Contents

1. New Evidence For Ancient Life On Mars
2. In AU, Film Studios Issue Ultimatum To ISPs
3. Cancer Vaccine That Mimics Lymph Node
4. Home Router For High-Speed Connection?
5. Engaging With Climate Skeptics
6. Building 3D Models On the Fly With a Webcam
7. Plasma Device Kills Bacteria On Skin In Seconds
8. Facebook Putting Batteries On-Board Its Servers
9. Life and Work On the LHC At CERN
10. EU About To Grant US Unlimited Access To Banking Data
11. NRC Relicensing Old “Zombie” Nuclear Plants
12. Newspapers Face the Prisoner’s Dilemma With Google
13. Security Firms Can’t Protect iPhone From Threats
14. 30,000 UK ISP Users Face Threat Letters For Suspected Illegal File Sharing
15. Robo-Chefs and Fashion-Bots On Show In Tokyo
16. India To Have Automatic Communications Monitoring
17. The World’s First Osmotic Power Plant
18. Virgin Media To Trial Filesharing Monitoring In UK

Re:No wonder we look at Mars. - by MichaelSmith (Score: 2) Thread

A DNA sequence from Mars would certainly be something. My bet would be on building a DNA instrument into a probe, rather than on sample return.

Well - by Dunbal (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread

This would certainly widen the belt for what we consider to be the “habitable” range, in our search for habitable exoplanets.

Re:Well - by wizardforce (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

As a iochemist, it was my understanding that the habitable zone was already known to extend out toward Mars. Although really, I’d say that the concept of a habitable zone needs to be expanded anyway considering the possibility of life in the Jupiter system. I believe that it is becoming increasingly clear that there isn’t just a single habitable zone around a star like our sun but also pockets of habitable space underneath the surface of various moons and terrestrial planets like Mars.

Oh wow - by Dartz-IRL (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

It’s life.

Or was life.

If this is true. It’s just staggering to me. If there was life on Mars… there may still be. If there was life on Mars, then how common is life elsewhere in the galaxy? If it can exist on ancient Mars, there’s no reason it can’t exist on any of the other millions of planets scattered through the billions of stars in our Galaxy.

If life is found on Mars… or found to have existed… then it can be anywhere.

Under the ice of Europa aswell?

While we may never meet our neighbours… it would still be nice to know that yes, they may well be out there… somewhere. The Galaxy may well be teeming. I sure hope it is. I mean, if it becomes clear that rather than being just blacks, whites… whatevers… on a cosmological scale where there is actual non-terrestrial life… shouldn’t it be clear that we all are just the one race?

Panspermia - by jpmorgan (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

I’m rooting for panspermia. There’s something kind of cool at looking at Mars and thinking: that’s where we came from, and the rovers are just us coming home.

The auto industry creates death machines! - by psyque (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
The auto industry should also immediately take responsibility for all the death and cost due to people running over and robbing people/businesses with cars! They profit from death and destruction!

Same to you, buddy - by cheebie (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

How about if they start taking their responsibility seriously and let those works pass into the public domain after a reasonable amount of time, AS WAS THE ORIGINAL INTENT. Give us back our culture, damnit!

Why? - by BitterOak (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Actually, all business want to enjoy the benefit of being able to make money by providing a product or service to customers, including the movie industry. But since when is it the responsibility of one business to protect the business interests of another business? Cars can be used to facilitate bank robberies, matches can be used to facilitate arson, photocopiers can be used to facilitate copyright infringement. Should car manufacturers and match manufacturers get out of their respective businesses if they aren’t willing to help?

Pot calling the kettle black - by Lead Butthead (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The court case between the NRLA (National Right to Life Association) and film industry drew to a close yesterday after the NRLA issued an ultimatum: Take copycat violent crimes responsibilities seriously or leave the industry. ‘Businesses such as film industry want to enjoy the benefit of being able to make money out of producing violent films and they enjoy that benefit. But it carries with it a responsibility,’ said the NRLA‘s lawyer. ‘They provide a facility that children is able to mimic. If they don’t like having to deal with copycat violent crimes then they should get out of the business.’

ps. No, NRLA doesn’t exist. I made that up.

Oh really? - by TheRealMindChild (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
‘They provide a facility that is able to be used for copyright infringement purposes. If they don’t like having to deal with copyright notices then they should get out of the business.’  
 
Next stop, having DVD-Recorders and VCRs removed from the shelves of your local super store… you know… for providing a facility that is able to be used for copyright infringement purposes.

Re:Treatment, not vaccine… - by geekoid (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

it’s a therapeutic vaccine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine

Really cool… - by Chabil Ha' (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

unless the foreign components are later found to cause cancer themselves.

Re:Really cool… - by geekoid (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread

depends, if it cures your cancer now, but it will give you cancer in 20 years it may be worth it.

8.5 millimeters .. - by geekoid (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

If it cures my cancer, I don’t care if the think is the size of a hockey puck and they have to stick it in my forehead*.

*Ass was too expected.

Re:interesting - by larry bagina (Score: 4, Informative) Thread
The immune system does attack HIV, and that’s kind of the problem. HIV infects T4 lymphocytes, which get killed off by the rest of the immune system, which then allows opportunistic infections to cause problems (and death).

You poor bastard - by Sloppy (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

My cable company has recently begun to offer Internet access plans with speeds over 30 Mbps (60, 80 and 100 Mbps). However my D-link router is unable to go beyond 30 Mbps if I use NAT

I don’t have an answer to your problem (other than “get a computer”), but you have my deepest sympathies. It is so hard to hear of my fellow human being having such horrific adversities inflicted upon them, and I cannot help but wonder: could this misfortune fall upon me some day?

I can only hope that you overcome the terrible burden of a 100 Mpbs internet connection thrust upon you and your residence, and somehow, god-willing, find a reason to keep on living, in order to set an example for others who may some day suffer the same fate. No matter how dark and hopeless things look right now, don’t give up! If you can survive this calamity, maybe I can overcome my own problems as well.

Bless you, my friend, and good luck!

I agree with TheRealMindChild - by majortom1981 (Score: 4, Informative) Thread
Like another user stated use pfsense. We had this problem at work. We are a library and just got 100/100 fiber service. Couldnt afford to buy some $10,000 router and our $1000 router couldnt handle the speeds. Downloaded pfsense and put it on an old server and get full 100/100 speed. Its open source , has snort and everything. ITs free to use and they have a pay for support option as well.

Linux PC - by seanadams.com (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

The replies you’ve got so far seem to think that just because a router has gigabit ports that it can do NAT at gigabit speeds, which of course you’ve already figured out is nonsense.

For a standalone firewall box you might need to look at something like a Cisco ASA. Not cheap but they will at least specify the actual NAT throughput for whatever model you pick.

The other way to go is to roll your own on a decent PC with Linux which will get you a few hundred Mbps easily. For example a Mac Mini or FitPC will be fast enough.

Re:Linux PC - by JWSmythe (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

    I second your opinion on using a PC. He may still run into a PPS rate limitation with the router though. It depends on how they bring the connection in. A friend of mine has a business FIOS line (20Mb/20Mb) and a /25 of static IP’s, and I specified at install time that they had to bring it in by CAT5. They’ll either install CAT5 or coax. I yanked their router off as soon as they finished the install, and put a Catalyst 2924 on. The speed was ok (but not great) with their router. It was exactly as advertised through the 2924.

    For a NAT environment, a decent PC with Linux and iptables would be fine. It would obviously need decent interfaces (nope, that old 10baseT card won’t do it), but it doesn’t need lots of memory or even CPU power. A handy spare 1Ghz machine with 256Mb RAM is overkill, but easily available in most of our homes. :) The best part is, it’s free. No need to waste money on new equipment, if you already have it sitting in your garage gathering dust.

    I don’t recommend exceeding 80% capacity on the interfaces. If they do offer 100Mb/s, it’s time to upgrade to GigE interfaces. Again, that’s pretty easy to do these days. You’ll start running into problems at the PCI bus after a while, but that’s over 100Mb/s.

    Even in testing the 20Mb/s connection a couple years ago, I just started downloading ISO’s. From any one source, I ran into their limitations, so I pulled one copy from a bunch of mirrors, and was able to saturate the connection to flatline at 28Mb/s (wheee). Their advertising was wrong, but I won’t complain when they’re wrong in my favor.

WRT-160NL - by extintor (Score: 4, Informative) Thread

I have a 100/10 mbit (fiber, no modems etc) line at home and use a Linksys WRT-160NL. When I do heavy file transfer (downloading, mainly from big FTPs like universities and such) the speed is around 90 mbits (~9.5 Mb/sec). 
I highly recommend it. And if you’re extra geeky, I know that there’s a OpenWRT port being worked on, but it’s not finished yet.

Oftentimes, simply no… - by MoellerPlesset2 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Being a scientist but not of the climate variety, I’ve got to say ‘No’. 
In a lot of cases, if not most, dialogue on the merits of your scientific work is simply impossible with a layperson. 
 
I work with this stuff. Every day. 40 (well more like 50-60) hours a week. It took years of study for me (and everyone else) 
just to get to the level where you can properly understand what it is, exactly, that I do. That’s what being an expert at something entails. 
Now when I get into a dispute with someone, they typically have the same level of expertise. They know more or less everything I do. I know what they’re saying, and they usually know what I’m saying. 
 
Now you bring into that situation some layperson with their religious reasons or ideological reasons or crank personality, who wants to dispute the results of my work. So they pore over it, and they simply don’t understand it. (And ignorance breeds arrogance more often than humility, as Lincoln said) But they think they do. And then they formulate their criticism. Even if that criticism makes sense (often not), it’s typically wrong at the most basic level. And that will practically always be the case - because there’s virtually *nothing* in the way of criticism that a beginner would be able to think of that an expert hadn’t thought about already. You’re just not going to find a professor of physics having made a mistake of forgetting the first law of thermodynamics. 
 
Now I’m happy to defend my science against legitimate, good, criticism. But a scientific debate is *NOT* where anybody should be TEACHING anybody science. What kind of ‘debate’ is it if every answer amounts to “That’s not what that word means, read a damn textbook.” It’s not the scientists who are being arrogant then. Hell, since when didn’t scientists bend over backwards to educate the public? We write textbooks, and popular-scientific accounts. Research gets published in journals for everyone to see, etc. It’s not like we’re keeping it a big secret - The problem is that some people are simply unwilling to learn, yet arrogant enough to believe they should be entitled to ‘debate’ with me, and that I should be personally burdened with educating them in the name of ‘open debate’! 
 
(Just to pick one out of the climate bag. How often haven’t you seen someone say “Yeah but climate change is cyclical!” - What? As if _climate scientists_ didn’t know that?! Refuting someone’s research with arguments from an introductory textbook) 
 
The fact that these climate-skeptics were prepared to take these e-mails, pore over them for some choice quotes (which didn’t even look incriminating to me out of context), blatantly misinterpret them without making any kind of good-faith effort to understand the context or the science behind it, and trumpet it all out as some kind of ‘disproval’ of global warming (which wouldn’t have been the case even if they were right), just goes to show that they’re simply not interested in either learning the science, or engaging in a real debate. And it’s in itself pseudo-scientific behavior in action: Decide there’s a big conspiracy of fraud behind climate change, and go look for evidence to support your theory, and ignore all other explanations.

Actually this is about *policy*, not science - by west (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Unfortunately, while we’d all feel better if science was going to determine the policy outcome, I think we’re all aware here that the truth about global warming is only a secondary factor in the success or failure of enacting policy to prevent it.

This is true for both sides, and *both* sides know it. Simply put, the issue is way too important to be left to mere science.

AGW is only a secondary issue to many of the non-scientists in the game. The pro-AGW crowd has many people who would like to see Western society’s materialistic, high-energy-use lifestyle forcibly curbed, and AGW provides a convenient club.

Likewise, many of the anti-AGW would be willing to sacrifice hundreds of millions of poor people in geographically challenged areas if the only alternative was strict curbs on their lifestyle, but would prefer not to have to actually say it. So they’d deny the science rather than admit the underlying sentiment.

I strongly suspect that among the voters, there’s only a small minority for whom the science is the principal factor in determining the preferred policy.

Proof? For all those who hold a strong opinion on AGW in one direction or the other, ask yourself this. What proof would it take for you to accept that the opposite position was actually the correct one? Exactly.

Eric Raymond’s take on this - by TheCodeFoundry (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Interestingly, ESR has gotten in on the discussion and is a little more damning in his condemnation of the entire Climategate ordeal

http://rebootcongress.blogspot.com/2009/11/eric-s-raymond-on-east-anglia-crus.html

No - by Selfbain (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
I have to go with the way Dawkins approaches this type of situation. Giving them a seat at the table gives them credibility.

Re:No - by winwar (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

“Notice Dawkins doesn’t seem willing to apply the same test to his views, despite the reality that he is asking us to *believe* him?”

Sorry, you lose. Dawkins provides EVIDENCE, he does not require belief. True skeptics will discard a belief when presented with better evidence. Most people who call themselves skeptics aren’t-they search for information that fits with their beliefs. In short, skepticism requires rational, logical and reasonable thought.

Academic projects versus commercial applications - by Frans Faase (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread
There seems to be a huge gap between these kind of academic projects and the commercial available programs. I have come across several commenrcial applications that can do these kind of things, but these applications cost at least a 1000 dollars or even more. And then there are all these academic projects (going on for at least two decades), which present nice video’s and papers, and sometimes release some software. But when you look at the software, you discover that you first have to download nine other package and compile the whole thing and what you get is some kind of script you have to run, with all sorts of command line options. But sofar, I have never found an application with a solid interface on the level of the Gimp or Blender for the matter of the fact. I find this rather strange. I am almost getting the impression that some of the results are sold to the developers of the commercial packages.

3D vision for robots - by cptnapalm (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

I was thinking about robots one day and I was wondering why those who work on computer vision didn’t do something like this. Instead of trying to get the machine to understand the analog world, why wouldn’t it be better for the machine to have an internal representation of the world by making a 3d map? Quake 3 CoffeeShop, if you will.

The idea I had was that the vision system creates a 3d map with entities, mapped from the vision system as well, inside. The AI works within the 3d representation of the world. If the AI wants to move from A to B, it signals the body controlling subsystem to start walking. When the 3d representation, being informed by the vision system, tells the AI that it is at point B, then the AI signals to stop walking.

Hardware constraints not withstanding, is this model any good?

I’m just a lowly, early middle aged novice C programmer who has never actually done anything with robotics, so if what I said made no sense or is obviously idiotic, I do understand that my ideas are comin’ outta my ass.

Re:3D vision for robots - by cptnapalm (Score: 2) Thread

Thank you! When I did my searching for something like my idea, I couldn’t find anything. Obviously my Google-fu needs some work.

With regards to how easy it would be, my estimate was that it was beyond my abilities. So it still is, but just way way beyond my abilities.

Re:The Death of Hollywood - by RAMMS%2BEIN (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

In theory, we can make good computer games, too.

But how many open-source games can you name that have great graphics? And how many closed-source games with great graphics are there?

I don’t think Hollywood is dying just yet.

Re:The Death of Hollywood - by McNihil (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread

Or why not let the viewer choose who plays that part… Angelina Jolie with those perky ones from the Tomb Raider movies for instance. How about watching Cassablanca as yourself as Bogart? Now how about being Dekkard in Blade Runner? The only thing that is needed is the motion capture of believable performances that’s all.

I’ll bite - by xigxag (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

Rachael Ray?

Re:Good bacteria? - by Cedric Tsui (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
The same thing that happens to them when you wash with antibacterial soap.

Re:sweet - by weav (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

A plasma bathtub would be good but what *I* really want is a plasma TOOTHBRUSH…

Re:Resistance? - by Chyeld (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

In order to grow resistance, you have to leave a few alive and they have to have been left alive due in some part to something in their makeup causing them to be less vulnerable to the ‘weapon’.

In other words, something that lived only because it was never touched isn’t going to evolve into the superbug.

This eradicates the germs, they aren’t being poisoned or having their chemical processes blocked (which is what most antibiotics do), it’s ripping the germs apart at the atomic level. You don’t develop a resistance to that.

Re:Resistance? - by geekoid (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

Never. There is a difference between removing the easy bugs, and complete annihilation of all bacteria it come into contact with. Its like saying the if we had enough super novas humans would become resistant to them.

I’m sure this looks great on Powerpoint - by SuperBanana (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Facebook says the move will slash its power bill and save millions in capital expenses on UPS systems and PDUs.

And it’ll move the complexity and unreliability to the server. The whole idea behind centralized UPS’s (and by the way, you still need PDUs) is that you have reliability, serviceability, and economies of scale and efficiency. Now you have to monitor and service the batteries in thousands of pieces of equipment. And guess what happens when one of those batteries fails by getting cooked? Sulfuric acid all over the place (yes, even the “sealed” lead acid batteries can fail and leak) instead of the batteries being in, say, a battery room. God help us if they use lithium-ion, which would introduce us to a world of server fires and water damage, since a lot of datacenters are now dry-pipe to save costs. Nevermind that batteries and their associated electronics take up space, and that space has to come from somewhere.

So, now you have each server getting more expensive, more complex with both hardware and software (server now needs its own battery power management) heavier, bigger, featuring toxic materials, and now non-standard, non-commodity design which vendors will charge more for as they specialize the equipment.

I’m sure this all looks great on a powerpoint slide simplified into “if we put batteries in our servers, we can throw out our expensive UPS and save money!” This is just another hot/stupid trend; just because Google is doing it, doesn’t make it brilliant. I stopped believing everything google was doing was a Best Practice around the same time gmail started going down for hours (and for some users, more than a day) at a time on a regular basis.

I tuned out of the article around the point where the guy from Facebook complains about cosmetic features interfering with airflow. Uh, guess what, bud? Dell’s pretty front panel has been optional (saving you a few bucks sometimes) for years.

“mesh” thinking - by girlintraining (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

The problem with mesh computing is that it doesn’t save in energy costs. With a centralized UPS and power supply, improving efficiency requires that you upgrade one unit. This way, you have to upgrade a few hundred units. It’s similar to why moving to electric cars is advocated despite their limited range and low performance: Because it’s easier to upgrade a dozen power plants than a few hundred thousand cars, to take advantage of the latest technology.

Re:On board batteries fine, but 277 volt? - by Cassini2 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

277 (V) corresponds to the line to neutral voltage of a 480 (V), 4 wire power distribution system. 480 (V) systems are fairly common in industrial settings in the United States. The major disadvantage of using 480 (V) to power a server, is you can’t use a UPS. UPS on 480 (V) systems are rare and expensive, hence the reason why Facebook wants the batteries inside the server.

I’m pretty certain you really don’t want to run servers from the 277 (V) line to neutral voltage of a 480 (V), 4 wire system (3 lives, one neutral). On a 4 wire system, you have 4 wires and you can lose any one of them. If you lose the neutral, your servers could be running of 480 (V) instead of 277 (V). They will be destroyed.

Losing the neutral is a relatively common failure in 3 phase systems, as many 3 phase systems are 3 phase, 3 wire with a fake neutral/ground connection that is often mistaken for a neutral. This central connection is purely to prevent the 3-wire system from drifting off of off ground, like when lightening strikes, which is common in a big high-voltage system. When operating a 10,000 (V) to 480 (V) step down transformer (the transformers inside the metal fenced enclosures), a small amount of electric slippage to occur between the windings. 1% of 10,000 (V) is 100 (V). Faults can also occur in big loads, like motors. A 10% ground fault on a 480 (V) 400 (A) motor, could be 200 (V) at 40 (A). These voltages/powers are nothing for a 480 (V) motor, but are enough to cause significant damage in a computer with a 1.2 (V) processor. This mismatch is why you should never trust the ground/neutral connection on a high-voltage supply line. It is for safety, not for powering computer equipment, electronic equipment, and electronic motor drives. After having replaced tens of thousands of dollars of electronic motor drives, my rule is: make the supply 480 (V) 4 wire, and all the loads 480 (V) 3 wire. A 3 wire load with no neutral can withstand problems with the neutral. A 4-wire load powering electronics line-to-neutral will not withstand neutral failures.

If you are going to use 480 (V), you really want to use 480 (V) 3 wire AC (3 live wires, no neutral). If any one power circuit is lost, nothing really bad happens. Also, power semiconductors are readily available for 480 (V), because all the industrial motor drives require them. As such, your power supply will be cheaper.

Re:On board batteries fine, but 277 volt? - by PIBM (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The wiring resistance is constant per meter (for a given cost) and increasing the voltage will reduce the amperage, while the power loss in the wiring is the multiplication of the amp times resistance, so, by increasing the voltage, the reduce the amp which in turn reduce the power loss in the transmission.

Re:On board batteries fine, but 277 volt? - by RiotingPacifist (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

If you have bigger pick up trucks, then you need less of them to carry a set amount of goods and so there is less traffic on a road.

Anatoli Bugorski - by Picass0 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

source : http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.12/science.html

====== snip====== 
So it was in 1978 that when the proton beam entered Anatoli Bugorski’s skull it measured about 200,000 rads, and when it exited, having collided with the inside of his head, it weighed in at about 300,000 rads. Bugorski, a 36-year-old researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, was checking a piece of accelerator equipment that had malfunctioned - as had, apparently, the several safety mechanisms. Leaning over the piece of equipment, Bugorski stuck his head in the space through which the beam passes on its way from one part of the accelerator tube to the next and saw a flash brighter than a thousand suns. He felt no pain.

From what we know about radiation, about 500 to 600 rads is enough to kill a person (though we don’t know of anyone else who has been exposed to radiation in the form of a proton beam moving at about the speed of sound). The left side of his face swollen beyond recognition, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow so that doctors could observe his death over the following two to three weeks.

Over the next few days, skin on the back of his head and on his face just next to his left nostril peeled away to reveal the path the beam had burned through the skin, the skull, and the brain tissue. The inside of his head continued to burn away: all the nerves on the left were gone in two years, paralyzing that side of his face. Still, not only did Bugorski not die, but he remained a normally functioning human being, capable even of continuing in science. For the first dozen years, the only real evidence that something had gone neurologically awry were occasional petit mal seizures; over the last few years Bugorski has also had six grand mals. The dividing line of his life goes down the middle of his face: the right side has aged, while the left froze 19 years ago. When he concentrates, he wrinkles only half his forehead. 
====== snip======

Working physicist - by Pezbian (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Look, kids! A real life working physicist. He’s got a job that doesn’t involve waiting for an internship to open up at a University.

A Modest Proposal - by eldavojohn (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

So you’re saying it’d be pretty painless? You could revolutionize flawed processes we have in the United States by providing an alternative that may have a more expensive start up cost but would solve budget problems by providing needed services for both our prison system and science research at the same time. I mean if we ignore the ethical problems with televised executions, the costs of an LHC could be mitigated by commercial segments …

mythbusters have to test the 87kg of TNT part now - by Joe The Dragon (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

“It would be the equivalent of having 87kg of TNT dumped into your body.” jamie wants big boom

Re:mythbusters have to test the 87kg of TNT part n - by Lord Byron II (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Yeah, even a few billion atoms (which isn’t very much at all) and you’re already talking about hundreds of Joules.

I forget the exact energy specifications of the LHC, but if you’re interested in getting a feeling for the power it packs, do a search for “LHC beam dump”. This is a huge block of solid material (some sort of a lead-composite, IIRC) that’s only job is to be vaporized if they need to shut down the beam quickly.

EU Has Finally and Completely Lost It - by MinistryOfTruthiness (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

As a US citizen, I say “WTF Europe — are you insane?!”

I believe in the right of every country to protect their sovereignty, and this sound like a gigantic ceding of that sovereignty, and as egregious as the formation and delegation of power to the EU. The absolute best way to avoid tyranny on a massive scale is to ensure the distribution of power to the greatest extent possible. That’s why I believe in states’ rights, and why I believe Europe is being a bunch of asshats right now. I’m as patriotic as they come, but I understand the capability of anyone — Americans as much as anyone else — to become drunk with power. In the same spirit, I applaud that no American financial data will be given to Europe. At least they got it half right.

Re:EU Has Finally and Completely Lost It - by Spad (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

The EU Council of Ministers is an unelected body of the usual group of money-grabbing power-hungry and our of touch morons who do whatever you want if you’ve got the cash. The EU parliament (which *is* an elected body) on the other hand, has thus far been pretty good at representing the wishes of its constituents and has managed to thwart the CoM’s attempts to force through some corporate-sponsored legislation against the wishes of the citizenry on several occasions.

As much as I dislike the Lisbon Treaty, one good thing to come out of it is increased power for the parliament at the expense of the CoM. The sooner they are removed from any kind of decision making the better.

Re:It’s even worse than that - by Anonymous Brave Guy (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

As far as I’m aware, the EU still takes more public money than any other organisation that has failed to produce audited accounts, and it’s been doing so for more than a decade now. I think we can safely assume that they are above the law. And if they’re not, as we’ve recently seen with the Lisbon treaty, they are quite capable of rewriting the law until they are, without needing any mandate from the people.

Re:About Time! - by Monkeedude1212 (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Is it worth catching corporate criminals at the cost of civil privacy?

Also, there are lots of ways around Taxation laws, legally, that require NO money off-shore. Using Charity receipts, holding companies, and company expenses, you can essentially cut your profits down so you don’t get taxed as much while everything you want to purchase is owned by various companies (which you own but not directly).

It’s kind of like you run company A, and Company B owns your car, Company C owns your house, Company D buys food, etc etc, and while the paper trail exists, theres nothing illegal about it. Shaw Communications (Cable company here in Canada) has mastered this technique. Yeah, the CEO is driving his Porsche around Calgary, but on paper he makes under 30k a year.

Re:everyone doesn’t hate Americans - by Jesus_666 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Americans are nice. Generally very open, sociable people who will be happy to strike up a conversation with you if they notice you’re from a country they’ve been to or some such. The United States of America (and, by extension, the people making up the American government) is a sociopathic asshole of a country that constantly betrays the principle it was founded on and follows international law only when it feels like it (and tries to get the law amended so it can do whatever it wants). 
 
Huge difference. I’d be happy to come over to the place where the Americans live and spend some time there - if only that place didn’t happen to be America.

Very disipointed in you, Slashdot - by DrBuzzo (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
This story is blatant anti-nuclear propaganda that is full of misleading statements and an inflammatory title. This is not a news story, it’s someone’s editorial and a bad one at that. The fact that some plants run beyond their design output is a simple matter of more effecient equipment retrofitted to their systems. Turbines and generators are better now than they were 30+ years ago, and that’s the age of many plants. The additional years of service are due to life-extension upgrades and the fact that there’s no reason a plant can’t operate safely for 60+ years.  
 
I’ve seen some very un newsworthy crap on Slashdot before, but this blatantly one-sided and completely overstated editorial without any further investigation or counter statement is really pushing it. Shame on you, slashdot.  
 
Now if you want, I’d be happy to write a rebuttal to this on my site, and you’re welcome to link to that, but I don’t expect you will, will you?  
 
I expect that this article was read by someone at Slashdot with a background in computer science or something else that made them totally incapable of judging the merits of these claims. For example the statement “Radiation makes metal brittle, so old pipes must be routinely switched out for new ones.” That’s totally bogus. There is a such thing as neutron brittling but that happens to the reactor vessel, not the outside plumbing, which is never exposed to neutron irradiation.  
 
Another lie in the article, which is a common political lie used by certain anti-nuclear energy interests is “The government has put up $18.5 billion in subsidies to build atomic plants.” That is simply not true. The only thing the government put up is what are called loan guarantees, which basically is to say that the government has agreed to underwrite loans on nuclear plants, a common practice in many private public works projects. It’s a means of assuring that the plant can get financing at a reasonable interest rate. The government is not handing out 18.5 billion dollars.  
 
There is more regulation and inspection of nuclear power plants than any other industrial facility on the fact of the earth. Commercial aircraft, chemical production facilities, massive gas storage facilities, explosives storage locations, trains that cary tens of thousands of tons of chlorine - these are all subject to far far less regulatory and safety oversight.  
 
Shame on you again, Slashdot. Next time you go to publish something so obviously slanted and inflammatory, consider asking an expert in the field, who actually understands this stuff. My suggestion would be hps.org. They have excellent media relations and very helpful people who know their stuff.  
 
I’d be happy to write a rebuttal to this, line by line, but I don’t know if I have time to today.

“Zombie nukes?” Puh-leaze - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I am a nuclear engineering/physics graduate student. Whether that makes me uniquely qualified to comment or just another industry shill is, I suppose, a question of which color Kool-Aid you drank with your Post Toasties this morning. That disclaimer out of the way:

This article is garbage. Others have noted the inflammatory language (“Zombie nukes?” really?). The author is misleading his readers on the issue of radiation-induced embrittlement and stress-corrosion cracking — whether through ignorance or deliberately deceptive language, it’s hard to say. You’ll note that of the “shocking” lapses in power plant operations, ZERO led to significant releases of radioactivity. ZERO led to any worker deaths or major injuries. The worst of the bunch, the “six inch deep hole” in the Davis-Besse pressure vessel head, wasn’t caused by lax regulation — it was caused by deliberate fraud. Inspection records were faked, and the people responsible are currently serving time in federal prison. That does point out a legitimate concern: if the operator is willing to lie to the NRC, then bad things can happen. NRC could probably use a shot in the arm, but to suggest it’s merely a lapdog of the industry is highly inflammatory, and evidence suggests, not especially accurate.

These reactors were licensed to operate for forty years because that is the maximum time permitted by law. Why was forty years written into the law? Because there was significant uncertainty as to how reactors would hold up in the long haul. The law was written conservatively. Designers built large safety margins into their designs to ensure compliance. Forty years of operational experience has demonstrated to everyone but the most anti-nuke environmentalists that there is sufficient safety margin to operate safely for another twenty years.

As for the 120% operating capacity… sheesh. These plants have had steam generator upgrades. More efficient heat removal allows the turbines to produce more electricity. The nuclear side of the plant is essentially unchanged. They probably drive the primary coolant pumps a little harder, but still well within their designed capacity. So yes, we’re getting 20% more energy out of the same number of fissions. No, we’re not jamming 20% more fuel into the core. Again: deliberately misleading, or poorly informed? Hard to say.

Maybe some truth there, but it’s dubious - by Geoffrey.landis (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
There’s probably some elements of truth in the article, but it’s so obviously biased that it’s really difficult to credit anything he says.

According to him, if you’re still running your car after the warantee expires, you’ve got a “zombie car”— regardless of how much maintanance you put into it. He says a lot of scary things, but doesn’t really have much real information.

Blame the EPA - by peragrin (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The EPA won’t let new nuclear plants to get built. If the plants get decommissioned it will literally cut our energy production by 1/2. It takes 10-15 years to build a new nuclear plant by EPA guidlines, and the population in that zone won’t let it get built just as they refuse to let wind turbines to get built.

So our only short term solution is to let the NRC extend the lives of the plants. It is either that or force new nuclear plants to get built but it isn’t cost efficient to do so.

there is a real energy crisis looming. Simply because people won’t plan ahead, the oil will start to run out roughly when all the fission plants have to go offline do to safety reasons.

Re:The real problem - by Stupendoussteve (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Not necessarily. While still in the research phase, Fourth Generation reactors look very promising, waste that remains dangerous for decades rather than thousands of years and the ability to use waste from Gen III reactors as fuel.

Even current breeder reactors can use some waste as fuel.

DUPE - but not Slashdot’s - by grcumb (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Carr has railed about this problem before, and he’s still just as wrong as he ever was.

Here’s his analysis of Murdoch’s first pronouncements on the topic back in April. And here’s why he’s just as wrong now as he was then.

(I later turned that post into a newspaper column in the country where I live. It’s longer and slightly more polished, but more focused on our particular issues, which aren’t necessarily germane to the larger debate.)

They are a commodity - by onyxruby (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Newspapers and the news have become a commodity, they just don’t realize it yet. When I can read 8 different newspapers with the exact same AP story, the differential between the newspapers becomes the experience. Newspapers are victims of their own business tactics. By removing local reporting resources, and getting most stories from the Reuters or AP, there is very little to differentiate one news source from another. Newspapers have two choices:

1. Create more original content (ie create content by hiring reporters)
2. Create a better experience for the reader (is your website pleasant to use)

Neither one of these has anything to do with Google, however surviving Google (or it’s replacement) requires doing one and or the other. The fact that Google is the delivery mechanism for much of their traffic is moot. Changing the delivery mechanism won’t change the fundamentals behind the issue. What newspapers need to do is learn how to keep the traffic they get once visitors find their site.

The Newspapers Have it All Wrong - by garcia (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

When the newspaper corporations continue to spout how the visitors brought in by the search engines are worthless because those people are drive-by visitors, I have to wonder about their content. If someone is brought in by a search engine they should be considered an opportunity. If you are not taking the time to ensure your design and content are meant to draw those opportunities into a goal, well, I think you’re looking at this from the wrong way.

This is yet another reason why the newspaper industry just doesn’t get it. Google gets it and so do the consumers. Microsoft doesn’t get anything more than the bone they are being thrown.

I wish people would stop reporting on this story as, honestly, it’s just a lame attempt at getting attention.

NPR, BBC anyone? - by onionman (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Maybe, just maybe, consumers who value actual news over sensationalized claptrap are finding that the opinion pieces and “human interest” stories which dominate Murdoch’s offerings are fungible commodities.

Good bye Wall Street Journal. You were a reputable publication at one time.

Re:NPR, BBC anyone? - by Nexus7 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Firstly, the WSJ editorial pages are propaganda tools, so I assume you mean the news and analysis pages. As far as those go, I have come across people who will name drop it during discussions, but I work in finance, and these are probably people who decided early on they were going into finance and read it religiously since 4th grade or something. Anyhow, they are a minority of the people I know. In general however, nobody goes around quoting WSJ, if they can quote the BBC ad (although less so), NPR. I know NPR is affected by cutbacks, and is quite shoddy compared to the BBC; but to say that the WSJ has more credibility than the BBC? Not in my world. Do they even have correspondents in 25% of the places the BBC does? Do people in far off countries gather around a radio and tune in to the WSJ?

Phones must not need anti-virus - by Kupfernigk (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
I am being quite serious here. Mobile devices need good battery life, and there is a limit to what can be done with batteries and screens. If you need an anti-virus program, you are using more power and the battery life is shorter: end of story. Forget whether Apple is Gandalf or Sauron, their attitude is 100% correct.

Going further, I have absolutely no patience with people who hack iPhones. A phone is an appliance connected to a public asset - EM bandwidth. People using public assets have a duty of care, and it’s the failure of duty of care (tragedy of the Commons) that has done a lot of damage to society.

What I do on my own local network is my affair, but I think increasingly we should have a reasonable expectation that anything connected to a public network is properly secured and maintained, just like (in the UK at least) we test cars annually to check they are safe on the road. I’m afraid that the Wild West days of the Internet are increasingly over - and the excesses of some people is bringing down an overreaction.

Over the next 20 years we have to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle without killing the genie or spoiling the bottle. The politicians will try to screw this up. But the rest of us need to realise that we need to grow up too - we need to understand that if we want a reliable public internet and mobile phone system, we need to stop treating people who act irresponsibly as if their behaviour was acceptable or clever. Otherwise anti-virus and anti-malware software will continue to eat up too many of our CPU cycles, shorten the lives of our hard drives, and cause increasing frustration to those of us who actually need to earn a living, and have to use the Internet and the phone system to do it.

No mechanism for transmission - by argent (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

This is even more stupid than their attempt to sell antivirus for Palm OS.

There is no mechanism for transmission between one iPhone and another UNLESS the iPhone is jailbroken.

So Symantec only needs to write antivirus for jailbroken iPhones. And Apple would have no way to prevent them. So what’s their problem?

F-Secure smells money - by cerberusss (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

From the summary, F-Secure: ”‘Apple hasn’t been too interested in developing antivirus solutions for the iPhone, because there are no viruses, which of course, isn’t exactly true.’ .

No, indeed, only jailbroken phones were infected. Thus the obvious solution for F-Secure would be to bring out an app in Cydia or other app stores for jailbroken devices.

Of course, rather than do something, their execs prefer to spend their time whining.

Re:F-Secure smells money - by wickerprints (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

What I think is most telling about that quote is how an AV company has blurred the distinction between a “virus” and what basically amounts to a default password security hole. Sorry, but how does that make me want to trust you to run software on my device if you don’t care to demonstrate you know the difference between these two types of attack?

The only reason why the jailbroken phones were vulnerable was because the default SSH password was not changed. No amount of AV is going to protect against a user’s stupidity. This statement by F-Secure is about the money-making opportunity they’re dying to exploit, and they’re clearly riding the wave of negative publicity surrounding the closed platform nature of the iPhone.

Re:F-Secure smells money - by purpledinoz (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I can imagine what Norton Antivirus will look like on the iPhone. First, everything would run slower, battery life would be cut in half, and a huge yellow annoying banner would attach itself to the browser reminding you that you are “PROTECTED BY NORTON ANTIVIRUS”.

Narrow Definition of Infringement? - by mrpacmanjel (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

If you go to the ACS web site thier definition of infringement seems to only apply to P2P traffic and even then seems to be limited to uploads.

Anyone with half a brain-cell would not use P2P networks for piracy anyway!

If you are really worried, the article has a link to http://www.beingthreatened.com/ - they seem to have some genuine advice.

By the way if you decide to pay the fine, it means you have admitted to guilt and will not be able to contest it or get your money back! 
If you recieve a letter asking for payment under NO circumstances pay it!

Also, reply to the letter as soon as you can - you have a limited time to respond to it (cannot remember how long).

Why, oh why, oh why? - by xirtam_work (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Isn’t the logical conclusion that if millions of people find a particular type of behaviour acceptable that it should be legalised? Otherwise it’s socially unjust. We’re not talking about murder or actual *stealing*. We’re talking about copyright infringement. If we think it’s a bad thing then we should also be allowed to decide how bad the punishment is, whether it’s a small fine or a prison sentence.

I visit the cinema on average once a week and every time the copyright warning is displayed and mentions 10 years in prison for recording a movie in a cinema I cringe. That’s more than people get for killing and maiming people, robbing banks and committing other violent crimes. The MP’s are in the pockets of the media companies. I’m not talking about small indie film studios, but the distributors and those who own them like Sony, etc. They’ve been persuaded that if the penalties are high enough people will not perform actions that are trivial to execute and have no visible consequences. This has been shown not to be true time and time again.

I buy lots of DVDs and DVD boxsets. I probably spent about £500 a year on these. I pay for the cinema one a week. I buy music on iTunes and only search elsewhere online if I can’t find what I want. As a kid I pirated every virtual computer game in existence in the 8/16 bit eras. Now I rarely play games, apart from on my iPhone which I pay for. I don’t have TV at home, so *sometimes* I get TV shows I like online before going out and buying the full season boxset as soon as it becomes available. I might consider buying them on iTunes or similar if they were available at a reasonable price, but they’re not. Most episodes of TV shows cost far more than the equivalent DVD for lower quality and no physical media to keep and store and are non-transferable to other machines, etc. I hope I’m not one of the people discovered in this haul of IP addresses, but I do not download movies, only a little bit of TV. Fingers crossed.

BT’s Statement - by bencoder (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

I am very impressed by the statement from BT:

I never knew BT could actually sound reasonable. What a shame governments are still left trailing behind on common sense and decency.

BT / Virgin Media / etc - by coofercat (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

From the summary, one might draw the conclusion that “be a BT customer, and you’re more of a target”, but I seem to remember BT being the biggest ISP in the UK by quite a big margin*. Virgin Media (aka. NTL / Telewest) are the second largest*, and so it goes on. So I suppose it’s reasonable that BT would account for the majority of the infractions. Conversely, BT have amongst the shittiest networks of all, so you’d imagine that the file sharers weren’t actually sharing that much after all. But I suppose that would mean BT won’t mind 25,000 people getting cut off, because it’ll save them having to upgrade their network (like they say they’re doing on the TV ads they’re running at the moment).

So the real take-away here is that if you’re at a small ISP, you’re less likely to be targeted (at least until the big ones tumble). Meanwhile, the utter incompetence of the BPI and their friends should keep this from being anything more than an annoyance for 30,000 people. If even 5000 of them follow up and challenge their accusers, it’ll tie the whole system up for months, if not years.

The BPI, Mandleson, and their ilk have an idealised view that file sharing should be super-illegal and so almost entirely eradicated. The problem is, best estimates suggest 7 million people in the UK share files*, so even if half give up from fear of prosecution, that’s still 3.5 million people they’ve got to prosecute. I don’t imagine there’s a lawyer in the UK who’s capable of executing that many cases in a decade, let alone simultaneously.

(* No, I can’t substantiate this with a link right now - you know how to use a search engine though, right?)

Re:BT / Virgin Media / etc - by Xest (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Yes, which is exactly why they’re trying to bypass the courts and make it possible for mere accusation to be enough to be punished.

Re:192 companies and 64 organisations - by MichaelSmith (Score: 3, Funny) Thread

Robots would. Just like we would choose 100 companies and 10 organisations.

Re:Do not confuse - by MichaelSmith (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

Its a good idea to be wary of AIs with built in process optimisation.

Re:Most disturbing robot - by Ralph Spoilsport (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread
I’m more curious as to what those mammaries are for.

It’s a tradition in Robotmaking - viz Maria from Metropolis.

Men build sexually arousing robots - mythologically it goes back to Pygmalion and Galatea.

When men pretend to be robots, it just comes off as ridiculous.

Re:Most disturbing robot - by Mark_in_Brazil (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

GP:

PP:

Those are the robot’s eyes. Scientists have found that men will make better eye contact with the robot that way, which facilitates reading their facial expressions.

Robotic games - by st0nes (Score: 3, Informative) Thread
These guys are there. This thing is really ice-cool. http://www.roboni-i.com/

Re:Outsouring effects… - by MrNaz (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

If they were worried about their business being intercepted they’d not hire 100 foreign nationals to carry out their business on foreign soil.

Re:Spain has it too - by Anachragnome (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

”…monitorizes…”

Is that you, H.W.?

26/11 is India’s 9/11 … they picked the day - by Gopal.V (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The Research & Analysis wing in India has always had significant electronic intelligence hardware and has always been looking for more funding & more engineers to work for them. I know in some sense that they are indeed working their things to let me live my life in some sort of passive ignorance. The thing that pisses me off about this is the day and time they decided to announce this.

I haven’t touched yesterday’s copy of my paper (the hindu), because it is very likely that the mass hysteria about the last year’s terror attacks in Mumbai will overcome any real news that they have to say. I feel sad for the victims of the attack, but in the fight between the government and the terrorists (well, militants for the 90s people), the rights that really being eaten away are mine.

So, pushing this legislature yesterday was an act of emotional blackmail on an entire country. To do this while they’re still feeling vulnerable and to ensure that anyone opposing it will get vilified in the press.

Support - by rhook (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I feel bad for whoever has to read the transcripts from all those tech support calls.

They already have this! - by JDeane (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Your call may be monitored for quality control purposes.

Not the first osmotic power plant - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

It’s merely the first with a proper marketing scheme… :p

Since 2005 a 50kW test installation has been working in Harlingen, the Netherlands. This is a POS (pressure retarded osmosis) installation just like the Norwegian one. A 10kW RED installation has been installed not 20km away in the Afsluitdijk barrier dam.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TGK-4MDGP8H-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1111993059&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a85c6a42fb58101cbda1cb384456dd18

Re:Oh man, Starcraft?! - by sys.stdout.write (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Your Osmotic Power Plant requires more vespene gas.

Some numbers… I think it might work! - by goodmanj (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

I was skeptical of the numbers, so I looked around to figure out how much energy we’re talking about here. This link discussing desalinization is pretty useful… what we’re talking about here is a desalinization plant run in reverse.

The short answer: 0.66 kcal (2760 joules) per liter of salt water converted to fresh water, so you’d get the same order of magnitude of energy *back* with an osmosis plant. The Mississippi river flow rate is 17 million liters per second at New Orleans, so the maximum possible energy output is 47 GW!

I don’t see any obvious efficiency-loss factors here: it should be possible to do this pretty efficiently.

Another way of looking at the problem: the osmotic pressure difference between fresh water and seawater is 28 bar, which is equivalent to 280 meters of hydraulic head. That’s roughly the same pressure gradient as is found across the Hoover Dam.

Now, the technical challenge of building miles and miles of carefully-folded osmotic membrane, and keeping it clean, is a bit daunting. But in theory, it should work!

Desalination - by JuzzFunky (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I wonder if you could use the energy to power a desalination plant and then use the fresh water to power the.. hang on… I’ve gone cross eyed…

Re:Desalination - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

I would advise against that kind of project. You’d get arrested for breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

In Other News… - by florescent_beige (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

All public and private communications of all executives of companies in the UK valued at 500 million or more will be monitored for illegal, unethical, and undesired behaviour.

“If we had only known what certain Wall Street bankers had been up to the world could have avoided financial losses in the trillions. In a world of high speed communication and free flowing capital, the expectations of privacy have to be balanced against the interests of all stakeholders.” said noted expert florescent_beige.

misnomer - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Judging by their behaviour they should probably rebrand themselves Whore Media.

Encrypt - by some_guy_88 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Everything.

Could this cause legal problems for them? - by BitterOak (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Ok. They’re monitoring their customers for illegal file sharing, even going so far as to identify whether or not the copied material has been licensed by the copyright holders. Does this not make them guilty of contributory infringement? They are providing the networks which allow users to infringe copyright. They know that infringement is taking place via their deep packets inspection, down to the level of individual acts of infringement. Then they are destroying data which can identify infringers, but they continue to provide them with networks service. How is this legal?

Will they track their own usenet server? - by Winckle (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Here’s a bit of a dilemma, they crack down on filesharing, yet run a free usenet server for their customers with alt.binaries included with 5 days retention.

Will they issue a takedown to themselves?

Signal to Noise ratio over time