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7714. robertjayb - 3/12/2009 4:09:11 AM MIT claims better battery...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. engineers have found a way to make lithium batteries that are smaller, lighter, longer lasting and capable of recharging in seconds.
The researchers believe the quick-charging batteries could open up new applications, including better batteries for electric cars.
And because they use older materials in a new way, the batteries could be available for sale in two to three years, a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
7715. robertjayb - 3/24/2009 12:37:02 AM Oh dear! Cold fusion is baaaaaack...(HouChron)
A U.S. Navy researcher announced today that her lab has produced “significant” new results that indicate cold fusion-like reactions.
If the work by analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss and her colleagues is confirmed, it could open the door to a cheap, near-limitless reservoir of energy.
That’s a big if, however.
Today’s announcement at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society comes in the same location – Salt Lake City – as one of science’s most infamous episodes, the announcement 20 years ago by chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann that they had produced cold fusion.
Unlike nuclear energy reactors and bombs, which split atoms, the atoms in stars such as the sun fuse together to produce spectacular amounts of energy, so much so that we are warmed by a stellar furnace 93 million miles away.
Devising a fusion-based source of energy on Earth has long been a “clean-energy” holy grail of physicists.
7716. alistairconnor - 3/26/2009 6:34:30 PM Friend of yours, vonK?
Microsoft billionaire is first repeat customer for space tourism
I suppose that answers the question "is it really worth it?"
I've always wondered if it would really be as much fun as one imagines. 7717. vonKreedon - 3/27/2009 5:57:15 PM No, don't know the guy. But I am envious. 7718. wabbit - 4/2/2009 7:06:52 PM Anyone who wants to clear out the clutter on a webpage and just read the article (think about a site like CNN) might want to try Readable App. Depending on how you set it up, it also enlarges the text on sites that lean toward small, like the Christian Science Monitor. I've tried it in Firefox 3, IE7 and Chrome, and so far it works well enough, though there are bound to be some bugs. 7719. robertjayb - 4/13/2009 7:34:00 PM Thorium?,
The Houston Chronicle's Science Guy:
Could thorium power the United States into next century?
If you're looking for an always-on, carbon-free, sustainable source of energy for which the reserves won't run dry for more than a few centuries, there's really only one choice.
7720. wabbit - 4/13/2009 11:31:36 PM I was reading through the comments on that article and came across this bit of dittohead wisdom: I guess thorium would work fine, and I agree that your option c is the most likely, but not because of "business as usual". It is because of the laws of economics and what is called rational economic behaviour. You see you always choose the lowest priced alternative that offers the same level of utility. It so happens that fossil fules are simply the cheapest and most abundant eneregy source, period. You have to face reality, even though the well funded and politically powerful Big Enviro Lobby wants to continue to deny reality and rational economic behaviour.
I also think uranium is preferable to thorium since it requires no additional expensive research to immediately start replacing ALL fossil fuel based electric generation. What's the holdup? Chu and Obama refusing to use Yucca Mountain for political reasons? That is not an economic or scientific rationale, just politics. And even so there are numerous other places to safely store spent fuel, like WIPP. And uranium is in abundant supply, many mines around the US closed in the '70s when Australia flooded the market with cheap uranium, we still have it all. Why spend decades doing thorium when uranium can do it NOW? Politics again?
Posted by: Dr. J at April 13, 2009 08:57 AM
Uh, hey Dr, J (what's the Dr. for, I wonder?), wasn't Yucca Mountain first proposed as a storage facility in 1987? Oh wait, even though we had a Republican President, Congress had a Democrat majority until 1995, so it must have been their fault. From 1995-2001 Republicans controlled Congress (Lewinsky became a verb in 1997, remember?), but since Clinton was President, it must have been his fault. From 2001-2003, Congress was kinda screwy, so let's just say it was Clinton's fault. 2003-2007 had a Republican controlled Congress and a Republican President. Ok, that must have been a combination of Clinton and the liberal media. And obviously everything since 2007 is the fault of the Democrats and Obama.
I must have misplaced my Rove letter.7721. wabbit - 6/2/2009 11:43:27 PM Having just gone through three weeks of crap with Windows Vista, I thought I'd share my experience in case someone has a similar problem.
First, let's accept that Vista is the new ME. I'm hoping for better things with Windows 7 (but no, not holding my breath). If Adobe ever writes their software for Linux/Unix, I suspect a lot of folks besides me will leave MS for our OS.
Three weeks or so ago, Vista suddenly started to randomly blue-screen on me. I hadn't installed any new software or hardware for the previous two months, so you wouldn't think that would be the problem. I could boot into Safemode with networking with no issues. I ran the usual programs - CrapCleaner, HijackThis, SmitFraudFix, VundoFix, ComboFix - all to no avail. No viruses, no malware, nothing evident. I have a Windows Vista repair disc, which also solved nothing.
I really, really didn't want to go through a reinstall of Vista. I would have opted for RC1 of Windows 7 first. However, I decided that maybe the issue was something to do with my profile. So, I created a new profile, copied anything over that I wanted from the screwy profile to the new one (which has taken the better part of six hours), and then deleted the bad profile.
So far, so good. No problems booting, no crashes (I hope I am not jinxing myself here), everything seems to be working.
It pays to do regular backups, which I do, but moving profile info from one account to another takes a bit more tweaking. Nothing major, mind you, just time.
Bottom line is, if you must use Windows, and have Vista, and haven't had any major problems yet ... do yourself a favor and back up anything you value, like your Bookmarks, email profiles, any sounds/fonts/photos/etc., and you will be ready if this happens to you. 7722. alistairConnor - 6/2/2009 11:47:54 PM "Vista is the new ME" -- works for me!I have never used vista (funnily enough, I'm running one machine on Windows ME -- it's too old and slow to run XP reliably)
I have become a "late adopter". Better is the enemy of good enough.
I'll see about Windows 7 when I can afford some new hardware. 7723. wabbit - 6/3/2009 12:21:51 AM My sister had a Windows ME machine - I moved it back to Win '98 after too many re-installs. I still have all my old install discs.
Who ever thought XP would end up being as solid as it has been? Not perfect, but not horrible.
Vista was supposed to be a wholly new OS, not built on NT. Oh well. I have an older box that I'll install Win 7 on, just to see how it does. At least I know it's beta and won't have shelled out any money for the aggravation. 7724. arkymalarky - 6/3/2009 1:40:22 AM My work laptop is vista and I hate it. I love xp, and bought a dell mini 10 with it and a refurbished dell latitude d410 12" with xp pro. The mini had some issues but will be great for its intended purpose(for Bob) and I love the latitude, which will end up being my main work and home pc, which is what I used my old dell inspiron for before they bought the vista inspiron for me to use. Our techie's replacing everything with macs as fast as he can before the axe comes down on us year after next. 7725. wabbit - 6/3/2009 5:30:58 PM Macs network very nicely, I think you'll like them, but I have a knack for crashing them. I may have mentioned this before, but when I was in school, the Mac lab folks used to come get me whenever Apple delivered and installed upgrades. The Apple guys would stand there with a smirk for about five minutes, then wonder what I had done to crash the computer (and sometimes the network). My reply was always, I have no idea, weren't you paying attention?
It's a gift. 7726. arkymalarky - 6/3/2009 10:14:45 PM Haha! Mose is about to buy a macbook. Her bf has one and loves it, but he takes better care of stuff than she does. I'm fine with my xp computers and I'll use them as long as I'm able. When xp's no longer viable I'll probably switch to mac or see if I can operate a pc with linux. But by then I'll be retired and doing independent work and/or fun stuff. 7727. wabbit - 6/4/2009 12:49:29 AM Linux has come a very long way in the last 5-10 years. I'm a fan of Ubuntu, myself. If you can use Open Office instead of MS Office, short of the Adobe programs there is no reason not to switch. The GUI isn't exactly the same, but it's close enough that you won't have any problem figuring out what's what.
If you want to stick with Microsoft, hold off until November at the earliest. Windows 7 should be available by then - of course, as always, it will still be buggy...
And if you don't need a computer for heavy lifting, there's Acer's upcoming Netbook release of Android. 7728. vonKreedon - 6/4/2009 3:12:15 PM Just to put in a contrarian experience, Vista has worked great for me, other than the "I need your approval to do the the thing you just told me to do" dialogues, on several machines for several years now. I understand from some colleagues running Win7 that it is really nice. 7729. alistairconnor - 6/4/2009 5:36:01 PM hmmm. Apparently the phone makers are going to be releasing netbook-like devices soon, with free OS... They will be plenty of computer for most needs, and will undercut Acer and Asus handsomely on price. 7730. arkymalarky - 6/4/2009 5:49:21 PM The ball and chain contract and the outrageous monthly fee are the kickers. You can get the small computers for under $400 as it is and by the time you pay $60 a month minimum for two years you really didn't end up with a bargain at all imo. It's less convenient to use hotspots, but I think the cell phone companies are charging far too much for portability through their cards. And if you have the $30 unlimited data package necessary for making an iphone or blackberry worth anything, you still have to pay the $60 a month to get unlimited access on your netbook, and $90 a month is a ridiculous price to pay for mobile internet access. 7731. arkymalarky - 6/4/2009 5:55:22 PM Things I hate about Vista:
1) What vk said
2) I've had blue screens a few times and it doesn't seem to run programs as smoothly as xp
3) Most annoying of all, it is difficult, at least for me, to use the search function. I don't want a system that looks pretty. I want it clean and clear and that's why I like xp and ms office 2003 over vista and mso 2007. I've heard people say they like office 2007 for all the neat stuff it does and it's more streamlined, and I haven't given it much effort, but like vista it seems to set up roadblocks rather than just letting me get straight to what I want to do. 7732. arkymalarky - 6/4/2009 6:00:44 PM Disclaimer on the above (aside from the fact that I really don't know jack about this sort of thing): I'm a creature of habit and tradition who likes cozy, simple and comfortable and I'm not patient about getting past changes of features I like in order to give the new ones a chance and see if I like them better. But after all, if it ain't broke.... 7733. wabbit - 6/4/2009 7:08:36 PM VK and arky, that's the UAC (User Account Control). Feel free to turn it off. In the system tray down by the clock, you should see a little shield shape. Mine is red with an X, because I have UAC turned off, so yours may be yellow or green. Double-click the shield to open the Windows Security Center. Expand "Other security settings" and turn that sucker off. No more annoying "do you want to do this?" and "are you really sure?" windows.
Mind you, MS put that stuff in because so many people griped about how easy it is to screw things up. But if you don't need handholding, shutting UAC off is not a problem.
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