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Comment Re:Here it comes. (Score 1) 292

by green99 (#39160243) Attached to: Cars Emit More Black Carbon Than Previously Thought

Fortunately, the methodology is terribly sloppy anyway, so there's nothing serious to discuss. The researchers directly measured 30 trucks. Then they measured the total cloud of particles downwind of the traffic. There was more carbon than they'd expect given the measured value for trucks and the estimated value for cars. Therefore the cars must be emitting much more on average. Oddly, they never directly measured any cars. The idea that the additional black carbon might be due to some other source besides the cars was apparently not considered.

Knowing one of the authors (I wrote the software that runs one of the instruments), I asked him for a comment on this comment (above). Here is his response:

Actually, the black carbon was measured upwind and downwind of the highway, along with many, many other parameters (including wind speed and direction). We were able to correct the results for back ground black carbon levels (other sources). The measurements were conducted very close to the highway, so nothing else other than traffic could have generated the increase over the background. The traffic flow along the highway was monitored (with licence plate identification to determine the number of cars vs. trucks). The part about chasing 30 trucks on the highway was just a corollary study, and was not essential to the conclusions.

Other papers have addressed the use of LII (Laser Induced Incandescence) on both gasoline and diesel cars and trucks (both on-road and on test stands).
Image

Russian Scholar Warns Of US Climate Change Weapon 415

Posted by samzenpus from the hurricane-cannon dept.
According to Russian political scientist, and conspiracy aficionado Andrei Areshev the high heat, and poor crop yields of Russia, and other Central Asian countries may be the result of a climate weapon created by the US military. From the article: "... Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the US Defense Department and the University of Alaska. HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection. Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction 'in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries.'"
Science

Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, Protein ... and Now Fat 210

Posted by timothy from the visit-the-chiba-clinic-for-an-upgrade dept.
ral writes "The human tongue can taste more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein. Researchers have added fat to that list. Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Slashfood, 'This makes logical sense. We have sweet to identify carbohydrate/sugars, and umami to identify protein/amino acids, so we could expect a taste to identify the other macronutrient: fat.' In the Deakin study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree."
Books

Puzzle In xkcd Book Finally Cracked 90

Posted by kdawson from the be-there-or-be-somewhere-else dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After a little over five months of pondering, xkcd fans have cracked a puzzle hidden inside Randall Munroe's recent book xkcd: volume 0. Here is the start of the thread on the xkcd forums; and here is the post revealing the final message (a latitude and longitude plus a date and time)."
Canada

Dead Pigs Used To Investigate Ocean's "Dead Zones" 106

Posted by samzenpus from the big-ocean-long-pig dept.
timothy writes "As places to study what happens to corpses, the Atlantic Ocean is both much larger and much more specialized than the famous 'body farm' in Knoxville, TN. But for all kinds of good reasons, sending human bodies into Davy Jones' locker just to see where they float and how they bloat is unpopular. Pigs don't pay taxes, and more importantly, they don't vote. So Canadian scientists have taken to using them as human-body proxies, to study what happens when creatures of similar size and hairlessness (aka, us) end up 86ed and in the drink."

Apple Orders 10 Million Tablets? 221

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the pricepoint-better-be-right dept.
Arvisp writes "According to a blog post by former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee, Apple plans to produce nearly 10 million tablets in the still-unannounced product's first year. If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year."
Image

NASA Tests Flying Airbag 118

Posted by samzenpus from the drop-the-cloud-anchor dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."
Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

Posted by kdawson from the hot-bits dept.
supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
Image

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Posted by samzenpus from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

Rumors Flying About New iPhone Capabilities 289

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the security-like-a-sieve dept.
Jumping on the completely unconfirmed rumor bandwagon, it seems that there have been photos leaked for the new iPhone, which include things like an auto-focus camera, video capture, and a compass. The photos were originally displayed (and then quickly removed) on a Chinese forum, and quickly spread to many other sites, including a complete human translation on the MacRumors forum. Looks like Apple security may have to break a few more pocket protectors to keep employees in line.
Communications

Third Undersea Cable Cut 655

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the someone-doesn't-like-connect-the-dots dept.
Many readers are reporting that another undersea fiber optic cable has been cut, apparently caused by another wayward anchor. It looks like Iran has completely lost Internet connectivity."
The Courts

RIAA's Watchdog Affidavits For Your Reading Pleasure 22

Posted by kdawson from the fact-based-witness dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "MediaSentry, in an attempt to stonewall discovery in UMG v. Lindor, has turned over nothing other than a collection, apparently a complete collection, of its publicly filed affidavits. However, these do make interesting reading indeed, and as comments started trickling in on my blog, I realized that for the technically minded among you there are probably a number of good laughs in these materials. So in keeping with the Slashdot community's analysis of the RIAA's not very expert, 'expert' witness, I thought you might like to take a shot at its not very factual, 'fact' witness."
Hardware Hacking

Femtosecond Lasers Used To Color Metals 166

Posted by kdawson 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."

Comment Re:Still $300 (Score 1) 723

by green99 (#13233015) Attached to: Xbox 360 for $300
DVD's are even more expensive, not accounting for replayability.

Two thoughts:


1) You must not have kids :) They can watch a DVD over and over until your eyes bleed.


2) Divide the DVD cost by the number of people that will watch it - If I buy a $15 2-hour DVD and watch it with my wife, that's $3.75/hour per person.

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