Also both are CHAIRS of both of their respective committees, House Judiciary committee and House Judiciary Intellectual Property Sub-Panel. (I would imagine that unless you are the Chair, it is pretty hard to get something out of committee.)
That said, there must be something to this story; the Hollywood Reporter is a well known publication. Perhaps, the Dems (of which I am one) WERE more reluctant to withdraw their support for this bill. All I can say is, nobody's perfect (and there are many many other times when the Repubs supported bad bills) and intellectual property laws ARE seriously lacking/screwed up and need fixing.
If these things can auto-land pads and recharge themselves, this would make a great Art installation!
I know that this technology will lead to some real life applications (like if they can be used to jointly move large objects. Maybe they can do things that even skilled human operators cannot and they may make "sky cranes" more practical). Still they are undeniably cool to watch so maybe they could be used in some kinetic 3D Art piece.
Or if not Art, why not Advertising? Get enough of them, put LEDs on them and you'll have a flying, reconfigurable 3D billboard. How about the Pepsi Logo? Or the AT&T "Death Star"?
On second thought maybe not, the night sky is already too cluttered.
The barrier is too high, MAN must adapt
on
Next-Gen Spacesuits
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Unfortunately it looks like the human species (and maybe most multicellular animals!) is just not suited for long duration space flight and maybe even habitation of other (lesser gravity) worlds.
If this turns out to be true (I know they are using fruit flies but Drosphilia are a good proxy for humans for many things) then we're going to have very serious problems in doing anything other than "plant the flag" style missions. At what point is there "enough" gravity to allow the proper development of a human fetus? Half a gravity? A third? (Mars). A sixth? (the moon). That's why probably the single most important next step for manned space flight is probably the addition of a large (capable of handling mice, preferably primates) centrifuge to the ISS. I recall that it was once meant to be part of it but was cancelled. WE NEED THESE QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
And if the news is bad and humans can't go through a complete life cycle in anything appreciably less than one gee? Then it's time to hack the genome and (possibly) create a new species! While we're at it, we might as add ability to withstand brief (1-2 minutes?) exposure to vacuum (I understand that oxygen comes out of your blood quickly and you can't hold your breath because your lungs will burst. So you pass out in seconds). Also, radiation hardening would be good (some animals like tardigrads can take thousands of times more exposure). The ability to hibernate would be great and I'm sure there are a lot more abilities we could wish for.
In short maybe Homo Astra (or something like that, I don't know Latin).
Otherwise our robots will conquer the universe without us (or at least until we can download our minds into them).
... would it be possible (or I guess more importantly) worthwhile to put x86 cores WITH ARM cores on a single chip?
In addition to offering dual boot capabilities, it might be useful to run "Virtual" (or sort of virtual) machines at full speed. I've often thought it would be nice to run some of the thousands(!) of cellphone Apps that I have on my laptop. Although it might be tricky to implement multi-touch correctly, still I'd think there might be some utility.
Or maybe all CPUs today are very generalized RISCy architectures with everything taken care of in microcode (or maybe nowadays it's nanocode)? That would make it (comparatively) really easy to do, right?
When you see the earth coming up over the (lunar) horizon, the part of the moon your are seeing BELOW you is the far side because you cannot see the earth from it. (True, it is awfully close to the near side being on the "border" as it is.)
Actually I'm almost positive that this is not the first video of the far side of the moon (and certainly not the first images, that was done by some Russian probe back in the 60s I think).
Not only did the aforementioned Apollo astronauts take moving images (ok, maybe not technically video) of the far side during their orbits but I recall that even the recent Japanese or Chinese lunar probes were transmitting hi-def videos including (I think) a beautiful "earth-rise". Which by definition means they had to be imaging at least part of the far side.
No, this is just the first video of the far side from GRAIL (which is pretty awesome regardless). Now there is a chance that due to the fact that GRAIL entails TWO spacecraft that one could be acting as a relay which would make this the first LIVE video from the far side. But considering the small separation distance of them (less than 100km?) I doubt it.
My story title was: The Future of War... and Assassination!
(I think it was the word Assassination that got the slashdot editors to remove it from the "recent" listings. It was on the "recent" listings one second at "yellow" and then *poof* gone! Do they think various government agaencies don't approve of such topics?). Anyway, here's what I wrote:
"From TFA: "This self-guided bullet can chase you down from over a mile away"
A long LONG time ago, I remember reading something that claimed that in every successive war (WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War) the amount of bullets it took to kill someone was INCREASING, that is (maybe) an average of 100 rounds was spent per soldier killed in WWI whereas by Vietnam it was maybe 10,000 possibly due to smarter tactics and better protection. The commentator said the only way this would change is if they somehow managed to put a VAX (kiddies, that's an old computer) into a bullet.
Well, it looks like that's been done now, here's a bullet that has computer, sensors and fins that is fired out of a rifle. It requires a laser designated target and it doesn't guarantee pinpoint accuracy but an 8" miss instead of 30ft. at half a mile is a HUGE improvement. Fire a few rounds in quick succession and chances are a body sized target will be hit.
Of course it will be much more expensive than "dumb" ammunition but I'd guess it'd still be a lot cheaper than the aforementioned 10,000 rounds. What's more it's falling into the Pentagon's plans for a military focused upon small "hit" teams, drones and special ops. For this strategy, this kind of weapon is invaluable. For example; instead of a huge $100 million Global Hawk drone carrying big (heavy) hellfire missiles designed to wipe out a vehicle or house; just use a small (hand launched?) drone carrying a gun with a few rounds of this ammo. (I would imagine such a drone would be a lot quieter so it could get within the shorter range easily). Much cheaper, equally capable of carrying out its mission (killing a few insurgents).
Unfortunately another use would be to have a forward "spotter" at a public event with an infra-red laser pointer/binocular. The shooter could be quite distant and just has to shoot the bullets (in quick succession mind you) on a ballistic trajectory that will get them near the target. They will home into the (invisible to the naked eye) illuminated target by themselves.
You'll see security agencies beginning to see this as a threat when they start carrying sensors capable of detecting infrared lasers. The next step though is when enough computing power is available to put face recognition algorithms into the bullet...
*What really intrigues me isn't the computer power in the bullet but rather how do the fins work! How do they get such tiny (and rugged) motors into a bullet?
**So is this the kind of invention that Larry Niven was thinking about when he invented the U.N. ARM? It was an agency who's goal was to stop technological innovation that would lead to anarchy (like things that would make murder legal)."
I (very) briefly looked at TFA and saw something about how some drug trial didn't go the way some pharmaceutical company thought it would.
Then I saw something about how people looking at the relative positions of a red and blue ball couldn't reliably put them into a casual relationship.
For the WIRED editors who allowed the story to be published (and slashdot editors who allowed this story to be posted) to see this as a repudiation of Science (and Causality) is ludicrous. Why didn't they say that maybe the reason why their drug didn't work out is because Science doesn't claim to understand completely the biochemistry of the human body (yet). Why didn't they say that the human proclivity to create a narrative where none exists (like with the red and blue balls) is an interesting and not (yet) wholly understood psychological phenomenon?
Science has given us so much (flight, health, food, cities, mobility, global communications, etc.) and has proven itself on every scale from the cosmic to the nano-scopic that I can only ask:
From TFA "secretly submit a request to Congress for funding"; so I guess it isn't a secret now is it?
Anyway, if ONE bomb can penetrate 200ft. and supposedly laser enhanced GPS targeting can allow almost pinpoint accuracy, how deep can two or more bombs go? I know it wouldn't be linear but even an additional 50ft. would be worth something.
Or maybe the air defenses around these installations (they must be the most highly protected items in the whole country) would make getting off more than one too dangerous?
First the Republicans denied that the earth was warming Now they're denying it's man-made Next they'll say it's too late to do anything
Why have Republicans become the party of ignorance? - denying man-made climate change Probably 95% of all climatologists support it - denying evolution Probably 99% of all biologists agree it is central to Biology - denying stimulus economics Probably 95% of all economists (like me) agree it got us out of the Great Depression
Do they honestly believe Faith trumps Facts? Whose Faith? Only evangelical Christains? What about other Christians (I heard the Vatican doesn't have a problem with evolution), Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or (gasp!) Atheists?
Or, on the other hand, why does anyone who claims to stand against ignorance and (to be honest) superstition remain a Republican?
I shudder to think what would happen if these views gained (even) greater credence in the U.S. Would we start segregating women like ultra-orthodox Jews want in Israel? Or deny them an education (and many rights) like in Islamic countries? Why can't all these religious people keep their Faith to themselves? And for issues that affect us all, stay with Facts not Fiction.
I don't know how flexible (if at all) the parameters are for your very own "chip" sized satellite but wouldn't it be possible to make it survive re-entry? If it were made of ceramic and light (not dense) enough, couldn't it be designed to "gently" de-orbit without building up the heat that would cause it to vaporize.
Shape might be important too, I understand how that the first space capsule designers were initially flumoxed be the inability of their needle nosed re-entry vehicles to survive more than a few seconds in the hypersonic wind tunnels before melting. Then, a clue from nature in the form of Tektites; spherical blobs of glass of extraterrestrial origin that managed to survive due to the shock wave that protected them. (Russian re-entry vehicles were spherical for a time, now I think they, like the Americans, are using blunt cones). So if they can't be flat, maybe you'll have to take the space of a few "chip" sized satellites to send one golf-ball sized satellite capable of re-entry.
What a scoop that would be if you could do this! Imagine a worldwide competition for "find the space golf ball" where the person who finds the (hopefully) intact ceramic ball will get a reward and fame. (There could be a code inside to verify the winner, or perhaps DeBeers would sponsor putting a nice diamond in it). If constructed properly, it could be made to float so a water landing wouldn't automatically lose it. Maybe some sort of retro-reflector could be used to make finding it easier as well (but would restrict the likely recovery teams to professionals).
Actually since the chance of finding one old be so small, I'd imagine you'd have to send up a bunch with the first one found getting the big reward. Still finding any of them would be a great collectors item! Finally there might be some (very small) uses for being able to return (very small) samples from space but because of the difficulty in finding it, it's probably best suited for some sort of game or promotional event.
I thought that the names had to be approved by the IAU or something. (The summary says the planet found "now bears their name". Unless the IAU decided to name it after them I suspect they got to name it). Is the summary wrong?
On the other hand, if the summary is correct, the chance for OFFICIALLY naming an entire world would be worth something! Who knows, maybe the exo-planet you named after yourself (or your firstborn, or your pet dog) could one day be determined to have life, maybe intelligent life! (Or maybe it'll just have cool double-sun sunsets or pretty rings).
Couldn't NASA get a bit of funding from people who wanted to bid on the rights to name a world? (Unlike copyrights, aren't celestial bodies named FOREVER?).
If these machines could simultaneously form the conduits and pipes needed for plumbing (is the concrete waterproof? Can it be laid down in a seamless fashion?) then that could really be useful. Of course, the fastenings (the metal hardware) would have to be affixed afterwards.
I guess there would be no practical way of making electrical (or fiber optic!) cables using this "additive" construction but at least you could provide for the necessary openings and channels.
Yeah, that's what you think. One tiny little change and we could end up with just a planet in an evolutionary dead-end filled with anoxic bacteria and politicians!
Not to diminish the importance of multi-cellularity (and of this discovery) but wasn't the development of Eukaryotes (cells with Nuclei and other differentiated organelles) the big step needed for complex life? I mean with chloroplasts you get plants and mitochondria (or mitoklorines for you Star Wars fans) you get animals.
With multi-cellularity and prokaryotes you get strombolites (algal mats).
That said, it shows that evolution can happen quite quickly and can overcome some serious obstacles in a short amount of time in a very limited scope (a laboratory workbench). When multiplied by geologic ages and oceans of room is it any wonder that life has evolved in so many fascinating ways?
Remember the story about the three bears and their porridge? (one was too hot, the other too cold...)
Well the only countries large enough to challenge the U.S. are the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). So in the spirit of the three bears...
China's government is too authoritarian India's government isn't authoritarian enough Brazil's government/society isn't focused enough on the future (education) and Russia's government is too corrupt and they're facing one hell of a demographic problem maybe because "without a vision the people perish.". It seems there is no visionary leadership in Russia, just everyone grab whatever you can.
Just more late night musings. (I'm back in the U.S. now, no longer in Vietnam talk about a f-up government).
Good point but we've seen other competitors seem to begin to challenge American dominance (Japan, now Europe) and then something messes up. Looking at this from a very long perspective, one could say that the world wars (at least the second one) was a very catastrophic failure on the part of Germany/Japan due to their overly authoritarian government (I'm winging it here, I'm not a historian).
But I could be wrong! So we'll see what happens with China, I've heard their leadership described as "the Harvard Alumni Association with an army" so I presume they're competent. India just looks too dysfunctional.
I think many people would agree that it was the socio-political-economic-educational environment that ALLOWED those people to create Facebook (and Google and Apple). How many OTHER population centers in the world are the same size as the Boston area or Silicon Valley (or Hollywood)? Now how many world changing inventions or works of (commercial) art have come from them?
Most telling is the number of IMMIGRANTS (like the founders of Intel and Google) who came to America to realize their dreams. Proof that like retail, for innovation it's all about location, location, location.
Sorry, I should've been more explicit. I meant the country that CREATED Facebook (or Google or Apple). I was going to say MTV (as an example of American cultural hegemony) but it seemed a bit dated for those young whippersnappers out there.;)
Thanks! I've actually heard (a little) about these guys before in context of the space elevator beaming competitions. Anyway, maybe it's just their web page but their stuff looks kinda expensive (no prices!). I was kinda hoping that the technology was accessible enough that a sufficiently skilled slashdotter could do it in their spare time.:)
... the reason why the United States of America (may) remain the most powerful, prosperous country* in the world isn't because we aren't the best or most efficient or smartest.
It's because (it seems) invariably our competitors screw up in a big way. With China it's when their authoritarian government can't keep the lid on their repressed people, with India it's because their chaotic government can't promote effective policies. So let's hope that America's creatively destructive democracy hasn't wounded itself too much (thanks Bush) and will regain its balance. (Actually, hoping that the U.S. will outcompete China, a country 4x its population, is probably a bit much. How about a close second?).
As I've gotten (much) older, I'm wondering if I see a personal corrolary to this; I've seen people do well not because they've had spectacular successes but because they've managed to avoided catastrophic failures. Sort of like the tortoise and the hare I guess.
* prosperous BIG country; I know Switzerland, Singapore and Qatar are richer on a per capita basis but they don't have nukes. Or Facebook.
So here's a question for the skilled do it yourselfers in the slashdot crowd.
I figure that one of those "micro-drones" only use a few(?) watts of power right? How much does the Parrot quad copter use?
Well, could you (sorry, not me, unfortunately I don't have the hacking skills:( attach a solar panel facing DOWN on one of those drones and then affix a little infrared LED on the drone. A modest ground based telescope would track the LED and continuously point a medium(?) powered laser at the solar panel. (That's one place where the hacking comes in, to have a motorized base track the drone and to provide safeties in case the laser lost "lock").
Voila! As long as the drone stays in line of sight of the base (and as long as power doesn't give out) you've got a modest little perpetual aerial surveillance platform. Can lasers of the requisite power/frequency be purchased without too much of a headache from the authorities? Can small drones fight gusts and high winds so that they'll stay up most of the time?
This reminds me of the floating "golden eyes" used by Larry Niven as surveillance tools in his novels. Someone in Japan made a spherical drone that did this but I think it could only stay up for 10 minutes on one battery charge. If the solar cells were light enough/laser was powerful enough perhaps that drone could be used.
Is the visible/infrared the best part of the spectrum to use? Would a maser (with microwave power receiver) be better in terms of efficiency or safety?
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, although for just an "Art" piece such quick battery swap isn't required! ;)
Surveillance and other applications would probably find this essential.
Also both are CHAIRS of both of their respective committees, House Judiciary committee and House Judiciary Intellectual Property Sub-Panel. (I would imagine that unless you are the Chair, it is pretty hard to get something out of committee.)
That said, there must be something to this story; the Hollywood Reporter is a well known publication. Perhaps, the Dems (of which I am one) WERE more reluctant to withdraw their support for this bill. All I can say is, nobody's perfect (and there are many many other times when the Repubs supported bad bills) and intellectual property laws ARE seriously lacking/screwed up and need fixing.
Just not in this way!
If these things can auto-land pads and recharge themselves, this would make a great Art installation!
I know that this technology will lead to some real life applications (like if they can be used to jointly move large objects. Maybe they can do things that even skilled human operators cannot and they may make "sky cranes" more practical). Still they are undeniably cool to watch so maybe they could be used in some kinetic 3D Art piece.
Or if not Art, why not Advertising? Get enough of them, put LEDs on them and you'll have a flying, reconfigurable 3D billboard. How about the Pepsi Logo? Or the AT&T "Death Star"?
On second thought maybe not, the night sky is already too cluttered.
Unfortunately it looks like the human species (and maybe most multicellular animals!) is just not suited for long duration space flight and maybe even habitation of other (lesser gravity) worlds.
http://io9.com/5881355/microgravity-screws-us-up-at-a-cellular-level
If this turns out to be true (I know they are using fruit flies but Drosphilia are a good proxy for humans for many things) then we're going to have very serious problems in doing anything other than "plant the flag" style missions. At what point is there "enough" gravity to allow the proper development of a human fetus? Half a gravity? A third? (Mars). A sixth? (the moon). That's why probably the single most important next step for manned space flight is probably the addition of a large (capable of handling mice, preferably primates) centrifuge to the ISS. I recall that it was once meant to be part of it but was cancelled. WE NEED THESE QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
And if the news is bad and humans can't go through a complete life cycle in anything appreciably less than one gee? Then it's time to hack the genome and (possibly) create a new species! While we're at it, we might as add ability to withstand brief (1-2 minutes?) exposure to vacuum (I understand that oxygen comes out of your blood quickly and you can't hold your breath because your lungs will burst. So you pass out in seconds). Also, radiation hardening would be good (some animals like tardigrads can take thousands of times more exposure). The ability to hibernate would be great and I'm sure there are a lot more abilities we could wish for.
In short maybe Homo Astra (or something like that, I don't know Latin).
Otherwise our robots will conquer the universe without us (or at least until we can download our minds into them).
... would it be possible (or I guess more importantly) worthwhile to put x86 cores WITH ARM cores on a single chip?
In addition to offering dual boot capabilities, it might be useful to run "Virtual" (or sort of virtual) machines at full speed. I've often thought it would be nice to run some of the thousands(!) of cellphone Apps that I have on my laptop. Although it might be tricky to implement multi-touch correctly, still I'd think there might be some utility.
Or maybe all CPUs today are very generalized RISCy architectures with everything taken care of in microcode (or maybe nowadays it's nanocode)? That would make it (comparatively) really easy to do, right?
When you see the earth coming up over the (lunar) horizon, the part of the moon your are seeing BELOW you is the far side because you cannot see the earth from it. (True, it is awfully close to the near side being on the "border" as it is.)
Actually I'm almost positive that this is not the first video of the far side of the moon (and certainly not the first images, that was done by some Russian probe back in the 60s I think).
Not only did the aforementioned Apollo astronauts take moving images (ok, maybe not technically video) of the far side during their orbits but I recall that even the recent Japanese or Chinese lunar probes were transmitting hi-def videos including (I think) a beautiful "earth-rise". Which by definition means they had to be imaging at least part of the far side.
No, this is just the first video of the far side from GRAIL (which is pretty awesome regardless). Now there is a chance that due to the fact that GRAIL entails TWO spacecraft that one could be acting as a relay which would make this the first LIVE video from the far side. But considering the small separation distance of them (less than 100km?) I doubt it.
My story title was: The Future of War... and Assassination!
(I think it was the word Assassination that got the slashdot editors to remove it from the "recent" listings. It was on the "recent" listings one second at "yellow" and then *poof* gone! Do they think various government agaencies don't approve of such topics?). Anyway, here's what I wrote:
"From TFA: "This self-guided bullet can chase you down from over a mile away"
A long LONG time ago, I remember reading something that claimed that in every successive war (WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War) the amount of bullets it took to kill someone was INCREASING, that is (maybe) an average of 100 rounds was spent per soldier killed in WWI whereas by Vietnam it was maybe 10,000 possibly due to smarter tactics and better protection. The commentator said the only way this would change is if they somehow managed to put a VAX (kiddies, that's an old computer) into a bullet.
Well, it looks like that's been done now, here's a bullet that has computer, sensors and fins that is fired out of a rifle. It requires a laser designated target and it doesn't guarantee pinpoint accuracy but an 8" miss instead of 30ft. at half a mile is a HUGE improvement. Fire a few rounds in quick succession and chances are a body sized target will be hit.
Of course it will be much more expensive than "dumb" ammunition but I'd guess it'd still be a lot cheaper than the aforementioned 10,000 rounds. What's more it's falling into the Pentagon's plans for a military focused upon small "hit" teams, drones and special ops. For this strategy, this kind of weapon is invaluable. For example; instead of a huge $100 million Global Hawk drone carrying big (heavy) hellfire missiles designed to wipe out a vehicle or house; just use a small (hand launched?) drone carrying a gun with a few rounds of this ammo. (I would imagine such a drone would be a lot quieter so it could get within the shorter range easily). Much cheaper, equally capable of carrying out its mission (killing a few insurgents).
Unfortunately another use would be to have a forward "spotter" at a public event with an infra-red laser pointer/binocular. The shooter could be quite distant and just has to shoot the bullets (in quick succession mind you) on a ballistic trajectory that will get them near the target. They will home into the (invisible to the naked eye) illuminated target by themselves.
You'll see security agencies beginning to see this as a threat when they start carrying sensors capable of detecting infrared lasers. The next step though is when enough computing power is available to put face recognition algorithms into the bullet...
*What really intrigues me isn't the computer power in the bullet but rather how do the fins work! How do they get such tiny (and rugged) motors into a bullet?
**So is this the kind of invention that Larry Niven was thinking about when he invented the U.N. ARM? It was an agency who's goal was to stop technological innovation that would lead to anarchy (like things that would make murder legal)."
I (very) briefly looked at TFA and saw something about how some drug trial didn't go the way some pharmaceutical company thought it would.
Then I saw something about how people looking at the relative positions of a red and blue ball couldn't reliably put them into a casual relationship.
For the WIRED editors who allowed the story to be published (and slashdot editors who allowed this story to be posted) to see this as a repudiation of Science (and Causality) is ludicrous. Why didn't they say that maybe the reason why their drug didn't work out is because Science doesn't claim to understand completely the biochemistry of the human body (yet). Why didn't they say that the human proclivity to create a narrative where none exists (like with the red and blue balls) is an interesting and not (yet) wholly understood psychological phenomenon?
Science has given us so much (flight, health, food, cities, mobility, global communications, etc.) and has proven itself on every scale from the cosmic to the nano-scopic that I can only ask:
Is WIRED a Fox subsidiary?
From TFA "secretly submit a request to Congress for funding"; so I guess it isn't a secret now is it?
Anyway, if ONE bomb can penetrate 200ft. and supposedly laser enhanced GPS targeting can allow almost pinpoint accuracy, how deep can two or more bombs go? I know it wouldn't be linear but even an additional 50ft. would be worth something.
Or maybe the air defenses around these installations (they must be the most highly protected items in the whole country) would make getting off more than one too dangerous?
doesn't make it pseudo-science.
First the Republicans denied that the earth was warming
Now they're denying it's man-made
Next they'll say it's too late to do anything
Why have Republicans become the party of ignorance?
- denying man-made climate change
Probably 95% of all climatologists support it
- denying evolution
Probably 99% of all biologists agree it is central to Biology
- denying stimulus economics
Probably 95% of all economists (like me) agree it got us out of the Great Depression
Do they honestly believe Faith trumps Facts? Whose Faith? Only evangelical Christains? What about other Christians (I heard the Vatican doesn't have a problem with evolution), Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or (gasp!) Atheists?
Or, on the other hand, why does anyone who claims to stand against ignorance and (to be honest) superstition remain a Republican?
I shudder to think what would happen if these views gained (even) greater credence in the U.S. Would we start segregating women like ultra-orthodox Jews want in Israel? Or deny them an education (and many rights) like in Islamic countries? Why can't all these religious people keep their Faith to themselves? And for issues that affect us all, stay with Facts not Fiction.
I don't know how flexible (if at all) the parameters are for your very own "chip" sized satellite but wouldn't it be possible to make it survive re-entry? If it were made of ceramic and light (not dense) enough, couldn't it be designed to "gently" de-orbit without building up the heat that would cause it to vaporize.
Shape might be important too, I understand how that the first space capsule designers were initially flumoxed be the inability of their needle nosed re-entry vehicles to survive more than a few seconds in the hypersonic wind tunnels before melting. Then, a clue from nature in the form of Tektites; spherical blobs of glass of extraterrestrial origin that managed to survive due to the shock wave that protected them. (Russian re-entry vehicles were spherical for a time, now I think they, like the Americans, are using blunt cones). So if they can't be flat, maybe you'll have to take the space of a few "chip" sized satellites to send one golf-ball sized satellite capable of re-entry.
What a scoop that would be if you could do this! Imagine a worldwide competition for "find the space golf ball" where the person who finds the (hopefully) intact ceramic ball will get a reward and fame. (There could be a code inside to verify the winner, or perhaps DeBeers would sponsor putting a nice diamond in it). If constructed properly, it could be made to float so a water landing wouldn't automatically lose it. Maybe some sort of retro-reflector could be used to make finding it easier as well (but would restrict the likely recovery teams to professionals).
Actually since the chance of finding one old be so small, I'd imagine you'd have to send up a bunch with the first one found getting the big reward. Still finding any of them would be a great collectors item! Finally there might be some (very small) uses for being able to return (very small) samples from space but because of the difficulty in finding it, it's probably best suited for some sort of game or promotional event.
I thought that the names had to be approved by the IAU or something. (The summary says the planet found "now bears their name". Unless the IAU decided to name it after them I suspect they got to name it). Is the summary wrong?
On the other hand, if the summary is correct, the chance for OFFICIALLY naming an entire world would be worth something! Who knows, maybe the exo-planet you named after yourself (or your firstborn, or your pet dog) could one day be determined to have life, maybe intelligent life! (Or maybe it'll just have cool double-sun sunsets or pretty rings).
Couldn't NASA get a bit of funding from people who wanted to bid on the rights to name a world? (Unlike copyrights, aren't celestial bodies named FOREVER?).
If these machines could simultaneously form the conduits and pipes needed for plumbing (is the concrete waterproof? Can it be laid down in a seamless fashion?) then that could really be useful. Of course, the fastenings (the metal hardware) would have to be affixed afterwards.
I guess there would be no practical way of making electrical (or fiber optic!) cables using this "additive" construction but at least you could provide for the necessary openings and channels.
Yeah, that's what you think. One tiny little change and we could end up with just a planet in an evolutionary dead-end filled with anoxic bacteria and politicians!
Not to diminish the importance of multi-cellularity (and of this discovery) but wasn't the development of Eukaryotes (cells with Nuclei and other differentiated organelles) the big step needed for complex life? I mean with chloroplasts you get plants and mitochondria (or mitoklorines for you Star Wars fans) you get animals.
With multi-cellularity and prokaryotes you get strombolites (algal mats).
That said, it shows that evolution can happen quite quickly and can overcome some serious obstacles in a short amount of time in a very limited scope (a laboratory workbench). When multiplied by geologic ages and oceans of room is it any wonder that life has evolved in so many fascinating ways?
Remember the story about the three bears and their porridge? (one was too hot, the other too cold...)
Well the only countries large enough to challenge the U.S. are the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). So in the spirit of the three bears...
China's government is too authoritarian
India's government isn't authoritarian enough
Brazil's government/society isn't focused enough on the future (education)
and Russia's government is too corrupt and they're facing one hell of a demographic problem maybe because "without a vision the people perish.". It seems there is no visionary leadership in Russia, just everyone grab whatever you can.
Just more late night musings. (I'm back in the U.S. now, no longer in Vietnam talk about a f-up government).
Good point but we've seen other competitors seem to begin to challenge American dominance (Japan, now Europe) and then something messes up. Looking at this from a very long perspective, one could say that the world wars (at least the second one) was a very catastrophic failure on the part of Germany/Japan due to their overly authoritarian government (I'm winging it here, I'm not a historian).
But I could be wrong! So we'll see what happens with China, I've heard their leadership described as "the Harvard Alumni Association with an army" so I presume they're competent. India just looks too dysfunctional.
I think many people would agree that it was the socio-political-economic-educational environment that ALLOWED those people to create Facebook (and Google and Apple). How many OTHER population centers in the world are the same size as the Boston area or Silicon Valley (or Hollywood)? Now how many world changing inventions or works of (commercial) art have come from them?
Most telling is the number of IMMIGRANTS (like the founders of Intel and Google) who came to America to realize their dreams. Proof that like retail, for innovation it's all about location, location, location.
Sorry, I should've been more explicit. I meant the country that CREATED Facebook (or Google or Apple). I was going to say MTV (as an example of American cultural hegemony) but it seemed a bit dated for those young whippersnappers out there. ;)
Thanks! I've actually heard (a little) about these guys before in context of the space elevator beaming competitions. :)
Anyway, maybe it's just their web page but their stuff looks kinda expensive (no prices!). I was kinda hoping that the technology was accessible enough that a sufficiently skilled slashdotter could do it in their spare time.
... the reason why the United States of America (may) remain the most powerful, prosperous country* in the world isn't because we aren't the best or most efficient or smartest.
It's because (it seems) invariably our competitors screw up in a big way. With China it's when their authoritarian government can't keep the lid on their repressed people, with India it's because their chaotic government can't promote effective policies. So let's hope that America's creatively destructive democracy hasn't wounded itself too much (thanks Bush) and will regain its balance. (Actually, hoping that the U.S. will outcompete China, a country 4x its population, is probably a bit much. How about a close second?).
As I've gotten (much) older, I'm wondering if I see a personal corrolary to this; I've seen people do well not because they've had spectacular successes but because they've managed to avoided catastrophic failures. Sort of like the tortoise and the hare I guess.
* prosperous BIG country; I know Switzerland, Singapore and Qatar are richer on a per capita basis but they don't have nukes. Or Facebook.
So here's a question for the skilled do it yourselfers in the slashdot crowd.
I figure that one of those "micro-drones" only use a few(?) watts of power right? How much does the Parrot quad copter use?
Well, could you (sorry, not me, unfortunately I don't have the hacking skills :( attach a solar panel facing DOWN on one of those drones and then affix a little infrared LED on the drone. A modest ground based telescope would track the LED and continuously point a medium(?) powered laser at the solar panel. (That's one place where the hacking comes in, to have a motorized base track the drone and to provide safeties in case the laser lost "lock").
Voila! As long as the drone stays in line of sight of the base (and as long as power doesn't give out) you've got a modest little perpetual aerial surveillance platform. Can lasers of the requisite power/frequency be purchased without too much of a headache from the authorities? Can small drones fight gusts and high winds so that they'll stay up most of the time?
This reminds me of the floating "golden eyes" used by Larry Niven as surveillance tools in his novels. Someone in Japan made a spherical drone that did this but I think it could only stay up for 10 minutes on one battery charge. If the solar cells were light enough/laser was powerful enough perhaps that drone could be used.
Is the visible/infrared the best part of the spectrum to use? Would a maser (with microwave power receiver) be better in terms of efficiency or safety?
For fleshing out my submission (I didn't put in the news release).
Hope you find the story interesting!
Thanks for the info!