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Comment Building a plug and play solar power station (Score 1) 1

by burgessms (#32842558) Attached to: Building a plug and play solar generator

power station, not generator (which implys mechanical conversion to electrical power)

  Grid-tie systems convert the DC from the PV array, into AC, to feed into the grid. This can replenish some of the power your house is using, and if large enough, actually spin your meter backwards, selling power to the electric company. You can get a "micro-inverter" that can convert up to 200W, into AC, with the UL1741 approval.
Many people have gone "guerrilla" with a small 100-1,000 w system, rather than face the bureaucratic morass to go legal for such a small system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Guerrilla Grid-Tie is about 95% efficient, vs battery standalone, which is only about 50%.
Games

Submission + - Blizzard to require RealID for Battle.net forums. (battle.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently, Blizzard Entertainment implemented a feature to some of its current as well as all of its future Battle.net-based games: RealID. Today, Blizzard announced that it intends to require usage of the real names of Battle.net posters for its StarCraft II forums before release, and for its World of Warcraft forums shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

"The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged."

Submission + - Young developers to Microsoft: You're not hip (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's failures with the KIN phone (only two months on the market, less than 10,000 phones sold) are well-known to slashdot readers, but the New York Times has more. Apparently Microsoft has all but admitted that they have lost young developers to the lures of free software. “We did not get access to kids as they were going through college,” acknowledged Bob Muglia, the president of Microsoft’s business software group, in an interview last year. “And then, when people, particularly younger people, wanted to build a start-up, and they were generally under-capitalized, the idea of buying Microsoft software was a really problematic idea for them.” Others, however, laugh at the idea that Microsoft requires the start-ups to meet certain guidelines and jump through hoops to receive software, when its free software competitors simply allow anyone to download products off a Web site with the click of a button. Is this another sign of the old dinosaur not being nimble enough to keep up with free software?

Comment economy options (Score 1) 762

by burgessms (#29797899) Attached to: Car Glass Rules Could Impair Cell, GPS and Radio Signals In CA

So - I'll just have to leave the windows down when I'm chatting on the phone, stopped in traffic, trying to find a GPS route around, with my cool air conditioning on. Unless they interlock the AC relay to only engage between 30-45mph, and ambient air is 65F or cooler.
  I don't suppose I could instead get the ECM shielded against EMP could I ? Or maybe a engine that runs on hot air from CARB ?
Education

Submission + - Historic Feynman Physics Lectures Available Online (microsoft.com)

Submitted by burgessms
burgessms writes: An acclaimed lecture series by the iconic physicist Richard Feynman is now freely available to the general public for the first time on a new Web site launched by Microsoft Research, in collaboration with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. The lectures, which Feynman originally delivered at Cornell University in 1964, have been hugely influential for many people, including Gates.

Gates privately purchased the rights to the seven lectures in the series, called "The Character of Physical Law," to make them widely available to the public for free with the hope that they will help get kids excited about physics and science.
The historic lectures and related content can be seen at http://research.microsoft.com/tuva. The name "Tuva" was chosen because of Feynman's lifelong fascination with the small Russian republic of Tuva, located in the heart of Asia.
Security

Hackers Broke Into FAA Air Traffic Control Systems 124

Posted by CmdrTaco from the those-pesky-nigerian-royals dept.
PL/SQL Guy writes "Hackers have repeatedly broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week, and the FAA's increasing use of commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies as part of an effort to modernize the air traffic control systems poses a higher security risk to the systems than when they relied primarily on proprietary software, the report said. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at only 11 of hundreds of air traffic control facilities. In 2008, more than 870 cyber incident alerts were issued to the organization responsible for air traffic control operations and by the end of the year 17 percent (more than 150 incidents) had not been remediated, 'including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control' of operations computers, the report said."
NASA

NASA Running Low On Fuel For Space Exploration 282

Posted by timothy from the let's-explore-earth-for-more dept.
smooth wombat writes "With the end of the Cold War came warmer relations with old adversaries, increased trade and a world less worried about nuclear war. It also brought with it an unexpected downside: lack of nuclear fuel to power deep space probes. Without this fuel, probes beyond Jupiter won't work because there isn't enough sunlight to use solar panels, which probes closer to the sun use. The fuel NASA relies on to power deep space probes is plutonium-238. This isotope is the result of nuclear weaponry, and since the United States has not made a nuclear device in 20 years, the supply has run out. For now, NASA is using Soviet supplies, but they too are almost exhausted. It is estimated it will cost at least $150 million to resume making the 11 pounds per year that is needed for space probes."
The Courts

Pirate Bay Trial Ends In Jail Sentences 1870

Posted by timothy from the even-non-commercial-use dept.
myvirtualid writes "The Globe and Mail reports that the Pirate Bay defendants were each sentenced Friday to one year in jail. According to the article, 'Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the court took into account that the site was "commercially driven" when it made the ruling. The defendants have denied any commercial motives behind the site.' The defendants said before the verdict that they would appeal if they were found guilty. 'Stay calm — Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media,' Mr. Sunde said Friday in a posting on social networking site Twitter." Update: 04/17 12:16 GMT by T : Several updates, below.

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