Comment He who controls the spice, controls the Universe! (Score 1) 48
He who controls the spice, controls the Universe!
(or at least what the Universe can see. )
Comment Re:By what standard? (Score 1) 245
This is the simple version of Worse :
Current Human Habitable environment for max sustainable population
[***********] = best
Future Environment with too much GW ( x= dead humans)
xxxxxxx [*** ] = worse
(Due to Increased conflict from shortages,
lack of food from natural disasters,
lack of potable water from increased extremes of weather events, etc )
Comment Giving the enemy a bigger sword (Score 1) 181
Doesn't anyone consider the idea that by deploying this weaponized code, they are giving the iranians a tool to use to retaliate ?
ie, stick a thumb drive in a known infected computer, airplane trip to the U.S. , drop thumb drive in parking lot labeled "PORN" , etc..
Comment Re:Science Journalism (Score 5, Informative) 158
Low-energy neutrinos = pass through
High-energy neutrinos = bounce off everything, BUT we are seeing them coming from our planet. So if they are not bouncing off things, then are they being generated? or what is the mechanism that makes them appear to be coming from the planet.?
Direction of travel is determined similar to following a traveller who has a strobe light attached. When you identify the spot you see the light initially, then the same light shows up awhile later at another spot, you can determine the back-azimuth to the originating dot. (collector is large enough to see 2 or more interactions within the collection material)
Submission + - Summer Weather Is Getting 'Stuck' Due To Arctic Warming (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous. Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself. The authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to “very extreme extremes," which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods.
One cause is a weakening of the temperature gradient between the Arctic and Equator as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The far north of the Earth is warming two to four times faster than the global average, says the paper, which means there is a declining temperature gap with the central belt of the planet. As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them. As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean.
One cause is a weakening of the temperature gradient between the Arctic and Equator as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The far north of the Earth is warming two to four times faster than the global average, says the paper, which means there is a declining temperature gap with the central belt of the planet. As this ramp flattens, winds struggle to build up sufficient energy and speed to push around pressure systems in the area between them. As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean.
Comment Couldnt see it from my basement window (Score 1) 211
Did I miss something?
Google Releases Street View Images From Fukushima Ghost Town 63
mdsolar writes in with news that Goolge has released Street View pictures from inside the zone that was evacuated after the Fukushima disaster. "Google Inc. (GOOG) today released images taken by its Street View service from the town of Namie, Japan, inside the zone that was evacuated after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011. Google, operator of the world's biggest Web search engine, entered Namie this month at the invitation of the town's mayor, Tamotsu Baba, and produced the 360-degree imagery for the Google Maps and Google Earth services, it said in an e-mailed statement. All of Namie's 21,000 residents were forced to flee after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the town, causing the world's worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl. Baba asked Mountain View, California-based Google to map the town to create a permanent record of its state two years after the evacuation, he said in a Google blog post."
Festo's Drone Dragonfly Takes To the Air 45
yyzmcleod writes "Building on the work of last year's bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and maneuvering in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter's ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."
Submission + - EU Parliament Debates their own DMCA 2
bs0d3 writes: Right now, what is lacking across Europe, is a standard law to handle notice-and-take down's of illegal sites like the US' DMCA. Right now illegal content across Europe is subject to non-standard take down letters, some of which include no mention of what was allegedly infringed, nor in which jurisdiction in Europe it's infringed, or who to contact in your jurisdiction to challenge the claim, or even which company it is that is being represented by the law firm that gets in touch with he project. They need a system so that the notices would have to include information that makes them verifiable as correct. EU is holding a public consultation discussing notice-and-take down laws, which can be found here.
Submission + - Small rocky exoplanet discovered close to Sol system (ibtimes.co.uk)
sander writes: Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered of a 0.67 earth mass sized planet 33 light years away from the Sol system by the Spitzer Space Telescope- and the article speculates that Spitzer might be able to spot planets as small as Mars in future. The planet may be out of the habitable zone, but close to Earth rocky exoplanet discoveries are always exciting.
Submission + - How to avoid being tracked online (pcpro.co.uk) 1
Barence writes: "With governments around the world increasingly snooping on the internet activity of their citizens, PC Pro has a feature outlining how to (legally) avoid being tracked online. The feature covers techniques such as end-to-end encryption, onion networks, VPNs and proxies, and how to cover your tracks on social networks."
Submission + - Linux 3.5 released
diegocg writes: Linux 3.5 has been released. New features include support for metadata checksums in Ext4, userspace probes for performance profiling with systemtap/perf, a simple sandboxing mechanism that can filter syscalls, a new network queue management algorithm designed to fight bufferbloat, support for checkpointing and restoring TCP connections, support for TCP Early Retransmit (RFC 5827), support for android-style opportunistic suspend, btrfs I/O failure statistics, and SCSI over Firewire and USB. Here's the full changelog.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Stepping down from an office server to NAS-only
rawket.scientist writes: I'm a full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support for my small (~10 person) firm. We make heavy use of our old Windows Server 2003 machine for networked storage, and we use it as a DNS server (by choice, not necessity), but we don't use it for our e-mail, web hosting, productivity or software licensing. No Sharepoint, no Exchange, etc. Now old faithful is giving signs of giving out, and I'm seriously considering replacing it with a NAS device like the Synology DS1512+ or Dell PowerVault NX200. Am I penny-wise but pound foolish here? And is it overambitious for someone who's only dabbled in networking 101 to think of setting up a satisfactory, secure VPN or FTP server on one of these? We've had outside consultants and support in the past, but I always get the first "why is it doing this" call, and I like to have the answer, especially if I was the one who recommended the hardware.
Submission + - No More Free Conference Calls (ieee.org)
kgeiger writes: The FCC is changing the call termination tariffs that subsidized rural wireline service and coincidentally free conference calls. Free conference call services had located their dial-in centers in rural areas to scoop up FCC tariffs from its Universal Service Fund. USF monies will go to broadband deployment instead. Be prepared to put more nickels in the box.
Submission + - Storing items in a sealed chest for 25 years (accet87.net) 3
accet87 writes: "We are celebrating the Silver Jubilee of our graduation next month and have come up with an idea where we will build an air-tight chest in which each of us will deposit something and will open the chest only on our Golden Jubilee, i,e, after another 25 years. I want to understand what kind of items can be safely stored for 25 years and what kind of precautions are required to be taken. I am sure things like paper, non ferrous metallic objects, wood etc will hold good.
What about data storage elecronically? I dont think CD/DVD etc will be usable. Even if the data is retained, reading it in 2037 may be a challenge."
What about data storage elecronically? I dont think CD/DVD etc will be usable. Even if the data is retained, reading it in 2037 may be a challenge."
