phxhawke - Slashdot User

New CO2 Harvester Could Help Scrub the Air 368

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @04:45PM from the plantlife-now-obsolete dept.

sciencehabit sends this excerpt from ScienceNOW: "Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of 'artificial trees' that lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in an effort to stave off catastrophic climate change."

Study Shows Programmers Get Better With Age 352

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 16, 2011 @04:09PM from the practice-makes-perfect dept.

mikejuk writes "It's a prejudice the young and old both share, but with opposite conclusions, of course. Young is best or old is best — most have an opinion. Now we have some interesting statistics ingeniously gathered and processed by Peter Knego, 'big data' style, that 'proves' older is better when it comes to programming, at least!"

Comment Re:Yeah, I mean... (Score 1) 266

by phxhawke on Monday May 02, 2011 @10:01PM (#36006826) Attached to: Google Sued For Tracking Users' Locations

It does tell you during the setup up. The first thing I did was turn on all the location stuff and I did so KNOWING that it would be sending that stuff. It isn't hidden but made rather blatant by Google.

Comment That's cool but... (Score 1) 218

by phxhawke on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @06:14PM (#35084736) Attached to: Texas Student Attends School As a Robot

...I just hope there isn't some idiot that decides to bust it up or do anything else stupid to it out of malice.

Comment Why has nobody mentioned the obvious? (Score 1) 187

by phxhawke on Wednesday May 12, 2010 @11:32AM (#32182896) Attached to: Jupiter Is Missing a Belt

It was actually Carmen San Diego who took the belt! She's getting her practice run to either steal the Great Red Spot or Saturn's Rings!

Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs 150

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 21, 2010 @11:56AM from the it-actually-dispatches-a-man-with-a-bat dept.

alphadogg writes "Users of the BitDefender antivirus software started flooding the company's support forums Saturday, apparently after a faulty antivirus update caused 64-bit Windows machines to stop working. The company acknowledged the issue in a note explaining the problem. 'Due to a recent update it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5,' the company said. The acknowledgment came after BitDefender users had logged hundreds of posts on the topic. Some complained of being unable to reboot their systems."

Comment Re:All of the above?! (Score 1) 1142

by phxhawke on Monday February 08, 2010 @05:24PM (#31065264) Attached to: If Everyone Had To Pass A Particular 101 Course, It Should Be About...

I also agree, all of the above should be passed, including the shuriken :)

How To Build a Quantum Propulsion Machine 392

Posted by kdawson on Friday December 11, 2009 @12:02PM from the magnetoelectric-quantum-wheel dept.

KentuckyFC writes "According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence. It turns out that these waves can have various measurable effects, such as the Casimir-Polder force, which was first measured accurately in 1997. Just how to exploit this force is still not clear. Now, however, a researcher at an Israeli government lab suggests how it could be possible to generate propulsion using the quantum vacuum. The basic idea is that pushing on the electromagnetic fields in the vacuum should generate an equal and opposite force. The suggestion is that this can be done using nanoparticles that interact with the vacuum's electric and magnetic fields, generating the well-known Lorentz force. In most cases, the sum of Lorentz forces adds up to zero. But today's breakthrough is the discovery of various ways to break this symmetry and so use the quantum vacuum to generate a force. The simplest of these is simply to rotate the particles. So the blueprint for a quantum propulsion machine described in the paper is an array of addressable nanoparticles that can be rotated in the required way. Although such a machine will need a source of energy, it generates propulsion without any change in mass. As the research puts it with magesterial understatement, this might have practical implications."

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

In-Game Advertising Makes Games Better? 352

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday October 09, 2009 @01:11PM from the i'm-sure-these-systems-will-never-be-abused dept.

Pretty much every time we hear about a game launching in-game advertising it sounds like a horrible idea that will only serve to detract from the experience. However JJ Richards of Massive wants you to give it a chance, claiming that if done correctly it can not only work, but actually enhance the overall experience. "In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads. Here's the caveat: they have to add to the gaming experience. He describes a game that takes place in Times Square. With no ads, it's not real at all. With generic ads, it's a little better. 'Now imagine Times Square with ads you just saw on television or read in a newspaper—the latest movie release or television show or a new car model,' he said. 'Imagine further that it is up-to-the-minute, whether you played your game today or six months from now. That is much more realistic.' His argument is that gamers consume the experience of ads, not just the ads themselves. 'The ads add to and enhance that experience, and our research shows that it is highly effective for both game play as well as advertisers.'"

Scientists Find Master Gene To Switch On Immune Cells 94

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 14, 2009 @02:46PM from the nature's-lightswitch dept.

Scientists claim to have identified a master gene which is able to transform blood stem cells into disease-fighting immune cells. The hope is that this discovery will allow for new treatments for cancer. "The researchers have 'knocked out' the gene in question, known as E4bp4, in a mouse model, creating the world's first animal model entirely lacking NK cells, but with all other blood cells and immune cells intact. This breakthrough model should help solve the mystery of the role that Natural Killer cells play in autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Some scientists think that these diseases are caused by malfunctioning NK cells that turn on the body and attack healthy cells, causing disease instead of fighting it. Clarifying NK cells' role could lead to new ways of treating these conditions."

Pi Calculated To Record 2.5 Trillion Digits 432

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @10:37PM from the almost-there dept.

Joshua writes "Researchers from Japan have calculated Pi to over 2.5 trillion decimals using the T2K Open Supercomputer (which is currently ranked 47th in the world according to a June, 2009 report from Top500.org). This new number more than doubles the previous record of about 1.2 trillion decimals set in 2002 by another Japanese research team. Unfortunately, there still seems to be no pattern."

Facebook VP Slams Intel's, AMD's Chip Performance Claims 370

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 25, 2009 @11:23PM from the more-than-half-of-you-less-than-half-as-well-as-you-deserve dept.

narramissic writes "In an interview on stage at GigaOm's Structure conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook's VP of technical operations, told Om Malik that the latest generations of server processors from Intel and AMD don't deliver the performance gains that 'they're touting in the press.' 'And we're, literally in real time right now, trying to figure out why that is,' Heiliger said. He also had some harsh words for server makers: 'You guys don't get it,' Heiliger said. 'To build servers for companies like Facebook, and Amazon, and other people who are operating fairly homogeneous applications, the servers have to be cheap, and they have to be super power-efficient.' Heiliger added that Google has done a great job designing and building its own servers for this kind of use."

Pirate Bay Retrial Denied, Judge Declared Unbiased 331

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 25, 2009 @08:19PM from the charge-them-USD80k-per-file dept.

bonch writes "A Swedish court has ruled that the judge in the PirateBay trial is unbiased and there will be no retrial. Stockholm District Court defended the judge's membership in copyright organizations as a necessity to 'keep up with developments in the field' and that merely endorsing the idea of copyright law was not grounds for a mistrial. The defendants must now rely on the appeal process, while one defendant has written on his Twitter account that the PirateBay will also be suing Sweden for human rights violations."

Gold Sold From Vending Machines In Germany 472

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @02:39PM from the correct-change-only dept.

There are fewer hassles for an adventurer or business traveler bigger than lugging around bags of silver and copper pieces. Luckily TG-Gold-Super-Markt has installed gold vending machines in 500 locations including train stations and airports all across Germany. The machines charge about 30% more than the current trading price for gold, and are updated every few minutes. All are closely monitored by cameras, and like 3rd and 4th edition, electrum pieces are not accepted.

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