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Science

Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot 398

Posted by timothy from the more-guns-less-crime dept.
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."

Comment Re:Surveillance (Score 1) 629

by AZScotsman (#28928643) Attached to: RadioShack To Rebrand As "The Shack"?
Correct on all counts....

I used to manage a RS back in the 90's (when we had to hit metrics for name gathering) and the main reasons for the name was 1) to gather addresses for the direct mail/catalog campaigns and 2) to personalize the receipts for TSP (the internal Service Plan. Additional benefits were return tracking, etc.

Once they stopped the Direct Mail (gee, I miss those flyers...), the company cancelled the name collection.

I agree the company has lost a lot of their "charm" as THE place to go for electronic accessories (wires, adaptors, etc) and become "just another electronics store" amongst a dwindling sea of retailers.

Anyone else know if they still require employees to pass Specialty Certification tests? Managers were required to pass all of them (I seem to recall that there were like 6 or 8 of them...).

Comment Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score 2, Informative) 635

by AZScotsman (#28202365) Attached to: You've Dropped Your Landline — Now What?
Most likely the phone line is already Twisted Pair, so assuming it's CAT5, it's easy to change over to Ethernet. One idea I had was to install cameras at central points (doors, windows, etc) and set up tablet PC's with a simple web interface to pull up images from the cams.

Heard a noise at night? just go to the tablet on the wall, scan the cameras, and alert the authorities if necessary.

Comment Re:Old news? (Score 4, Informative) 197

by AZScotsman (#27761355) Attached to: Russian Manned Space Vehicle May Land With Rockets
The original DC-X was a half-scale (IIRC) version just designed to demo the tech of "Landing on your own tailfire", and all the initial flights were tethered. Flew several times in '93 and '94, but the final flight in '96 experienced a hydraulic line failure in one of the struts, and tipped over. In a "full-up" system, a backup manual extender would have mitigated the problem.

Good info on the flights are found on NASA's Website http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x-33/dc-xa.htm
Power

Submission + - Hydrogen turbines generate clean electricity

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) has developed near-zero-emission gas turbines using pure hydrogen as a fuel. But because this LSI (low-swirl injector) technology also can use other fuels, it has the potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of nitrous oxides (NOx) from power plants each year. In fact, burners with the LSI emit 2 parts per million of NOx, more than five times less than conventional burners. The multi-patented technology is currently available for licensing. I sure hope that a utility company will be interested. But read more for many additional references and photographs comparing a high-swirl injector (HIS) and a low-swirl injector (LSI)."
Math

Winnie Wrote a Math Book 638

Posted by Zonk from the why-isn't-that-a-textbook dept.
SoyChemist writes "Hollywood is not known for providing a wealth of positive female role models. Danica McKellar, the actress that played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years and Elsie Snuffin on The West Wing, has written a math book for teenage girls. 'Math Doesn't Suck' is done in the style of a teen magazine. It even includes a horoscope, cute doodles of shoes and jewelry, and testimonials from attractive young career women that use math at work. It focuses on fractions and pre-algebra and uses mnemonics like calling a reciprocal a 'refliprocal', because you just take the fraction and flip it upside down. Wired interviewed McKellar about the new book and her crusade to eliminate the achievement gap between boys and girls in math courses. McKellar graduated Summa Cum Laude from UCLA. While studying there, she co-authored a proof and presented it at a conference. After she and Mayim Bialik — star of Blossom and a PhD in neuroscience — appeared in a 20/20 episode about intellectual actresses, several literary agents came knocking on her door."
Security

Submission + - University Security Bans Vmware for Sensitive Data

Submitted by EnimyMyne
EnimyMyne writes: The University of Minnesota security group has declared that vmware and other server virtualization tools not be used to host sensitive data: "As a general rule, using Virtual Machines (VMWare, Virtual PC, etc) for servers that hold protected or private data is not acceptable. Protected and private data include grades, credit card numbers, social security numbers, Private Health Information (PHI), HIPAA and FERPA data, etc." The following rationale was given: "The main concern is the risk of a low-security VM being compromised, and the hackers breaking out of the VM into the host OS. If the same physical hardware also is running high security VMs holding protected data, it could be compromised. And given the consequences of breaches these days (massive fines, losing grants, legal action, etc.) we need to be particularly careful about this. There are an infinite number of scenerios here, with VMs of the same security level on the same hardware, or different security levels." How valid is this claim given the great advantages of virtualization and the fact that large enterprises are increasing their use of products such as vmware? I haven't seen any articles on slashdot discussing particular vulnerabilities of vmware over standard server hardware.
Space

Submission + - Astronauts flew missions drunk, panel finds (cnn.com)

Submitted by strawbo
strawbo writes: CNN is reporting an investigation of whether or not astronauts have flown shuttle missions while inebriated. "Interviews with both flight surgeons and astronauts identified some episodes of heavy use of alcohol by astronauts in the immediate preflight period," the panel said. NASA said it cannot determine the veracity of the claims until further investigation. I can't imagine that flying a space ship while drunk is a good idea...

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