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Comment How is this fusion? (Score 5, Interesting) 185

by altnuc (#59753124) Attached to: Radical Hydrogen-Boron Reactor Leapfrogs Current Nuclear Fusion Tech
How is this fusion? You are taking a large isotope (boron) and splitting it into alpha particles. This sounds more like radioactive decay, or fission, than fusion. In addition, the amount of energy released per reaction is fairly small (8.7 MeV per Wikipedia article) and you need to power the lasers, so how far from break even are they? (the article conveniently leaves this out)

Submission + - Car thieves use laptop and malware to steal more than 30 Jeeps (abc13.com)

Submitted by altnuc
altnuc writes: Two thieves in Houston steal more than 30 Jeeps by using a laptop and a stolen database. The thieves simply look up the vehicles VIN number in a stolen database, reprogram a generic key fob, start the car, and drive away.

Chrysler has confirmed that more than 100 of their vehicles have been stolen in the Houston area since November.

Chrysler/Jeep owners should always make sure their vehicles are locked!

Comment Moore wasn't the first, only the most famous. (Score 1) 214

by altnuc (#34759262) Attached to: 45 Years Later, Does Moore's Law Still Hold True?
Moore wasn't the first person to recognize this, only the most famous. See for example: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1PX1HUsIBhnOSOsxcM2HoJZHv-9rtnNPOu-CA--584-UA4GLXxhWz842JmRDy&hl=en which describes Selengut's results from 1959. Selengut predicted computer speeds would double in magnitude every 10 years.

Comment Consistent policy is most important (Score 1) 367

by altnuc (#24358375) Attached to: Are There Any Smart E-mail Retention Policies?
One of the problems with e-mail is that employees can have casual conversations about something that can later be taken out of context. For example, two engineers talk about a procedure that is really stupid and doesn't mean anything. Five years later, lawyers perform a "discovery" and find "evidence" that engineers didn't take procedures seriously. Now they can sue. The problem with saving some of your e-mail is that the lawyers can claim that you deleted incriminating e-mail and only saved e-mail that proved your side of the story. The answer to that is have a consistent policy where all e-mail is deleted after some time. 180 days seems awfully short, 1 year seems more appropriate, but I guess it depends on what kind of business you are in.
Software

Wintel, Universities Team On Parallel Programming 91

Posted by kdawson from the gator-rays dept.
kamlapati writes in with a followup from the news last month that Microsoft and Intel are funding a laboratory for research into parallel computing at UC Berkeley. The new development is the imminent delivery of the FPGA-based Berkeley Emulation Engine version 3 (BEE3) that will allow researchers to emulate systems with up to 1,000 cores in order to explore approaches to parallel programming. A Microsoft researcher called BEE3 "a Swiss Army knife of computer research tools."
Censorship

Physics Journal May Reconsider Wikipedia Ban 155

Posted by kdawson from the mine-mine-mine dept.
I don't believe in imaginary property writes "The flagship physics journal Physical Review Letters doesn't allow authors to submit material to Wikipedia, or blogs, that is derived from their published work. Recently, the journal withdrew their acceptance of two articles by Jonathan Oppenheim and co-authors because the authors had asked for a rights agreement compatible with Wikipedia and the Quantum Wikipedia. Currently, many scientists 'routinely do things which violate the transfer of copyright agreement of the journal.' Thirty-eight physicists have written to the journal requesting changes in their copyright policies, saying 'It is unreasonable and completely at odds with the practice in the field. Scientists want as broad an audience for their papers as possible.' The protest may be having an effect. The editor-in-chief of the APS journals says the society plans to review its copyright policy at a meeting in May. 'A group of excellent scientists has asked us to consider revising our copyright, and we take them seriously,' he says."

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