Okay, let's just pretend for a second that all of the "science" in this plan is on the up-and-up and that, if they were to share the plans, anybody in the world with the manufacturing capability could replicate their results.
Now that you're done laughing, let's look at the rest of it. It's taken 40+ years to get the tech to this stage why? If some random French guy nobody's ever heard of had it figured out 120 years ago, WTF have they been doing for the last 3 generations of wack jobs? Shouldn't they have it closer than 2-3 years down the road by now/
Finally, consider the last-mile issue. Okay, we've got a boat out in the middle of the ocean, with 1.21 hojillawatts of power stored up in it. Now what? Fire those diesel engines back up and head for shore? Big fucking extension cord? Pyramid power? Dolphins with battery packs on their backs?
Folks, you can't make this stuff up...it's pure comedy gold, straight from the pages of...PESN? Slow news decade in the tech world? Even the random Gizmodo updates from CES are better than this.
When I first started at my state medical university 7 years ago (MD/PhD student), the computer labs were roughly 2/3 Mac, 1/3 PC with most faculty running Macs and the administrative offices in the place on Windows.
Three or 4 years ago, when replacement time came around, all of the Macs in all but one of the computer labs were replaced with Dells and the IT dept. announced that they would no longer be providing desktop support for Macs in faculty offices/labs. People who didn't know much about simple Mac administration (or weren't friends with the 5 or 6 IT regulars who were actually "Mac-folk" and were dreading the change to Windows) bought Dells when the time came for them to upgrade machines.
About 6 weeks after the semester started (machines were replaced over the summer) the IT dept. announced that it had hired 3 full-time desktop administrators whose primary job consists of them going to every single Windows desktop in the institution (student labs, computer labs, library, faculty offices, research labs, administration offices) at least once a month and manually updating it. If you're running anything older than Win98 now (since the beginning of this year), they're just shutting off your network port until you upgrade to Win2K or XP (no, they don't have any sort of site license, you have to pay retail).
So, in order to save a couple hundred bucks in initial costs per desktop (which are one-time costs and was for just a couple hundred machines -- probably less than 300 total), they've had to hire 3 new guys (all union BTW, the state is a union shop) which costs them ~$150-180K in direct and indirect costs per year. For the most part, they've done a good job of protecting the machines from attack but I'm not sure whether it's worth what it costs.
First of all, you must attend college. I would put my little brother in the "non-traditionally bright" category. Very smart kid who almost never got the challenges he needed in high school to really shine and ended up doing a year at comm. college and then dropping out, never (at least yet and it's been 6 years) to return. He drives a truck that picks up low-level hazardous waste now which I think is wasting his talent.
I would suggest that you look at some of the "non-traditional" colleges to help nurture your "non-traditional" intelligence. Schools like Evergreen State, Hampshire (caution, Flash), Antioch and Colorado College among others.
These schools tend to have very flexible curricula, lots of independent projects, small seminar-based classes and DIY major programs. I have friends who have attended all of these schools who I think are much happier and doing much better now (10 years after graduation) than they would have if they'd attended "better" schools with more straightforward lecture/lab/test curricula.
I don't think I would have done particularly well at these places, I like some flexibility but need a fair amount of structure in my learning. If you are the sort of person who just strikes off on your own trying to learn whatever interests you, this may be your best chance.
I just finished a PhD last week and my advice about grad school is that you cross that bridge when you come to it. Maybe it will be exactly what you need, maybe it will be a complete waste of 2-8 years (mine took 5 FWIW). Get yourself a broad, interesting, liberal arts degree first (with a focus on CS or biology or photography or whatever if you want).
Two quick clicks, first the one from within the original post and the second one on the products link at the top of the page will tell you that it's based on 802.11b. A little further digging tells us that it uses a 660 mAh Li Ion battery with 2 hours talk time and 30h standby (with an extended, 800mAh battery available).
As to 802.11 vs. cellular, in my hospital, you can't get a cell signal anywhere but the top floor (and even if you could, the Security goons rip the phone out of your hand as there's a fear - real or imaginary I don't know - that cell phones interfere with some wireless patient monitoring equipment). The place is lousy w/ WiFi signals though.
Exactly. We do this already. Mostly because my wife thinks it will get stolen if it sits up on our windshield but also because I don't want to get tagged as one of those bridge and tunnel fucktards.
Put the tag up when going through a tollbooth, peel it off afterwards (except when first escaping from the NYC metroplex which requires 3 or 4 tolls in the course of 30 minutes).
On the upside, EZ-Pass now allows people to speed through tollbooths (40-50mph) on the PA Turnpike.
I can't see David Letterman actually going and PAYING to see all the crap movies that his guests make!
And he wouldn't have to. SAG, Director's Guild, etc. members and other eligible Oscar voters get into see films nominated for awards for free in the time leading up to the voting. This is why so many candidate films are re-released (at least in NYC and LA) so that they have more chances to be seen by voters just before they vote.
No amount of cool features and interoperability can make up for that fact that I'd rather be seen masturbating in public than holding this thing up to my face.
But did you read the rest of the post? I agree...an incubation period would likely only work for the first wave of infected machines (if that) causing a low number of high profile destroyed machines. 30 seconds on one evening news program, if that.
Contrast that with what the parent said which was that fucking with the virus, by trying to remove w/ an AV tool for instance, would cause it to drop its payload immediately and do whatever evil it was planning to do.
NB that I know exactly fuck all about programming so I have no idea how difficult this would be but it would certainly get folks to sit up and take notice and I have no doubt that it will happen sooner rather than later.
This is what is done at my (graduate/medical) institution. Network traffic from a virus/worm is traced to the IP address and that port is shut down. I learned this the hard way when a visiting professor plugged his long unpatched Win98 laptop into our hub and the port went down about 30 minutes later.
Unfortunately, they don't have the sheet detailing the way to get things back up and running and get your port unblocked. You have to find the newtork admin folks (they're unlisted in the campus directory, both the printed and online version and their office is in a hallway hidden behind the freight elevator and it doesn't have a sign or room number on the door) and ask them to come look at your machine/lab to make sure the unpatched machine has been fixed or removed and then they'll go back and hook you back up.
No, they're not monitoring traffic. They're planning to tax lease payments (assuming you lease your network equipment) or depreciation costs (assuming you purchase it and deduct the depreciation costs from your taxes).
The reason that you don't understand it is because it's fucking insane. I'm all for taxing businesses, the wealthy, etc. for their fair share but this is ridiculous on so many levels.
If this tax is to be fair, then they have to tax any other business leases (e.g. equipment) and depreciation on any other business assets at the same rate (assuming this isn't already done, which I doubt). If they propose this "tax parity," the shit will hit the fan in FL and this tax will disappear.
What will probably happen however is that they'll put it up to a vote and a bunch of ancient Palm Beach County residents will fuck up the butterfly ballot and the tax will pass.
Now that I've said all of that, if the proceeds from this tax were used to set up low cost (~$20/mo or less) statewide broadband access (available to individuals and businesses), regardless of location then perhaps this would be a good thing. More thank likely though the money's just going to go to that other Bush's campaign war chest.
Actually, you seem to have missed the actual attribution of that quote. It's not from the company making this new water-cooling setup but from a guy at QuietPC whose whole livelihood is based on selling competing products. He's just some guy saying the tech won't be ready for 5 years. The article's author doesn't seem to have bothered to ask the guy from Cooligy how soon he thinks it will be on the market.
I wonder if in 5 years we will have different processors, where this will not be effective. Think little bacteria or DNA or something organic as a CPU.
Don't you think it's a little early to be quite this drunk?
I'm working on the assumption that you're working in a CS or engineering program at your university. If that's the case, hopefully you've got a professor (or even a Graduate Asst./TA type of person) whom you trust and respect and who hopefully respects you. I would suggest talking to such a person, lay out some of the details of the discovery of the exploit, tell him/her that you've got a working exploit and that you're concerned with getting it into the hands of the company so that they can fix it but that you're also afraid of the consequences.
Hopefully, the school should also want to get it fixed before you drop the exploit bomb on Bugtraq (all of a sudden, every CS student graduates Magna Cum Laude) and maybe you can find a sympathetic administration-type person to help you through this potential minefield.
You might also look into talking to someone at the (assuming your school has one) law school. You'll be more likely to find a sympathetic and understanding ear in the legal academic community than in the school's legal department.
I'm not sold on the editorial stance 'Powerbook Killer'
Absolutely. Why not just say that it's finally some competition for the 12" PB as opposed to a PB Killer? As with all things, you make trade-offs buying one over the other.
One thing the Vaio does have going for it is that it's more complete than any other Wintel notebook of it's size. You can get a number of other subnotebooks with decent sized screens, WiFi, etc., but they require external (USB in most cases) optical drives. Doubles the weight and decreases the portability dramatically.
If I was looking for a Wintel notebook, this, in spite of being dramatically underpowered, esp. compared to the PB, I'd probably go with this Vaio. At the very least, it's the least ugly Wintel notebook out there.
Not sure. The Digeo website mentions Q4-2003 availability but nothing else about whether that's direct to consumers or only cable companies/OEMs.
If it does become available though I'm all over it. I built a MythTV box and used it for a few weeks but overall it was just too much hassle and we ended up getting rid of it.
Assuming this thing is no more crippled than preventing moving video off the machine, this is exactly what I want to have. DVD burner would be nice but not the end of the world by any stretch.
The most frightening part of this whole story is that the people expressing shock (SHOCK!) at the amount of damage a piece of foam can do at 500+ MPH are actual Rocket Scientists. Is a basic grasp of physics not required for an advanced degree in Aerospace Engineering?
The second most frightening part of the story is that these tests were performed on a mock-up wing taken from the Enterprise (which has never flown) and is made out of fiberglass, a stronger (but much more heat labile) material than the carbon-carbon stuff the leading edge of the actual wing was made from. I wonder how nasty the results will be once they use the real material that failed.
The email in this post was to members of the Senator's staff and as such, I assume the writer is referencing the fact that the staff members sent him an email.
So yes, one person sending an email can have an impact on a politician but it helps if the politician actually knows who that person is.
A hoax? No way! I already bought my plane tickets and passes to ever music festival in the UK this summer just so I could check my email from an shit covered keyboard in an outhouse.
It's been a while since I put Mozilla on my OS X machine but this article made me decide to dl the current build (1.3.whatever...didn't mess around w/ the 1.4a) and I have to say...ouch.
The differences between it and Safari are astounding. Mozilla makes me want to gouge my eyes out while Safari is a pleasure to look at and interact with.
Launching Mozilla takes 2-3X as long. Loading the same page in both browsers takes about 50% longer w/ Moz than in Safari (not cached on either browser) and, well, Mozilla's just kind of weak.
Burning some karma here and I do use Firebird/Phoenix/MiniMoz on my Linux box but it's certainly not the one to turn to if you have a nicer OS to back it up, like OS X.
C. elegans actually has a unique suvival phase called the dauer form.
D'oh! I worked w/ C.e. very briefly about 10 years ago and completely forgot about the dauer. Thanks for the reminder.
The article mentions moss in the container. Wonder if they can feed on that? I know they much prefer E. coli but I wonder how much their diet can change (or if the moss held extra yummy bacteria). I mean, I prefer donuts, beer and french fries, but, under sub-optimal circumstances I can also survive on salad and fish.
As they state in the article, C. elegans have a life cycle of 7-10 days. As they also state in the article, the shuttle, at the end of its mission, crashed on Feb. 1. That was 89 days ago. But somehow they've only managed to go through 4-5 generations? It's a pretty simple calculation.
More interesting (like CNN hasn't ever had a problem with pretty obvious facts) however is the survival. If we were talking about fungi or bacteria, organisms which are able to enter a dormant/stationary phase of the life cycle, it wouldn't be too surprising that they could survive. But C. elegans just have a pretty basic (egg-->larva-->adult) life cycle so they don't have a mechanism for surviving extreme situations (like a flaming fireball smashing into earth).
One of the great things about C. elegans is that they're easy to mutagenize and determine which genes give rise to characteristics such as resistance to UV/ionizing radiation, long life, ability to consume large volumes of alcohol, etc. I hope that some of these super space worms get into the hands of folks like Leon Avery or Tim Schedl so they can figure out what helped these guys survive.
Actually, the receiver is the base unit. I assume (based on no actual knowledge...that's what assumptions are after all) that you'd just plug all that stuff (DVD, cable, VCR...remember those?) into the base station which would then transmit through the base unit/receiver to the screen.
Of course, this in no way helps explain the usefulness of this. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Let's start with the weight issue. The motor supposedly weighs 10lb, most of which appears to be centered around the front axle (hello difficult to control at slow speed bike) yet he claims that OEMs could make motorized bikes at under 30lb. Well...sure they could but they'd have to be using titanium bikes that start out around US$4000 and go up (fast and far) from there. In reality, most of the bikes that you'd put this one (like the one pictured) run in the 25-28lb range. Tack another 10lb plus a 200+lb fat fuck who can't be bothered to pedal a bike and I doubt you could get anything close to the predicted 20 mile range. And let's take a closer look at the mileage. Assuming that you really could get the predicted 20 miles/0.25 gallon that works out to 80mpg at best. Pretty good compared to a Ford Excursion but when you compare it to something like the VW Lupo which gets 65-85mpg or even one of the TDI Jettas or Golfs which get 50-60 mpg, it seems pretty pathetic.
Secondly...stop being so lazy and just pedal. The whole point of bikes is that you get some excercise and don't contribute any pollution to the atmosphere. If you're going to ride a bike, ride the freakin' bike. If you want a motor vehicle, get a car (or a motorcycle or scooter).
I have commuted to work/school almost exclusively by bike every day for the past 11 years (3-12 miles one way) and this product, while interesting from a tech perspective, seems pretty ridiculous and useless.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, let's just pretend for a second that all of the "science" in this plan is on the up-and-up and that, if they were to share the plans, anybody in the world with the manufacturing capability could replicate their results.
Now that you're done laughing, let's look at the rest of it. It's taken 40+ years to get the tech to this stage why? If some random French guy nobody's ever heard of had it figured out 120 years ago, WTF have they been doing for the last 3 generations of wack jobs? Shouldn't they have it closer than 2-3 years down the road by now/
Finally, consider the last-mile issue. Okay, we've got a boat out in the middle of the ocean, with 1.21 hojillawatts of power stored up in it. Now what? Fire those diesel engines back up and head for shore? Big fucking extension cord? Pyramid power? Dolphins with battery packs on their backs?
Folks, you can't make this stuff up...it's pure comedy gold, straight from the pages of...PESN? Slow news decade in the tech world? Even the random Gizmodo updates from CES are better than this.
BFL
When I first started at my state medical university 7 years ago (MD/PhD student), the computer labs were roughly 2/3 Mac, 1/3 PC with most faculty running Macs and the administrative offices in the place on Windows.
Three or 4 years ago, when replacement time came around, all of the Macs in all but one of the computer labs were replaced with Dells and the IT dept. announced that they would no longer be providing desktop support for Macs in faculty offices/labs. People who didn't know much about simple Mac administration (or weren't friends with the 5 or 6 IT regulars who were actually "Mac-folk" and were dreading the change to Windows) bought Dells when the time came for them to upgrade machines.
About 6 weeks after the semester started (machines were replaced over the summer) the IT dept. announced that it had hired 3 full-time desktop administrators whose primary job consists of them going to every single Windows desktop in the institution (student labs, computer labs, library, faculty offices, research labs, administration offices) at least once a month and manually updating it. If you're running anything older than Win98 now (since the beginning of this year), they're just shutting off your network port until you upgrade to Win2K or XP (no, they don't have any sort of site license, you have to pay retail).
So, in order to save a couple hundred bucks in initial costs per desktop (which are one-time costs and was for just a couple hundred machines -- probably less than 300 total), they've had to hire 3 new guys (all union BTW, the state is a union shop) which costs them ~$150-180K in direct and indirect costs per year. For the most part, they've done a good job of protecting the machines from attack but I'm not sure whether it's worth what it costs.
BFL
First of all, you must attend college. I would put my little brother in the "non-traditionally bright" category. Very smart kid who almost never got the challenges he needed in high school to really shine and ended up doing a year at comm. college and then dropping out, never (at least yet and it's been 6 years) to return. He drives a truck that picks up low-level hazardous waste now which I think is wasting his talent.
I would suggest that you look at some of the "non-traditional" colleges to help nurture your "non-traditional" intelligence. Schools like Evergreen State, Hampshire (caution, Flash), Antioch and Colorado College among others.
These schools tend to have very flexible curricula, lots of independent projects, small seminar-based classes and DIY major programs. I have friends who have attended all of these schools who I think are much happier and doing much better now (10 years after graduation) than they would have if they'd attended "better" schools with more straightforward lecture/lab/test curricula.
I don't think I would have done particularly well at these places, I like some flexibility but need a fair amount of structure in my learning. If you are the sort of person who just strikes off on your own trying to learn whatever interests you, this may be your best chance.
I just finished a PhD last week and my advice about grad school is that you cross that bridge when you come to it. Maybe it will be exactly what you need, maybe it will be a complete waste of 2-8 years (mine took 5 FWIW). Get yourself a broad, interesting, liberal arts degree first (with a focus on CS or biology or photography or whatever if you want).
My $.02
BFL
Two quick clicks, first the one from within the original post and the second one on the products link at the top of the page will tell you that it's based on 802.11b. A little further digging tells us that it uses a 660 mAh Li Ion battery with 2 hours talk time and 30h standby (with an extended, 800mAh battery available).
As to 802.11 vs. cellular, in my hospital, you can't get a cell signal anywhere but the top floor (and even if you could, the Security goons rip the phone out of your hand as there's a fear - real or imaginary I don't know - that cell phones interfere with some wireless patient monitoring equipment). The place is lousy w/ WiFi signals though.
BFL
Man, nothing hurts like a hit in the Netherlands.
BFL
Exactly. We do this already. Mostly because my wife thinks it will get stolen if it sits up on our windshield but also because I don't want to get tagged as one of those bridge and tunnel fucktards.
Put the tag up when going through a tollbooth, peel it off afterwards (except when first escaping from the NYC metroplex which requires 3 or 4 tolls in the course of 30 minutes).
On the upside, EZ-Pass now allows people to speed through tollbooths (40-50mph) on the PA Turnpike.
BFL
I can't see David Letterman actually going and PAYING to see all the crap movies that his guests make!
And he wouldn't have to. SAG, Director's Guild, etc. members and other eligible Oscar voters get into see films nominated for awards for free in the time leading up to the voting. This is why so many candidate films are re-released (at least in NYC and LA) so that they have more chances to be seen by voters just before they vote.
...shit that thing is ugly.
No amount of cool features and interoperability can make up for that fact that I'd rather be seen masturbating in public than holding this thing up to my face.
BFL
But did you read the rest of the post? I agree...an incubation period would likely only work for the first wave of infected machines (if that) causing a low number of high profile destroyed machines. 30 seconds on one evening news program, if that.
Contrast that with what the parent said which was that fucking with the virus, by trying to remove w/ an AV tool for instance, would cause it to drop its payload immediately and do whatever evil it was planning to do.
NB that I know exactly fuck all about programming so I have no idea how difficult this would be but it would certainly get folks to sit up and take notice and I have no doubt that it will happen sooner rather than later.
Eric
This is what is done at my (graduate/medical) institution. Network traffic from a virus/worm is traced to the IP address and that port is shut down. I learned this the hard way when a visiting professor plugged his long unpatched Win98 laptop into our hub and the port went down about 30 minutes later.
Unfortunately, they don't have the sheet detailing the way to get things back up and running and get your port unblocked. You have to find the newtork admin folks (they're unlisted in the campus directory, both the printed and online version and their office is in a hallway hidden behind the freight elevator and it doesn't have a sign or room number on the door) and ask them to come look at your machine/lab to make sure the unpatched machine has been fixed or removed and then they'll go back and hook you back up.
BFL
No, they're not monitoring traffic. They're planning to tax lease payments (assuming you lease your network equipment) or depreciation costs (assuming you purchase it and deduct the depreciation costs from your taxes).
The reason that you don't understand it is because it's fucking insane. I'm all for taxing businesses, the wealthy, etc. for their fair share but this is ridiculous on so many levels.
If this tax is to be fair, then they have to tax any other business leases (e.g. equipment) and depreciation on any other business assets at the same rate (assuming this isn't already done, which I doubt). If they propose this "tax parity," the shit will hit the fan in FL and this tax will disappear.
What will probably happen however is that they'll put it up to a vote and a bunch of ancient Palm Beach County residents will fuck up the butterfly ballot and the tax will pass.
Now that I've said all of that, if the proceeds from this tax were used to set up low cost (~$20/mo or less) statewide broadband access (available to individuals and businesses), regardless of location then perhaps this would be a good thing. More thank likely though the money's just going to go to that other Bush's campaign war chest.
BFL
Moderated as funny? The whole post or just the last line?
Oh well...I'll just sit back and enjoy the karma boost.
BFL
Actually, you seem to have missed the actual attribution of that quote. It's not from the company making this new water-cooling setup but from a guy at QuietPC whose whole livelihood is based on selling competing products. He's just some guy saying the tech won't be ready for 5 years. The article's author doesn't seem to have bothered to ask the guy from Cooligy how soon he thinks it will be on the market.
I wonder if in 5 years we will have different processors, where this will not be effective. Think little bacteria or DNA or something organic as a CPU.
Don't you think it's a little early to be quite this drunk?
BFL
I'm working on the assumption that you're working in a CS or engineering program at your university. If that's the case, hopefully you've got a professor (or even a Graduate Asst./TA type of person) whom you trust and respect and who hopefully respects you. I would suggest talking to such a person, lay out some of the details of the discovery of the exploit, tell him/her that you've got a working exploit and that you're concerned with getting it into the hands of the company so that they can fix it but that you're also afraid of the consequences.
Hopefully, the school should also want to get it fixed before you drop the exploit bomb on Bugtraq (all of a sudden, every CS student graduates Magna Cum Laude) and maybe you can find a sympathetic administration-type person to help you through this potential minefield.
You might also look into talking to someone at the (assuming your school has one) law school. You'll be more likely to find a sympathetic and understanding ear in the legal academic community than in the school's legal department.
Good luck.
BFL
I'm not sold on the editorial stance 'Powerbook Killer'
Absolutely. Why not just say that it's finally some competition for the 12" PB as opposed to a PB Killer? As with all things, you make trade-offs buying one over the other.
One thing the Vaio does have going for it is that it's more complete than any other Wintel notebook of it's size. You can get a number of other subnotebooks with decent sized screens, WiFi, etc., but they require external (USB in most cases) optical drives. Doubles the weight and decreases the portability dramatically.
If I was looking for a Wintel notebook, this, in spite of being dramatically underpowered, esp. compared to the PB, I'd probably go with this Vaio. At the very least, it's the least ugly Wintel notebook out there.
BFL
It is funny how you were all smoking pot in college on momma's dollar while some of us had to actually go out and EARN our right to go to college.
Actually, I was smoking pot on somebody else's momma's dollar. Hooray for being a poor-ass scholarship kid.
BFL
Not sure. The Digeo website mentions Q4-2003 availability but nothing else about whether that's direct to consumers or only cable companies/OEMs.
If it does become available though I'm all over it. I built a MythTV box and used it for a few weeks but overall it was just too much hassle and we ended up getting rid of it.
Assuming this thing is no more crippled than preventing moving video off the machine, this is exactly what I want to have. DVD burner would be nice but not the end of the world by any stretch.
The most frightening part of this whole story is that the people expressing shock (SHOCK!) at the amount of damage a piece of foam can do at 500+ MPH are actual Rocket Scientists. Is a basic grasp of physics not required for an advanced degree in Aerospace Engineering?
The second most frightening part of the story is that these tests were performed on a mock-up wing taken from the Enterprise (which has never flown) and is made out of fiberglass, a stronger (but much more heat labile) material than the carbon-carbon stuff the leading edge of the actual wing was made from. I wonder how nasty the results will be once they use the real material that failed.
BFL
The email in this post was to members of the Senator's staff and as such, I assume the writer is referencing the fact that the staff members sent him an email.
So yes, one person sending an email can have an impact on a politician but it helps if the politician actually knows who that person is.
BFL
A hoax? No way! I already bought my plane tickets and passes to ever music festival in the UK this summer just so I could check my email from an shit covered keyboard in an outhouse.
Damn...now what am I going to do?
BFL
It's been a while since I put Mozilla on my OS X machine but this article made me decide to dl the current build (1.3.whatever...didn't mess around w/ the 1.4a) and I have to say...ouch.
The differences between it and Safari are astounding. Mozilla makes me want to gouge my eyes out while Safari is a pleasure to look at and interact with.
Launching Mozilla takes 2-3X as long. Loading the same page in both browsers takes about 50% longer w/ Moz than in Safari (not cached on either browser) and, well, Mozilla's just kind of weak.
Burning some karma here and I do use Firebird/Phoenix/MiniMoz on my Linux box but it's certainly not the one to turn to if you have a nicer OS to back it up, like OS X.
BFL
C. elegans actually has a unique suvival phase called the dauer form.
D'oh! I worked w/ C.e. very briefly about 10 years ago and completely forgot about the dauer. Thanks for the reminder.
The article mentions moss in the container. Wonder if they can feed on that? I know they much prefer E. coli but I wonder how much their diet can change (or if the moss held extra yummy bacteria). I mean, I prefer donuts, beer and french fries, but, under sub-optimal circumstances I can also survive on salad and fish.
BFL
As they state in the article, C. elegans have a life cycle of 7-10 days. As they also state in the article, the shuttle, at the end of its mission, crashed on Feb. 1. That was 89 days ago. But somehow they've only managed to go through 4-5 generations? It's a pretty simple calculation.
More interesting (like CNN hasn't ever had a problem with pretty obvious facts) however is the survival. If we were talking about fungi or bacteria, organisms which are able to enter a dormant/stationary phase of the life cycle, it wouldn't be too surprising that they could survive. But C. elegans just have a pretty basic (egg-->larva-->adult) life cycle so they don't have a mechanism for surviving extreme situations (like a flaming fireball smashing into earth).
One of the great things about C. elegans is that they're easy to mutagenize and determine which genes give rise to characteristics such as resistance to UV/ionizing radiation, long life, ability to consume large volumes of alcohol, etc. I hope that some of these super space worms get into the hands of folks like Leon Avery or Tim Schedl so they can figure out what helped these guys survive.
Actually, the receiver is the base unit. I assume (based on no actual knowledge...that's what assumptions are after all) that you'd just plug all that stuff (DVD, cable, VCR...remember those?) into the base station which would then transmit through the base unit/receiver to the screen.
Of course, this in no way helps explain the usefulness of this. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
BFL
...to a non-existent problem.
Let's start with the weight issue. The motor supposedly weighs 10lb, most of which appears to be centered around the front axle (hello difficult to control at slow speed bike) yet he claims that OEMs could make motorized bikes at under 30lb. Well...sure they could but they'd have to be using titanium bikes that start out around US$4000 and go up (fast and far) from there. In reality, most of the bikes that you'd put this one (like the one pictured) run in the 25-28lb range. Tack another 10lb plus a 200+lb fat fuck who can't be bothered to pedal a bike and I doubt you could get anything close to the predicted 20 mile range. And let's take a closer look at the mileage. Assuming that you really could get the predicted 20 miles/0.25 gallon that works out to 80mpg at best. Pretty good compared to a Ford Excursion but when you compare it to something like the VW Lupo which gets 65-85mpg or even one of the TDI Jettas or Golfs which get 50-60 mpg, it seems pretty pathetic.
Secondly...stop being so lazy and just pedal. The whole point of bikes is that you get some excercise and don't contribute any pollution to the atmosphere. If you're going to ride a bike, ride the freakin' bike. If you want a motor vehicle, get a car (or a motorcycle or scooter).
I have commuted to work/school almost exclusively by bike every day for the past 11 years (3-12 miles one way) and this product, while interesting from a tech perspective, seems pretty ridiculous and useless.
BFL