gerelateerde items | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2008-12-19 22:17:04
SUNSTOP writes to tell that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth's existing air conditioning system. "First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace's invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vJOg3_yqYqE/article.pl
gerelateerde items | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2008-12-09 19:05:01
Cornwallis writes "In a First Amendment case with implications for everything from neighborhood e-mail lists to national newspapers, an Maryland businessman argued to the state's highest court yesterday that the host of an online forum should be forced to reveal the identities of people who posted allegedly defamatory comments. The businessman, Zebulon J. Brodie, contends that he was defamed by comments about his shop, a Dunkin' Donuts in Centreville, posted on NewsZap.com. The shop was described as one 'of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.' Talk about a Negative Nellie! At least the article didn't say the shop was the 'most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/K4UBmjupr9g/article.pl
gerelateerde items | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2008-08-05 00:45:11
William Cox writes "A team from the University of Maryland has won the 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, held in San Diego, CA, this weekend. Twenty-five teams from around the world (US, Canada, Japan, and India) built autonomous submarines to complete a series of tasks using vision recognition, autonomous navigation, and sonar. Maryland unseated the 3-time record holder, University of Florida, to win first place. University of Texas at Dallas took 2nd, and a Canadian team, École de Technologie Supérieure, took 3rd."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/355751322/article.pl
gerelateerde items | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2008-10-09 00:18:25
aaandre writes with word of a Washington Post story which begins: "The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. The police also entered the activists' names into the federal Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which described a 'primary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-government' and a 'secondary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-war protesters.'" According to the article, "Both [former state police superintendent Thomas] Hutchins and [Maryland Police Superintendent Terrence] Sheridan said the activists' names were entered into the state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited options for classifying entries." Reader kcurtis adds "The State Police say they are purging the data, but this is one more example (on top of yesterday's news that datamining for terrorists is not feasible due to false positives) of just how badly the use of these lists can be abused."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yyX8DsDzSNo/article.pl
gerelateerde items | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2008-10-09 05:12:30
aaandre writes with word of a WashingtonPost story which begins: "The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. The police also entered the activists' names into the federal Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which described a 'primary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-government' and a 'secondary crime' of 'terrorism-anti-war protesters.'" According to the article, "Both [former state police superintendent Thomas] Hutchins and [Maryland Police Superintendent Terrence] Sheridan said the activists' names were entered into the state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited options for classifying entries." Reader kcurtis adds "The State Police say they are purging the data, but this is one more example (on top of yesterday's news that datamining for terrorists is not feasible due to false positives) of just how badly the use of these lists can be abused."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yyX8DsDzSNo/article.pl
