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Not sure how well it describes out galaxy, but then even with years of be 'into astronomy' I don't think I could find the suns spiral arm on a real map of our galaxy. Somethings don't seem to fit in the plan though, whats that arm doing going backwards on the 'new outer junction'? And Omicron Centuri is show as on the opposite side of the galaxy from us, but wikipedia lists it as a only 3200 light years aways, the other side of the galaxy is more like 20000 lights years away.

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Astronomy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Not sure how well it describes out galaxy, but then even with years of be 'into astronomy' I don't think I could find the suns spiral arm on a real map of our galaxy. Somethings don't seem to fit in the plan though, whats that arm doing going backwards on the 'new outer junction'? And Omicron Centuri is show as on the opposite side of the galaxy from us, but wikipedia lists it as a only 3200 light years aways, the other side of the galaxy is more like 20000 lights years away.

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Astronomy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Thanks for the details. None of these contracts is the sort of big money needed for viable space development, but at least they'll keep the industry chugging along development plans. It would be cool to have a Dream Chaser space plane as a shuttle successors. And the Bigelow funding may keep the space tourism dream alive too. Of all the contracts I'll bet the only one that completed on time, and gets into space, is the life support system.

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Space Colonization Feed @ Feed Distiller

Thanks for the details. None of these contracts is the sort of big money needed for viable space development, but at least they'll keep the industry chugging along development plans. It would be cool to have a Dream Chaser space plane as a shuttle successors. And the Bigelow funding may keep the space tourism dream alive too. Of all the contracts I'll bet the only one that completed on time, and gets into space, is the life support system.

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Space Colonization Feed @ Feed Distiller

If the substance they found in the meteorite is indeed harder than carbon, then it probably isn't Londsaleite, as Londsaleites only as a Moh hardness of 7 to 8, where Diamond is 10 on the Moh scale. Shocked graphite with bonds between the layers certainly sounds a lot like Londsaleite though, but that wouldn't be a new form of Carbon. Apparently a theoretically perfect Lonsdaletite crystal would be 58% harder than diamond, but why would the meteorite crystal be likely to have a near perfect structure.

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Materials Science Feed @ Feed Distiller

If the substance they found in the meteorite is indeed harder than carbon, then it probably isn't Londsaleite, as Londsaleites only as a Moh hardness of 7 to 8, where Diamond is 10 on the Moh scale. Shocked graphite with bonds between the layers certainly sounds a lot like Londsaleite though, but that wouldn't be a new form of Carbon. Apparently a theoretically perfect Lonsdaletite crystal would be 58% harder than diamond, but why would the meteorite crystal be likely to have a near perfect structure.

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Materials Science Feed @ Feed Distiller

I've oft thought that you measure duration, by how many interesting events have happened in the time span, you've been measuring. Although boring times, drag by, when you in them. Looking backward you rembember so little of them, that the time has almost disappeared from you mind. Of course as you get older, there's less and less that you haven't already seen before, and so looking back time seems to be moving so much quicker.

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Psychology Feed @ Feed Distiller

I've oft thought that you measure duration, by how many interesting events have happened in the time span, you've been measuring. Although boring times, drag by, when you in them. Looking backward you rembember so little of them, that the time has almost disappeared from you mind. Of course as you get older, there's less and less that you haven't already seen before, and so looking back time seems to be moving so much quicker.

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Psychology Feed @ Feed Distiller

This goes to show that Apple's policy of lockdown down applications only to come from Apple's own store has down nothing to make its iPhone more secure. Its perphaps unlucky that a white hat researcher found the flaw first, as Apple needs someone to shock it out of its Apple applicances only use Apple allowed code policy.

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Mobile Phones Feed @ Feed Distiller

This goes to show that Apple's policy of lockdown down applications only to come from Apple's own store has down nothing to make its iPhone more secure. Its perphaps unlucky that a white hat researcher found the flaw first, as Apple needs someone to shock it out of its Apple applicances only use Apple allowed code policy.

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Mobile Phones Feed @ Feed Distiller

I'm very please that the ISS will get its extension, and that the Webb Telescope is likely to launch now. Space Science looks well funded. This will also be good news for SpaceX as they will now get there chance to make manned launchers. Still is now likely that China will land on the moon before america does again. Which will be only thing likely to kickstart manned exporilation in america again.

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Space Colonization Feed @ Feed Distiller

I'm very please that the ISS will get its extension, and that the Webb Telescope is likely to launch now. Space Science looks well funded. This will also be good news for SpaceX as they will now get there chance to make manned launchers. Still is now likely that China will land on the moon before america does again. Which will be only thing likely to kickstart manned exporilation in america again.

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Space Colonization Feed @ Feed Distiller

Nasa wouldn't need more budget if the politican could keep the plans constant enough to finish what they start. 9 Billion where spent on the Ares rockets, they only needed another 2.5 billion to finish. But now they're have to restart from scratch to build any new launch.

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Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

Nasa wouldn't need more budget if the politican could keep the plans constant enough to finish what they start. 9 Billion where spent on the Ares rockets, they only needed another 2.5 billion to finish. But now they're have to restart from scratch to build any new launch.

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Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

That not bad storage per chip. Now they need to be able to pack 16 of them into a standard flash stick, for 128GB flash sticks. I'll bet they top out at 64GB per stick though. Flash memory is obeying Moore's law and doubling every 1.5 years, Hard Disks aren't growing as quickly any more, so Flash is catching up, all the same, it will probably be 2020 before Flash drives match hard drives for cost.

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Storage Feed @ Feed Distiller

That not bad storage per chip. Now they need to be able to pack 16 of them into a standard flash stick, for 128GB flash sticks. I'll bet they top out at 64GB per stick though. Flash memory is obeying Moore's law and doubling every 1.5 years, Hard Disks aren't growing as quickly any more, so Flash is catching up, all the same, it will probably be 2020 before Flash drives match hard drives for cost.

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Storage Feed @ Feed Distiller

Avocad is pre-alpha software and hasn't been updated since March 2008. Hope your moon rocket is more reliable than that.

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CAD Feed @ Feed Distiller

Avocad is pre-alpha software and hasn't been updated since March 2008. Hope your moon rocket is more reliable than that.

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CAD Feed @ Feed Distiller

Each of end of the antenna is a 6 foot wides, geodesics sphere. The caver has to put it together to be able to comminucate with the surface. I guess its not that easy sending signals though solid rock, without a big antenna. Maybe they could make it smaller with a neutrino beam?

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Ham Radio Feed @ Feed Distiller

Each of end of the antenna is a 6 foot wides, geodesics sphere. The caver has to put it together to be able to comminucate with the surface. I guess its not that easy sending signals though solid rock, without a big antenna. Maybe they could make it smaller with a neutrino beam?

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Ham Radio Feed @ Feed Distiller

It is quite fun, when these things go wrong is it. Provided your not the one in the driving seat. Obviously Toyota didn't expect any of these systems to fail. Emergency shut-offs probably won't end up in cars, unless someone legislates for it, even if the effected models did have Emergency shutoffs, they'd still have to be recalled, as the having an accelerator pedal not do behave as expected, is a show stopper for any car.

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Automation Feed @ Feed Distiller

It is quite fun, when these things go wrong is it. Provided your not the one in the driving seat. Obviously Toyota didn't expect any of these systems to fail. Emergency shut-offs probably won't end up in cars, unless someone legislates for it, even if the effected models did have Emergency shutoffs, they'd still have to be recalled, as the having an accelerator pedal not do behave as expected, is a show stopper for any car.

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Automation Feed @ Feed Distiller

Its difficult to get politicians from different countries to agree on anything. Getting the USA and Europe to agree is hard enough, but expecting Russia and the Far East to agree on a global copyright law, seems incredible to me. I bet these meetings will continue though as the politicians get regular payed for holidays and the expenses of all copyright vested interests.

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Piracy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Its difficult to get politicians from different countries to agree on anything. Getting the USA and Europe to agree is hard enough, but expecting Russia and the Far East to agree on a global copyright law, seems incredible to me. I bet these meetings will continue though as the politicians get regular payed for holidays and the expenses of all copyright vested interests.

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Piracy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Its quite gamble, leaving a company without a product for any length of time, it could be the end of them. However there Model S is a big step ahead of any other electric vehicle around, look at the specs:

300 Miles per charge

Quick charge in 45 minutes

0-60 Mph in 5.6 seconds

Seats 5 adults and 2 children.

Half the price of the roadstar, 50,000

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All that and it still has a funky looking shape.

Given much lower price and the better performance it seem worth cancelling the roadstar. Telsa cars are still to expensive though, $20,000 is a good price for a high range, family car, and Telsa's model S is two and a half times that. I hope they are sucessful, then the economies of scale with move the price of there cars, down to the price of ordinary cars. Replace petrol in cars, is the key step to reducing global warming.

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Electric Vehicles Feed @ Feed Distiller

Its quite gamble, leaving a company without a product for any length of time, it could be the end of them. However there Model S is a big step ahead of any other electric vehicle around, look at the specs:

300 Miles per charge

Quick charge in 45 minutes

0-60 Mph in 5.6 seconds

Seats 5 adults and 2 children.

Half the price of the roadstar, 50,000

.

All that and it still has a funky looking shape.

Given much lower price and the better performance it seem worth cancelling the roadstar. Telsa cars are still to expensive though, $20,000 is a good price for a high range, family car, and Telsa's model S is two and a half times that. I hope they are sucessful, then the economies of scale with move the price of there cars, down to the price of ordinary cars. Replace petrol in cars, is the key step to reducing global warming.

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Electric Vehicles Feed @ Feed Distiller

Years of work have gone in Ares I,5 and the capsules. Yes is was just a bigger Apollo with more modern components, but if its cancelled and NASA have to restart then those years and dollars are gone, any moon or mars mission is setback at least 5 years. But as Phil said, these are just rumours, we don't yet know what will happen to NASA.

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Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

Years of work have gone in Ares I,5 and the capsules. Yes is was just a bigger Apollo with more modern components, but if its cancelled and NASA have to restart then those years and dollars are gone, any moon or mars mission is setback at least 5 years. But as Phil said, these are just rumours, we don't yet know what will happen to NASA.

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Space Craft Feed @ Feed Distiller

I've used the same programming mechanism and it works but its not learning or anything close. They create a neural network for each robot brain, then wipe the brain if it doesn't work well enough, and breed from the ones that work well. The population of robots learn by evolution, but each individual one, can't learn at all. Real animal and people of course can learn, and learn well, in there own lifetimes. So this learn mechanism is far inferer to natural brains.

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Robotics Feed @ Feed Distiller

I've used the same programming mechanism and it works but its not learning or anything close. They create a neural network for each robot brain, then wipe the brain if it doesn't work well enough, and breed from the ones that work well. The population of robots learn by evolution, but each individual one, can't learn at all. Real animal and people of course can learn, and learn well, in there own lifetimes. So this learn mechanism is far inferer to natural brains.

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Robotics Feed @ Feed Distiller

Actually there are suspected to be more brown drawfs, failed stars with not enough gas for fusion , in the galaxy than there will be normal stars. If thats so they should be many (tens) brown drawfs within ten light years of us. Brown drawfs of course are so very dim, that its very difficult to spot them at all. But UKIRT is any all sky survey that will take years to complete, and we can expect them to find a lot more brown drawfs.

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Astronomy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Actually there are suspected to be more brown drawfs, failed stars with not enough gas for fusion , in the galaxy than there will be normal stars. If thats so they should be many (tens) brown drawfs within ten light years of us. Brown drawfs of course are so very dim, that its very difficult to spot them at all. But UKIRT is any all sky survey that will take years to complete, and we can expect them to find a lot more brown drawfs.

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Astronomy Feed @ Feed Distiller

Can't see this being any use for replacing WI-FI in a room, it might just bounce into the hallwall, but its not going though closed doors. Radio WI-FI happily connects the whole house, plus the garden. The optical network would connect one room, and if you lucky an nearby room though open doors. I could imagine the optical wireless to an alternative for a large open plan office, especially if each office area was on a different network, other than that radio waves and wires will continue to rule.

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Network Feed @ Feed Distiller

Can't see this being any use for replacing WI-FI in a room, it might just bounce into the hallwall, but its not going though closed doors. Radio WI-FI happily connects the whole house, plus the garden. The optical network would connect one room, and if you lucky an nearby room though open doors. I could imagine the optical wireless to an alternative for a large open plan office, especially if each office area was on a different network, other than that radio waves and wires will continue to rule.

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Network Feed @ Feed Distiller

And if i want a reverse polish calculator, i would have installed FORTH. I would guess from the text, that extcalc was the best. They could have spared more than one line for each of 7 programs.

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Linux Feed @ Feed Distiller

And if i want a reverse polish calculator, i would have installed FORTH. I would guess from the text, that extcalc was the best. They could have spared more than one line for each of 7 programs.

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Linux Feed @ Feed Distiller

Both these devices seem to be coming of ages, they were off mentioned in sci-fi. I really think they may replace the keyboard and mouse for most applications soon. They doesn't seem to be a electric pencil or stylish to go with touchscreen yet, and that would make some sense, particular if you could use it as a cursor for a distance as well as up close, and it good have the equivalent of mouse buttons on it.

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Tablet PCs Feed @ Feed Distiller

Both these devices seem to be coming of ages, they were off mentioned in sci-fi. I really think they may replace the keyboard and mouse for most applications soon. They doesn't seem to be a electric pencil or stylish to go with touchscreen yet, and that would make some sense, particular if you could use it as a cursor for a distance as well as up close, and it good have the equivalent of mouse buttons on it.

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Tablet PCs Feed @ Feed Distiller

Except acting young again, does mean they stem cells will have lost any genetic damage, that occurred though aging. Perphaps some day though medicine will be able to produce truely young stem cells, but that would require checking that the DNA hasn't mutated from the orignal young cell line.

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Stell Cells Feed @ Feed Distiller

Except acting young again, does mean they stem cells will have lost any genetic damage, that occurred though aging. Perphaps some day though medicine will be able to produce truely young stem cells, but that would require checking that the DNA hasn't mutated from the orignal young cell line.

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Stell Cells Feed @ Feed Distiller

All these Stealth Fighters, are going to give Air Traffic Control a lot of fun. Look forward to see a lot a crashes, they is a downside of planes being invisible, they can't see each other until they hit each other.

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Aviation Feed @ Feed Distiller

All these Stealth Fighters, are going to give Air Traffic Control a lot of fun. Look forward to see a lot a crashes, they is a downside of planes being invisible, they can't see each other until they hit each other.

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Aviation Feed @ Feed Distiller

Well to NIF, looks like there'll get there pellets to fuse, as orders. However that doesn't mean this will be a practicle power source. They have made no effort to construct something that can extract the power from the fusing deuterium tritium pellets, and ever if they did, the efficiency of the lasers is so obsurdly low, that I doubt this Laser fusion will ever be practicle. By contrast, ITER, keeps the fusion plasma at constant temperature, it has much more chance of extracting useful work out of the fusion process.

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Fusion Feed @ Feed Distiller

Well to NIF, looks like there'll get there pellets to fuse, as orders. However that doesn't mean this will be a practicle power source. They have made no effort to construct something that can extract the power from the fusing deuterium tritium pellets, and ever if they did, the efficiency of the lasers is so obsurdly low, that I doubt this Laser fusion will ever be practicle. By contrast, ITER, keeps the fusion plasma at constant temperature, it has much more chance of extracting useful work out of the fusion process.

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Fusion Feed @ Feed Distiller

The privacy problem does run deep, not only those the remote DNS server, will both the source and destination servers. The allow them to monitor every web page lookup you've every done.

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The censorship problem also runs deep, into not just the remote website or a countries filewall that can block web addresses, its also any DNS server along the way.

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The plus side for the proposal is the speed of the system, when your primary local DNS service doesn't have the right address, the next DNS server in the chain, can be choose to be nearer your computer. But this doesn't help very much in most cases.

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Really this proposal is the oposite to where we should take DNS. DNS need more security more privacy, we need a protocol that obscures the source and destination to everydroppers, which find the right chain server, when the DNS server doesn't have the correct address, but can no nothing about source and destination at the same time. Its a tough order, and needs some very completed encryption technology.

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Internet Protocols Feed @ Feed Distiller

The privacy problem does run deep, not only those the remote DNS server, will both the source and destination servers. The allow them to monitor every web page lookup you've every done.

.

The censorship problem also runs deep, into not just the remote website or a countries filewall that can block web addresses, its also any DNS server along the way.

.

The plus side for the proposal is the speed of the system, when your primary local DNS service doesn't have the right address, the next DNS server in the chain, can be choose to be nearer your computer. But this doesn't help very much in most cases.

.

Really this proposal is the oposite to where we should take DNS. DNS need more security more privacy, we need a protocol that obscures the source and destination to everydroppers, which find the right chain server, when the DNS server doesn't have the correct address, but can no nothing about source and destination at the same time. Its a tough order, and needs some very completed encryption technology.

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Internet Protocols Feed @ Feed Distiller

The whole future of Literature, is up for grabs here. So we need a good legal settlement. I haven't yet read enough about the google book settlement to understand it well enough yet, so I don't know well if it is what Ms Le Guinn says is apt. I can understand her position as a Author. Clearly Authors need to be paid otherwise the profession would disappear as we know it. If Google opens up all or most literature to be free to all, the professional author will be much poorer. I'd hate Authorship to be supposed by corperations with hidden agenders or product placement. Still a world wide free library is great is it not, for learn and the education of the populus. A google library would do much to push the world from the writing in the paper medium to the electronic media.

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Science Fiction Books @ Feed Distiller

The whole future of Literature, is up for grabs here. So we need a good legal settlement. I haven't yet read enough about the google book settlement to understand it well enough yet, so I don't know well if it is what Ms Le Guinn says is apt. I can understand her position as a Author. Clearly Authors need to be paid otherwise the profession would disappear as we know it. If Google opens up all or most literature to be free to all, the professional author will be much poorer. I'd hate Authorship to be supposed by corperations with hidden agenders or product placement. Still a world wide free library is great is it not, for learn and the education of the populus. A google library would do much to push the world from the writing in the paper medium to the electronic media.

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Science Fiction Books @ Feed Distiller

On-line stalking usually means the crime of tracking down a users in physically reality. In WoW in will mean (especially on PvP servers), high level players, griefers and those we grudges, following round low level players, and killing them repeatly as our newbies try to build up there equipment, and complete PvE missions.

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MUD Games Feed @ Feed Distiller

On-line stalking usually means the crime of tracking down a users in physically reality. In WoW in will mean (especially on PvP servers), high level players, griefers and those we grudges, following round low level players, and killing them repeatly as our newbies try to build up there equipment, and complete PvE missions.

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MUD Games Feed @ Feed Distiller