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Comment Spammers cannot afford $0.10 per 1000 emails (Score 5, Interesting) 71

The response rate for spam is very low (1 in 12.5 million according to http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/spammers-get-1-response-to-12-500-000-emails-483381?src=rss&attr=all), so a spammer would have to pay 12.5M / 1K * $0.10 = $1,250 to get a response by paying Amazon to send emails. Multiple responses will be required to make a sale. If they can't make $1,250 of profit per response, they can't make money by using Amazon to send their spam.

Comment To avoid smudge, make the keys move randomly (Score 2) 154

If the keys moved around randomly on the screen at the beginning of typing the password and after typing each character, the positions of smudges on the screen would not give any information about the password. (Yes, this does have an obviously funny reply. Not sure how to upstage it from here. Go ahead and say it, then.)

Comment Why attack Twitter? (Score 4, Informative) 410

Why attack twitter? http://www.twitter.com/wikileaks seems to be working fine, and the explanation at http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/06/why-wont-wikileaks-t.html#comment-958285 for why Wikileaks didn't appear in trending topics makes sense to me. Everyone seems to agree that #cablegate did trend. The issue of why Twitter should be attacked is not mentioned at all in the original article.
Earth

Planned Nuclear Reactors Will Destroy Atomic Waste 344

separsons writes "A group of French scientists are developing a nuclear reactor that burns up actinides — highly radioactive uranium isotopes. They estimate that 'the volume of high-level nuclear waste produced by all of France’s 58 reactors over the past 40 years could fit in one Olympic-size swimming pool.' And they're not the only ones trying to eliminate atomic waste: Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are working on a fusion-fission reactor. The reactor destroys waste by firing streams of neutrons at it, reducing atomic waste by up to 99 percent!"
Image

Food Activist's Life Becomes The Life of Brian 165

krou writes "After food activist and author Raj Patel appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, things seemed to be going well, until he began to get inundated with emails asking if he was 'the world teacher.' In events ripped straight from The Life of Brian, it would seem that Raj Patel's life story ticks all the boxes necessary to fulfill prophecies made by Benjamin Creme, founder of religious sect Share International. After the volume of emails and inquiries got worse, Patel eventually wrote a message on his website stating categorically that he was not the Messiah. Sure enough, 'his denial merely fanned the flames for some believers. In a twist ripped straight from the script of the comedy classic, they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.'"
Hardware

Startup's Submerged Servers Could Cut Cooling Costs 147

1sockchuck writes "Are data center operators ready to abandon hot and cold aisles and submerge their servers? An Austin startup says its liquid cooling enclosure can cool high-density server installations for a fraction of the cost of air cooling in traditional data centers. Submersion cooling using mineral oil isn't new, dating back to the use of Fluorinert in the Cray 2. The new startup, Green Revolution Cooling, says its first installation will be at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (also home to the Ranger supercomputer). The company launched at SC09 along with a competing liquid cooling play, the Iceotope cooling bags."
Image

Scientists Discover Booze That Won't Give You a Hangover 334

Kwang-il Kwon and Hye Gwang Jeong of Chungnam National University have discovered that drinking alcohol with oxygen bubbles added leads to fewer hangovers and a shorter sobering up time. People drinking the bubbly booze sobered up 20-30 minutes faster and had less severe and fewer hangovers than people who drank the non-fizzy stuff. Kwon said: "The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage reduces plasma alcohol concentrations faster than a normal dissolved-oxygen alcohol beverage does. This could provide both clinical and real-life significance. The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage would allow individuals to become sober faster, and reduce the side effects of acetaldehyde without a significant difference in alcohol's effects. Furthermore, the reduced time to a lower BAC may reduce alcohol-related accidents."
Bug

Passage of Time Solves PS3 Glitch 147

An anonymous reader writes "A quick update on the widespread PlayStation 3 glitch we discussed recently: as of last night (Monday, March 1st) the problem has resolved itself. I powered up my PS3 to find the clock was set to April 29th, 2020, but once I went into the system menu and set the date and time via the internet I got an accurate date. That seems to be the test of whether your PS3 is 'fixed' or not; Sony says you should be all set."

Comment Re:Bug in CERN's temperature stats for the magnet? (Score 1) 478

Well, that's generally true, except the temperature of your bread will go negative if the tachyon flux is too high. I agree that having a toaster that risks vacuum collapse (no Higgs bosons required!) is unwise.

In other words, I have no idea WTF you mean and I think you're spewing word salad. :-)

Comment Bug in CERN's temperature stats for the magnet? (Score 1) 478

As I write this, the charts about their magnet temperature are contradictory. The top one says the temperature of the warmest arc magnet is back down to 2 Kelvins, but the lower right one says the temperature of the warmest arc magnet is about 9.5 Kelvins. It almost makes sense if we assume that the numbers at the lower right are the maximum value observed over the last few weeks, but the maximum in the upper chart is around 8 Kelvins and the lower right chart says 9.5 Kelvins, so it's still not right.

The URL from The Register is: ht tp://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/cryo_main/cryo_main.php?region=Sector81

(I have no clue what an arc magnet is.)

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