foolsama - Slashdot User

Solar Impulse Airplane To Launch First Sun-Powered Flight Across America 89

Posted by samzenpus on Friday March 29, 2013 @08:08AM from the guided-by-the-light dept.

First time accepted submitter markboyer writes "The Solar Impulse just landed at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California to announce a journey that will take it from San Francisco to New York without using a single drop of fuel. The 'Across America' tour will kick off this May when founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg take off from San Francisco. From there the plane will visit four cities across the states before landing in New York."

Laser Fusion's Brightest Hope 115

Posted by samzenpus on Friday March 29, 2013 @05:36AM from the coming-together dept.

First time accepted submitter szotz writes "The National Ignition Facility has one foot in national defense and another in the future of commercial energy generation. That makes understanding the basic justification for the facility, which boasts the world's most powerful laser system, more than a little tricky. This article in IEEE Spectrum looks at NIF's recent missed deadline, what scientists think it will take for the facility to live up to its middle name, and all of the controversy and uncertainty that comes from a project that aspires to jumpstart commercial fusion energy but that also does a lot of classified work. NIF's national defense work is often glossed over in the press. This article pulls in some more detail and, in some cases, some very serious criticism. Physicist Richard Garwin, one of the designers of the hydrogen bomb, doesn't mince words. When it comes to nuclear weapons, he says in the article, '[NIF] has no relevance at all to primaries. It doesn't do a good job of mimicking secondaries...it validates the codes in regions that are not relevant to nuclear weapons.'"

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 28, 2013 @09:01PM from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.

skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."

Comment Re:So "freedom" needs more laws. (Score 1) 81

by foolsama on Sunday July 31, 2011 @11:45AM (#36939364) Attached to: What's Needed For Freedom In the Cloud?

You can't guarantee Freedom by taking it away. It's just completely contradictory. 'Free' does not mean 'safe'. It means 'free'. The very act of making laws to to force a choice on to someone takes freedom away. If people don't value safety or security online, then they won't pay for it, therefore businesses won't provide it. You may have a different value judgement, but it's not your place to decide that it is the correct value judgement, and force at gunpoint on someone else. And if you want to punch him in the face because you can't make a valid counter-argument, well that's your problem. Being a dick in a free society is not likely to be rewarded positively.

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