ENERMAX ETS-T40 Heatsink Review
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Creating Methanogen Microbes
An important issue to overcome for renewable energy sources like solar and wind power is how to store any excess energy they produce. Large-scale power storage systems are still in development and even if they existed now, the problem of getting that power where it needs to be will exist, as it currently does with other power sources. Researchers at Stanford University and Pennsylvania State University have a possible solution in mind which not only will solve the issue of energy storage, but do so cleanly, efficiently, and overcome some transportation issues.
Methanogens are special microbes that take carbon dioxide directly from the air and convert it to methane, using an electric current. In 2009, testing with these organisms achieved 80% efficiency in converting electricity to methane. What the researchers propose, after some hurdles are overcome, is to use bioreactors containing methanogen colonies to produce methane directly from the atmosphere and the power from renewable power sources, or other carbon neutral sources. The methane can then be transported using the same methods to move natural gas we have now and only burned when needed.
As the CO2 used to create the methane would come from the atmosphere, when the methane is burned and releases CO2, the net impact on the atmosphere is no new CO2 was added. However this may not just be used to create methane for fuel purposes. The hydrocarbon could also be used to produce other chemicals that currently require fossil resources, such as some plastics and gasoline.
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OCC's End of Nations Beta Key Giveaway Ends this Saturday!
The weekend is fast approaching, which means our End of Nations beta key giveaway is nearing its end. Overclockers Club received 90 keys from NVIDIA to give out for the beta, which begins next Friday, August 10 and ends on August 12. We still have plenty of spots available for you to try and win a key, and it really could not be easier. All you need to do is post in our contest entry thread and join the OCC Steam group. There is no minimum post count or join date to enter, but you will receive an additional entry for every full year you have been a member at OCC. That really is all there is to it, so head over to the forums and join the End of Nations beta key giveaway! The contest ends this Saturday, August 4, at 10pm EDT!
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Day Z Nears 1 Million Players
Day Z is a zombie themed game mod for the game Arma II: Combined Operations. The game is still in the Alpha stage, but the developers have announced that the game is nearing 1 million unique players. The game is free and shows that developers of games, like those behind Arma II, can benefit from including mod tools in their games. The mod has helped to sell thousands of additional copies of the game and even put Arma II at the top of the Steam Summer Sale leader board, despite being on sale for only 20% off for much of the sale. The developers behind Day Z are rumored to be working on a standalone game that could bring them financial success, much like famous game mods like Counter-Strike in the past.
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Raspberry Pi Porting Ice Cream Sandwich
The developers behind the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computer have announced that they are hard at work porting Android Ice Cream Sandwich to the device. The team has reported "great progress," and the graphics and video are already working. The tiny devices are powered by a 700MHz ARM processor and will allow users to enjoy plenty of Android features without needing bigger, more expensive systems.
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New Steam Subscriber Agreement Revision Blocks Class Action Lawsuits - Still Allows for ...
Steam has a new client update that just released yesterday, and once it finishes installing you will be asked to accept a new Subscriber Agreement. If you happen to read the fine print, you will see there is a new provision in it that blocks class action lawsuits. Other companies have done the same recently, so it is not too much of a surprise for Valve to follow suit. Valve is removing the ability to join a class action lawsuit, but it is still allowing for individuals to take action. Any dispute that cannot be resolved between Valve and a customer, like over prices, can go to small claims court or arbitration. Valve will even reimburse the customer's arbitration fees regardless of outcome, unless the case is "frivolous or the costs unreasonable." Basically Valve wants to protect itself and its users from meaningless class action lawsuits, especially when those can take years to resolve and offer a minimal payout.
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Forming Nanostructures with Entropy
Though it has been several years at this point, I can still remember the lesson on entropy in my high school chemistry class. Entropy, often associated with disorder and lost energy, is an important thing when trying to determine if some event will occur because, by the laws of thermodynamics, entropy must never decrease when something to happens. An example of energy lost as entropy would be the movement of the air particles displaced as I type this on my keyboard. The particles take that energy and bounce off each other in a chaotic pattern and it will never be possible to harvest all of that energy again.
Despite this tendency towards an increase of chaos though, researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to actually use entropy to create well-ordered structures. The researchers were studying the behaviors of different nanoparticle shapes and discovered that he chaotic motion of these particles can be used to fit them together into a crystal-like structure. The key is to squeeze the particles together essentially. Throw enough dice into a rectangular box and start shaking it. Eventually the shaking will cause the dice to align their faces and form an ordered structure, despite the chaotic motion from the shaking.
Like those dice though, these particles do not bond with each other. If they did the entropy of the system would have to decrease, which the laws of thermodynamics forbid. This spontaneous structure formation is still useful though, as it allows for an efficient way to make nanostructures by controlling the shape of the nanoparticles creating it.
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Grand Theft Auto V Making 'Substantial Progress' Despite Take-Two Losing $110 Million
Take-Two released its financial results from the last quarter and things were not that great. The company lost $110.8 million between March and June of this year due to the less than stellar sales numbers of Spec Ops: The Line and Max Payne 3. Net revenue for Take-Two was down to $226.1 million, was is a far cry from the $334.4 million over the same time last year. However, it is not all doom and gloom as Take-Two announced Grand Theft Auto V is making "substantial progress." No other information on the upcoming title was released, so we are still waiting on a release date and platforms. It would be a good idea to peg the platforms as PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and maybe even the Wii U if a good control scheme is in place for the GamePad. Either way, there is some good news mixed with the bad for Take-Two and GTA V.
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