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Comment Re:No incentive to lower costs (Score 4, Insightful) 827

by trandles (#44586601) Attached to: The College-Loan Scandal

And don't forget that government support of public universities has been cut dramatically over the years. Many large public research institutions ceased being "state supported" universities and instead became "state located" universities in the past two decades. It's only going to get worse as the tea baggers insist on deeper and deeper cuts to everything but the defense budget.

Comment access to knowledge != "smarter" (Score 1) 629

by trandles (#43562369) Attached to: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

The author conflates access to information with being smarter and in the process invalidates his own theory. I'm not necessarily smarter just because I can look up a set of facts quicker now than in the past. Just because we have access to the latest physics research papers via the preprint archive doesn't mean we're all magically more intelligent. Besides, since when does knowing more about the universe translate into LESS of a sense of wonder?
Technology

MIT Solar Towers Beat Solar Panels By Up To 20x 159

Posted by timothy from the if-they-had-pants-they'd-have-been-beaten-off dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach to solar collectors: building cubes and towers that extend solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. The results from the structures they've tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area (abstract, full pre-print). The biggest boosts in power were seen in the situations where improvements are most needed: in locations far from the equator, in winter months and on cloudier days."

Comment Re:Car Wars? (Score 2) 95

There was one, sorta, called , it latest about 1 year before they shut it off.
While it wasn't the gritty 'car wars' or 'autoduel' feel, it was.. well.. an MMO in a post-apoc like setting, primarily featuring Cars and guns and flamethrowers..

There is a newer more indie title that a gritty feel post-apoc car-based tabletop mini-game, unfortunately the name is escaping me.. I believe it's only a year or two old however...
Hardware Hacking

A Hacked WiFi Router, an API, and a Toy Bus: It's the Ambient Bus Arrival Monito 53

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-want-to-be-outdoors-any-longer-than-necessary dept.
JohnGrahamCumming writes "In this simple project, a hacked Linksys WRT54GL talks to a public API to get real-time bus information, and displays the times of the next buses on a model bus. Never miss the bus again! 'It's possible to reflash the Linksys with a custom Linux installation that lets me control the box completely (and still use it as a wireless router). There are various project, but I used OpenWRT. With OpenWRT it's possible to SSH into the box and treat it as any Linux server (albeit a rather slow one). But there's plenty of power to grab bus times and update an LED display connected to the WRT54GL's serial port. "
The Almighty Buck

Sweden Moving Towards Cashless Economy 447

Posted by timothy from the all-pancakes-and-lingonberries dept.
cold fjord writes "Sweden is rapidly moving towards a cashless economy. How will Sweden, and other countries in the future, balance efficiency, privacy, government control, and civil liberties? Or will they do all that technology allows? 'Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden's economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S. ... The Swedish Bankers' Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy is already making an impact in crime statistics. The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down. The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000.'"

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