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  1. FYI: line one of abstract on Molecular Clusters That Can Retain Charge Could Revolutionize Computer Memory · · Score: 1

    "Two decades of research in microgravity have shown that certain biochemical processes can be altered by weightlessness"
    The research is narrowing down what is going on and not refuting the idea entirely as the AC who is both quoting it as an authoritative source and calling it "Space Nutter junk" is suggesting.

  2. He didn't give information to foreign interests on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    Really? What if the media people are US citizens (as they are), does that still make it treason or does that mean the media people that "gave that information to foreign interests" are the ones that are treasonous in your eyes? Funny how they are not facing any charges at all isn't it?
    As for other nations, if a civilian contractor in Hawaii has got hold of all this stuff you can bet that any other nation that can pay off a significant Las Vegas gambling debt or other way into to this sprawling mickey mouse operation has already got it.

  3. Re: Will this go the same way as the spintronics? on Molecular Clusters That Can Retain Charge Could Revolutionize Computer Memory · · Score: 1

    I was asked about people looking at it and so provided links that google threw up as examples and wrote about where I had heard of it. It's not a literature review.

  4. Re: Will this go the same way as the spintronics? on Molecular Clusters That Can Retain Charge Could Revolutionize Computer Memory · · Score: 1

    The second result on google for "microgravity reactions" is this:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
    The first is this one which is far less useful:
    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa...

    There's a current experiment on the ISS along those lines that was mentioned in the mainstream press a couple of months back but I can't seem to track down a link. The biochemist interviewed was of the opinion that we have no idea how many reactions are influenced by gravity and was surprised to find so many so quickly.

  5. Re:Will this go the same way as the spintronics? on Molecular Clusters That Can Retain Charge Could Revolutionize Computer Memory · · Score: 1

    I for one would really love to see microgravity construction overlords. Lightweight stuff that can only be made in space could be the incentive to progress beyond whatever the Russians will sell us to fly with.
    However I think it's biochemistry that's the key there - reaction rates etc differ without the shear force from gravity and it hasn't been looked at much yet. It's possible that there are drugs that can only be made effectively in space, and such things are frequently worth far more than their weight in gold (or reaction mass costs to get stuff up and down).

    As for nanotech, it's going on as it was when it was called "surface technology" and similar before Drexler's books, but it just can't quite deliver the Newtonian behaviour that is suggested by Drexler's books and newspaper derivations because quantum mechanical effects get in the way. However those effects already give us products with gecko like adhesion from lots of nanoscale hair-like structures.

  6. Re:The United States is turning into Untied States on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    An example of where it is entirely appropriate is Joseph McCarthy and his protege Schine, another Wolfowitz and his mistress who ended up being paid more than her purely theoretical boss Rice. Whether the relationship was physical or not is immaterial when the powerful are putting their special friends into positions of responsibility that that they show no signs of being fit for.
    I suspect that's led to a change between having a successful legal career or similar being the way to power to being a kid who has got to be on the inside immediately after graduation from a relatively short course with nothing as onerous as classics, law, science or engineering.

  7. Re:Do you get how Snowden's way was the only way? on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 2

    Was his sole intent to damage the US or was it to damage those who are abusing their position?
    Absolute right of Kings went out with King John. The NSA are not the US, only part of it, and should not have unquestionable power.

  8. Re:The United States is turning into Untied States on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    That word sorted out the people who've actually heard of the classics from those who have not even if it's a bit too extreme to apply to nearly every case.

    In rare cases it fits precisely and in others simple nepotism (as you suggest) or a wish to promote keen youths "with the right stuff" applies far better. Of course I don't think it's new or I wouldn't use such an old word, but it's rife today when you look at situations like that kid put in charge of a big chunk of NASA that took on their climate scientists - despite being highly political from the start that was a new one for NASA.
    Either way we've ended up with a situation where good looks and Spaniel style devotion to masters trumps all else. A handsome empty headed youth that says yes a lot who is on the political track is likely to be in a position of power before the age when an engineering graduate gets to be in charge of his first project with a small workforce. It's no way to run a country. The same stands with my comment about the political track to the head of the military - with plenty of conflict over the past few decades it's a hole in the system that someone can avoid all association with that and make it to the top ranks.

  9. Re:I got some backlash for you. on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    What is the penality for treason these days?

    You have to do a photoshoot wrapped in a flag and run as a Republican candidate for Virginia.

  10. Re:Not all spooks are bad on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    Drive out with a phone on to meet a person with more information.

    Thanks to the influence of such groups as the NSA your mobile phone transmits it's data in an easily readable format instead of something encrypted such as was first proposed for the devices. The performers "Negativeland" some years back demonstrated that very clearly with analogue phones, and apparently it's not much more difficult now with digital but it can land you in legal deep shit if you do it and you are not a government associated body. So organised crime could be listening in to that mobile call, and less organised crime with NSA or similar kids playing at James Bond can just get it via the exchange.

  11. Re:The United States is turning into Untied States on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    Is it a coincidence that this also happened around the same time that the educated class stopped reading the classics?

    Maybe more because the educated class didn't get to run the place anymore and those that did get to run the place appointed their young catamites to run departments instead of people with the experience to operate effectively. I'm not sure when it happened but by the end of WWII the executive branch of the US government had the wool very effectively pulled over their eyes by Stalin despite potential access to a vast number of experts in European politics who knew it detail what sort of monster he was.
    Look at the careers of people like Rumsfeld or the political Generals that somehow managed to avoid any association with Korea, Vietnam or Central America, or any conflict at all, before ending up on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Neither education or experience appears to be of value. Intimate contact with a Senator as a young intern is the more likely path to power, and to get to be an intern you have to study something, and those classics are too damned hard apparently.

  12. Do you get how Snowden's way was the only way? on Top NSA Official Raised Alarm About Metadata Program In 2009 · · Score: 1

    So do those posters here calling Snowden a "traitor" now get how the only way he could get the message out to the people he worked for - the American people - was to tell it to the press?
    Internal complaints just got buried.

  13. Re:NDS != NDS on The Nintendo DS Turns 10 · · Score: 1

    Also I'm assuming because the replacement was a lot bigger - the XL has a much larger screen than the DSi.
    I think you are being too critical of the product since the poster above didn't bother to try to maintain it so didn't get as far as finding if it was impossible to maintain. My DS is still in good shape, probably never used it enough to give it a hammering, so I've never done any repairs on it and only opened up the back to flash the firmware, but it doesn't look all that difficult to work on:
    http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+DS+Lite+Buttons+Replacement/4787

  14. Re:NDS != NDS on The Nintendo DS Turns 10 · · Score: 1

    Cool - would mod up that infernoDS post if I could. I ran DS Linux for a while but a lack of an external keyboard meant I didn't play with it much. Now there's an external keyboard.

  15. Re:Most painless way - two networked computers on Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop? · · Score: 1

    The linux emulation environment was 32bit only last I looked - which is fine for running Adobe stuff or linux based email gateway virus scanning software of which there is still 32bit versions being produced.
    So that's on the 64 bit systems. I'm also running FreeBSD on systems with 32 bit hardware (a netbook and a couple of relatively old file servers that are just online archives of rarely used stuff) - so yes, I'm still running 32bit binaries in some situations. Even LibreOffice on an early netbook.

    I'm out of date with Virtualbox - a few months ago it wasn't working on FreeBSD, but from other posts here it appears the problems have been fixed.


    Anyway, my major point is that with X you don't need one machine to do everything so long as you have enough machines that can do all you want networked together.

  16. Re:NDS != NDS on The Nintendo DS Turns 10 · · Score: 1

    However there are still original DS's out there in use. Tough little things, seems it's main mode of failure is theft.

  17. Is reading so difficult? on Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop? · · Score: 1

    No it is an effort to make things usable

    Why can't people read beyond the first sentence before writing a two paragraph reply?

  18. Wind back four years for acceptable desktop linux on Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop? · · Score: 2

    Poettering's NetworkManager and Avahi

    Wow, add that to systemd and pulseaudio and it's almost looking like he's on the MS payroll to break stuff in linux. However, the reality is likely to be that he has a vision to change linux into something different to what it is now which of course is not going to be painless and seamless - hence the annoyance with pulseaudio during the first few years of development and the annoyance with NetworkManager until relatively recently. NetworkManager may have pissed me off at times on fixed systems (and earlier in development) but it's now a pretty nice thing to have on laptops.
    If you want to completety change the compartmentalised idea of linux (where you change settings and they stay changed) to something very interdependant there's going to be a pile of glitches on the way to pretending to be a Mac. Complaints about beta software going into distros are fairly pointless since it's not going to get much better without a lot of people hammering at it and finding the problems. It does however mean that there is a very large and widening gap between what's acceptable in an office environment (RHEL6 or Fedora13 from 2010) and the cutting edge (Fedora20).

  19. Most painless way - two networked computers on Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop? · · Score: 1

    A few things on that list are where BSD is lagging behind, just like linux is lagging behing on ZFS. Last I looked Virtualbox was not working at all. However with X you don't have to run the software on the same machine and the one you sit in front of.
    There's plenty of stuff where there are linux binaries available but nothing for BSD - however so long as they are 32 bit there's an emulation layer that's pretty solid, even for flaky Adobe stuff or antivirus scanners written to be run on linux. I should get around to installing the old loki games on a netbook I've put FreeBSD10 on.

  20. Re:Wrong and irrelevant as well on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    "But such a plant would occupy less land"

  21. Re:Wrong and irrelevant as well on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    Funny thing is your "point" just moved from size to if it can be seen - it didn't stand at all, it made a cocoon and turned into a fucking butterfly to fly off into the sunset. Why do you bother with these juvenile little masterbatory games? Is it an ego thing?

  22. Re:"eye sore" on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    Fair enough, but still not exactly wilderness so a bit of a sign of civilisation is to be expected here and there. Aren't there ski lifts, railways etc all over the place - you can catch a train to the top of the Eiger can't you? Why is that OK and great big crosses on a lot of peaks OK but a windmill here and there not? It's not the Torres Del Paine but just about next door to a pile of cities.
    It takes more than a few power transmission towers to destroy the serenity (obscure film reference - people from the city coming out to see the "unspoiled" countryside of farms and power lines).

  23. Re:Wrong and irrelevant as well on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    Looks like only two boilers, two turbines and only one cooling tower. Tiny little thing that probably only has a couple of 500MW or less turbines since it looks like a 1980s plant. Of course still a pretty big land footprint and not dual use like the wind farms are.

  24. Re:They WILL FIght Back on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    Second point, it is new so the lack of other adoption is obvious and pretending there are other causes is to be frank dishonest.
    As for your first point, did you even read my post or did you not quite make it to the end before you replied?

  25. Re:My two cents... on Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016 · · Score: 1

    It invalidates my assertion that imported fuel burnt in small inefficient generators is expensive and reduces energy security? How?
    Talk to me and not some strawman in your head.