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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:48 | Votes:108

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the stress-free-life-#amazonwishlist dept.

Amazon's aggressively updating their wishlist feature to allow customers to add items from other online shopping sites, or even by just uploading a photograph. "Last year, one in three Amazon customers worldwide wished," Amazon explains in a press release, noting that 50 new items are added every second. Now customers can even link their Twitter account to their Amazon wish list to request things with a hashtag.

One blogger suggests someone might then jokingly tweet "#AmazonWishList" about some ridiculous product, only to discover that it's now actually being added to their wishlist.

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the cheap-foreign-labour dept.

Management of Australian Centrelink (welfare) and Medicare records is gradually being transferred to US-based multinational Iron Mountain. A Darwin warehouse has already been closed, another in Adelaide will be closed next year.

The [cost] for the deal with Iron Mountain, which had been in place since 2011, would not change but closing the Adelaide warehouse would save the taxpayer $1.12 million per year.

When I first saw the SMH headline I was troubled by the obvious privacy issue. Reading the article, I realized that it appears to be mainly in dealing with older paper records that are gradually being replaced with electronic versions. I also imagine Iron Mountain staff would require the same security clearances as federal government employees they replace (if not then it would be troubling).

Perhaps what makes it newsworthy is that Aussie records may be within reach of US government snoops, but that was probably already the case anyway.

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-thats-what-i-call-music dept.

The United States' oldest municipal pipe organ, the Kotzschmar organ in Portland, Maine resumed operation yesterday. This marked the culmination of a two-year, $2.5 million renovation.

From a report by MPBN:

This weekend marks a landmark occasion for the city of Portland's century-old Kotzschmar organ, as it returns from a lengthy and costly overhaul that supporters hope will keep it going for another 100 years.

Named after Herman Kotzschmar, a German immigrant who became a leading musical performer and educator in early 20th century Portland, the organ was installed at the city auditorium in 1912, a gift from music-loving publishing magnate Cyrus Curtis. The nation's first municipal organ, it was enlarged in 1927.

This Saturday, the Kotzschmar will be center stage for a "comeback concert" at the Merrill Auditorium, having just undergone a two-year, $2.5 million renovation. Cornils - whose been Portland's municipal organist for nearly 25 years — says the improvement is evident.

Pipe organs have a long and varied history. The name "organ" comes the ancient Greek word όργανον (organon) and its earliest predecessors were built in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BCE.

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[more after the break]
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The first documented permanent organ installation was in 1361 in Halberstadt, Germany. It was the first instrument to use a chromatic key layout across its three manuals and pedalboard, although the keys were wider than on modern instruments. It had twenty bellows operated by ten men, and the wind pressure was so high that the player had to use the full strength of his arm to hold down a key.

The development of the Tubular-pneumatic action lessened the physical burden on the organist. Much time could ensue between the time the key was pressed, the action engaged, and air began flowing through the selected pipes. Imagine trying to play a symphonic piece with variable delays between when you pressed different keys and the resulting sounds emerged from the pipes — and to do so in a way so that the music came through in unison!

Over time, the controls underwent improvements from the original use of mechanical key actions.

The development of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic key actions in the late 19th century made it possible to locate the console independently of the pipes, greatly expanding the possibilities in organ design. Electric stop actions were also developed, which allowed sophisticated combination actions to be created.

I find the history of pipe organs to be quite fascinating. Parallels between organ construction and computer programming abound. The creation of stops to encapsulate the setting of multiple controls at once are logically much like invoking a subroutine. We have memory leaks to worry about in computer programs; they had to deal with leaks of air pressure which could greatly diminish the unit's effectiveness. Then there is the testing that both require at the levels of unit, function, and entire system.

(NOTE: My background in this realm is limited to having heard a few compositions and some reading on the subject. So please accept my apologies for any inaccuracies in the preceding and provide corrections in the comments.)

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-say-goodbye-and-I-say-ello dept.

As a longtime (very longtime) Facebook Objector, I've been interested on occasion by things like diaspora (though not interested enough to start actually playing around with it). I basically decided I wasn't going to be a part of the whole social media thing, but, if there was a site that was respectful of privacy and not the whole drama house that FB is (even I, a person with no FB connection, have to listen to people whine about being defriended — I just tell them my apathy is virtually limitless which usually gets me out of that conversation).

Anyway, Cnet is reporting on Ello, which is invite-only right now, and is saying all of the right things about privacy and being ad free. I'm of course very skeptical, but their manifesto reads real nice: "You are not a product" but at the same time, doesn't exactly say they won't be monetizing their users.

I'd be interested in the take people here may have. And if anyone has invites — I'd like one so I could poke around at it.

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the light-bulbs-may-die-but-dark-bulbs-are-forever dept.

Markus Krajewski reports that today, with many countries phasing out incandescent lighting in favor of more-efficient and pricier LEDs, it’s worth revisiting the history of the Phoebus cartel—not simply as a quirky anecdote from the annals of technology but as a cautionary tale about the strange and unexpected pitfalls that can arise when a new technology vanquishes an old one. Prior to the Phoebus cartel’s formation in 1924, household light bulbs typically burned for a total of 1,500 to 2,500 hours; cartel members agreed to shorten that life span to a standard 1,000 hours. Each factory regularly sent light bulb samples to the cartel’s central laboratory in Switzerland for verification. If any factory submitted bulbs lasting longer or shorter than the regulated life span for its type, the factory was obliged to pay a fine.

Though long gone, the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today because it reduced competition in the light bulb industry for almost twenty years, and has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs. Will history repeat itself as the lighting industry is now going through its most tumultuous period of technological change since the invention of the incandescent bulb. "Consumers are expected to pay more money for bulbs that are up to 10 times as efficient and that are touted to last a fantastically long time—up to 50,000 hours in the case of LED lights. In normal usage, these lamps will last so long that their owners will probably sell the house they’re in before having to change the bulbs," writes Krajewski. "Whether or not these pricier bulbs will actually last that long is still an open question, and not one that the average consumer is likely to investigate." There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes are reached. "Such incidents may well have resulted from nothing more sinister than careless manufacturing. But there is no denying that these far more technologically sophisticated products offer tempting opportunities for the inclusion of purposefully engineered life-shortening defects."

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-answer-is-blowin-in-the-wind dept.

A proposal to export twice as much Wyoming wind power to Los Angeles as the amount of electricity generated by the Hoover Dam includes an engineering feat even more massive than that famous structure: Four chambers, each approaching the size of the Empire State Building, would be carved from an underground salt deposit to hold huge volumes of compressed air.

Air would be pumped into the caverns when power demand is low and wind is high, typically at night. During times of increased demand, the compressed air would be released to drive turbines and feed power to markets in far-away Southern California.

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the lander-has-a-date-why-can't-marvin? dept.

A quick note to mention that the ESA have announced that:

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission will deploy its lander, Philae, to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014.

There is a Press Release with more details available. For additional background on the Rosetta probe, there have been Soylent stories on the Probe's wakeup from hibernation, arrival at 67P, mapping the comet and camera images.

For more information see the ESA Rosetta Page.

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the chippping-away-at-silicon dept.

At University of Texas, a research team and a German nanotechnology company have published a paper that describes a major milestone for the future of graphene-based computing — the reliable production of wafer-scale graphene measuring between 100 - 300 mm, suitable at last for integration with "traditional" materials in computing. The research team was able to manufacture 25,000 graphene field-effect transistors from lab-produced graphene film on a polycrystalline copper base. Team research leader Deji Akinwande says: "Our process is based on the scalable concept of growing graphene on copper-coated silicon substrates... Once we had developed a suitable method for growing high-quality graphene with negligible numbers of defects in small sample sizes, it was relatively straightforward for us to scale up." (Original, paywalled paper is at ACS Nano)

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the yet-another-systemd-story dept.

Controversy is nothing new when it comes to systemd. Many people find this new Linux init system to be inherently flawed in most ways, yet it is still gaining traction with major distros like Arch Linux, openSUSE, Fedora, and soon both Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux. The adoption of systemd for Debian 8 "Jessie" has been particularly fraught with strife and animosity.

Some have described the systemd adoption process as having been a "coup", while others are vowing to stick with Debian 7 as long as possible before moving to another distro. Others are so upset by what they see as a complete betrayal of the Debian and open source communities that there is serious discussion about forking Debian. Regardless of one's stance toward systemd, it cannot be argued that it has become one of the most divisive and disruptive changes in the long history of the Debian project, threatening to destroy both the project and the community that has built up around it.

posted by n1 on Sunday September 28 2014, @04:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-than-google-fu dept.

Researchers have carried out a detailed study that shows that massive open online courses (MOOCs) really can teach at least as effectively as traditional classroom courses—and they found that this is true regardless of how much preparation and knowledge students start out with.

"It's an issue that has been very controversial," says David Pritchard, lead author of the study. "A number of well-known educators have said there isn't going to be much learning in MOOCs, or if there is, it will be for people who are already well-educated."

But after thorough before-and-after testing of students taking the MITx physics class 8.MReVx (Mechanics Review) online, and similar testing of those taking the same class in its traditional form, Pritchard and his team found quite the contrary: The study showed that in the MITx course, "the amount learned is somewhat greater than in the traditional lecture-based course," Pritchard says.

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @02:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the like-Unix-pipes-but-with-real-fluids dept.

Spotted over at Singularity Hub is an article on Modular Microfluid Mini Laboratories.

This is from work done at USC Viterbi, although there isn't an open access version of the paper.

Microfluidics deals with the chemical processing of a small volume of fluids, with applications such as DNA analysis or in clinical diagnostics, amongst others. This project has developed small generic processing blocks for the basic functions of a microfluid system, which can then be arbitrarily connected and reconnected in (3D) configurations to prototype new system arrangements rapidly:

“People have done great things with microfluidics technology, but these modular components require a lot less expertise to design and build a system,” says co-author and USC chemical engineering and materials science professor Noah Malmstadt. “A move toward standardization will mean more people will use it, and the more you increase the size of the community, the better the tools will become.”

posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @12:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept.

Jana Kasperkevic writes at The Guardian that it’s not every day that you get to buy an iPhone from an ex-NSA officer. Yet Thomas Drake, former senior executive at National Security Agency, is well known in the national security circles for leaking information about the NSA’s Trailblazer project to Baltimore Sun. In 2010, the government dropped all 10 felony charges against him and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for unauthorized use of a computer and lost his livelihood. “You have to mortgage your house, you have to empty your bank account. I went from making well over $150,000 a year to a quarter of that,” says Drake. “The cost alone, financially — never mind the personal cost — is approaching million dollars in terms of lost income, expenses and other costs I incurred.”

John Kiriakou became the first former government official to confirm the use of waterboarding against al-Qaida suspects in 2009. “I have applied for every job I can think of — everything from grocery stores to Toys R Us to Starbucks. You name it, I’ve applied there. Haven’t gotten even an email or a call back,” says Kiriakou. According to Kasperkevic, this is what most whistleblowers can expect. The potential threat of prosecution, the mounting legal bills and the lack of future job opportunities all contribute to a hesitation among many to rock the boat. "Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, declared a war on whistleblowers virtually as soon as they assumed office," says Kiriakou. "Washington has always needed an "ism" to fight against, an idea against which it could rally its citizens like lemmings. First, it was anarchism, then socialism, then communism. Now, it's terrorism. Any whistleblower who goes public in the name of protecting human rights or civil liberties is accused of helping the terrorists."

posted by n1 on Saturday September 27 2014, @10:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the i'm-on-the-plane..-NO,-PLANE dept.

El Reg reports:

If you fancy spending your next European airline flight sitting next to someone who's carrying on a protracted conversation via mobile phone, you're in luck.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issued new guidance to European airlines allowing them to permit passengers to keep phones and other portable electronic devices (PEDs) switched on throughout flights, regardless of whether the devices are in "airplane mode."

"This is the latest regulatory step towards enabling the ability to offer 'gate-to-gate' telecommunication or WiFi services," the agency said on Friday.

The regulators define PEDs as "any kind of electronic device brought on board the aircraft by a passenger such as a tablet, a laptop, a smartphone, an e-reader or a MP3 player."

EASA loosened its restrictions on devices in 2013 such that passengers don't have to switch them off, provided their Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, and other radios are disabled.

With the new guidance issued on Friday, airplane mode becomes something of a misnomer, as passengers are free to leave their devices' radios active throughout takeoff, landing, and the flight itself.

That's not to say airlines have been given a rubber stamp to let passengers do whatever they want. Each carrier must go through an assessment process to ensure that aircraft are not affected by transmissions coming from passengers' devices -- and submitting to the assessment is entirely voluntary.

posted by n1 on Saturday September 27 2014, @09:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-a-law-for-dirty-davey dept.

BloombergView, ThisAmericanLife and ProPublica (prequel) are running a story on a FED employee, Carmen Segarra, tasked with regulating GoldmanSachs. Segarra attended regular meetings with GoldmanSachs representatives and her fellow regulators. The meetings would often include things like:

For instance, in one meeting a Goldman employee expressed the view that "once clients are wealthy enough certain consumer laws don't apply to them." After that meeting, Segarra turned to a fellow Fed regulator and said how surprised she was by that statement -- to which the regulator replied, "You didn't hear that."

Segarra decided to tape the meetings.

After a confrontation with her boss about not faking a report about the fact that Goldman didn't have a conflict of interest policy, Segarra got fired. She has released 47 hours of the recordings she's made over time. BloombergView concludes:

You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.

posted by martyb on Saturday September 27 2014, @07:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-light-work-of-space-travel dept.

Centauri Dreams has a piece on the History and Future of Solar Sails. Particularly interesting is the mention of Lightsail, The Planetary Society's CubeSat-based light sails.

CubeSats are tiny, low-cost satellites that have opened up new avenues of space research for universities and small organizations.

In order for CubeSat applications to reach the next level, the miniature satellites need a reliable form of propulsion for orbital maneuvers and trips beyond our planet. This is where solar sailing—transferring the momentum of photons to a large reflective sail—comes in.

There's a mission trailer video available, and from Centauri Dreams:

We’re looking at April of next year for the first LightSail launch, which could well herald the era of small CubeSat missions driven by sail propulsion to Mars and other planets.

This piece was inspired by the recent 100 Year Starship symposium presentation by Les Johnson, Senior Technical Assistant for the Advanced Concepts Office (and former Manager of Interstellar Propulsion Technology Research) at the NASA.

Les has written a number of papers on Solar Sails, and there's a recent talk on Light Sails at 1h19m in a (ridiculously long) video of the 2013 Icarus Interstellar Congress.