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Comment Re:fluctuating weight of KG? (Score 1) 299

While platinum and iridium (or irridium if we want to go with your spelling) are more corrosion-resistant than iron, they are not corrosion-proof. "Not a big factor" is fine for short periods of time. The hundreds of years this thing is expected to exist and the extreme precision that it is supposed to remain accurate to are enough to make "not a big factor" a "big enough factor" to worry about. If not, it would have been made out of whatever it is your brain is made out of. That appears to lose mass quite quickly.

Comment Re:HTTPS means something specific (Score 1) 252

So far it seems that most of the responders here have missed half of the purpose of HTTPS. Sure, using HTTPS vs. HTTP means that the traffic is being encrypted between your web browser and the server, but that is only half of the reason to use HTTPS. The other half is that there is a certificate on the server you are going to that verifies the authenticity of the site. That certificate is signed by a trust chain, the root of which, is installed into your browser as a trusted authority. Websites use HTTPS to prove to you that you are communicating with the correct site, not just to make the traffic invisible to prying eyes. The need for verification of who the server is sending its email to is usually totally unnecessary since the company sending the email relied upon the customer to supply the correct one.

Science

Bad Math Causes Explosion at CERN Collider 270

javipas writes "The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN has suffered a big explosion deep inside that has caused a leak of hellium gas and the quick evacuation of everyone working there. The reason: a mathematical mistake that affected the design of the giant superconductive magnets made by Fermilab. Now the company will have to repair and upgrade the 24 magnets that are installed on the 27 km. circunference of one of the most important research centers on Earth." This story might seem strangely familiar to you.
Robotics

Submission + - Combined hovercraft and helicopter

An anonymous reader writes: Have British engineer Geoff Hatton brought us the best of two worlds with his UFO-looking machine? The US military thinks so and are investing in it.

The design is sturdy (as opposed to a helicopter) and can fly high (as opposed to a hovercraft). It is based on the "Coanda Effect" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coanda_Effect ).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/tec hnology/technology.html?in_article_id=447317
Censorship

Submission + - Victims fight back against DMCA abuse

Cadence writes: "The DMCA is being used a lot recently to demand takedowns of all sorts of content on the Internet. But how many of those DMCA-fueled demands are abusive? Lately, some victims of takedown demands have begun to fight back with the help of the EFF, including some against Viacom:

Finally, a Viacom executive admitted last month that less than 60 of his company's 100,000 takedown requests to YouTube were invalid. John Palfrey of Harvard's Berkman Center wonders what rights those 60 people have? We may find out. The EFF called for people who had videos pulled inappropriately to contact the group, though the EFF tells The National Law Journal that it cannot comment on its future legal plans.
...
One of the reasons companies misuse the DMCA and cease-and-desist copyright letters is that the tools can quickly accomplish what they want to have happen; stuff they don't like goes bye-bye in a hurry. When the alternative is moving slowly through the court system, letters look like an excellent alternative.
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