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Comment We should have batteries at every substation. (Score 4, Interesting) 347

The resiliency of the power grid would be vastly improved if we put a battery pack (the size of a normal intermodal container) at each substation. These could act like your home UPS, fixing blackouts of a few minutes, when they occur. This also would make the grid much more able to use wind and solar sources, without so much need for standby diesel systems currently in place.

Comment You left out a few important factors. (Score 1) 630

ICE: 30% * 92.5% = 27.8% efficient

EV: 50% * 98% * 80% * (100%) * 92.5% = 36.3% efficient.

The problem with the 27.8% ICE system efficiency vs 36.3% EV system efficiency is that you forgot a couple of important factors. 1) ICE vehicles in cities waste 15% to 20% of their fuel idling at stop signs. EVs don't waste energy while stopped. 2) EVs recover a large percentage of their braking energy via regenerative braking. ICE vehicles waste it by heating their brake systems. When these factors are taken into account, the system efficiency of EVs is much more favorable than your post suggests.

Submission + - Fedora 24 Beta is here -- Linux fans, download it now (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The workstation version — the one most home users will target — offers GNOME 3.20 preview as a desktop environment. While other environments will be available too, I urge folks to try GNOME first. It has improved leaps and bounds over the years, becoming my choice for best UI of any operating system.

Wayland is available as preview, but not default. The display server protocol is still poised to replace X, but it will not yet be ready for Fedora 24. The team explains that it should be ready for "future versions". Whether that means version 25 will get Wayland as default remains to be seen.

Submission + - Drone Search and Rescue Operation Wins Fight Against FAA (arstechnica.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Back in February, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration told a Texas search-and-rescue team that they couldn't use drones help locate missions persons. The team, which is called EquuSearch, challenged the FAA in court. On Friday, the court ruled (PDF) in favor of EquuSearch, saying the FAA's directive was "not a formal cease-and-desist letter representing the agency’s final conclusion." EquuSearch intends to resume using the drones immediately. This puts the FAA in the position of having to either initiate formal proceedings against EquuSearch, which is clearly operating to the benefit of society (as opposed to commercial drone use), or to revisit and finalize its rules for small aircraft entirely. The latter would be a lengthy process because "Congress has delegated rule making powers to its agencies, but the Administrative Procedures Act requires the agencies to provide a public notice and comment period first."

Submission + - NASA: Lunar Pits and Caves Could House Astronauts (nasa.gov)

An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers have documented hundreds of holes on the lunar surface. These aren't simply craters, but actual pits ranging from 5 to 900 meters across. Scientists suspects many of these will lead to underground cave systems, which NASA says would be great spots for an astronaut habitat once we get back to the Moon. "A habitat placed in a pit — ideally several dozen meters back under an overhang — would provide a very safe location for astronauts: no radiation, no micrometeorites, possibly very little dust, and no wild day-night temperature swings," said Robert Wagner of Arizona State University. He says it's time to send probes into a few of these pits to see what they're like: "Pits, by their nature, cannot be explored very well from orbit — the lower walls and any floor-level caves simply cannot be seen from a good angle. Even a few pictures from ground-level would answer a lot of the outstanding questions about the nature of the voids that the pits collapsed into. We're currently in the very early design phases of a mission concept to do exactly this, exploring one of the largest mare pits."

Submission + - Digital Currency Bases Value In Reputation (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: If digital currencies are fundamentally different than physical ones, why do they work in the same way? That's a question being asked by Couchbase co-founder J. Chris Anderson, who's building a currency and transaction system where reputation is the fundamental unit of value. "Unlike with bitcoin—which keeps its currency scarce by rewarding it only to those who participate in what amounts to a race to solve complex cryptographic puzzles—anyone will be able to create a new Document Coin anytime they want. The value of each coin will be completely subjective, depending on who creates the coin and why. 'For example, the coin my disco singer friend created and gave me at my barbeque might be what gets me past the rope at the club,' Anderson says. A coin minted by tech pundit Tim O’Reilly might be highly prized in Silicon Valley circles, but of little interest to musicians. 'It’s a bit like a combination of a social network with baseball trading.'" Anderson isn't aiming to supplant Bitcoin, or even challenge the money-exchange model that drives society. But he's hoping it will change the way people think about currency, and open up new possibilities for how we interact with each other.

Comment Re:Forget it - other methods of tracking. (Score 1) 622

Even if we never send or receive an email, never access the web, and never make or receive a call, most of us can still be pretty accurately tracked. If you carry a mobile phone with the battery charged, you can be tracked by GPS, or by triangulation from nearby cell towers (even if your phone is "off"). If your car has OnStar or a similar service, it can be tracked as well. The government could use this to build a very accurate picture of where you go and who you associate with (e.g. what church, if any, do you attend? where do you work? where do you live? do you obey speed limits? etc.). This can lead to inferences such as ability to predict what political party you're likely to support, or whether you're likely to own a gun. Even if you trust the current administration to only use this data for anti-terrorism purposes, the very existence of the database of "who associates with who" will inevitably lead to abuse by a few bad apples (e.g. local law enforcement) in the government.
Education

Ocean-Crossing Dragonflies Discovered 95

grrlscientist writes "While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the Globe Skimmer, Pantala flavescens, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world."
The Internet

Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet 309

sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
Education

Cyberbullying Laws Raise Free Speech Questions 218

Chad_DeVoss writes "States across the country are working on laws to rein in cyberbullying, claiming that electronic harassment has led even to the suicides of some children. But what about the First Amendment? Surely schools can't control what kids say to one another? It's an easy argument to make, but the reality is more complicated. From the article: 'The issue is further complicated by questions about whether cyberbullying takes place on school property or not. School officials do not generally have control over what students do outside of school, but, as the First Amendment Center reports, even this issue is complicated. Students who threaten or harass other students using school equipment or during school time can most likely be sanctioned, but even students who do such things from home face the possibility of school discipline under the 'substantial disruption of the educational environment' ruling from the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case from 1969.'"

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