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Comment AP1000 (Score 2) 560

Loss of power is a solved problem. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor is a current design that is passively cooled, no external power necessary. I'm not sure about the spent fuel pools, but the reactor itself is entirely passively cooled and there are several of them already in existence.

A "traveling wave reactor" sounds like a neat idea, but the summary makes it sound like nobody's ever thought about a loss of external power event. We have to remember that the Fukushima plants were built in the 70's, they are old designs. Newer designs take that into account. The only point I'm trying to make here is that current generation designs have already taken loss of external power into account.

Comment Re:..are as superfluous as ever. (Score 1) 270

The Sunday school class I'm in uses Facebook to organize events. It works really well for that purpose. When I was in undergrad Twitter was great for announcing impromptu Wal-Mart runs. It could get forwarded to people's phones if they had texting and wasn't as invasive or time consuming as calling everyone up or sending a mass email.

Social networks can be a good thing. Unfortunately people abuse them and invite you to participate in every retarded game or survey they find.

Comment Re:Lets be fair then, (Score 1) 593

if you're a creationist, then refuse any treatment based on modern biology at all;

I am tired of slashdotter's characterizing creationists as hysterical troglodytes who are afraid of science and technology. I am a creationist. I also have a bachelor's degree in computer science and a job where I am doing research in the field of AI and knowledge based systems. Some day I would like to pursue a PhD to expand my knowledge and contribute to the sum of humanities knowledge. I view my research as an intellectual act of worship. After all Mark 12:30 states "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (NIV, emphasis added) God doesn't want willfully ignorant followers. There are many creationists who think like me.

Yes there are a few of us that are noisy and give the rest a bad name, this is true of any group. However, by making blanket statements you show that you are really just as biased and prejudiced as the caricatures that you condemn.

Comment Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score 1) 412

I once crashed my high school's network by plugging a CAT5 cable into two ports on the same hub. Taught the school not to build the network entirely out of hubs. Also gained access to the command prompt by creating a hyperlink to cmd.exe in a Word97 document. Confused the heck out of the computer lab teacher when I remotely shut down every computer in the lab.

Its the simple things in life.

Comment Re:Valve... (Score 1) 313

If steam ran on linux I'd lose my main justification for running windows. I do like Windows 7, but if I hadn't been able to pick it up at a highly discounted student price it wouldn't have been worth the money. Come to think of it, I've never paid full price for any version of windows.
Security

Paypal Advises Users To Stop Using Safari 362

eldavojohn writes "Over concerns for lack of an anti-phishing mechanism for Safari, Paypal is telling its Mac users to use another browser. An author from Ars Technica reveals that he has been using Camino and has fallen victim to a Paypal related phishing scam via e-mail so this story must hit home for him. 'Currently the Apple browser does not alert users to sites that could be phishing for your info, and it lacks support for Extended Validation. PayPal is, of course, a popular site among phishers in their neverending search for personal information, user IDs, and passwords. While it's not entirely fair singling out Safari (other Mac browsers like Camino also lack this support), it is perhaps at least a helpful reminder of the threat.'"

Cyber-Goggles Record and Identify Every Object You See 108

RemyBR writes "Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a smart video goggle system that records everything the wearer looks at, recognizes and assigns names to objects that appear in the video. Advanced programs then go back and create an easily searchable database of the recorded footage. Designed to function as a high-tech memory aid, these 'Cyber Goggles' promise to make the act of losing your keys a thing of the past, according to head researcher professor Tatsuya Harada. 'In a demonstration at the University of Tokyo last week, 60 everyday items -- including a potted begonia, CD, hammer and cellphone -- were programmed into the Cyber Goggle memory. As the demonstrator walked around the room viewing and recording the various objects, the names of the items appeared on the goggle screen. The demonstrator was then able to do a search for the various items and retrieve the corresponding video.'" Add in facial recognition technology and this would make for a great aid at conferences and family reunions.
Power

MIT's Nano Storage Could Replace Hybrid Batteries 191

mattnyc99 writes "Last week we discussed Popular Mechanics' reporting from MIT, but missed one of the coolest breakthrough of all, something scientists have been working on quietly as Detroit spends money elsewhere. The Lab for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems has been doing some mega-efficient work with ultracapacitors, which store drastically less energy than a battery but have essentially none of the drawbacks — especially via carbon nanotube arrays. Automotive experts say the new research is enough to start replacing batteries in hybrid cars, and plug-in vehicles might not be far behind. From the scientist who thinks ultracapacitors are potential competitors for the pack in his Toyota Prius: 'I try to contain myself, because it hasn't been proven yet, but it could be a real paradigm change.'"
Privacy

70% of P2P Users Would Stop if Warned by ISP 318

Umpire writes "As the UK considers a three strikes policy to fight copyright infringement, a new survey reports that 70% of UK broadband users would stop using P2P if they received a warning from their ISP. 'Wiggin commissioned the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, which found that 70 percent of all people polled said they would stop illegally sharing files if their ISP notified them in some way that it had detected the practice. When broken down by age group, an unexpected trend emerges: teenagers are generally more likely to change their behavior than older Internet users.'"
Medicine

A Virus that Attacks Brain Cancer 131

Ponca City, We Love You writes "In the past few years, scientists have looked to viruses as potential allies in fighting cancer. Now researchers at Yale University have found a virus in the same family as rabies that effectively kills an aggressive form of human brain cancer in mice. Using time-lapse laser imaging, the team watched vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) rapidly home in on brain tumors, selectively killing cancerous cells in its path, while leaving healthy tissue intact. 'A metastasizing tumor is fairly mobile, and a surgeon's knife can't get out all of the cells,' says Anthony Van den Pol, lead researcher and professor of neurosurgery and neurobiology at Yale. 'A virus might be able to do that, because as a virus kills a tumor cell, it could also replicate, and you could end up with a therapy that's self-amplifying.' It's not yet clear why VSV is such an effective tumor killer, although Van den Pol has several theories. One possible explanation may involve a tumor's weak vascular system. Vessels that supply blood to tumors tend to be leaky, allowing a virus traveling through the bloodstream to cross an otherwise impermeable barrier into the brain, directly into a tumor."
The Internet

Higher-Resolution YouTube Videos Currently In Testing 214

jason writes "YouTube has never really been known for streaming videos at a high resolution, but it appears that they are taking early steps at providing higher quality videos. The project was announced last year by the site's co-founder Steve Chen, and now appears to be in the earliest stages of deployment. By adding a parameter onto the end of a video's URL you're able to watch it in a higher quality (in terms of audio and video) that is actually quite noticeable. Not all videos have been converted at this point, but they do have millions upon millions of videos that they need to do."
Sci-Fi

The Law and Politics of Battlestar Galactica 321

privacyprof writes "Fans of the show Battlestar Galactica might be interested in our interview with writers and producers Ron Moore and David Eick. Three law professors at the blog Concurring Opinions have an hour-long interview with Moore and Eick about the legal, political, moral, and economic issues raised by the show. The interview is available in audio files; alternatively, people can read a transcript of the interview (Part I) and (Parts II and III). Part I examines the lawyers and trials in the show, how torture is depicted, as well as how the humans must balance civil liberties and security. Part II examines politics and commerce. It explores how the cylon attack affected the humans' political system, and it examines how commerce works in the fleet. Part III examines issues related to cylons, such as the humans' treatment of cylons, how robots should be treated by the law, how the cylons govern themselves politically."

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