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Power

Submission + - Secrecy and collusion: Nuclear power regulation (cleveland.com) 2

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "An AP investigation shows that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been systematically lowering safety standards to keep old and failing nuclear plants running. http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2011/06/nrc_loosens_ignores_safety_rul.html

Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and all agree that existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative." Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.

At the same time, the shroud of secrecy is descending on international efforts to investigate the recent nuclear disaster in Japan http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-20/fukushima-disaster-failures-kept-behind-closed-doors-at-un-atomic-meeting.html

Sweeping under the rug seems to be the primary approach to nuclear safety at all levels."

Submission + - Turning memories on/off with the flip of a switch (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Using electrical probes embedded into the brains of rats, scientists have managed to replicate the brain function associated with long-term behavior and found a way to literally turn memories on and off with the flip of a switch. The scientists hope their research will eventually lead to a neural prosthesis to help people suffering Alzheimer's disease, the effects of stroke or other brain injury to recover long-term memory capability.

Comment No complaints here. (Score 1) 432

by _0rm_ (#36401864) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Linux Support In Universities?
The only thing my school did was require Windows users to install a special client onto their machines to verify that their antivirus is adequate. Other than that, they have been good to people across the board, making no effort to discriminate against any operating system.

Keep it that way guys!
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Senator Complains That Bitcoin Is Money Laundering (techdirt.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a followup to the earlier story about Bitcoin being used for Narcotics, Senator Schumer has already come out condemning Bitcoin itself, claiming that it's a form of money laundering, because there's no way to trace the history. Apparently Senator Schumer is unaware of the untraceable nature of "cash."
IT

Submission + - March 31 is World Backup Day (worldbackupday.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A bit of a belated reminder, but March 31 is World Backup Day. Take a few minutes to make an extra copy of your important files today. Do you have any tips for making backups pain free? Any horror stories from when you didn't make a back up but should have?
Transportation

Submission + - Tesla Sues BBC's Top Gear For Libel (allcarselectric.com) 3

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes: About two years ago BBC's Top Gear aired a test drive of the then relatively new Tesla Roadster. In the particular episode, Tesla Roadsters are depicted as suffering several critical “breakdowns” during track driving. Host Jeremy Clarkson concludes the episode by saying that in the real world the Roadster "doesn’t seem to work"

Tesla claims that the breakdowns were staged, making most of Top Gear'(TM)s remarks about the Roadster untrue. Tesla also states that it can prove Top Gear’s tests were falsified due to the recordings of its cars’ onboard data-loggers.

What's Tesla asking for in the lawsuit? Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the particular episode and to correct the record.
Nintendo

Submission + - Video Game Console Power Consumption (done right!) (cmu.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hello slashdot,

I am a PhD student and researcher in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and I wanted to bring your attention to a recently-completed paper entitled "Power Consumption of Video Game Consoles Under Realistic Usage Patterns". I wrote this paper with the intention of correcting some of the inaccurate conclusions in other video game power consumption studies. In particular, previous studies have suggested that the Wii is an especially "green" console, but this conclusion is based on incomplete or unrealistic assumptions. Since I am both an electricity industry researcher and an avid gamer, I felt motivated to do a proper analysis, using realistic assumptions and available data.

This paper uses the recent Nielson data about console usage and recognizes the existence of the WiiConnect24 service (both of which were neglected/unknown in previous studies), and comes to two important conclusions: First, the Wii is not necessarily a "greener" console than the Xbox 360 or PS3 and might be considered substantially worse, depending upon the method of comparison used. Secondly (and perhaps most importantly), as long as a user powers down the console when not in use, the overall electricity consumption of any of the consoles is very low compared to other residential electricity use (1% or less). Thus, while debates about the relative energy efficiency of the consoles may be exciting for certain partisan elements of the gaming community, gamers who want to be green ought to focus on other more effective energy improvements, like home insulation or lighting. So the most important message here is that the way a game console is used is far more important than the choice of game console as far as energy use is concerned.

Interesting results from this research:
- The average Wii with WiiConnect24 enabled uses 550 Wh of electricity (including active and standby) for each hour of active use, which is significantly higher than the figures for the currently-available Xbox 360 S (125 Wh per hour of use) and PS3 Slim (107 Wh per hour of use) consoles. Even with WiiConnect24 disabled, the average Wii consumes approximately the same amount of electricity for each hour of use as currently available models of PS3 and Xbox 360.
- 97% of the electricity consumed by the average Wii with WiiConnect24 enabled occurs when it is not being used. For other consoles (including the Wii with WiiConnect24 disabled), this figure is 10 — 30%.
- The console with the highest annual consumption (a launch-model Xbox 360) accounts for only 1% of an average household's electricity use if it is powered down to standby mode after use. The other consoles vary down to 0.2% (for the Wii with WiiConnect24 disabled). If a launch-model Xbox 360 is left on continuously, the electricity consumption would jump to 15% of the average residential usage.
- If a game offering 30 hours of gameplay is played over 6 weeks on a launch-model PS3 (the highest consumption of the consoles examined), the total electricity consumed during this time is 6.7 kWh, which costs $0.80 at average residential electricity prices (other consoles range from $0.10 to $0.70). This is very low compared with the purchase price of a current-generation game (up to $60) and the cost of the system and peripherals.

My goal with this paper was to clear up the (surprisingly common) myth that the Wii is an especially green console and to point out that it doesn't really matter anyway as long as the console is turned off when not in use. Since my intention has been to inform the public, I hope that this research will be of interest to you and your readers. To this end, I have made the paper publicly available on the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center website (link to pdf at bottom of page): http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/papers/CEIC-11-01.asp

Eric Hittinger
ehitting@andrew.cmu.edu
Department of Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University

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