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Comment Re:non-recidivist (Score 1) 898

That quote irked me as well. The fact whether his actions would be taken seriously by the authorities has nothing to do with this. He should have realized how hurtful his actions were to the people grieving for this girl, and based his moral decision on that. I'm not sure where to draw the line in cases like these, but I find it very hard to argue that this person does not deserve punishment.

Comment Re:antimatter (Score 2, Insightful) 208

Well, I will agree with you that atomic bombs require an enormous investment, but your reasoning fails on one account: in an atomic bomb, the potential energy is already there, provided by nature. Sure we had to refine it, but in the end it is supernovas that put all that energy in the Uranium (or what have you) for us. To create an antimatter bomb, we need to produce all that potential energy ourselves, in the form of antimatter. Not only do we need to put in the potential energy itself, but also excess energy to account for the inefficiency of the production process.

That is what makes antimatter too inefficient to be used as a weapon, let alone as a fuel source.

This changes if we could harvest it from space, as indeed it would be nature again who has stored that potential energy for us.

Image

Wikipedia Adds "WikiLove" For Newbie Editors 225

mikejuk writes "Wikipedia has a cunning plan to make wikipedians nicer to each other — its all about WikiLove. They can click on the Love button to make each other feel good about contributing anything from an article to an edit. The idea is that this will encourage newbie editors to stay and contribute rather than slink away into the rest of the web because their contributions get deleted and derided. Perhaps all we need for world peace is a big enough love button."

Comment Expert? (Score 1) 371

From the article: "One expert, who is part of the investigation and wants to remain anonymous because the inquiry is at an early stage, told The New York Times he wondered how the hackers could have known to breach security by focusing on the vulnerability in the browser. He said: 'It would have been hard to prepare for this type of vulnerability.'" Someone who says this is not an expert.
Power

Italy Votes To Abandon Nuclear Power 848

ElementOfDestruction writes "Italy has joined Germany in halting the production of energy from atomic power generation. This differs from Germany in that the Italian decision was made by a public vote, rather than a government mandated shutdown. 57% of Italian Households voted in this public measure. While democracy should trump all, is it wise to hold majority opinion so high that it slows down progress?"
Government

N.C. Official Sics License Police On Computer Scientist For Too Good a Complaint 705

snsh writes "When a computer scientist in North Carolina petitioned the state for a new traffic signal in his neighborhood, a transportation official replied with a complaint about what 'appears to be engineering-level work' done by someone who is not licensed as a professional engineer." Kevin Lacy, chief traffic engineer for the state DOT, and the one who filed a complaint with the N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, protested that in trying to have Computer Scientist David Cox investigated for his detailed complaint about a traffic intersection while not licensed as a professional engineer, "I'm not trying to hush him up."

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