30496647
submission
siddesu writes:
The Asahi Shimbun has published a rather thorough and readable Q&A article, which is addressing many frequently asked questions about the consequences of the radioactive pollution that followed the accident.
Answers are given by Mariko Takahashi, a writer with the paper, who is, according to the introduction, "well-versed" in the issues at hand.
19708730
submission
siddesu writes:
TV and radio in Japan report of a hydrogen explosion in reactor #3 in the damaged Fukushima-1 plant in Japan.
Link to the Japanese news:
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0314/TKY201103140140.html
19698952
submission
siddesu writes:
The TV in Tokyo is just announcing a schedule for electricity blackouts to last from tomorrow until the end of April.
Practically all suburbs of Tokyo will be affected by the blackouts. The 23 districts of central Tokyo seem to be exempt for the moment, but if supply is not sufficient, blackouts are possible.
Electricity will be interrupted for about 3 hours a day in each area.
19188394
submission
siddesu writes:
After 30 years of being around computers, I have, like everyone else, amassed a huge amount of files in huge amount of formats about a huge amount of topics. And it isn't only me — the family has now a ton of data that they want managed and easily accessible.
Keeping all that information in order has always been a pain, but it has gone harder as the storage has increased and people and files and sizes have multiplied.
What do you folks use to keep your odd terabyte of document, picture, video and code files organized — that is, relatively uniformly tagged, versioned, searchable and ultimately findable, without 50 duplicates over your 50 devices and without typing arcane commands in a terminal window?
I found this discussion from 2003 and this tangentially relevant post from 2006. How have things changed for you in 2011?
And how satisfied is your extended family with the solution you have unleashed upon them?
11862374
submission
siddesu writes:
Japanese big retail stores were ordered a week or so ago to stop selling Apple products online. The comments in the Japanese business newspapers suggest that Apple believes online shopping adds an aura of "cheapness" to their products, but killing the competition of the Apple store has surely been considered as well. As of today, most of the largest retailers have notices on their Apple catalog pages that ask you to kindly visit the shop if you want to acquire a piece of magic. It seems that for the moment the campaign is aimed at the big fish, as smaller shops still seem to carry and sell Apple items.
(Link goes to a google translate of the commentary of cnet japan, this is the original in Japanese).
9408558
submission
siddesu writes:
Scientists working on the Cassini mission (thttp://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm) have found evidence of liquid water on the planet's icy moon Enceladus, suggesting the possibility of life below its surface and further limiting parking availability in the solar system.
9265196
submission
siddesu writes:
Wired has a fascinating story about a recent discovery that sheds light on the quantum physics mechanisms behind the efficiency of photosynthesis. Antenna proteins appear to "use" quantum effects to route energy almost without loss from photon-sensitive molecules to nearby reaction-center proteins, which convert it to cell-driving charges. As a bonus, the article provides a car analogy.
7314526
submission
siddesu writes:
Compelling new data that chemical and fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars was carried to Earth in a Martian meteorite is being elevated to a higher plane by the same NASA team which made the initial discovery 13 years ago. Time to bow to our Marsian overlords?
6590501
submission
siddesu writes:
New study of storage technology by the former CTO of Seagate predicts that harddisks will remain the cheapest storage technology in the next decade and probably beyond.
4918225
submission
siddesu writes:
Herschel, the infra-red space telescope, opened its eyes on 14 June 2009, precisely one month after the launch. It carried out test observations labeled a 'sneak preview' making use of time initially allocated to 'thermal stabilization', following a request to attempt producing an early observational result.
Here's the first pictures and more.
2133815
submission
siddesu writes:
TV Asahi reports (video attached to the news clip, all in Japanese) that a Japanese neuroscience research institute has read images as they are processed by the brain for the fist time in history. The video shows pictures being shown to a subject and the reading of the images in the brain by a scanner developed by the institute. The researchers expect to perfect the technology so that it reads dreams and images in the near future.
(The scoop is a rough translation of the news article)
The site of the institute: http://www.cns.atr.jp/indexE.html
Video: mms://wmt-od.stream.ne.jp/tv-asahi/tv-asahia/news/0703/wmt/20081211-181211004-563-300.wmv?now=20081211185155_300k
1887819
submission
siddesu writes:
BBC mentions briefly that EU police will perform remote searches of suspect computers as a part of an EU plan to tackle hi-tech crime. "The strategy encourages the much needed operational cooperation and information exchange between the Member States," said EC vice-president Jacques Barrot in a statement. Now, that is a crime prevention I can subscribe to.
1752507
submission
siddesu writes:
BBC and other news agencies report that the most recent National Intelligence Council report suggests that by 2025 the influence of the US over the world will diminish, new powers — notably Brazil, India and China will emerge, and with the onset of global warming and new superpowers with diverging political values the world will become a more dangerous place, prone to conflicts in which nukes may be used. This is a much gloomier outlook on the world compared to the report from only two years ago. Dig that shelter and stock up on ammo where legal.
Link to the PDF report.
1228097
submission
siddesu writes:
For all people like me, who think skype is sort of secure against eavesdropping, here is a reminder from the real world:
"Citizen Lab, a group of Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers, has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain Internet text conversations that include politically charged words.
The system tracks text messages sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay, the Web auctioneer that owns Skype, an online phone and text messaging service."
More is available from the BBC and the NYT, as well as on the site of Citizen Lab.
Citizen Lab:http://www.citizenlab.org/
BBC story:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7649761.stm
712957
submission
siddesu writes:
A new research by the Sanger institute suggests that the widely accepted view that brain power is a function only of size and that nerve cells are similar accross species is incorrect, and that complex brains depend not only on the number of neurons and connection, but also on the complexity and capabilities of its neurons.
The study compares proteins found in synapses accross many species and finds that in simpler organisms not only the brain size is different, but the number of proteins in their neurons is also significantly lower than that of animals with complex brains or humans.
This suggests that complex brains need more complex "hardware", and that the evolution from simple sensory "components" (as found in the various yeasts) to the complex neurons that build the human brain is similar to the development of computer hardware.
