Testing a car doing 180 MPH -- in a wind tunnel!

This is cool. The tunnel has a 10' wide belt of steel that's 1mm thick on an air cushion bearing. The car is strapped down and brought up to 180 MPH. THEN the fan is turned on! The aerodynamics are different if the car is still than if it's moving -- a static car can't demonstrate what the air is doing underneath the body when it's moving.

Very cool. I'd love to see it in action. I'll be they're going to be making a lot of money with this thing.

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/magazine/15-10/pl_motor

A new model for music?

Jonathan Coulton started a podcast where he released one new song a week. For a year. He now has a decent fan following and on the scale that goes between starving artist and megastar, he's comfortable. He also sells music through the "pay what you want" scheme and they're finding that fans that really like the music are willing to pay more. Jonathan's also being favorably compared to They Might Be Giants for edginess and humor.

He has this really cool song called Code Monkey which Anyeone recently posted:

Anyway, interesting musician. I definitely need to check out his site.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2007/10/coulton

Qwest CEO alleges NSA started spying on Americans SEVEN MONTHS before 9/11

Fascinating, Captain.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/qwest-ceo-not-a.html

Florida scrapping electronic voting machines!

But they're scrapping technology! Technology is good, isn't it?

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/13/1653203

"Florida Governor Charlie Crist is getting his wish. The New York Times reports the state will replace touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan models by July 1, 2008 — the most aggressive timetable of any jurisdiciton rethinking this approach to voting. The touch-screen machines most likely will be sold to other jurisdictions or stripped for parts."



I can't imagine they're going to get any particular value out of stripping them for parts.

Hybrid hard drive allows data access without booting your PC -- is this a good thing?

Cool idea to be able to access data from your HD via a USB connection of some sort, but what does this do for security? Security is enforced by the OS and by encryption, if such is applied. If you can access without the OS being started, how will you have any security?

Cute idea. But is it a good idea? I vote no. And I certainly won't use it if it is available: it takes all of 15-30 seconds normally for my MacBook Pro to boot. I can wait that long.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/144258

Simon Pegg to play Scotty in new Star Trek Academy movie!

This should be fun. He may not be Scottish, but at least he's from the UK.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/2016254

Airlines have to ask the TSA for permission 72 hours in advance to fly?

What does this mean if you have a family emergency and have to fly the same day? "Sorry that your dad is dying, but you can't travel for three days."

I'm looking forward to seeing what Bruce Schneier writes about this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/12/flying_into_data_hell/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/186224

The US is facing a $100 BILLION fine for banning online gambling!

I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing how this shakes out! Obviously that fine will not be paid in full, I just wonder what will happen.

"The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming. Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments. As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/1411242