Comment Auto Comment (Score 0) 187
This and all of my slashdot comments were generated by an automated commenter and I always get modded up!
Comment Spare Change (Score 1, Flamebait) 320
Yeah, but looking a homeless person in the eye and then giving them spare change is worse for them than donating to a charity on your computer since the spare change just goes to alcohol and drugs.
Comment New Resource Testing (Score 1) 105
People need to realize that this is not the government waste/quantum computing expose it is made out to be in this article. Whenever the supercomputing community comes out with a new resource, we test it and find the best algorithms for that resource. We have a long history of different algorithms working better for different resources. Take for instance, the transition from the Cray vector processors, to commodity Intel processors, then back to vector processors with the Earth Simulator, then back to Intel, then Cell processors, then CPUs. All of these required significant tweaking of our algorithms, which can take 5-10 years for the real work-horse codes to accomplish. In this case, the low hanging fruit lies in encryption, but other algorithms will find a niche in the quantum computing sector.
Comment e.g. Autism (Score 1) 190
This sounds like a trait list for having Autism Spectrum Disorder. No seriously
Comment Slashdot changing too... (Score 1) 625
On that note, Slashdot will not longer be taking submissions for stories or allow for user comments. Instead, machine learning bots will scan the web for content and natural language recognition bots will make witty comments and then debate them endlessly.
Comment Does your name happen to be Linus Torvalds? (Score 1) 506
If not, then you should probably stick with the Microsoft job.
Comment Not Much of an Engine (Score 2) 84
Did anyone actually read this story and notice that this is highly inefficient and not much of an engine. While it fits the definition of an engine thermodynamically, the process that they describe is not particularly useful. This is just an example of scientists doing their research and then noticing that they have met the definition for an engine and then promoting this fact in order to get press and increase their chances of funding down the road.
Submission + - Feds Indict Trio for WiFi Hacking and Burglary (nwsource.com)
vortex2.71 writes: Seattle police detectives say they've unraveled a theft ring that operated both in cyberspace and through old-fashioned burglaries with a technological twist — breaking into a company with the sole purpose of installing malicious software to enable future thefts.
Comment If they reacted so strongly to the Kindle... (Score 0) 155
They would have gone absolutely crazy about the iPad! I'm only kind of joking. After checking out my inlaw's Kindle, I'm unimpressed.
Scientists Find Tears Are the Anti-Viagra 207
An anonymous reader writes "The male test subjects didn't know what they were smelling, they were just given little vials of clear liquid and told to sniff. But when those vials contained a woman's tears (collected while she watched a sad movie), the men rated pictures of women's faces as less sexually attractive, and their saliva contained less testosterone. Is this proof that humans make and respond to pheromones? The researcher behind the study doesn't use that controversial word, but he says his findings do prove that tears contain meaningful chemical messages."
Submission + - Shadow Scholar Details Student Cheating (chronicle.com)
vortex2.71 writes: A "shadow writer", who lives on the East Coast, details how he makes a living writing papers for a custom-essay company and to describe the extent of student cheating he has observed. In the course of editing his article, The Chronicle Of Higher Education reviewed correspondence he had with clients and some of the papers he had been paid to write.
Submission + - Scientist proposes one-way trips to Mars (nwsource.com)
vortex2.71 writes: Invoking the spirit of "Star Trek" in a scholarly article entitled "To Boldly Go," two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return.
"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest "Journal of Cosmology" with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth.
Mars is a six-month flight away, possesses surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water, carbon dioxide and essential minerals. They propose the missions start by sending two two-person teams, in separate ships, to Mars. More colonists and regular supply ships would follow.
"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest "Journal of Cosmology" with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth.
Mars is a six-month flight away, possesses surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water, carbon dioxide and essential minerals. They propose the missions start by sending two two-person teams, in separate ships, to Mars. More colonists and regular supply ships would follow.
Submission + - China Overtakes U.S. in Supercomputer Performance
adeelarshad82 writes: It's been rumored, but now it's official. The Chinese Tianhe-1A system at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin has achieved a performance level of 2.57 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second). This puts it in the number one spot on the 36th edition of the TOP500's world's most powerful supercomputer list. As a result, the prior winner on the list—the Cray XT5 "Jaguar" system at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee—is now ranked in second place, with a score of 1.75 petaflop/s.
Submission + - U.S. to retake supercomputer throne from China (digitaltrends.com)
Merpy writes: China has broken the record for computing speed, creating a supercomputer that calculates at 2.57 petaflops. Now the U.S. is working on two 20 petaflop supercomputers. Is a digital cold war brewing? If so, it’s going to produce a lot of heat. China’s record-breaking 2.57 petaflop supercomputer, Tianhe-1A, officially broke the world record for computing speed Friday, and already the United States is working on something much larger. Two 20 petaflop supercomputers are in development in the States, reports Computerworld.
Submission + - Nuclear Fusion Possible Within 2-3 Years? (gizmag.com) 1
Zothecula writes: Even with all the developments taking place in the areas of alternative energy such as solar and wind power, nuclear fusion still remains the holy grail of clean electricity generation. However, after decades of worldwide research costing billions of dollars, the goal of achieving “net-gain,” where more energy is produced than is required to trigger the fusion chain reaction, still remains elusive. Now researchers at Sandia Labs are claiming a breakthrough that could see break-even fusion reactions in as little as two to three years.
