fiepel - Slashdot User

Morphing Metals 121

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 16, 2010 @05:38AM from the forge-ahead dept.

aarondubrow writes "Imagine a metal that 'remembers' its original, cold-forged shape, and can return to that shape when exposed to heat or a magnetic pulse. Like magic out of a Harry Potter novel, such a metal could contract on command, or swing back and forth like a pendulum. Believe it or not, such metals already exist. First discovered in 1931, they belong to a class of materials called 'shape memory alloys (SMA),' whose unique atomic make-up allows them to return to their initial form, or alternate between forms through a phase change."

Taylor Momsen Did Not Write This Slashdot Headline 192

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @12:15PM from the seo-can-rot-in-hell dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "David Carr writes that headlines in newspapers and magazines were once written with readers in mind, to be clever or catchy or evocative, but now headlines are just there to get the search engines to notice. Hence the headline for this story that includes a prized key word for one of the 'Gossip Girls' — just the thing to push this Slashdot summary to the top of Google rankings. 'All of the things that make headlines meaningful in print — photographs, placement, and context — are nowhere in sight on the Web,' writes Carr. Headlines have become, as Gabriel Snyder, the recently appointed executive editor of Newsweek.com, says, 'naked little creatures that have to go out into the world to stand and fight on their own.' In this context, 'Jon Stewart Slams Glenn Beck' is the ideal headline, guaranteed to pull in thousands of pageviews. And while nobody is suggesting that the Web should somehow accommodate the glories of The New York Post's headlines in that paper's prime, some of its classics would still work. 'Remember "Headless Body in Topless Bar," perhaps the most memorable New York Post headline ever? It's direct, it's descriptive, and it's oh-so-search-engine-friendly. And not a Taylor Momsen in sight.'"

OpenTTD 1.0.0 Released 107

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 06, 2010 @02:51AM from the and-so-soon dept.

Gmer writes "Eming.com reports that OpenTTD, the open source clone of the Microprose game Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has reached a milestone. OpenTTD 1.0.0 has been released 6 years after work started on the first version, with the help of hundreds of contributors and thousands of testers/players. Over 30 language translations are considered complete, and OpenTTD is available for *BSD, Linux, Solaris and Windows. OpenTTD is a business simulation game in which the player is in control of a transport company and can compete against rival companies to make as much profit as possible by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea or air."

Comment Re:missing something? (Score 2, Informative) 268

by fiepel on Monday January 05, 2004 @05:08PM (#7884368) Attached to: Swedish Flight Simulator Adds G Forces

Depending on what the orientation is of the pilot with respect to the gravitational force AND what the visual system in the cockpit is showing him he can basically feel any linear acceleration in any direction. The problem is that the cockpit has to be gimbaled and the rotation must be slow enough so that the pilot does not notich it as a "false cue" (= something he should not feel). Another problem is that you can only vary the centryfugal force so fast, hence the large motors to accelerate and slwo down the centrifuge.

An interesting solution is in one of the other posts (see this post of DESDEMONA).

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