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Okay, it's even more awesome.

On the downloads page you can download the models in various forms - point cloud, mesh, and so on. Different formats, depending on the method used to get the model data (cat scan, laser scan, photographic, &c).

They mention in the about page that it would take 247 years of work 24/7 to capture the entire collection.

We could hire 247 people and get the entire collection online in 3 years (8 hour shifts). At $50,000 per person, that's about $13 million per year(*). Compare to the cost of the Obamacare website currently estimated at around $100 million and it has to be redone.

They've obviously shown "proof of concept" for getting the job done. Can we somehow just give them the money to complete it? Maybe a petition on "We the People"?

(*) Back-of-the-envelope calculation doesn't include cost of scanning equipment or materials, but note that there are a *lot* of museums in this country. We could invest in the infrastructure once and keep 300 people employed for decades putting this great stuff online.

http://www.si.edu/termsofuse

Hopefully those models aren't covered under their site's general license (bans commercial use), as it would be awesome to be able to use these in games.

David Livingstone's Gun isn't a gun?

The link in the summary goes to the International Business Times, which links to a copy of the 11-second audio clip on Soundcloud that requires flash to run. The IBT article links to the original articles at the Smithsonian. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file on the Smithsonian site.

While I'd like to restore an extinct species, this sort of thing is outright irresponsible.

As irresponsible as wiping them out without thinking of the ramifications?

What about the ramifications of bringing an extinct bird back to life that was adapted to thrive in a much different environment than exists today? Are its natural predators still around or will the passenger pigeon take over and push out other species (not to mention causing crop and tree damage)?

http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm

Because the passenger pigeon congregated in such huge numbers, it needed large forests for its existence. When the early settlers cleared the eastern forests for farmland, the birds were forced to shift their nesting and roosting sites to the forests that still remained. As their forest food supply decreased, the birds began utilizing the grain fields of the farmers. The large flocks of passenger pigeons often caused serious damage to the crops, and the farmers retaliated by shooting the birds and using them as a source of meat. However, this did not seem to seriously diminish the total number of birds.

Has anyone asked Jeff Goldblum to weigh in?

Exactly the right (Wright?) point.

From TFA:
The William J. Hammer Collection is located at the Smithsonian Institute: http://airandspace.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/pdf/william_j_hammer_collection_finding_aid.pdf
Researchers are denied access:

My thoughts precisely; what good are photos that can never be viewed?
The Smithsonian has (in my personal experience) always been a strong partner of digitization and research. Unless and until they release those photos, the 'interpretation' of the photos - as assiduous and interesting as it is - will only remain a footnote. Further, releasing those pictures doesn't change Smithsonian's stance on who was the first to powered flight, so it should be beyond the bounds of the contract (which is clearly unenforceable as Jane's already points out).

If you are getting your info from the Whitehead site, the guy seems like a bit of a quack:

Quote from:
http://www.gustave-whitehead.com/history-of-whitehead-critics/
"Interestingly, Wright (or his attorney) tried to be too clever when tying up the Smithsonian, and the latter's trustees, apparently, failed to notice the blunder: By referring to "any aircraft" and not "airplane", the document prohibits the Smithsonian from even admitting that, since 1852, dozens of dirigable airships (indisputably 'craft of the air') had been "capable of carrying a man under [their] own power in controled flight". Count Zeppelin and his predecessors would be as unhappy as Whitehead if airbrushed out of history by this secret agreement."

Quote from:
http://blog.nasm.si.edu/aviation/blimp/
"All Zeppelins are dirigibles, but not all dirigibles are Zeppelins. A dirigible is any powered lighter-than-air craft capable of maneuvering. For the linguistically fastidious, a Zeppelin is a rigid airship manufactured by the Zeppelin Company, or by Goodyear-Zeppelin, the American firm that produced the two great U.S. naval airships, ZRS-4, USS Akron (1931-1933), and ZRS-5, USS Macon (1933-1935)."

Oops.

With Smithsonian approval, Glenn Curtiss extensively modified the Aerodrome and made a few short flights in it in 1914, as part of an unsuccessful attempt to bypass the Wright Brothers' patent on aircraft and to vindicate Langley. Based on these flights, the Smithsonian displayed the Aerodrome in its museum as the first heavier-than-air manned, powered aircraft "capable of flight." This action triggered a feud with Orville Wright (Wilbur Wright had died in 1912), who accused the Smithsonian of misrepresenting flying machine history. Orville backed up his protest by refusing to donate the original 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer to the Smithsonian, instead donating it to extensive collections of the Science Museum of London in 1928. The dispute finally ended in 1942 when the Smithsonian published details of the Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and recanted its claims for the aircraft.

Langley Aerodrome

Langley's simple approach was merely to scale up the unpiloted Aerodromes to human-carrying proportions. This would prove to be a grave error, as the aerodynamics, structural design, and control system of the smaller aircraft were not adaptable to a full-sized version. Langley's primary focus was the power plant. The completed engine, a water-cooled five-cylinder radial that generated a remarkable 52.4 horsepower, was a great achievement for the time.

Despite the excellent engine, the Aerodrome A, as it was called, met with disastrous results, crashing on takeoff on October 7, 1903, and again on December 8. Langley blamed the launch mechanism. While this was in some small measure true, there is no denying that the Aerodrome A was an overly complex, structurally weak, aerodynamically unsound aircraft. This second crash ended Langley's aeronautical work entirely.

Langley Aerodrome A

Achieving dynamic control in three dimensions was the Wrights' great obsession.

They were as intensely focused on learning how to fly as they were on the evolution and refinement of their mechanical designs.

You laugh. This planet is pretty active. Although a quick perusal of recent Alaska activity doesn't show much unusual stuff, we've had a RM 7 and 6 quake on Queen Charlotte / Fairweather fault that's been quiet for the past decade or so (a blink in the geological eye). Time to get off my ass and bolt down the diesel tanks some more.

The fun thing about today's technology is that we can actually see the actual magnitude of volcanism on the planet in pretty much real time. Never had that ability before.

I live on the Ring of Fire. I'm aware on a daily basis of the threats to my welfare, though I'm less than an ant on a beachball to the forces of plate tectonics. If it happens, it happens. If I survive, maybe I'll move somewhere safe ... say, New Madrid, Missouri. (c:

You laugh. This planet is pretty active. Although a quick perusal of recent Alaska activity doesn't show much unusual stuff, we've had a RM 7 and 6 quake on Queen Charlotte / Fairweather fault that's been quiet for the past decade or so (a blink in the geological eye). Time to get off my ass and bolt down the diesel tanks some more.

The fun thing about today's technology is that we can actually see the actual magnitude of volcanism on the planet in pretty much real time. Never had that ability before.

or use a light bulb? Edison was evil as well.

Indeed, but he had nothing to do with the invention of fluorescent bulbs or LEDS. No incandescents in this house.

Any more "challenges"?

Actually, he did. U.S. Patent 865,367 Thomas Edison's Fluorescent Lamp

You can see the patent here: http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/history/patents/ed_flu.htm

Greenland has never had significantly less ice than it has now in at least 6 or 7 thousand years

For various definitions of "significant", of course. In this context we're comparing today and the MWP.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html

I live in Scandinavia and as far as we're concerned the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Bronze Age Warm Period were warmer than we are currently. Thus, likely less ice in Greenland as well.

http://www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.html

http://www.wsl.ch/fe/landschaftsdynamik/dendroclimatology/Publikationen/Esper_etal.2012_GPC

http://hol.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/10/26/0959683612460791.abstract

The problem is most any terrestrial network protocol expects a minimal signal-response delay between nodes

RFC 1149 does not assume this, though the current implementation would have to be modified to avoid complete packet loss in a non-terrestrial environment - BF Skinner's work suggests one obvious adaptation:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149
http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=353

Unbelievable. They were still using carrier pigeons in WW II? Despite the invention of radio?

If you think that's hard to believe, this is going to blow your mind:

http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=353
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

He didn't claim this was 79. He was waxing reminiscent on the last of the PDP 11's.

By citing the 386SX, it's pretty clear that the time referenced is 88/89.

The problem with all these powered lift gizmos (like the Williams X-jet and the Hiller VZ-1) is that you tend to fall out ouf the sky when your engine fails... The Hiller VZ-1 which is also a ducted fan used *two* 30 kW engines, but barely flew out of the ground effect and was limited in speed. More powerful versions had other control problems.

In the 50s, the military paid for development of similar technology, but the power:weight ratio and range just wasn't there with 50s engine technology.
TFA mentions that they're staying under 15ft for safety reasons, not because it requires the ground effect to operate.

The idea for this basic design was thought up in the 40s and the only reason it was abandoned in the 50s/60s was because the military decided to put their money behind conventional helicopters.

I think Jobs summed it up all very well in 1995. The Internet needs to be run as a public trust.

Here is the text (See The Internet section)
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html

And for those that have not seen it before, here is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=121ofj_l6vM

I've never had the money to be a fan of apple stuff, but I like old tech interviews, especially when they talk about the future of the industry.

The Udvar-Hazy Center has both the shuttle and the Blackbird. As a bonus, you can go up into an observation tower and watch the planes at the nearby airport while listening to ATC chatter.

The Udvar-Hazy Center has both the shuttle and the Blackbird. As a bonus, you can go up into an observation tower and watch the planes at the nearby airport while listening to ATC chatter.

I worked at Dulles airport in the 80's when the Enterprise was just setting out in the woods at the back of the airport property.

Air & Space at Dulles

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport is the companion facility to the Museum on the National Mall. The building opened in December, 2003, and provides enough space for the Smithsonian to display the thousands of aviation and space artifacts that cannot be exhibited on the National Mall. The two sites together showcase the largest collection of aviation and space artifacts in the world.

The James S. McDonnell Space Hangar opened in November 2004 and displays hundreds of famous spacecraft, rockets, satellites and space-related small artifacts. The centerpiece of the space hangar is the Space Shuttle Discovery. Other space artifacts include the Gemini VII space capsule; the Mobile Quarantine Unit used upon the return of the Apollo 11 crew; and a Redstone rocket.

Between the Discovery and the overlook is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest jet ever built.

Other unique artifacts exhibited in the Boeing Aviation Hangar include:

the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay.

the Boeing 367-80 or Dash 80, the prototype 707, America's first jet airliner.

the Aichi Seiran Japanese WWII bomber, the only remaining Seiran.

the Boeing 307 Stratoliner Clipper Flying Cloud, the first airliner with a pressurized cabin.

a Concorde supersonic airliner.

National Air & Space Museum The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Therefore every car has GPS. Therefore tracking every car, including yours, is trivial. The motive only appears to be altruistic.

An one of these people who thinks that GPS sends signals to the satellites. GPS doesn't work that way, it only receives signals.

Speaking of fairy tales:

Would you areee that in a million years it is possible, via the mechanism of evolution, that a housecat will teach mathematics at a college level.

I await your response.

Obviously not.

The descendant of a housecat?

Almost certainly not.

Would one have expected the ancestors of H.Sapiens 1MY ago to be teaching college math? They probably handn't even discoverd fire. (Although they had discovered tool making, putting them in advance of the housecat).

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive

It's not about evidence, it's about conditioning children to accept fairy stories as valid epistemology.

It's all fairy tales, until you catch fairy.

Fossil Record: Prior to 1938 coelacanths were known only from fossils and were thought to have gone extinct approximately 65 million years ago (mya), during the great extinction in which the dinosaurs disappeared. The most recent fossil record dates from about 80 mya but earlier records date back as far as approximately 360 mya. At one time coelacanths were a large group comprising about 90 different valid species that were distributed around the world in both marine and freshwaters. Although Latimeria is a genus distinct from the fossil forms, all coelacanths share numerous features and are easily recognized by their distinctive shape and lobed fins. . . .

The first living coelacanth (seel-a-canth) was discovered in 1938 and bears the scientific name Latimeria chalumnae. The species was described by Professor J.L.B. Smith in 1939 and was named after its discoverer, Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. Until recent years, living coelacanths were known only from the western Indian Ocean, primarily from the Comoros Islands, but in September 1997 and again in July 1998, coelacanths were captured in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, nearly 6,000 miles to the east of the Comoros. The Indonesian discovery was made by Mark V. Erdmann, then a doctoral student studying coral reef ecology in Indonesia. Although the Indonesian specimens superficially resemble those in the western Indian Ocean, analyses of DNA from tissue samples removed from one of the Indonesian specimens have revealed significant genetic differentiation from the Indian Ocean population. The authors of two studies have suggested that the two populations have been separated for at least several millions of years. The Indonesian form was described as a new species, Latimeria menadoensis, in April 1999, by L. Pouyard and several Indonesian colleagues. All Latimeria are considered to be endangered and are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna - - The Coelacanth: More Living than Fossil

More: The Fish Out of Time, Coelacanth

It is also well established that scientists aren't omniscient, and can disregard direct observations that don't fit with their personal belief or theories.

Enormous waves that sweep the ocean are traditionally called rogue waves, implying that they have a kind of freakish rarity. Over the decades, skeptical oceanographers have doubted their existence and tended to lump them together with sightings of mermaids and sea monsters.

But scientists are now finding that these giants of the sea are far more common and destructive than once imagined, prompting a rush of new studies and research projects. The goals are to better tally them, understand why they form, explore the possibility of forecasts, and learn how to better protect ships, oil platforms and people. -- Rogue Giants at Sea, by WILLIAM J. BROAD, Published: July 11, 2006

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -- Max Planck

Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas. -- Max Planck

Once that's done, the story is changed to suit whatever purpose is required.

You mean like "punctuated equilibrium" and "quantum evolution"?

Or are you referring to the extraordinary results of

I'm Canadian and agree 100% that our paper voting system is better. But, one problem a Canadian approach would have in the US system is that they vote for close to a dozen government offices all at once.

This is why the hanging chad issue came about--they had to punch out their vote for close to a dozen different positions (see http://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/large/7_02a_lrg.jpg for the 2000 Florida one).

One way a Canadian model might work for the US, is that ballots for each office are given to voters when they get there, and are colour-coded. This would prevent accidentally putting a ballot into the wrong box. And then votes for each office can be counted manually, in parallel.

But we then run into the second roadblock: for historical and constitutional reasons, there's no equivalent to Elections Canada that oversees a federal election, so every state gets to decide their own voting method.

Oh... ya... We're down to one type of manned craft that can even make it to the IIS, and a few pipe dreams for further exploration. Without commercial interest, or a international government dick size contest, we're dwindling down to nothing. Soviet Buran US Space Shuttle Orbiter "Enterprise" 8 sad aircraft graveyards And, the eventual fate will be just like USS Enterprise CV-6.

Interesting links, been spending lots of time visiting. Perhaps space travel will be considered passe like cowboys exploring the wild west during 1800s. Lots of stories, movies, and tall tales.

Hey! The space race is on, we're aimed at the stars.

    Oh... ya... We're down to one type of manned craft that can even make it to the IIS, and a few pipe dreams for further exploration.

    Without commercial interest, or a international government dick size contest, we're dwindling down to nothing.

    Soviet Buran

    US Space Shuttle Orbiter "Enterprise"

    In future years, they'll become a novelty, and finally be left behind some antiquities museum. Or they'll be scrapped out when the floor space in the museum is more valuable for a gift shop.

    8 sad aircraft graveyards

    And, the eventual fate will be just like USS Enterprise CV-6

    Soon enough, the only trace that a human ever left the Earth will be what we left on the moon. That will eventually be destroyed by incoming space debris.

Good idea about the convoys. If the shippers will buy into it.

A small motorboat leaves a mother ship and gets anywhere near a convoy, the UAVs can destroy it, and go after the mother ship as well.

The mother ships are probably the key here. They represent a much larger investment on the pirate's part. The robo helicopters can be deployed to follow the attacking boats back to mother ships. Report their position and UAVs or conventional forces can take them out.

You'd probably need some sort of protocol for dealing with mother ships. The decision to attack/not attack a larger vessel being approached by a gunboat would need some careful human analysis. But ground troops have surrendered to UAVs before. So circling a suspected mother ship and broadcasting a message to the effect that a destroyer will be by shortly to conduct an inspection could work.

Where the heck is the Apple ][ category ... no Oregon Trail, Choplifter, Lode Runner, Rescue Raiders, Karateka (the first game to have cut scenes), nor Conan ???

*sniff* no Loom, Monkey Island, Guardian Heroes. :-/ Nice to see Rez, and Shadows of the Colossus though.

i.e.
* Although there isn't much to do in Shadow of the Colossus other than
killing the colossi and sightseeing, you'll find yourself captivated
enough by the scenery to sink hours into just wandering around the
place and drinking in the beauty of the setting. Scenery Porn at its
finest. [ http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SceneryPorn ]

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/featuredgames/

* Atari VCS
Pac-Man (Action), Space Invaders (Target), Pitfall! (Adventure), Combat® (Tactics)

* ColecoVision
Donkey Kongâ (Action), Zaxxon (Target), Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (Adventure), Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (Tactics)

* Intellivision
TRON: MazeâAtron (Action), Star Strike (Target), Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (Adventure), Utopia (Tactics)

* Commodore 64
Jumpman (Action), Attack of the Mutant Camels (Target), The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate (Adventure), Pirates! (Tactics)

* Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Mario Brothers 3 (Action), 1943: The Battle of Midway (Target), The Legend of Zelda (Adventure), Desert Commander (Tactics)

* SEGA Master System
Marble Madness (Action), After Burner (Target), Phantasy Star (Adventure), Spy vs Spy (Tactics)

* SEGA Genesis
Earthworm Jim (Action), Gunstar Heroes (Target), Phantasy Star IV (Adventure), Dune II: Battle for Arrakis (Tactics)

* Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Mario World (Action), Star Foxâ (Target), The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Adventure), SimCity (Tactics)

* SEGA Saturn
Tomb Raider (Action), Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei (Target), Panzer Dragoon Saga (Adventure), SimCity 2000 (Tactics)

* DOS/Windows
DOOM II (Action), Diablo II (Target), Fallout (Adventure), StarCraft (Tactics)

* PlayStation
Metal Gear Solid (Action), Einhander (Target), Final Fantasy VII (Adventure), Final Fantasy Tactics (Tactics)

* Nintendo 64
Super Mario 64 (Action), Star Fox 64* (Target), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Adventure), Worms Armageddon (Tactics)

* SEGA Dreamcast
Sonic Adventure (Action), Rez (Target), Shenmue (Adventure), ChuChu Rocket! (Tactics)

* PlayStation 2
Shadow of the Colossus (Action), Gradius V (Target), ÅOEkami (Adventure), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Tactics)

* Microsoft XBox
Halo 2 (Action), Panzer Dragoon Orta (Target), Fable (Adventure), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (Tactics)

* Nintendo GameCube
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Action), Star Foxâ: Assault (Target), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Adventure), Pikmin 2 (Tactics)

* Modern Windows
Portal (Action), flOw (Target), Fallout 3 (Adventure), Minecraft (Tactics)

* Microsoft XBox 360
Bioshock (Action), Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (Target), Mass Effect 2 (Adventure), Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II (Tactics)

* Nintendo Wii
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Action),

At last, I can make a 3d model of the archie bunker chair. I hope they scan that before the padding goes away. If it worked for Archie to sit around in, it may make a really good programming chair.

...offering why those large volcanoes in particular had this effect.

According to http://www.volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?faq=06 (which admittedly doesn't go back that far) it seems that volcanic activity has been relatively flat over time.

As presented in the blog summary (which may or may represent their actual paper accurately) it looks very much like a case of observer bias - they had a cooling period, and they looked just before it to see if anything happened, which seemed to be these 4 big eruptions. That (alone) can't be the basis for a compelling theory.

Without comparing the larger frequency of eruptions over time, this data is meaningless. If these 4 eruptions were an outlier, then indeed this is interesting. If they weren't (ie if either a) this was a typical frequency of vulcanism over time, and/or b) there were periods of comparable or heavier vulcanism without such observed climate effect) then this theory loses a lot of its traction.

Looking at volcanic megaevents - the HUGE collection of eruptions about 132 million years ago, and again about 30 mya - doesn't seem to present ongoing climatological effects, but then the Little Ice Age phase is so short (centuries) it wouldn't really even be a blip on a paleoclimatological chart.

Actually, the magic was simple. Stradivari had students who produced his rough violins. He himself spent all of his time finishing them, which basically involved a lot of planing, playing, and listening. As a result, he was able to finish over a thousand violins in his lifetime, while others made hundreds because they did all the work themselves. Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri is estimated to have produced only about 250 violins, and Bergonzi didn't make very many because he didn't have time to; he primarily repaired violins.

References:
http://www.stradivarius.org/
http://www.stradivarius.org/violin/famous-violin-makers
http://si.edu/encyclopedia_si/nmah/guarneri.htm

To try to get some insight on how many genetic changes there are in insects I churned a few numbers:

1. * Life cycle time is takes a full year for most insects
2. * Number of offspring per female 100 - varies a lot
3. * Number of insects per acre is 10^8 (100 million)
4. * Number of acres grown under GM crops 3x10^8
5. * Mutation rate is about 10^-8 per base pair per generation
6. * The number of genome base pairs 1.4x10^8 (fruit fly)

Multiply that and you get 10^18 insect offspring per year; a mutation rate of about 1 per individual per generation. So the number of mutations is a very large number. This means a large number of ''natural experiments'' done, one of which may result in an insect a bit more resistant to a GM crop, this will give the insect an advantage and so be able to have more offspring all of which carry the advantageous gene. So advantageous genes spread rapidy, through sexual reproduction are combined with other genes and the best combinations flourish.

WARNING: very rough calculations, most insects die before they have the chance to reproduce and so most mutations are 'lost'. The numbers that I obtained are very likely wrong - but even if each one is wrong by a factor of 100, it doesn't make a huge dent in a very large number.

Sure pandas are cute and fluffy, but they still got mean claws and can gut you just well.

As a video game geek, a few recommendations:

This summer (2012) the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., will be hosting "The Art of Video Games".
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/

In New Hampshire, there is one of the largest (if not the largest) arcade of classic video games: "Fun Spot"
http://www.funspotnh.com/

If thirsty and heading through NJ, there is always the semi-famous "Barcade":
http://barcadejerseycity.com/directions/

Last time I was at the air and space museum in Washington DC I saw a Cray Supercompter http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19880565000
    I was extremely excited and tried to show my kids who only saw a very weird big computer thing. A new supercomputer built by Cray sounds like a great idea :)

Steve Jobs was no republicans/libertarian and he blamed the unions for protecting bad teachers. He saw the need for competition in schools where parents are the customer. The customer went away, particularly when women started working in large numbers. Schools became institutionalized, parents become less involved.

He spoke at length to the Smithsonian on education in 1995. Read it here.

This is why Science is so $#@%ing awesome. As Samuel Clemens put it best, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investment of fact.” This will be a very tough hypothesis to sell, but the researcher says his evidence is ready to take on all skeptics.

There are incredible stories waiting to be revealed in the fossil record and stories we have already uncovered. There's the footprints of Austrolopithecus, which were preserved in volcanic ash, large and small, male and female, close together as if they were huddling--perhaps the male had his arm around his mate, and the female's footprints lopsided as if she were carrying an infant. Imagine what it was like for them, walking fearfully across a landscape raining ash from a distant volcano... This story is drawn in this famous diorama.

Or the Taung child, whose skull bares the scars of an eagle attack. The child was carried away by a bird of prey. A story both fantastic and tragic at once.

Or the stories of Homo erectus , who was the velociraptor of our human ancestors. She was a total badass, which is why I love this statue of her at the Smithsonian Hall of Human Origins carrying a rotting caribou carcass across the Serengeti.

Science has thousands of these stories that we have already discovered, and an infinite supply of them in store for us if we keep exploring. Knowing this, I simply don't understand how people can be so impressed with a book covering a few hundred years of human history and consider it sacred. The sacred is all around us, written in the natural world waiting for us to read it.

[rolls eyes] Of course. A common felsic volcanic rock. However, most of the ancient and historic volcanism in Syria is basaltic, and even if you could get a chunk of rhyolite in Syria I can't see how it is relevant unless you're going to carve a message in a block of it and then throw it over the border.

Oh, wait.

You just don't fucking get it, do you? Iceland may be a peaceful nation and reasonably insulated from the tentacles of terrorism, but there are other countries and regions that don't get along so well... like in the Middle-East... Its no wonder Israel seems so imperial or combative, they're really just paranoid, and rightfully so!

Of course they will. However, there wasn't even a magnitude 6 earthquake on May 21st anywhere in the world, there were no reports of anyone being "raptured", and it was essentially a slow news day.

If it was Katla that erupted, the bigger one next door to Eyjafjallajokull, then it could be something impressive. It has been historically quite an explosive volcano and would likely produce ash plumes much worse than Eyjafjallajokull. Grimsvotn? Pah. It erupted a few years ago (1996) and no one but Icelanders and geologists took much interest. At best there might be some impressive jokulhlaups that will take out some bridges and roads, but Icelanders are already smart enough not to live downstream. Who knows? Maybe this eruption of Grimsvotn will turn out to differ from the historical pattern it has followed, but it's doubtful.

It won't stop the crazies from grasping at straws, but, seriously, there are volcanoes erupting somewhere in the world every day, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was an eruption somewhere else in the world that was actually worse by some measures.

There's already a Concorde and a Space Shuttle (Enterprise) at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly Virginia. (As well as a ton of other aircraft. From Udvar-Hazy you can catch a shuttle that goes to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in DC (I think you have to go to Dulles Airport, then to the Metro). http://www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy/

There are hundreds of fossils of extinct primates, including dozens (or more) of hominans, that is humans and our extinct relatives. Take a look at the Smithsonian's page, The Institute of Human Origins, archaeologyinfo.com, The New Scientist, or good old talk.origins for some examples. Also humans and chimpanzees split off from each other about 6 million years ago, and the apes (or superfamily hominoidea which includes humans, chimps, orangutans, gorillas, and gibbons) split off from old-world monkeys about 25 million years ago. The split between old- and new-world monkeys occurred about 35 million years ago. We didn't evolve from monkeys any more than monkeys evolved from us. We share a common ancestor, just like on a much smaller scale my cousin and I share a common ancestor.

is the Luce Center, where, in addition to free wifi, they have a special table set up for laptops. From Wednesday - Sunday they have FREE coffee and tea from 12 - 4 PM. Slightly off topic, but good to know if you are in DC.

Did you know that the very first 6502 layout had an unused space reserved for an electrical outlet? No, not an electrical outlet on the chip, silly! An electrical outlet on the wall of the designer.

It was (don't know if it still is) common for the layout "artist" to include a graphic of his choice on the die.

Remember how this really works - whatever the current laws, there will be pressure from commercial entities to pass protective laws solely for the preservation of the commercial potential of their products. Just as copyright is expanded as needed to protect commercial interests, so will the laws be expanded (if needed) to protect commercial interests related to 3D printing. The only "safe" items will be things that clearly are not a consequence of current "protected" products and are explicitly released under open licenses.

Of course, the article is quite correct that the statistical likelihood of companies going after any one individual for printing small numbers of parts is remote - even the music industry's campaign against file sharing has not made it all THAT probable that any given individual will be sued, it's just not cost effective to sue vast numbers of people who have no money and pay all the court costs. However, it DOES pose a problem for people who want designs that are fully legal in all senses of the word - i.e. those who want to use truly free models - and statistically unlikely doesn't mean some people won't get in trouble.

The patent/copyright issues surrounding this issue, while fascinating, are not the only potential problems. If someone prints a design for a car part they downloaded off the web and installs it in their car, and something goes wrong, would they try and go after the source of that model? More to the point, would they have a case if they didn't pay anything and no warranties were made as to the serviceability of the design? Some jurisdictions limit the ability to disclaim things like implied warranty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty Would the fact that the model in question was a free download and no money changed hands come into play? This is a point that comes up occasionally even in software - some people think they should have a right to have the tool work "for a particular purpose" even if they paid nothing to compensate the author for their work, although in practice this has seldom played out. Physical products based on designs are a more subtle problem - even if something goes wrong and money was paid, was it the design at fault or something else? How does one prove if the problem was the design, the printer, the plastic/resin used, the operation of the machine, improper use of the part, etc. etc. etc. IIRC, the Smithsonian makes people sign a waiver before they can get plans for the wright brothers airplane: http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/collections/techdraw/wrights.cfm (Unfortunately these plans are quite restricted - no commercial use or redistribution, so what might have been an excellent source of high quality model plans is out of the question. I don't know if the dimensions in them are subject to copyright restriction - it seems unlikely but it would take a lawyer to figure out - but the agreement would seem to preclude anything interesting in that regard.)

That said, all human activity carries such risks. Authors of books (or for that matter authors of web pages!) run the risk of being sued for what their book motivated someone to do. People try to sue gun makers for what people do when they misuse guns. Anyone holding public office with significant power has painted a legal bullseye on themselves. Hopefully a free model community will eventually appear, the issues will be worked out, and we'll see a surge of scanning of historical artifacts outside of all possible copyright/patent concerns and new designs under open licenses. Not just for the fun and creativity, but because those are excellent ways to preserve and build on old designs from past masters.

The existing open CAD models are somewhat scarce, but some of those that do exist have gravitated toward the Creative Commons licensing schemes. I am aware of:

OpenMoko:

You're correct about the original takeoff system, but the Wright flyer didn't use a "motorcycle engine." It was a custom-designed, four-cylinder engine with a cast aluminum crankcase.

The article starts from a false assumption: that the postal service must be profitable, or at least break even.

This is a very old idea - mail services are a very old service and have pretty much been self-funded or profitable the whole time. Ben Franklin's long and distinguished career as a postmaster for the British Crown began as postmaster of Philadelphia, and raised them quite a bit of money. In 1753 he was made Postmaster general of the American Colonies. He was only let go in 1774 because of his association with some notorious rabble rousers.

When he was made the Postmaster General by the Continental Congress in 1775 there was no Federal income tax at the time, nor any deficit, nor a central bank and it didn't look like there would ever be. They thought differently back then but I think he felt it being self-funded was a good plan for making it persistent - heck, to make it work at all. It's worked for this long, I see no reason to start second guessing it now. Don't we have some broken stuff to fix?

It's a service provided by the government. The right price to charge for it is approximately what it costs, so if they're projecting a deficit they should raise the rates. Maybe they should charge more for the junk mail. Mail too important to turn over to a private corporation which pretty much by definition has to charge all that the traffic will bear.

I wondered that too, but if you look at a volcano map, it doesn't seem to correspond very well with high volcanic areas. Compare the areas in Africa and Central America that still have active volcanoes, even though they are not high gravity. The map doesn't correspond at all to plate tectonics, as far as I can tell from my limited understanding.

It DOES however seem to correspond fairly well with this map of the earth's deformation. Places on the earth that have a surface distance farther from the middle of the earth also have stronger gravitational pull. Makes sense to me.

First, it would appear that you need to re-write wiki as well as .edu and a number of gov documents to go along with what you are saying concerning the design.
First, it says that Spiro Agnew was the person chairing the group that recommended to keep us in LEO. Then it claims that Nixon was the person who chose to keep us in LEO. Last time, I checked, Agnew was VP for Nixon.
In addition, it says that the initial design was radically different, but the costs were going to be too high. It appears that the ONLY real design idea previous to Nixon was to have something about the size of a DC-3 (which is what the shuttle is).


As to the saturn V, the second run of the Saturn V was stopped in 1968 (pre-nixon). However, it was Nixon's budget submissions that followed that choked NASA of even using the final saturns for what they were intended: to launch multiple space labs. In addition, it was Nixon's lack of budget the prevented the Shuttle from arriving on time, which then led to the destruction of skylab.

Nixon bears a great deal of responsibility for the downfall of NASA.