Talynebear

Submitted by: Unknown

Right now, photovoltaic devices are the cheapest, most efficient way to harvest the energy in sunlight. The problem is that this energy ends up in the form of electricity, which we have difficulty storing in a cost-effective manner. An alternative approach, solar thermal energy, converts solar energy to heat and can use that heat to continue generating power for several hours after the Sun goes down. But that's not enough to make solar an around-the-clock energy source.

Researchers are apparently working on a third option, one that could potentially store energy indefinitely. It goes by the name of "solar thermal fuel," but it's not a fuel in the traditional sense. Rather than breaking apart the fuel molecule through combustion, solar thermal fuels release heat by rearranging bonds within a molecule, leaving all the atoms in place. As a result, they can be recycled repeatedly—in the example that introduced me to solar thermal fuels, a research team ran theirs through more than 2,000 cycles with no loss in performance.

How do you get energy into and out of a molecule without breaking any bonds? In this case, the authors worked with derivatives of a chemical called azobenzene, shown below. The double bond between the two nitrogens forces the remaining bonds into one of two forms: either both of the rings can be on opposite sides of the molecule (top, called the "trans" form) or they can be on the same side (bottom, called "cis").

As Bitcoin mining chips crunch numbers, a Raspberry Pi directs traffic.

MegaBigPower

In a couple of large buildings near the Columbia River in Eastern Washington, where hydroelectricity is cheap and plentiful, Dave Carlson oversees what he says is one of the largest Bitcoin mining operations on the planet.

At any given time, Carlson's goal is to account for seven to 10 percent of the entire world's Bitcoin mining as measured by processing or hashing power, he said. At the moment, he's slightly below that target but doesn't expect to remain below it for very long. The operations are fueled by thousands of mining rigs containing more than 1.4 million BitFury mining chips, while Raspberry Pis loaded with custom software direct traffic on each rig."We were looking for the lowest cost, highest volume production, tiny computer controller that had the ability to integrate with another electronic board design. There are many out there, but the Raspberry Pi is something like 40 bucks," Carlson told Ars.

Carlson's company, MegaBigPower, does the biggest portion of its mining on behalf of its primary investor, the BioInfoBank Institute in Poland. Carlson takes a cut in bitcoins and rents capacity to other people who want to mine without running their own hardware and software.

"It's beautiful. Only $8 a month?"

Comedy Central

An outdated document and a customer complaint indicate that Comcast employees are (mistakenly) telling some customers of its Extreme 105 service that they cannot use their own modems and must instead rent equipment from Comcast.

"So I purchased the Zoom 5341J to take advantage of the 8 downstream channels now available here," a Comcast customer, apparently from Virginia who goes by the user name "ExoticFish," wrote on a DSLReports forum Monday. The customer continued:

Since then I had some issues, not speed related necessarily. So normal customer service was unable to resolve them so I E-mailed Comcast's "Executive Support' team."

I got a call today from a guy. He was the rudest Comcast rep I had ever spoken to, EVER! Not only did he not resolve anything but he told me my modem is not approved for my package. I told him I previously had the SB 6120 on the same package for about a year now and both it and my new modem are on the approved modem list. He insisted that list is incorrect and I MUST RENT a modem from them to receive the correct speeds on Extreme 105! I requested he forward me this info and sure enough there was a document published (ID TLK1043) on February 26th stating "Only Comcast issued equipment ensures that the specifications are always met and not altered."

The document was posted on the forum and sent to the news site, Stop the Cap, which wrote about the incident yesterday. "Some customers are angry and frustrated to learn Comcast has stopped 'officially' allowing the use of customer-owned cable modems for its 105Mbps 'Extreme' service, insisting subscribers rent a company-supplied gateway for $8 a month," Stop the Cap's Phillip Dampier wrote.

Flexcoin

Flexcoin, which proclaimed itself to be the "world's first bitcoin bank" and the solver of "nearly every problem that exists with the Bitcoin currency today," says it has shut down after a robbery. An attacker made off with 896 bitcoins, the equivalent of about $620,000 at today's exchange rates.

A statement on Flexcoin's website read as follows:

On March 2nd 2014 Flexcoin was attacked and robbed of all coins in the hot wallet. The attacker made off with 896 BTC, dividing them into these two addresses:

1NDkevapt4SWYFEmquCDBSf7DLMTNVggdu

1QFcC5JitGwpFKqRDd9QNH3eGN56dCNgy6

As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.

The "hot wallet" is what exchanges use to pay out withdrawals instantly. Bitcoins deposited by users are put into "cold storage." Flexcoin said it will help these users get their coins back. "Users who put their coins into cold storage will be contacted by Flexcoin and asked to verify their identity," the bank said. "Once identified, cold storage coins will be transferred out free of charge. Cold storage coins were held offline and not within reach of the attacker."

Submitted by: (via Happletea)

Submitted by: Unknown (via Lunar Baboon )

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Or you die.

Comic by: Unknown (via Blow The Cartridge)

Those stumpy little legs. Corgis are built for comedy!

Comic by: (via Gerbil With a Jetpack)