ee_smajors - Slashdot User

Comment Hysteria ??!!! (Score 1) 1

by ee_smajors on Sunday August 24, 2008 @04:30AM (#24724799) Attached to: LED's, energy savers or environmental disaster?

No problem: the high-powered Blue, Green, and white LEDs are actually made from Indium Gallium Nitride or just Gallium Nitride. The high-powered red and yellow ones are made from Indium Gallium Aluminum Phosphide.

But even so, the active LED crystal is tiny, very hard and very inert... certainly very much safer than the mercury and the rare earth phosphor dust that the public is exposed to when a florescent tube is broken. ("Mad as a hatter" = mercury poisoning)

The manufacturers of all semiconductors (ie, the guts of your computer, tv, radio, LEDs, cellphone, etc) use many process chemicals that are way more insidiously toxic than gas-chamber cyanide... but the workers have all the proper safety equipment and environment to assure that they never come in contact with these substances. The fab companies have every motive to keep the workers and the chemicals apart... it would take very much less contamination by weight of human cells or hair to poison a complete run of product, than it would of the crystalline form of GA to poison a human. Consider the multi-million dollar retail value of a single semi- trailer full of Intel's latest processor. Hell, a standard pallet full would be worth over a million

A 100 watt incandescent light bulb makes about 1700 lumens and lasts 1500 hours

A 40 watt florescent tube makes 2400 lumens and lasts 3000 hours.

20 of today's new LEDs consume 20 watts to make 2000 lumens and lasts 50000 hours

20 of 2011's new LEDs will consume

To put this in perspective: swapping LEDs for all the existing lighting in the USA would save us having to build 248terawatts of generating capacity. Not counting to mention the the additional fabrication energy savings due to the long life.

The solution to many of our global problems lie in responsible use of new technology... The LED solution would be better than what we have now, in many ways. We who can understand science and technology must help educate those who haven't a clue to stop or prevent the hysteria of the ignorant Greenies...

... Hey dude, lighten up a bit, us geekoids can really help make things better without shitting in our own house!.

Singapore Firm Claims Patent Breach By Virtually All Websites 481

Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @12:59PM from the oh-that-makes-sense dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Singapore firm, VueStar has threatened to sue websites that use pictures or graphics to link to another page, claiming it owns the patent for a technology used by millions around the world. The company is also planning to take on giants like Microsoft and Google. It is a battle that could, at least in theory, upend the Internet. The firm has been sending out invoices to Singapore companies since last week asking them to pay up."

McCain vs. Obama on Tech Issues 877

Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @12:13PM from the six-v-half-a-dozen dept.

eldavojohn writes "Ars is running a brief article that looks at stances from Chuck Fish of McCain's campaign and Daniel Weitzner from Obama's in regards to technical issues that may cause us geeks to vote one way or the other. From openness vs. bandwidth in the net neutrality issue to those pesky National Security Letters, there's some key differences that just might play at least a small part in your vote. You may also remember our discussions on who is best for geeks."

Comment I'm not helping the statistics (Score 5, Interesting) 692

by kullnd on Saturday May 24, 2008 @10:03PM (#23528400) Attached to: Ballmer Says Vista Selling Really Well

I order all of our new Business PC's with Vista licenses, however I then load them with my volume licensing copy of XP excercising the downgrade rights that come with the Vista Business edition... I figure I may as well get the newest license, does not mean that I'm going to use it, as much as M$ would like to think that I am.

Submission + - SPAM: Supernova birth seen for first time 1

Submitted by

FiReaNGeL

on Wednesday May 21, 2008 @02:10PM

FiReaNGeL writes: "Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but until now no one has witnessed a star dying in real time — until now. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA's orbiting Swift telescope, scientists detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event. "We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy, when the one now known as SN 2008D went off. We would have missed it if it weren't for Swift's real-time capabilities, wide field of view, and numerous instruments.""
Link to Original Source

Femtosecond Lasers Used To Color Metals 166

Posted by kdawson on Friday February 01, 2008 @12:43PM from the gold-ring-to-match-her-eyes dept.

Maximum Prophet writes "An optics professor and a postgrad have developed a way to use ultra-short pulses of laser light to etch nano features into the surface of metals so that they can absorb or reflect specific wavelengths of light. This is very similar to the way that butterflies get the color in their wings."

Journal SPAM: Judge Voids California Election Over E-Voting Flaws 177

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Wednesday October 03, 2007 @04:01PM

A judge in Alameda County, California, has voided some election results after the e-voting tallies from Diebold machines couldn't be audited. The vote was on a controversial ballot measure addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and the expected result was a close margin. Activists went to court to demand a recount, but elections officials had

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