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User: peter303

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  1. backdoor to defunct Koyoto treaty on Fracking Disclosure Rules Approved In CO · · Score: 1

    If natural gas replaces a significant amount of electricity generation and vehicle power (electric or compressed gas), the US carbon growth could slow down considerably. NG combustion emits about half the CO2 of petroleum or coal per BTU. The difference here is this is motivation by corporate profit rather than government subsidy.

    One caveat is that methane is a significant greenhouse gas - 20x stronger by quantity than CO2. So any significant leakage in the system would negate its environmental advantage.

  2. 10s thousands of wells for decades on Fracking Disclosure Rules Approved In CO · · Score: 1

    Not like this practice is new. But the number has tripled in recent years.

  3. 'The internet is "forever"' on 24-Year-Old Asks Facebook For His Data, Gets 1,200 PDFs · · Score: 1

    I learned that the hard way in the 1990s. You dont know who is copying what how many times. The best you could hope is that its considered too insignificant for the search engines to find it.

  4. Iraq English teachers getting full convoys on Ask Slashdot: Working As an IT Contractor In a War Zone? · · Score: 2

    NBC showed a piece on this Monday night. Even lesser employees were getting tons of security. The employees seemed to welcome it out of nervousness. The NBC piece was part of a series on the official withdrawal from IRAQ. Even after that about 20,000 embassy employees and contractors remain in a Baghdad and Basara consulates for "diplomatic" reasons. There are several tens of thousands of troops on bases in the area that could move on short basis for an aided evacuation or such.

  5. massive use of natural gas could achieve treaty on Canada First Nation To Pull Out of Kyoto Accord · · Score: 1

    Gradually shift electricity generation and automobiles to natural gas. US has over a century's worth now.

    The chief concern is methane leakage. Methane is twenty times more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So a greater than three percent leakage would cancel its carbon benefit. P.S. Methane leaves the atmosphere much quicker than CO2.

    Another good thing about natural gas is that appears to be market-drive by lower costs. Most of the US alternative energy initiatives fail when the huge federal subsidies run out.

  6. what does a Higgs look like? on LHC To Narrow Search For Higgs Boson · · Score: 4, Informative

    I presume at the magic energy level you'll see an increase in particles detected. These would be decay particles of new particle created. Then these decay particles would have to be of the right kind that could decay from a Higgs, deduced by charge, energy, direction, lifetime ... They record trillions of candidate collisions which will have to be sifted for various hypotheses.

    I read recently they are still studying an energy bump in the final runs of the Tevatrron. Whether it really exists and possibly a new particle.

  7. lets reconstitute the ADA committee on Why We Need More Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    Lets just say that languages designed by committees look that way.

  8. Heinlein's "Have Space Suit, Will Travel" on Forget an Essay; Earn a Scholarship With a Tweet · · Score: 1

    One wins a prize by submitting a "slogan" on a postcard. Enter as often as you wish> I think these contests occurred mid-century. I recall these postcard contests faded when personal printers could churn them out by the tens of thousands.

  9. chimps make tree-nests every night on Earliest Human Beds Found In South Africa · · Score: 1

    Perhaps some hominoids go back that far.

  10. prevous water is not news on NASA's Gypsum Find Clear Evidence There Was Water On Mars · · Score: 1

    Plenty of evidence from orbiters and rovers. Current liquid water underground is unknown. The new fluid channels seen now and then could be something other than water.

  11. I think this was the method on Iranian TV Shows Downed US Drone · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A sophisticated virus probably introduced by a unknowing flashstick user. In the US soldiers like to stick in gaming flashsticks to play when bored. These reinfect US computers over and over. The only method is eliminated these device ports. There are on every commodity computer.

  12. mathematical models not great on Earth's Core Made In Miniature · · Score: 2

    A dynamo may have phase changes in it are very hard to model or may require expensive tiny grid cells or modeling accuracy. It was a big announcement in the mid-1990s to model magnetic pole-flipping on a supercomputer. And took three months to compute.

  13. detailed description in Nov 18 Science on Gas Powered Fuel Cell Could Help EV Range Anxiety · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is basically how they think the Bloombox fuel cells shown on 60 minutes last year works. Bloom is how start-up in Silicon Valley with prototypes powering several buildings there. Except the Science article says their technology is five times more space-efficient. A 5' by 5" plate could generate 50W to 100W for a portable computer. 10 of these plates could run a military backpack or appliance. 100 could power a car or house. 500 an office building.

  14. fewer attempts than a successful Soviet Mars Probe on Russian Scientists Say They'll Clone a Mammoth Within 5 Years · · Score: 1

    All of 17(?) of the Soviet Mars probes failed to make it there or failed shortly after arrival.

  15. what about my iPad fan accessory? on An iPad Keyboard You Can Type On and Swipe Through · · Score: 1

    Gets a little warm in my lap sometime. I've developed a plug min-fan to cool it off. Every iPad should have one!

  16. both with 3D printing? on Physical Models In an Age of Computers · · Score: 1

    You could realize the model now and then by printing it.

  17. mixed policy in space sciences on Research Data: Share Early, Share Often · · Score: 3, Informative

    Some probes like Mars Rovers, Cassini, SOHO post their data on the web within days. Others like kepler and ESA-Express have posted very little of their data. The tradition is for Principal Investigators to embargo the data one year.

  18. very expensive in medicine on Research Data: Share Early, Share Often · · Score: 1

    The so-called "4th-stage clinical trial" is to study patients after the drug is released to the public. There may be thousands of times more patients than the first three stages. But is can cost eight figures to finish stage 3.

  19. Re:hopefully online updates for a couple years on Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming · · Score: 1

    13 years HTML4 lifetime. I think it would if evolved more coherently if there wasnt the mid-1990s browser gold rush.

  20. direct mechanical detection of dark matter on New Theory Challenges Need For Dark Matter · · Score: 2

    There are couple of experiments out there waiting for dark matter particles to directly collide with ordinary matter and trigger a piezo-electric charge certain ordinary matter setups. These collision are predicted extremely rare due the emptiness of ordinary matter. Soem of the experiments claim to have detected some such collision already.

  21. hopefully online updates for a couple years on Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming · · Score: 4

    The really interesting parts of hmtl5, the multimedia capabilities, are in a high state of flux now with more capabilities added every week.

  22. better space probes have been proposed on Kepler Confirms Exoplanet Inside Star's Habitable Zone · · Score: 1

    Basically you'd have to use very clever occluding telescopes and/or very wide inferometry to get a spectrogram separate from the star. But clever designs have been proposed recently. I dont think any made the 2010s budget due cost and technological immaturity.

  23. its still pretty broken on TV Isn't Broken, So Why Fix It? · · Score: 1

    You should be able to find the show you want instantly without having to scroll some large channel database. Or worse let it scroll for you.

    You should be able to get it when you want. But on-demand is a higher tier service here, approaching $100 a month.

    It should be free like the old broadcast days. Most cable channels have plenty of advertisers.

  24. 15 year old mail "lost" in casette-tape land on Ask Slashdot: Handling and Cleaning Up a Large Personal Email Archive? · · Score: 1

    I still have the tapes, but the desire to read them. Since the mid-1990s I've have had cloud-email (hotmail) and havent really lost anything.

  25. did his "victims" have the same right of appeal on Assange Wins Right To Submit Appeal · · Score: 2

    Expose names of diplomatic and espionage parties on the web before asking their permission?