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This was in last month's Popular Science as a damn cover story.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12 543,636378,00.html

Thanks for correcting me. I haven't modded my XBox and I only know one person who did (he got the modded XBox in the mail from a friend), so I didn't know the procedure all that well. I had thought that I read something on popsi.com about modding XBoxes, but I could be mistaken. Here it is. It looks like the soldering might only be for turning your XBox into a linux computer.... I would think that the overall process is the same.

See here for a comparison of several cameras from this month's Popular Science.

Will you be making these same arguments when Virus writers are making real biological viruses that kill millions of people instead of computer viruses that lose millions of dollars?

Script kiddies, hackers and crackers being able to make biological viruses is not that far off.

I'm sure all those people that die because of it will be happy to know that you believe we are better off if we let people make viruses and expect each person to patch their own bodies or that because the people that have natural immunity survive we are somehow making humans better by letting the virus writers do as they please.

In this months Popular Science, they were running a brief article in the "What's New" section (sorry, not available online) that talked about a company using the technology in the "bed-of-nails" nano-battery to make materials that could be made either extremely hydrophobic or hydrophilic with the flick of a switch. This has the potential of making rather efficient mechanical systems by increasing the effectiveness of lubricants a great deal. Interesting that it's also being used to make batteries.

You should also check out Brane theory which is one of the top 3 cosmology theories of the day. Interestingly, the Brane theory and string theory are not mutually exclusive. Here's a simplified take on cosmology from the Popular Science web site.

Place your bets.

[quote] This is the first real laser weapon.[/quote]

• That doesn't excuse the fact that the battery system was very poorly designed, and Apple overcharged to get a replacement battery that users shouldn't have needed so soon anyway.

Apple introduced a battery replacement program within days of the original complaint. Anyone who even bothers to look at the thing knows that battery replacement isn't going to be easy. It's something great grandparent should have known when he bought the iPod, and whining about it after the fact is simply that. 100 bucks ain't cheap by Slashdot standards, but the battery itself costs 40-50 bucks. 50-60 bucks for service is hardly what I would call unreasonable. A lot of your 'pragmatic' Windows users pay more than that to have their OS reinstalled every 6 months.

As for "shouldn't have needed so soon anyway", I'm no battery expert, but if you buy a brand new battery, it's only got a one year warranty. Do you think Apple products should defy science because they cost a couple hundred bucks? Better file a complaint about those Air Jordans then. The shoes are expensive but they don't allow you to fly!

Yes, it's in rats, but this study is

showing for the first time an unambiguous link between microwave radiation emitted by GSM mobile phones (the most common type worldwide) and brain damage in rats.

Here's an article on a new type of jet engine being developed, a pulse detonation engine or PDE. It promises to boost thrust considerably, while at the same time dramatically reducing fuel consumption.

It's most likely anticipation of PDE that's driving the innovation in reducing noise from supersonic flight. Supersonic flight will be commonplace when PDE gets off the ground.

This is #17 in The worst jobs in science list.

popular science got some headphones recommendations for your ipod mini/mp3 player.

one of the headphones cost 10 times more expensive than the ipod mini.

Ooooops.
Not sure why Plain Text posting inserts a space where the html wraps in Slashdot's Comment box.
Here is that link again in case you didn't remove the space that was inserted.

Popular Science Article on DIY LCD Photo Frame, Linux Type

Looks like your link got monkied up with that space in there. Here's a working one:

Display Your Digital Wonderland

Suposedly "Aurora" uses a Pulse Detonation Engine from what I've heard.

Let's consider the cost of a single launch of the Space Shuttle into LEO: $500 million according to a recent issue of Popular Science.

Now let's take into account that the longest Shuttle mission to date was just shy of 17 days.

A Mars mission will last up to three years and will be immeasurably more complex than the week long 1969 Moon landing mission. The article goes on to say that future propulsion technologies promise to halve or third the travel time to Mars, but a mission of even one year in length presents huge technological challenges.

So in order to get to Mars, a transport vechicle for the one to three year mission still must be designed, tested and built. For the first five years of this effort, Predident Bush has ear-marked $12 billion - $2.4 billion / yr or the equivalent of four Shuttle launches. IMHO, it does not sound like a serious proposal.

How much money would it take? Given the track record of NASA and all their various contractors, I doubt $1 trillion is all that far off the mark at all. If it were to take 20 years to get to the point of an actual launch, that would work out to a <sarcasm>mere<\sarcasm> $50 billion / year.

Let's consider the cost of a single launch of the Space Shuttle into LEO: $500 million according to a recent issue of Popular Science.

Now let's take into account that the longest Shuttle mission to date was just shy of 17 days.

A Mars mission will last up to three years and will be immeasurably more complex than the week long 1969 Moon landing mission. The article goes on to say that future propulsion technologies promise to halve or third the travel time to Mars, but a mission of even one year in length presents huge technological challenges.

So in order to get to Mars, a transport vechicle for the one to three year mission still must be designed, tested and built. For the first five years of this effort, Predident Bush has ear-marked $12 billion - $2.4 billion / yr or the equivalent of four Shuttle launches. IMHO, it does not sound like a serious proposal.

How much money would it take? Given the track record of NASA and all their various contractors, I doubt $1 trillion is all that far off the mark at all. If it were to take 20 years to get to the point of an actual launch, that would work out to a <sarcasm>mere<\sarcasm> $50 billion / year.

Bert's high-voltage equipment takes up most of his screened-in porch (from the looks of things, his wife drew a line at the sliding door?there's a clear border between tidy suburban house and chaotic suburban lab). Bert begins the coin-shrinking process by wrapping a quarter in copper wire and bolting the leads to copper bus bars, which are connected, by way of a triggered spark gap, to a 600-pound bank of 12,000-volt capacitors. A bulletproof blast shield encloses the coin and coil, and a high-voltage power supply charges up the capacitors. The only thing holding back the several thousand joules of energy stored in the capacitors is the tiny space between the spark gap's two brass discs.

Pressing a switch triggers the spark gap, which releases the entire charge through the coil in 25 millionths of a second. This creates a huge magnetic field, which induces a current and then a magnetic field inside the coin, which in turn pushes back against the field outside. The repulsion force between these two fields crushes the metal, instantly taking a quarter down to the size of a dime. A large amount of energy discharged in a short amount of time usually entails an explosion, and in this case the copper coil is blown apart with a brilliant flash and a satisfying bang. And, yes, the report is sharper than any drum, proving that you really can hit something as hard with magnetic force as you can with a drumstick.

yo.

for the love of god put in a working link

or here's a link without the space

There is a cool Popular Science article for more information.

Now go buy some coins to fund Bert's efforts!

Reminds me of the article, Mind Over Machine, which was previously posted on /.

I personally am incredibly excited about these kinds of developments and can only wait in anticipation for the real-world actualization of this research.

it's 250 miles tall!

must they also disclose easter eggs?

the bmw m3 has an interesting one..

Weird title, seeing how they showcase the CMU entry, a high-school entry running in an Acura (donated by a parent who works for Honda) and a single-member "team" trying to do a motorcycle entry.

So how does the favored team train for a 210 mile race through the Mojave Desert?? Why, by testing it in the SNOW of course!

A mistake that many electric car designers have made over the years is to fail to recognize that the electric car is not simply an internal combustion engined car with the engine replaced by an electric motor.

I'd say the designers are pretty well aware of this. However the budgets aren't infinite, and they're trying to make use of existing technology and parts as much as possible.

Only GM has created a fuel cell powered concept car from the ground up. This seems to be a nice article about the skateboard concept.

As many of you know cellphones, and other wireless handheld hardware emits RF radiation at low levels. Since I am considering using a cellphone as my primary phone line (as in not paying for a land line), I realised that the use of cellphones in this manner is quite new (within the last 10 years lets say). I can't help but wonder if this will pose a health risk in the long term.

A recent study just published by Popular Science magazine found a "link between microwave radiation emitted by GSM mobile phones (the most common type worldwide) and brain damage in rats". Even "hands free" sets that you can buy for cellphones are believed to worsen the levels of cell phone radiation in the brain. Even the FDA website says that "There is no proof that wireless phones are absolutely safe". Most people ignore these risks because nobody is dying from cell phone use today, but could this cause a health disaster in the future? I am sure many slashdotters are quite attached to their cellphones, what do you think about this risk?

As many of you know cellphones, and other wireless handheld hardware emits RF radiation at low levels. Since I am considering using a cellphone as my primary phone line (as in not paying for a land line), I realised that the use of cellphones in this manner is quite new (within the last 10 years lets say). I can't help but wonder if this will pose a health risk in the long term.

A recent study just published by Popular Science magazine found a "link between microwave radiation emitted by GSM mobile phones (the most common type worldwide) and brain damage in rats". Even "hands free" sets that you can buy for cellphones are believed to worsen the levels of cell phone radiation in the brain. Even the FDA website says that "There is no proof that wireless phones are absolutely safe". Most people ignore these risks because nobody is dying from cell phone use today, but could this cause a health disaster in the future? I am sure many slashdotters are quite attached to their cellphones, what do you think about this risk?

I wouldn't buy a car from that company again.

Then don't. BTW, the hood is not welded shut. Since you haven't even figured out that it can be opened (safely and easily), much less opened it, then by your own claim, you are not a geek.

Sounds like a candidate for The Worst Jobs in Science.

Although, he can tell people he works for NASA, and leave it at that.

I am sure its not as bad as flatus odor judge !!

A Popular Science writer decided it would be fun to smelt metal in the microwave. He even made tin fish!

The whole iPod thing is being revealed to be a battery-selling scam.

Apple has a battery replacement program that costs over $100 (which is ludicrously overpriced), but you can also get battery replacements for half that cost, if you want to risk busting your iPod in the process of getting it open (another example of poor design: no good reason not to have 4 screws on the back to open it).

Please see

this Popular Science article". for more.

The competitors are going to cut iPod to ribbons in the long run because most of them use standard batteries that don't require you to risk destroying the unit to replace.

Quote from Apple when asked about the battery: "No way to replace it, why don't you just buy a new iPod"

There really isn't much to fear from getting sucked into an artificial black holes, from being turned into strange matter, or from other proposed Armageddon scenarios. This is explained in this article from Popular Science and this paper on speculative Disaster Scenarios at another particle collider. Basically, there is a large probability that - if these objects are really dangerous - then they would have been already been produced by natural particle collisions in outer space near enough to destroy the earth. Since we exist, these objects can't really be dangerous!

I don't think that he is talking about any recent photos, in this short interview with Popular Science in 2002 he also talks about his belief of vegetaiton on Mars. The magazine had pictures of what he considered to be vegetation but sadly this link does not have any pictures.

He's got one of these? Sweet!

Popular science ran an interesting article a while ago linked here, where a doctor at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research found stem cells in her childs baby teeth. While this would limit the possibilities for "rejection free transplants", it doesn't have any real moral repercussions and would provide a way of obtaining stem cells for research purposes. As for the cloning aspect to obtain stem cells, I believe that when one views human life to be so cheap that it can be grown in a tube and thrown away at will for the sake of harvesting a few cells, it has far greater ramifications into many other views and attitudes that society adopts. Just some food for thought.

Popular Science has a longer (and IMO better) article on the entire project. It was written September 2003. It's got interesting information on the "Uncanny Valley" -- robots are okay, unless they look very much but not quite human - they call it "walking corpse." Hanson hopes to get past that valley and build (at least) a head that is a perfect human imitation.

Those lists are very suggestive and really depend on the point of view and interest of the writer. Just take a look and you will see that astronaut is both part of the Worst and Best!

Who knows maybe there is some folk out there who really enjoy is job as "Flatus Odor Judge"?

Those lists are very suggestive and really depend on the point of view and interest of the writer. Just take a look and you will see that astronaut is both part of the Worst and Best!

Who knows maybe there is some folk out there who really enjoy is job as "Flatus Odor Judge"?

Was it this article?

Any others?

Parent was modded funny, but there's an odd truth to this. Consider Burt Rutan's comment that porn will be the driving force behind eliminating business travel. Read it and you'll understand :).

The ironic thing is, now we are going back to wing warping.

these (slashdotted earlier) have got to be pretty bad on any scale, not just in science.
Popular Science Mag: The Worst Jobs In Science
(slashdot reference)

-FL

Where is the SplashPower SplashPad?

Several press articles have promised this for the past year. They're stuck on "looking for partnerships." I want one. Today.

This was the cover story of the Popular Science that I just received in the mail. You can read the article here.