writes in the New York Times 'I define Brilliant Jerks as specialized, high-producing performers. They are not, however, brilliant business people, and that is what companies need during periods of rapid growth. There are a lot of hurdles to cross when companies move from start-up to growth, including dealing with chaos and changes in culture. But the biggest hurdle is dealing with the human factor — how you move, shift and replace people as the company grows into the next level of success.' So how do you make the best use of the Brilliant Jerk as your company grows?"

Submission + - Wind energy beat iPod in U.S. job creation (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Electronics manufacturing jobs are mostly overseas, which helps to keep one million workers at China's Foxconn plants busy. In contrast, the majority of wind energy jobs are in the U.S., say researchers in a study by the Personal Computing Industry Center (PCIC), an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Center. The PCIC researchers applied a methodology similar to what they used in an earlier study to measure the job impact of the iPod. This working paper by PCIC found that the wind industry creates a larger share of total employment in the U.S. than the iPod did in 2006, 74% versus 34%. But as many as half of the wind energy jobs may disappear if a tax credit is allowed to expire at year-end, say the PCIC paper and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The PCIC paper estimates that wind energy has created as many as 27,000 direct jobs in the U.S., and 9,250 jobs overseas. AWEA estimates that the industry has provided 75,000 jobs in the U.S. The tax credit runs for 10 years, and provides 2.2 cents credit for every kWh produced. In a report this year, the National Science Foundation reported that high-tech manufacturing employment has declined by 28% since 2000, or about 687,000 jobs.

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