Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 48
Only if they're voiced by Alan Tudyk.
Comment Re:Does it anti matter? (Score 1) 48
Am I a butterfly dreaming I am an anti-butterfly, or am I an anti-butterfly dreaming I am an anti-anti-butterfly?
Comment Re:Enterprise (Score 1) 48
You know what could produce that much power...? Anti-matter! You know, I think we're onto something here... [wink]
Comment Air Assault (Score 1) 79
If they can use drones to recover wounded soldiers, they can use them to deliver soldiers to or beyond the front. While in most cases they prefer to use this for unmanned ground vehicles, there's no reason they couldn't fly in special forces this way.
Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 202
Historically - and by that I mean up until the late 1800s - corporations could not be formed unless they demonstrated that they would produce a social benefit, at least in the eyes of legislators, who approved applications to form corporations one-by-one on that basis.
It wasn't until a couple of states (New Jersey and Delaware, IIRC) decided that any profit-seeking venture would produce a social benefit and thus they could be approved through regulatory rather than legislative means that this began to change.
Comment Why? (Score 1) 236
Who does that? A person dishing out abuse to an app that is designed to be helpful has some serious issues that surely carry over to their interactions with humans.
Comment Re:Uh HUH (Score 1) 84
Not bright, you say? They knew they'd get bailed out at our expense, didn't they?
Comment Re:Hopefully aux OUTPUT survives (Score 1) 48
And the stereo in my car even supports Bluetooth so I could feed it directly from my phone.
Comment Re:We already tried this (Score 1) 282
Most hardware that supports DST switching also supports *not* DST switching, because not everywhere does.
Comment Lawn Guyland in the hizzouse! (Score 0) 17
...that is all.
Comment They likely can't do either one. (Score 1) 1
You're putting them in a bind. They probably can't give you the removal or details you want, so you're effectively telling them they can't legally use their translator. What else do you expect them to do but ghost you?
Comment Re:For now, that is... (Score 1) 48
For me it's because there have been many, many examples of companies and organizations saying that they are not retaining the data, and then it is revealed that they are, in fact, retaining the data.
It's never easy to tell if it happens in any given case because of maliciousness or incompetence, but it happens repeatedly.
Submission + - Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won't Let Go of It (nytimes.com)
joshuark writes: In a new twist on the phrase "going viral" or stealing code, the NYT reports a virus has "stolen" a human gene, and will not let it go. In the article "This Virus Stole a Human Gene and Won’t Let Go of It" reports that scientists have found a human gene lurking in a virus that causes skin infections. Thus using our own DNA to infect us.
The molluscum contagiosum virus, which causes sores on skin, swiped a gene from humans about 100,000 years ago according to a new study.
The way that viruses replicate makes them particularly good at thieving DNA. The viruses infect a cell, then co-opt its machinery by injecting their own genes. Sometimes this process goes awry, and a stretch of the host’s DNA gets bundled into the new viral genes. This molecular error can pose a threat to human health.
The molluscum contagiosum virus, which causes sores on skin, swiped a gene from humans about 100,000 years ago according to a new study.
The way that viruses replicate makes them particularly good at thieving DNA. The viruses infect a cell, then co-opt its machinery by injecting their own genes. Sometimes this process goes awry, and a stretch of the host’s DNA gets bundled into the new viral genes. This molecular error can pose a threat to human health.
Comment The dabblers are wandering off. (Score 1) 152
Is this necessarily a bad thing? For quite some time, coding has been pushed as a way to make yourself marketable. For a lot of people who have no particular passion for it—nor for anything else, which is why they're dabbling in everything—but were only in it because they thought it was a good career move, it is smart to look for greener pastures now. The real question is, what adjacent fields are easy to slide into, but AREN'T equally vulnerable to the unblinking gaze of AI once there is the critical mass to justify the effort? Are there any?
Submission + - New tin-based solar cells trap heat 1,000 times longer, could beat 33% limit. (interestingengineering.com)
fahrbot-bot writes: Interesting Engineering is reporting that researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that tin-based perovskite solar cells can slow heat loss from high-energy “hot electrons” by a factor of 1,000 and could push solar cell efficiency beyond the theoretical 33 percent limit.
When sunlight strikes a panel, photons jump-start electrons into action. The most energetic photons create super-charged hot electrons. Theoretically, these high-voltage powerhouses should generate far more electricity, but, in practice, they are fleeting. In fractions of a trillionth of a second, these high-energy particles rapidly cool, dumping their bonus energy as waste heat before ever leaving the solar cell.
“This means that the energy is lost before the hot electron exits the solar cell material,” said Jan Anton Koster, Professor of Physics of Novel Semiconductors and Devices at the University of Groningen.
Using a specialized solar cell material called tin-based perovskite, Loi’s lab performed a feat many thought impossible: she slowed the heat loss down by a factor of 1,000. Suddenly, the extra energy lingered for nanoseconds instead of vanishing in picoseconds.
The study findings were published in the journal ACS Energy Letters.
When sunlight strikes a panel, photons jump-start electrons into action. The most energetic photons create super-charged hot electrons. Theoretically, these high-voltage powerhouses should generate far more electricity, but, in practice, they are fleeting. In fractions of a trillionth of a second, these high-energy particles rapidly cool, dumping their bonus energy as waste heat before ever leaving the solar cell.
“This means that the energy is lost before the hot electron exits the solar cell material,” said Jan Anton Koster, Professor of Physics of Novel Semiconductors and Devices at the University of Groningen.
Using a specialized solar cell material called tin-based perovskite, Loi’s lab performed a feat many thought impossible: she slowed the heat loss down by a factor of 1,000. Suddenly, the extra energy lingered for nanoseconds instead of vanishing in picoseconds.
The study findings were published in the journal ACS Energy Letters.
