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Comment Bulk Herbicides: Now Unnecessary (Score 5, Interesting) 435

Computer vision is more than adequate to have robots roll around a field, identify weeds, and use either thermal disruption, plucking, or extremely localized weedkiller injection (mLs) right at the base of the weed. All of these approaches are working at the research scale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxNBwegfo8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMF7EuCAVbI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtgMNj6xCkk and for harvesting: http://www.optoiq.com/index/display/article-display/303062/articles/vision-systems-design/volume-12/issue-8/features/profile-in-industry-solutions/vision-system-simplifies-robotic-fruit-picking.html but with below-minimum-wage foreign labor and generic Roundup too cheap to bother, it will take legislative action to make the switch. Write your congressman.

Comment New, Problematic Protocol Introduced (Score -1, Troll) 127

Available here. What's missing from this PROTOCOL.agent document?
  • Any sign it's been reviewed by competent cryptographers.
  • Any discussion of weaknesses, implementation errors to avoid, etc.
  • Any plausible arguments that the extra lines of code needed for X.509 really outweigh the benefits of 22 years of review and practice.

Use at your own risk.

Comment Re:Or (Score 5, Interesting) 123

Their [ideogrammatic] way of writing is not worse or better, it is simply different and based on other principles.

This is unambiguously false when measured by utility. Ideogrammatic scripts take longer to learn, are slower to read and write, and mostly convey no information on pronunciation. There are numerous studies (child development, comprehension timing, etc) if you're curious about this topic. Why they persist is an interesting historical question, but there were several strong movements to eliminate them for both Chinese and Japanese in the 1860-1960 period.

Comment Not actually safe (Score 3, Interesting) 831

From a brief review of the language and implementation, this doesn't appear to use what we've learned about correctness over the last thirty years. Buffer overflows are just one bug class among dozens, and if you're going to create a language from scratch, why let integers overflow without making people explicitly request that behavior? Why ignore what we've learned about verification and formal languages? Microsoft has actually been far more responsible about this recently, thanks to the Java people they hired (Rustan etc); see Spec# for details.
Space

Spaceplane Concept Receives Euro Funding 193

draevil writes "BBC News reports that the novel "Skylon" spaceplane design of British firm Reaction Engines has received funding to proceed with its proof-of-concept design for an air-breathing rocket engine. If successful, the Sabre rocket engine will be able to take the Skylon with 12 tonnes of cargo from a runway, to orbit and then back to that runway without the need for disposable components or a piggy-back ride on a larger aircraft. Should the design prove viable, it could see first use within ten years."
Supercomputing

How To Build a Homebrew PS3 Cluster Supercomputer 211

eldavojohn writes "UMass Dartmouth Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna and UMass Dartmouth Principal Investigator Chris Poulin have created a step-by-step guide designed to show you how to build your own supercomputer for about $4,000. They are also hoping that by publishing this guide they will bring about a new kind of software development targeting this architecture & grid (I know a few failed NLP projects of my own that could use some new hardware). If this catches on for research institutions it may increase Sony's sales, but they might not be seeing the corresponding sale of games spike (where they make the most profit)."

Comment Don't get too excited. (Score 5, Interesting) 564

At my mid-level university, one quarter of all students who made it past the second year in my rigorous program had perfect scores on both sections. The test really isn't that difficult these days, and even a moderate amount of targeted prep combined with a targeted curriculum puts you in a strong position; put her in a Putnam and we'll see what she's made of. MIT is the sort of unpleasant experience that should be reserved for those who genuinely want it.
Science

CO2 To Fuel, Closing the "Carbon Loop" 316

leprasmurf writes "Inhabitat has posted an article detailing a recent announcement of a process to turn CO2 into fuel. The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient, uses a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.'"

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