waldrepdebater - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Adequate Reward? Please... (Score 1) 237

by waldrepdebater on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @11:14AM (#27417839) Attached to: Volunteers Simulate Mission To Mars

Sure, pioneers are rarely rewarded well for the maiden voyage. But compare apples to apples. I would consider it a great deal to get paid $20K to go to Mars. This isn't a trip to Mars. It isn't a trip to discover a new continent. It is an experiment where you get locked in a metal box and can't go anywhere for 100 days to see if you go crazy. I would consider it brave to sign up with Columbus. I would consider it stupid to volunteer to be locked on his ship in the harbor for six months to make sure the sailors who actually get to go won't go insane en-route. Some people value money more than others. I too believe a meaningful life is priceless. I am just not seeing the connection between a meaningful life and being locked in a metal box while people watch to see if you go crazy...

Comment Re:Adequate Reward? Please... (Score 1) 237

by waldrepdebater on Tuesday March 31, 2009 @11:57PM (#27411975) Attached to: Volunteers Simulate Mission To Mars

Sooo not worth it... $20,000/100 days = $73,000/year The volunteers consist of two cosmonauts, one therapist, one pilot, one engineer, and two doctors. Any one of those people could make the same amount of money over the same period of time just working in their chosen profession. I can see it now, "Hi there, we want to lock you in a tiny metal box for 105 days. If you stay the whole time we will give you less money than you would have made staying at your old job..." Where can I sign up?

Human Eye Could Detect Spooky Action At a Distance 255

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2009 @09:37PM from the I-seen-things dept.

KentuckyFC writes "The human eye is a good photon detector--it's sensitive enough to spot photons in handfuls. So what if you swapped a standard photon detector with a human eye in the ongoing experiments to measure spooky-action-at-a-distance? (That's the ability of entangled photons to influence each other, no matter how far apart they might be.) A team of physicists in Switzerland have worked out the details and say that in principle there is no reason why human eyes couldn't do this kind of experiment. That would be cool because it would ensure that the two human observers involved in the test would become entangled, albeit for a short period time. The team, led by Nic Gisin, a world leader on entanglement, says it is actively pursuing this goal (abstract) so we could have the first humans to experience entanglement within months."

Robotic Prostheses For Human Faces 111

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 16, 2009 @06:37PM from the make-them-wireless-for-fun-and-amusement dept.

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a patent application that suggests implanting polymer muscles beneath the skin of people suffering paralysis of the face to give them control of their features. The technique has already been used successfully to reanimate the eyelids of human cadavers. Movement could be returned to other facial features and even paralyzed limbs in the same way, the surgeons at University of California Davis say. The full patent application is also available on the WIPO site."

Submission + - Russia Aims towards the Red Planet (thefutureofthings.com)

Submitted by

Iddo Genuth

on Saturday February 14, 2009 @05:46PM

Iddo Genuth writes: "Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has announced its intentions to build a low-orbit space station, which, according to the agency, will support future exploration of the moon and Mars. The project proposal is already on its way to be reviewed by the Russian government, along with a suggestion to extend the operational lifespan of the International Space Station (ISS) by five more years, setting its "retirement date" to 2020. Some Russian sources also reportedly suggested the (rather ludicrous) idea of converting the ISS into some kind of an interplanetary transport vehicle, which will serve as the "ultimate mother ship" in manned planetary missions to the moon or even Mars."

Microsoft Slaps $250K Bounty On Conficker Worm 258

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 12, 2009 @07:02PM from the sic-the-french-air-force-on-'em dept.

alphadogg writes "The spreading Conficker/Downadup worm is now viewed as such a significant threat that it's inspired the formation of a posse to stop it, with Microsoft leading the charge by offering a $250,000 reward to bring the Conficker malware bad guys to justice. The money will be paid for 'information that results in the arrest and conviction of those responsible for illegally launching the Conficker malicious code on the Internet,' Microsoft said today in a statement, adding it is fostering a partnership with Internet registries and DNA providers such as ICANN, ORG, and NeuStar as well as security vendors Symantec and Arbor Networks, among others, to stop the Conficker worm once and for all. Conficker, also called Downadup, is estimated to have infected at least 10 million PCs. It has been slowly but surely spreading since November. Its main trick is to disable anti-malware protection and block access to anti-malware vendors' Web sites."

Scientists Harvest Nano-Power From Hamsters 90

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @04:39PM from the diminishing-returns dept.

Al writes "Researchers at Georgia Tech have come up with the ideal way to test a new peizo-electric device that efficiently harvests power from bio-movement — attaching it to a hamster. The device contains a series of zinc-oxide nanowires mounted on top of a flexible plastic surface. As the plastic bends, the wires generate around a nanowatt of power. The Georgia Tech team, led by Zhong Lin Wang, wanted to show that their device could produce power from irregular movements so they attached it to a tiny hamster jacket. They also tried attaching it to a volunteer's finger. Here's a video of the hamster wearing his piezo-power outfit."

The First Moon Map, and Not By Galileo 82

Posted by kdawson on Saturday January 31, 2009 @03:26PM from the dutch-trunke dept.

sergio80 writes in with a timely piece of history in this the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope. "Galileo Galilei is often credited with being the first person to look through a telescope and make drawings of the celestial objects he observed. While the Italian indeed was a pioneer in this realm, he was not the first..." That honor belongs to Thomas Harriot, an Englishman, who bought his first "Dutch trunke" (i.e. telescope) shortly after its invention in the Netherlands and made a sketch of the moon as seen through it in July of 1609.

Windows 7 To Skip Straight To a Release Candidate 856

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 31, 2009 @12:58PM from the iteration-is-for-wimps dept.

b8fait writes "The head of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows development confirmed that Windows 7 will take the unusual path of moving straight from a single beta, which was launched earlier this month, to a release candidate. Sinofsky fleshed out the plan today and hinted that just as there would be no Beta 2, the company would also not provide a RC2 build. In other words, there may be only one released build of Windows 7 before it ships, possibly much sooner than even some of the most aggressive rumors about Windows 7. How much different can Windows 7 really be with such a shortened beta cycle?"

Senate Passes Another Bill To Delay Digital TV Transition 318

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 31, 2009 @11:46AM from the it's-almost-like-they're-worried dept.

An anonymous reader tips news that the US Senate has passed another bill to delay the transition to digital TV. This is the second such bill to pass the Senate; the first was narrowly defeated in the House. The new version has an important difference — it would allow the transition to take place gradually over the four-month period between the original transition date (February 17th) and the extended date (June 12th). TV stations around the country could choose when they wanted to make the change, allowing those who have already begun plans to stop analog transmission to continue their shut-down operations.

Google Search Flagging Everything As Potentially Harmful 407

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 31, 2009 @10:58AM from the minor-problem dept.

dowlingw writes "It looks like for the moment at least, all Google results are failing the malware checks and being listed with a warning 'This site may harm your computer,' including all pages from Google themselves. Users trying to visit pages at search results will only be able to proceed via manual manipulation of the search result link to remove the Google click-through (which is also broken). Until Google fixes this bug, it looks Google web search is useless." Update: 01/31 at 15:16 GMT by SS: The problem now appears to be fixed.
Update: 01/31 at 22:01 GMT by KD : Google has now posted an explanation, apologizing and taking responsibility for the "human error" that led to the problem.

Biologists Find Stem-Cell-Like Functions In Ordinary Cells 35

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 31, 2009 @10:33AM from the anything-you-can-do-i-can-do-better dept.

mattrandy123 writes with news that scientists from NYU and Utrecht University have discovered ordinary plant cells can fulfill some of the same regenerative functions previously attributed to stem cells. Quoting: "In the study, the researchers cut off the plant's root tip, thereby excising the stem cell niche, and examined the return of cell identities by measuring all gene activity. The results suggested that stem cells returned quite late in regeneration after other cells were already replaced. The researchers then used mutant plants in which the stem cell niche no longer functions to confirm their initial observations. Despite the absence of the stem cell niche, the plant's ordinary cells worked to regenerate all the major tissues constituting the root tip — a process that began hours after it had been removed. However, researchers found that plants without functional stem cell niches could not resume normal growth, showing that other cells did not replace all functions of stem cells."

Associated Press Wants RIAA Case Webcast 103

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday January 31, 2009 @09:19AM from the afraid-of-scrutiny dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Associated Press, The New York Times, and other major news organizations have gone to court to fight the RIAA over its attempt to thwart a court order which ruled that a hearing in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum could be streamed over the internet. The news organizations agreed with Judge Gertner, the district judge who'd granted the order, arguing : 'It is hard to imagine a hearing more deserving of public scrutiny through the same technological medium that is at the heart of this litigation'. As soon as I get a copy of the actual brief I will upload it and link to it. Another amicus brief opposing the RIAA's attempt to reverse Judge Gertner was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other First Amendment proponents and is already available online [PDF]."

BotPrize — A Turing Test For Bots 79

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 24, 2009 @01:18PM from the just-make-it-swear-and-miss-a-lot dept.

Philip Hingston writes "Computers can't play like people — yet. An unusual kind of computer game bot-programming contest has just been held in Perth, Australia, as part of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games. The contest was not about programming the bot that plays the best. The aim was to see if a bot could convince another player that it was actually a human player. Game Development Studio 2K Australia (creator of BioShock) provided $7,000 cash plus a trip to their studio in Canberra for anyone who could create a bot to pass this 'Turing Test for Bots.' People like to play against opponents who are like themselves — opponents with personality, who can surprise, who sometimes make mistakes, yet don't robotically make the same mistakes over and over. Computers are superbly fast and accurate at playing games, but can they be programmed to be more fun to play — to play like you and me?" Read on for the rest of Philip's thoughts.

Microsoft Lays Off Entire Flight Sim Team 162

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 24, 2009 @04:55AM from the throttling-back dept.

Dutch Gun writes "Microsoft has just laid off the entire Flight Simulator development team. This continues a long-running trend of terminating or severing relationships with game development studios, such as the Bungie split, FASA, or the closure of Ensemble Studios. While one would presume that core Xbox development is not currently in jeopardy after Microsoft spent up to a billion dollars to pay for Xbox 360 repairs and salvage its reputation with gamers, does this signal a reversal from Microsoft's recent focus on internal game development? And what are its plans for Flight Simulator, a twenty-seven-year product with an extremely loyal user-base and a multitude of externally developed add-ons?"

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