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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What was your favorite web comic of 2012? 3

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: Its that time of the year again! You guessed it! Its time to do another year-end best-of roundup! Today's topic is web comics. What was your favorite web comic of 2012? Feel free to use the following categories or make up your own.

1) Best overall web comic series of 2012. (Any web comic that produced content in 2012)

2) Funniest web comic of 2012. (This one represents the single funniest comic of any web comic series.)

3) Best art in a web comic of 2012. (Web comic from 2012 with the most amazing art ever)

4) Web comic that was most relevant to you in 2012. (This one is even more subjective than the others)

I will post my choices along with why in the comments. I can't wait to see y'all's!
Power

Switchgrass Makes Better Ethanol Than Corn 560

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the seemingly-easy-choice dept.
statemachine writes to mention that the USDA and farmers took part in a 5-year study of switchgrass, a grass native to North America. The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent. "But even a native prairie grass needs a helping hand from scientists and farmers to deliver the yields necessary to help ethanol become a viable alternative to petroleum-derived gasoline, Vogel argues. 'To really maximize their yield potential, you need to provide nitrogen fertilization,' he says, as well as improved breeding techniques and genetic strains. 'Low input systems are just not going to be able to get the energy per acre needed to provide feed, fuel and fiber.'"
Patents

Submission + - Portable Nuclear Reactor to Power Homes (sfreporter.com) 1

Submitted by
Xight
Xight writes: "Santa Fe Reporter article about a portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub, but is big enough to power 25,000 homes claims the company Hyperion Power Generation. Thing is they don't want to call it a reactor, but a really big battery since it is self-contained with no moving parts. If all goes according to plan, Hyperion could have a factory in New Mexico by late 2012, and begin producing 4,000 of these reactors."
Censorship

Submission + - creationists violate copyright (blogspot.com)

Submitted by The_Rook
The_Rook writes: the discovery institute copied Harvard University's BioVisions video, "The Inner Life of the Cell", stripped out Harvard's copyright notice, credits, and narration, and inserted their own creationist friendly narration and renamed the video "The Cell as an automated city". pretty insidious, as suggesting that a cell is like a city is to suggest that it was designed rather than evolved. it should also be of interest because the discovery institute, really more of a lawyer mill than a scientific institution, engaged in a particularly egregious example of copyright infringement.

Comment Re:played online games much? (Score 1) 245

by Xight (#21189917) Attached to: Today's Gamers, Tomorrow's Leaders?
I have to agree with having the leadership abilities from before the game. Sometimes you get the position handed to you, and you have to step up. Its a lot more common for people having to fill in, and step up to guild master situations in Wow, than it is to have to step up and handle things for the president of a company. Its good life experience to have to step up to take over something, and well it might make you more comfortable in real life if the opportunity arose.

If in doubt you can always use WoW as a job reference too like the guy who got hired for Yahoo's Senior Management in engineering. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html/
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Bill Gates Denied Visa to Nigeria (gizmodo.com) 1

Submitted by
Xight
Xight writes: "Gizmodo recently wrote an article about Nigeria recently denying Bill Gates a visa to travel there on his recent trip to Africa proving that money can't get you everything. Whats even more amusing is that he was at "initially denied the Microsoft kingpin's application on the premise that they required proof he would not reside in Nigeria indefinitely, causing a strain on social services and a general nuisance for immigration.". I guess those Nigerian 419 scams really do pay off for them."

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