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Transportation

Submission + - China's High-Speed Trains Coming Off the Rails

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that China’s expanding network of ultramodern high-speed trains is coming under growing scrutiny over costs and because of concerns that builders ignored safety standards in the quest to build faster trains in record time as new leadership at the Railways Ministry announced that to enhance safety, the top speed of all trains was being decreased from about 218 mph to 186. Without elaborating, the ministry called the safety situation “severe” and said it was launching safety checks along the entire network of tracks. Meanwhile China's Finance Ministry announced that the Railways Ministry continues to lose money as the ministry’s debt stands at $276 billion, almost all borrowed from Chinese banks. "In China, we will have a debt crisis — a high-speed rail debt crisis," says Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and longtime critic of high-speed rail who worries that the cost of the project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China’s banking system. "I think it is more serious than your subprime mortgage crisis. You can always leave a house or use it. The rail system is there. It’s a burden. You must operate the rail system, and when you operate it, the cost is very high.""
Science

Submission + - Volcano-Induced Air Travel Shutdown was Justified (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: An abnormally high fraction of the ash particles spewed skyward by Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano last April were small and sharp and therefore posed high risks to airplanes and human health, a new study suggests. That means the 7-day shutdown of much of Europe's air traffic ordered by civil aviation authorities, which affected 10 million passengers and cost between €1.5 billion and €2.5 billion, was likely worth it.

Submission + - Stream Only?

Submitted by
hinesbrad
hinesbrad writes: "I'm getting really tired of paying ridiculous fees to my cable company just to have a DVR and high speed internet access. A neighbor of mine bought a cheapo Dell computer with an HDMI output. Apparently he streams all of his news live from respective websites, and also watches many of the shows on NBC and Comedy central using this method. He's effectively turned his PC into a DVR and gotten rid of his cable subscription fee.

I wonder, how many people have completely gotten rid of their cable/satellite subscription and have now instead moved to a Hulu/Netflix/Content producer website streaming solution instead?"

Submission + - Doctor Who actress Elisabeth Sladen dies (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Doctor Who star Elisabeth Sladen, who was also in spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, has died aged 63.

Sladen appeared as Doctor Who assistant Sarah Jane Smith in the BBC television sci-fi series between 1973 and 1976, opposite Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

The Liverpool-born actress appeared in four series from 2007 of The Sarah Jane Adventures on children's channel CBBC.

Submission + - All Languages Linked to Common Source (stuff.co.nz)

Submitted by Old Wolf
Old Wolf writes: A New Zealand evolutionary psychologist, Quentin Atkinson, has created a scientific sensation by claiming to have discovered the mother of all mother tongues. By studying the sounds made in 504 modern languages, Atkinson said he had found an ancient signal in them.
Science

Submission + - Language universality idea tested (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by NotSanguine
NotSanguine writes: A long-standing idea that human languages share universal features that are dictated by human brain structure has been cast into doubt.

A study reported in Nature has borrowed methods from evolutionary biology to trace the development of grammar in several language families.

The results suggest that features shared across language families evolved independently in each lineage.

The authors say cultural evolution, not the brain, drives language development.
Idle

Submission + - paper folding record? (boston.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Toiling with toilet paper in MIT's Infinite Corridor
Space

Submission + - FBI Releases Document Confirming Roswell UFO (fbi.gov) 8

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as circular in shape with raised centers approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape, but only 3 feet tall dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture.
Government

Submission + - Feds Prep For E-Gov Shutdown (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "If the federal government is shut down by a budget impasse Friday night at midnight, the IRS will continue to accept tax returns filed electronically and it will still process refunds, but paper-based returns won't be processed. The outlook for other government services delivered electronically is less than certain. 'Most websites will not continue, only those websites that are part of these accepted activities would continue to operate,' the senior official said. A big difference between the government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 and the one looming this week is the government's increased reliance on online tools for delivering services and seeking feedback. As for the decision to have the IRS continue collecting taxes that are filed electronically, 'We need to be able to collect the money that is owed to the U.S. government,' said a senior Obama administration official, speaking with reporters on background Tuesday. 'And that's the same process as issuing electronic refunds, so electronic refunds and collection of monies will continue.'"
Censorship

Submission + - why is critical infrastructure online? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For a while now, I've been trying to understand why Critical Infrastructure (CI), or more specifically, control of CI networks. One main reasons why the "internet kill switch" is being considered is to give someone the power to shut off the internet in case CI networks are under attack. Why not spend the time and energy and money on isolating the command and control functions of these CI networks? Is there a good reason why they must be accessible to the world of the interweb?

Submission + - Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won't (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by rudy_wayne
rudy_wayne writes: There is an interesting (and probably controversial) piece on on Why Internet Explorer will survive and Firefox won't

"It’s tempting to look at Microsoft’s history with Internet Explorer and assume that they are just incapable of working at the speed of the Internet. But take a closer look at the development process for IE 9 and there’s a different story to tell. Microsoft is playing the same game as Google. Mozilla is stuck in 2005. And that’s why the core of Internet Explorer will still be around in five years when Firefox will have, at best, a loyal cult following."

"At last year’s MIX conference, Microsoft talked about its new app platform: write code once, target for multiple platforms. That’s the same space that Google is playing in. Google has an entire family of apps that are designed to work exclusively in a browser."

"So where does that leave Firefox? It doesn’t have an app ecosystem or a loyal core of developers. Extensions? Those were worth bragging about in 2005, but in 2012 the story is apps. Businesses and consumers will want to use the same browser that powers their installed apps. In the PC space, that means Google or Microsoft. It doesn’t leave room for a third player."

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