Comment What does this kid get for christmas ? (Score 0) 410
I would love to be the kind of dad who could do this, but my daughter would prefer it in pink or come with horses & cell phone.
Submission + - Sticky Tape Found To Emit Terahertz Radiation (newscientist.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
WILL sticky tape ever cease to amaze? Peeling it can generate terahertz radiation, raising the possibility of a cheaper alternative to lasers for medical imaging. Peeling sticky tape has already been shown to produce X-rays, so Joseph Horvat and Roger Lewis of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, tried to see if it could create lower-frequency terahertz radiation. "We were rather pleasantly surprised to obtain a clear signal in our first attempt," says Horvat. Strongly adhesive Scotch Magic 810 tape and weakly adhesive electrical tape both yielded strong terahertz signals, ranging from 0.1 to 10 terahertz, but only about a microwatt of power, too little for practical use (Optics Letters, vol 34, p 2195). Horvat says that refinements should increase the power by orders of magnitude.
It may be old news to
Submission + - Goodbye Apple. Hello Music Production on Ubuntu. 1
Adam Wrzeski writes: "Create Digital Music has an interesting article on Kim Cascone's switch from Apple to Linux for audio production:
The computer functioned as both sound design studio and stage instrument. I worked this way for ten years, faithfully following the upgrade path set forth by Apple and the various developers of the software I used. Continually upgrading required a substantial financial commitment on my part.
I loaded up my Dell with all a selection of Linux audio applications and brought it with me on tour as an emergency backup to my tottering PowerBook. The Mini 9 could play back four tracks of 24-bit/96 kHz audio with effects — not bad for a netbook. The solution to my financial constraint became clear, and I bought a refurbished Dell Studio 15, installed Ubuntu on it, and set it up for sound production and business administration. The total cost was around $600 for the laptop plus a donation to a software developer — a far cry from the $3000.00 price tag and weeks of my time it would have cost me to stay locked-in to Apple. After a couple of months of solid use, I have had no problems with my laptop or Ubuntu. Both have performed flawlessly, remaining stable and reliable."
The computer functioned as both sound design studio and stage instrument. I worked this way for ten years, faithfully following the upgrade path set forth by Apple and the various developers of the software I used. Continually upgrading required a substantial financial commitment on my part.
I loaded up my Dell with all a selection of Linux audio applications and brought it with me on tour as an emergency backup to my tottering PowerBook. The Mini 9 could play back four tracks of 24-bit/96 kHz audio with effects — not bad for a netbook. The solution to my financial constraint became clear, and I bought a refurbished Dell Studio 15, installed Ubuntu on it, and set it up for sound production and business administration. The total cost was around $600 for the laptop plus a donation to a software developer — a far cry from the $3000.00 price tag and weeks of my time it would have cost me to stay locked-in to Apple. After a couple of months of solid use, I have had no problems with my laptop or Ubuntu. Both have performed flawlessly, remaining stable and reliable."
Submission + - Expedition to Explore Texas Size Plastic 'Island' 1
Peace Corps Online writes: "BBC reports that an expedition called Project Kaisei leaves this month bound for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a huge "island" of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean estimated to be twice the size of Texas to study the impact of the waste on marine life. "Every piece of trash that is left on a beach or ends up in our rivers or estuaries and washes out to the sea is an addition to the problem, so we need people to be the solution," says Ryan Yerkey, the project's chief of operations. The garbage patch occupies a large and relatively stationary region of the North Pacific Ocean bound by the North Pacific Gyre, a remote area commonly referred to as the horse latitudes. The rotational pattern created by the North Pacific Gyre draws in waste material from across the North Pacific Ocean, including the coastal waters off North America and Japan. As material is captured in the currents, wind-driven surface currents gradually move floating debris toward the center, trapping it in the region. "You are talking about quite a bit of marine debris but it's not a solid mass," adds Yerkley. "Twenty years from now we can't be harvesting the ocean for trash. We need to get it out but we need to also have people make those changes in their lives to stop the problem from growing and hopefully reverse the course.""
Comment Re:Take the shit to get the cream (Score 0) 474
I recant this AC's previous statement,
My advice to you is to show your potential. Just sitting there doing the same thing day in day out shows how much of a drone you are. I spent several years working as a support drone myself mainly due to the fact I was lazy and really had no ambition to move up.having a Kid makes you rethink everything. I show them what you can do and at every opportunity apply for those jobs as they come up. Do not sit content until your in the position of your chose or employment of your choosing.
My advice to you is to show your potential. Just sitting there doing the same thing day in day out shows how much of a drone you are. I spent several years working as a support drone myself mainly due to the fact I was lazy and really had no ambition to move up.having a Kid makes you rethink everything. I show them what you can do and at every opportunity apply for those jobs as they come up. Do not sit content until your in the position of your chose or employment of your choosing.
Why a Hard Disk Is a Better Bargain Than an SSD 403
Lucas123 writes "While solid state disks may be all the rage, what's often being overlooked in the current consumer market hype is that fact that hard disk drive prices are at an all-time low — offering users good performance and massive amounts of capacity for 10 to 30 cents a gigabyte. And in a side by side comparison of overall performance of consumer SSDs and HDDs, it's hard to justify spending 10 times as much for a little more speed."
Comment Oppurtunity comes a knockin (Score 0) 468
I look at this as a opportunity for Kindle to sell the idea of using them instead of books. other than Amazon making a bundle on book sales, they would have a kindle in every students hands. Course if they broke the school could sell the student one for a profit.and the family could transfer the books to the new device.
All I see with this idea is PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT
Internet Tax Approved By Louisiana House 305
Stinky Litter Box writes "WWL-TV in New Orleans reports that the Louisiana House voted 81-9 on Thursday to propose that a '15-cent monthly surcharge should be levied on Internet access across Louisiana to fight online criminal activity.' Can you say 'slippery slope?' The good news is that Gov. Jindal opposes such a tax. Full disclosure: I grew up in south Louisiana and worked for WWL-TV in the late '70s."
Protecting the Apollo Landing Sites From Later Landings 339
R3d M3rcury writes "The Lunar X-Prize is a contest offering $20 million to the first private organization to land and maneuver a robotic rover on the moon. There is also a $1 million bonus to anyone who can get a picture of a man-made object on the moon. But one archeologist believes that 'The sites of early lunar landings are of unparalleled significance in the history of humanity, and extraordinary caution should be taken to protect them.' He's concerned that we may end up with rover tracks destroying historic artifacts, such as Neil Armstrong's first bootprint, or that a mistake could send a rocket slamming into a landing site. He calls on the organizers to ban any contestant from landing within 100KM of a prior moon landing site. Now he seems to think this just means Apollo. What about the Luna and Surveyor landers? What about the Lunokhod rovers? Are they fair game?"
Anti-Piracy Dog Uncovers Huge Cache of Discs 283
sgt scrub writes "I've never thought about sniffing my CDs before buying them but that is all about to change. According to this Yahoo! news article, dogs can be trained to tell the difference between a legit copy of a DVD and one from those pesky pirates. From the article, 'A DVD-sniffing anti-piracy dog named Paddy has uncovered a huge cache of 35,000 discs in Malaysian warehouses, many destined for export to Singapore, industry officials said on Wednesday. Paddy was given to Malaysia by the MPA to help close down piracy syndicates, which churn out vast quantities of illegal DVDs. The dog is specially trained to detect chemicals in the discs.'" We ran a story about anti-piracy dogs being trained in Ireland a few years ago.
Arrington's Web Tablet Nearly Ready For Launch? 140
narramissic writes "The 'dead simple and dirt cheap' touchscreen Web tablet that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch set out to build last July seems to be nearing completion, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'The CrunchPad is a Linux-based touchscreen tablet using a browser-based UI. When you turn the unit on, it boots right into the webkit-based browser. There's a pop-up virtual keyboard for entering URLs and such (you wouldn't want to do any significant typing on it) and scrolling is via swiping the screen. When Arrington first visualized the project he was shooting for a $200 price point, then discovered that a $299 price was more realistic.'"
Comment Re:Lame site, and a bizarre video (Score 0) 644
I had to watch for this and spent maybe 3-4 minutes replaying that section of the video just to be safe. While at first glace the guy is doing that particular salute he's just calling for a cab. Still it would make a great 3-4 second spot to throw up on youtube and start calling Microsoft the next nazi goverment.
Who knows maybe you'll be arrested for slander, or protected by freedom of speech. maybe...
Who knows maybe you'll be arrested for slander, or protected by freedom of speech. maybe...
Comment Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score 0) 260
If I had mod points I would so give you "Informative". If this was done on a federal level, then we would not have as much a concern over illegal immigrants coming to live and work in this country would pay their fair share.
~ My Two Cents
~ My Two Cents
Comment My two cents (Score 0) 424
These days you can build or buy a relatively economical PC. Thou I would go with separate accounts.
Comment Re:Actually the 'fanboy' wrote a nice piece (Score 0) 834
I found the series a few episodes in, I do admit I was lost & intrigued, but I then spent the time to actually start from pilot. From then on I have not missed the show.
The storyline had a core plot, then at last count seven major sub plots. Several of them had been sorted out by the end of the last season opening up another major set of plots.
While I do agree the Terminator franchise had both a positive & negative impact on the show. It could of just been "The Connor Chronicles" and it might of had a chance. But without the Terminator name it also probably did not get it's initial start.
This mostly my opinion and all, I feel that it was the better choice to keep over Dollhouse even if just for another season. This coming from a Whedonite fan on all his projects.
The storyline had a core plot, then at last count seven major sub plots. Several of them had been sorted out by the end of the last season opening up another major set of plots.
While I do agree the Terminator franchise had both a positive & negative impact on the show. It could of just been "The Connor Chronicles" and it might of had a chance. But without the Terminator name it also probably did not get it's initial start.
This mostly my opinion and all, I feel that it was the better choice to keep over Dollhouse even if just for another season. This coming from a Whedonite fan on all his projects.
