Color-Changing Contact Lenses for Diabetics

As technology marches on, we get innovations like this that reduce medical waste, reduce user discomfort, and increase the control diabetics can exercise over their blood sugar.

Color-Changing Contact Lenses Help Diabetics Keep Tabs on Glucose Levels | Ecouterre
"A biochemical engineer at the University of Western Ontario has developed contact lenses that change color in response to spikes and dips in the wearer’s glucose levels.
. . .
The nanocomposite hydrogel lenses, which could render those pesky e-waste-generating blood-glucose meters obsolete, will allow diabetics to monitor potentially life-threatening variations in their sugar levels without missing a thing. (Another upside: They’re ouch-free.)"

You don't need criminal intent to be persecuted (er prosecuted)

Two quotes:
"Under the English common law we inherited, a crime requires intent. This protection is disappearing in the U.S."
"being emotionally distressed is just part of living in a free society."
Congress would serve us well by spending one year out of four removing old, redundant and ineffective laws. Of course, that won't be happening.

L. Gordon Crovitz: You Commit Three Felonies a Day - WSJ.com:
"Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book 'Three Felonies a Day,' referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

Mr. Silverglate describes several cases in which prosecutors didn't understand or didn't want to understand technology. This problem is compounded by a trend that has accelerated since the 1980s for prosecutors to abandon the principle that there can't be a crime without criminal intent."

In England - Mandatory Jail for Handing in a Gun

Poor judgment has been exercised by everyone Mr Clarke came in contact with after he found a shotgun dumped in his back yard. He should never have been charged, tried, or convicted. It is tragic that the home of the Magna Carta has reduced itself to this pitiful state.

Ex-soldier faces jail for handing in gun:
"A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for 'doing his duty'.

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: 'I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.

'I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets.'"

Sensible people have been fleeing Britain for years - this decision may increase the trend. How can a jury damn someone to prison when that person was merely trying to protect the public at large? Their hysteria regarding guns ought to encourage such behavior, not condemn it.

College Student Invents Lightweight Personal Insulation

BYU student Nate Alder brought together a team that designed Argon insulated clothing for a college competition and the idea is now being used in a new line of lightweight commercial products.

Not Just Hot Air | Popular Science:
"During one of the scuba seminars, he learned about how divers in cold climates pump argon gas into their dry suits for insulation. As a former snowboard instructor, he wondered if argon could be used to warm skiers and snowboarders too.

He returned to college, still with no declared major and no knowledge of chemistry but intent on exploring the possibilities of using the gas as an insulator. “I didn’t even know if argon was flammable or toxic,” jokes Alder, now 28. When his research revealed that argon is actually inert and used to extinguish fires in computer labs, he knew he was onto something. He began recruiting BYU business and engineering students and quickly assembled a crack team to flesh out argon-based outerwear that would enable wearers to adjust warmth by simply inflating or deflating a vest.

The group wrote a business plan and entered a BYU competition. “Our first prototype was basically a plastic pillow filled up with the gas,” Alder recalls. Although their idea was unprecedented—no one had ever tried trapping argon for use in cold-weather gear—they finished a somewhat disappointing fifth place and decided to disband."

Their discoveries are now commercial products:

Klymit NobleTek Gas Insulation | Popular Science:
"Cold-weather apparel made with Klymit NobleTek is simultaneously ultralight and hyper-efficient, thanks to chambers that keep the body warm in the same way double-paned windows insulate a building. A layer of argon has the same thermal conductivity as a layer of down or synthetic fiber insulation three times as thick, and unlike those materials, it’s unaffected by wetness or compression. The wearer can adjust the warmth level on the go by connecting a thumb-sized argon canister to a valve in the pocket ..."

30 Basic Human Rights

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created by the United Nations in 1948, we have 30 basic human rights.

While some of us may dispute specifics, like who is to provide (pay for) "the right to affordable housing, medicine, education, and child care, enough money to live on" (#22), this document gives us a starting point for discussions.

FYI - protecting Copyrights (#27) is a hot topic in this electronic age, and it certainly seems that some of our enemies are opposed to "A free and fair world" (#28) if that means allowing us to enjoy our other rights.

This link discusses the same list of rights in more accessible language.

Another ebook reader for your PC

Amazon's Kindle is probably the most popular ebook reader. This PC application helps them stay on top. One of the best features is synchronization between devices, so the reader is always on the correct page when you go from your Kindle to reading on your PC and then to your iPhone. I've been using the excellent MobiPocket reader for both my PC and my Palm Centro, but the Kindle may be a better choice for many.

Kindle for PC Ships, Hints At Future Color Kindle | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
"Kindle fans now have one more place they can read their e-books: A PC. Kindle for PC joins the equally well-named Kindle for iPhone and, er, Kindle for Kindle in the list of ways to read Amazon’s DRM’ed content. A Mac version is “coming soon”.

The application does pretty much what the iPhone version does: your place is synced with other devices by Whispersync, and there is support for your bookmarks and annotations. You can browse and buy from the Kindle Store, but you can’t access blogs, newspapers or magazines. This isn’t a problem, we guess, as you’re sat at a computer with a web browser anyway."

FYI - DRM = Digital Rights Management

What is an FN Five-Seven?

The FN Herstal Five-Seven is a fairly ordinary pistol chambered for a quite unique cartridge. The 5.7X28mm round is reminiscent of the AR15/M16 5.56X45mm cartridge (also known as the .223 Remington) adopted by the US military during the Vietnam War era. Like this rifle round, it uses a smaller than normal projectile fired at high velocity. The projectiles are very similar in size, with the 5.7X28 bullet weighing about the same as light .223 bullets intended for varmint (small game) hunting.

What, Exactly, Is a ‘Cop-Killer’ Gun? (Updated) | Danger Room | Wired.com:
"News reports on the Fort Hood rampage say that the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, used an FN Herstal Five-Seven pistol — described in some reports as a “cop killer” gun.

. . .

The Five-Seven is chambered for the 5.7 x 28mm cartridge, ammunition originally developed by FN Herstal for the FN P90 Personal Defense Weapon. The P90 was conceived as a compact, powerful weapon that could be carried by aircraft crews, vehicle drivers and other troops who needed a weapon that was smaller than a carbine but larger than a pistol.

. . .

Gun control group The Brady Campaign says it bought and test-fired a Five-Seven, and that it successfully penetrated a police vest. That said, it doesn’t seem quite accurate to call the Five-Seven a pocket-sized assault rifle. Its barrel would give it a lower muzzle velocity than a PN90; likewise, it strikes me as unlikely that it would give a shooter much more accuracy and effective range than a standard pistol. And plain-vanilla pistol round can be devastating enough: Think of the Virginia Tech shooter, who used a Glock 9mm and Walther .22.

We don’t know at this point a lot of the details: Exactly what kind of ammunition the shooter used; how many shots in total were fired; and at what range. That will take a lot of police work, and a lot of patience.

Still, the tragedy at Fort Hood seems likely to renew debate: Both on gun control, and on the kinds of measures to protect troops while they are on base, and unarmed.

UPDATE: Hasan bought the gun on August 1st — less than a month after he was transferred to Ft. Hood, a law enforcement official tells Newsweek’s phenomenal new Declassified blog. “At the same time, Hasan also bought several high capacity 20 round magazines that allowed him to rapidly fire off multiple rounds during the attack without reloading, the official said."

The Future of Air Power?

Military technology is driven quite a bit by the "last war" and tradition, particularly when we aren't fighting a "hot war". Actual combat has a tendency to make the military face brutal realities.

For many decades, we've had the luxury of being able to control the air - a significant strategic advantage. Today's reality is that unmanned aircraft are cheaper in both dollars and political consequences (no downed pilots to recover).

The use of UAVs or RPVs is unrewarding & emotionally difficult for the pilots, but if we're to maintain our advantage, we'll be doing much more of it. Manned aircraft won't be phased out for a long time, but unmanned aircraft are going to become much more common - we better get used to it.

Fighter Pilots Face A Dismal Future
"Many people, including some generals in the air force, believe that its next generation fighter will not have a pilot on board. Many air force generals admit that the F-35 is probably the last manned fighter. But some believe that the F-35 will be facing stiff competition from pilotless fighters before F-35 production is scheduled to end in 2034.

UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) are not particularly popular with many U.S. Air Force leaders, but that is not the case in many other countries. Air force generals around the world see the unpiloted jet fighter as a way to break the monopoly the U.S. Air Force has had on air supremacy for the last sixty years.

Most Americans don't even think of this long domination of the air, but potential enemies of the United States are well aware of it, and that domination has a profound effect on how those nations do their military planning. In effect, if you think about going to war with the United States in the immediate future, you take for granted that American aircraft will control the skies above. Robotic jet fighters could change that. And this is forcing American air force generals to confront a very unsavory prospect; a sixth generation fighter that is flown by software, not a pilot.

It's not just that most of the those American air force generals began their careers as fighter pilots. No, the reason is more practical. American air superiority has largely been the result of superior pilots. The U.S. didn't always have the best aircraft, but they always had the most talented and resourceful pilots. And that's what gave the U.S. its edge. Will that translate to software piloted fighters? Research to date seems to indicate it will."

Hidden Solar Cells Could be an Option for Homeowners

The bigger problem with solar is the need for energy storage, or an energy substitute when the sun isn't shining. Energy can be stored in batteries or more elaborate systems. For most homeowners, the best substitute is the electricity grid - sell excess solar energy to the grid during the day and buy cheap electricity from it at night.

Once you've made these decisions, then aesthetics of the solar array can be considered and the article below may have a solution for some folks.

Our home faces south, so photovoltaic cells would need to be mounted on the street facing surface of our roof, or we would have the increased expense of building frames to hold them at the correct angle on the back side of the roof. Our neighbors might not mind a bunch of solar panels, but they would also need to be approved by the dreaded HOA.

Hidden Solar Cells: 3-D System Based On Optical Fiber Could Provide New Options For Photovoltaics:
"Converting sunlight to electricity might no longer mean large panels of photovoltaic cells atop flat surfaces like roofs.

Using zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of three-dimensional photovoltaic system. The approach could allow PV systems to be hidden from view and located away from traditional locations such as rooftops.

"Using this technology, we can make photovoltaic generators that are foldable, concealed and mobile," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. "Optical fiber could conduct sunlight into a building's walls where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity. This is truly a three dimensional solar cell."

. . .

Dye-sensitized solar cells use a photochemical system to generate electricity. They are inexpensive to manufacture, flexible and mechanically robust, but their tradeoff for lower cost is conversion efficiency lower than that of silicon-based cells. But using nanostructure arrays to increase the surface area available to convert light could help reduce the efficiency disadvantage, while giving architects and designers new options for incorporating PV into buildings, vehicles and even military equipment.

. . .

Wang and his research team, which includes Benjamin Weintraub and Yaguang Wei, have produced generators on optical fiber up to 20 centimeters in length. "The longer the better," said Wang, "because longer the light can travel along the fiber, the more bounces it will make and more it will be absorbed."

Traditional quartz optical fiber has been used so far, but Wang would like to use less expensive polymer fiber to reduce the cost. He is also considering other improvements, such as a better method for collecting the charges and a titanium oxide surface coating that could further boost efficiency.

Though it could be used for large PV systems, Wang doesn't expect his solar cells to replace silicon devices any time soon. But he does believe they will broaden the potential applications for photovoltaic energy."

More success in private space ventures

With NASA's current problems, our leadership in space technology is in the hands of industry - private & public firms. Fortunately, quite a bit of activity is occurring in this area . . .

Xoie Claims $1 Million Lunar Lander Prize | Autopia | Wired.com:
"Leaving it to the last minute, the team from Masten Space Systems has made a come-from-behind effort to win the $1 million prize after successfully flying its lunar lander last week. The team flew a new ship, called Xoie, to qualify for level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

After looking at the qualifying teams, Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace, the competition came down to inches.

In order to qualify for the level 2 of challenge, each participating team’s rocket had to autonomously make a round trip between two separate launch pads, flying to an altitude of at least 164 feet and remain aloft for at least 180 seconds. Armadillo Aerospace successfully met the requirements back in September. Their lander, Scorpius, had an average landing accuracy of about 35 inches.

When the team from Masten flew Friday, one day before the end of the competition, they managed to make the round trip with an average landing accuracy of about 7.5 inches. John Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace team lost the million dollar prize by a little more than two feet."

Twitter Lists

Well I'm not if anyone should follow all of these, but some may be useful if you use Twitter.

Twitter Lists You Should Follow:
"Twitter is officially launching Lists, its new feature to organize the massive group of users obsessively sending out 140 character messages.

An independent web development company wasted no time setting up Listorious, a directory much like Kevin Rose's WeFollow, tracking all the most popular and influential Twitter Lists."

Google's New Free GPS Service

Hikers, 4-wheelers, & boaters will still want a GPS that has an internal database, but the far larger market that is always near a cell-tower will probably be quite satisfied with the new, free service.

Cell phones (like classic Palm's) that can't use this service will also be at a competitive disadvantage.

Google's Free GPS Service Crushes Garmin, TomTom Shares (GOOG, GRMN, NOK, AAPL):
"Investors fled GPS-makers' shares today after Google announced it would offer free turn-by-turn GPS directions in its Android phones and as a service for other mobile phones, like Apple's iPhone."

Augustine Commission has harsh conclussions for NASA

The entire article is worth reading, but this quote summarizes many of the issues for me:

Full Augustine Commission Report - Surprises from the Full Review of Human Spaceflight - Popular Mechanics:
"6) NASA is handicapped by rules that limit the way it does business.
Unlike other federal departments, NASA's relationship with the industrial world is antiquated, discourages innovation and suffers from inflexible bureaucracy."

A good looking Wind Turbine

There are a lot of new ideas in wind-power that make home use more palatable. Here is an idea that should look good and work well in many locations. It won't generate enough power to take most people off the grid, but it could easily reduce your monthly power bill.

Inhabitat » Ridgeblade Wind Turbine Silences NIMBYs:
"Rooftop solar panels are unlikely to elicit complaints from neighbors–they’re silent and relatively unobtrusive. But loud rooftop wind turbines? That’s where the virtually NIMBY-proof Ridgeblade turbine comes in. The turbine, designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer at UK-based The Power Collective, boasts a sleek profile that is both powerful and visually pleasing."

Privacy threat - Medical Records for sale

Outsourcing is a fact of life in many industries. If this kind of thing worries you then you should consider lobbying your government for regulation on such activity.

Outsourcing data is probably a far greater risk to your privacy than the outsourcing of labor is a risk to your job. These days even your doctor or other service provider may not know if your data is being sent overseas for some processing.

Medical records sent for computerisation to India up for sale- Politics/Nation-News-The Economic Times:
"NEW DELHI: In a development that is certain to lead to a hardening of stance on the outsourcing industry by the western world, investigations conducted by a British TV channel have come up with the stunning revelation that confidential medical records sent to India for computerisation are being offered for sale, triggering heightened concerns about breach of data security here.

The revelation has forced police of the two countries to join hands to launch an official investigation into the data pilferage of the records stored by the Indian BPOs.

. . .


The files procured were of patients of London Clinic, one of Britain’s top private hospitals. Several hospitals in the National Health Service have also outsourced their transcription to India, sparking concern over data safety following the latest investigation. "

NASA unveils rocket for shuttle's replacement

Things seem to happen slowly at NASA, but at least some things are still happening . . .

Ares1X rollout - NASA unveils shuttle's replacement:
"NASA's pristine white Ares I-X rocket rolled out of the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building just after 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Reporters and space center employees joined program engineers and executives for the grand unveiling which took place under bright white spotlights.

>> Photos of the rollout

“This is really the first chance we've had to see it in all its glory,” offered John Cowart, deputy manager for the Ares test flight. “Not since about 1975 has something this large come out of the VAB.”

The Ares I-X is 327 feet tall – much taller than the space shuttles that usually make the slow roll to the launch pads. But it's primarily built from a space shuttle solid rocket booster, and is meant to test the flight characteristics of NASA's planned shuttle replacements.

“It's a different shape than what people are used to. It's that tallest rocket in the world, it's very thin for its height. But we're very confident it's going to work and we've done all that we can possibly do,” Cowart continued.

The two-minute flight, planned for next week, should give engineers plenty of data about rotation, vibration, and even parachute deployment before the rocket splashes down in the Atlantic. It's taking place early enough in the design process that lessons learned from this flight can be applied to the final design."

Little drama, but lots of data from NASA's LCROSS mission

Listening to mission control, it was evident that the NASA folks were engaged & excited by this mission. We're developing the information required to support a permanent station on the Moon. There's no law that says the language spoken in space will be American English - this data will be in the public domain for whichever nation has the nerve to become explorers again. The benefits of living & working in space may be unimaginable, but based on past performance, they'll far exceed the invest made to get there.

No plume, but a firehose of data from NASA moon bombing - Ars Technica:
"Regardless of the public expectations, LCROSS clearly performed as planned. It recently separated from the Centaur stage that helped bring it to lunar orbit, and both of the spacecraft were directed towards the Cabeus crater at the Moon's south pole. The Centaur vehicle went first, creating an impact that could be observed from instruments on LCROSS, which followed it in. Less than four minutes later, LCROSS itself struck the lunar surface. The impacts were observed with a variety of telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit, although the actual site of the impact was obscured by the Cabeus crater walls.

Clearly, a lot of people were hoping that dropping hardware onto the lunar surface would create a spray of debris that would rise above the crater walls, and be visible to the Earth-based observatories. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the Earth, LCROSS struck not with a bang, but a whimper, as if it had landed on a comfy pillow."

Belkin Surge Protector with Timer

This new surge protector has 2 always-on outlets, and six that are on an 11-hour timer. For many folks, it could turn off all those parasite power supplies for printers, cordless phones, hubs, etc. daily after you're done working. They're promoting it for corporate office environments, but I think it is prefect for a work at home office also.

Products & Solutions - Belkin - Conserve Surge with Timer:
"Imagine an office where electronics turn themselves off at the end of the day. The Belkin Conserve Surge with Timer is a cost- and energy-saving solution for businesses that want to save money and invest in technology that reduces their carbon footprint. It helps eliminate wasted power right at the workstation—where nearly half of all IT energy costs originate.

Because it limits power consumption right at the workstation, the Conserve Surge Protector empowers IT managers to control cost and employees to contribute to a greener office environment. Businesses can save money without compromising employee productivity."

Available for $34.99 at Newegg.com and similar prices at many other stores.

Mainframe work still a safe career

"Mainframe" computers are often described as dinosaurs that will soon be extinct. Most detractors say they'll be replaced by servers closer to where the work is being done. Companies that have tried both almost never get rid of the mainframes, because they turn out to be cost-justified.

Often a building full of servers can barely do the same volume of work being done by the mainframes in a single room. For the equivalent results, the mainframe can do the job with fewer salaries to pay, lower energy costs, and more reliability. Often a corporation will end up splitting their processing, with the user interface on servers located near the users, and the data & business rules on mainframes in a secure central location.

With modern telecommunications capabilities & costs, location is not significant. I know of one corporation that saved money by bringing data centers from Europe & Asia to a single centralized facility in the US. Users in the other countries still see their familiar applications operating in the same time zones, with the same reliability. This same corporation has developers world-wide creating and maintaining business applications on those US based mainframes.

Bank of America touts mainframe work as a safe career:
"IBM said this week that 600 colleges, universities and high schools around the world are participating in the mainframe training program, which began in 2004.

The training initiative provides interns and new hires to Bank of America, while some members of its IT staff audit the initiative's courses and provide feedback to help tune the training to business needs.

IBM says it's mainframe revenue has grown in eight of the last 13 quarters. It did note that mainframe revenue plunged by 39% in the second quarter, mirroring server revenue declines for most vendors.

Competing vendors have been arguing that distributed systems have become a strong alternative to mainframes.

However, IT researcher IDC says that MIPS (Million Instructions per Second), a measure of processing power capacity used by mainframes, is on the rise. The mainframe is continuing to grow in terms of the amount of work that processed on the mainframe, which reflects improvements to the platform, said Tim Grieser, an analyst at IDC."

Water on the Moon

Water is essential to life. So far, we've had to carry adequate water with us during space travel. This discovery means we can probably provide enough water for workers on the Moon without having to lift it our of Earth's huge gravity well. This makes settlements on the Moon more likely in our foreseeable future.

SPACE.com -- It's Official: Water Found on the Moon:
"Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called 'unambiguous evidence' of water across the surface of the moon.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

. . .

Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

. . .

The moon rocks were analyzed for signs of water bound to minerals present in the rocks; while trace amounts of water were detected, these were assumed to be contamination from Earth, because the containers the rocks came back in had leaked.

"The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between water from the moon and water from Earth, . . . "

. . .

The rocks and regolith that make up the lunar surface are about 45 percent oxygen (combined with other elements as mostly silicate minerals). The solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles emitted by the sun — are mostly protons, or positively charged hydrogen atoms.

If the charged hydrogens, which are traveling at one-third the speed of light, hit the lunar surface with enough force, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil materials, Taylor, the M3 team member suspects. Where free oxygen and hydrogen exist, there is a high chance that trace amounts of water will form.

The various study researchers also suggest that the daily dehydration and rehydration of the trace water across the surface could lead to the migration of hydroxyl and hydrogen towards the poles where it can accumulate in the cold traps of the permanently shadowed regions."

Drive on Solar Panels?

Questions of durability and cost effectiveness still need to be answered, but this is certainly innovative thinking. The public already owns the roads, so they can be paved with whatever we're prepared to pay for. Roads usually go places where energy is used, so there is a certain synergy here.

On the other hand, the public owns an awful lot of rooftops, and they could be covered with solar panels that don't need to be as durable as these.

Crushed glass has proven to be a pretty good aggregate substitute in asphalt roads, so the concern hinted at below has probably already been addressed.

Solar Roadways certainly deserves a chance to make their case.

Solar Panels Built Into Roads Could Be the Future of Energy | Popular Science:
"The Department of Energy just gave $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways, to develop 12-by-12-foot solar panels, dubbed 'Solar Roads,' that can be embedded into roads, pumping power into the grid. The panels may also feature LED road warnings and built-in heating elements that could prevent roads from freezing.

. . .
In addition, every Solar Road panel has its own microprocessor and energy management system, so if one gives out, the rest are not borked. Materials-wise, the top layer is described as translucent and high-strength. Inhabitat says it's glass, which seems odd, especially since Solar Roadways claims the surface provides excellent traction. The base layer under the solar panel routes the power, as well as data utilities (TV, phone, Internet) to homes and power companies."

"Net Neutrality" May End Unlimited Internet Access

". . . the demand for a 'free' or unlimited good is infinite. Networks don't have infinite capacity." Jerry Pournelle

FCC Position May Spell the End of Unlimited Internet | Epicenter | Wired.com:
"Net neutrality sounds like a good idea. After all, it’s the internet’s openness to any and all users, applications and content that gave it such a resounding victory over closed networks like AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy. And there’s no question that as a general business and networking principle, “anything goes” is both desirable and beneficial, to users and network operators alike. Over the long run, the most open networks attract the most customers and will be the most successful — and the most profitable.

But somewhere along the way, this principle of good network architecture turned into a political tenet that, according to some true believers, is almost equivalent to the Bill of Rights in importance.

. . .

For net neutrality’s true believers, Comcast and Verizon no longer get to decide how best to configure the networks they spent billions building: Their networks are so ubiquitous, and so critical to the common good, that the government has a responsibility to ensure they are managed fairly.

. . .

Unfortunately, there are at least three big problems with making net neutrality a federal mandate.

First is that bandwidth is not, in fact, unlimited, especially in the wireless world. One reason ISPs are averse to neutrality regulation, they say, is that they need the flexibility to ban or mitigate high-bandwidth uses of their network, like BitTorrent and Hulu.com, which would otherwise run amok.

. . .

Take away ISPs’ ability to shape or restrict traffic, and you’ll see many carriers running into AT&T-like capacity problems. Their response will almost certainly be to make consumers pay for what they’re actually using.

. . .

Second, enforcement of neutrality regulations is going to be difficult. Comcast may not be able to block Skype traffic altogether, but what’s to prevent the company from slowing it down relative to other traffic it carries? Such preferential “packet shaping” is easy to turn off and on, as network demands ebb and flow. By contrast, proving such infractions of neutrality will be complex, slow and difficult. It sets up a classic “nimble, resourceful criminal versus slow-footed, underequipped cop” scenario.

Third, the new regulations create an additional layer of government bureaucracy where the free market has already proven its effectiveness. The reason you’re not using AOL to read this right now isn’t because the government mandated AOL’s closed network out of existence: It’s because free and open networks triumphed, and that’s because they were good business.

. . ."

Space Debris Removal coming

Here we go - if this ends up being a commercial project, access to space might just become affordable. I'm thinking of robots that can sling nets over the debris and then toss the net down into the atmosphere to burn up. I would love to return the junk and sell it as souvenirs, but that approach is probably still too costly.

Pentagon Wants ‘Space Junk’ Cleaner | Danger Room | Wired.com:
"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency put out a notice yesterday requesting information on possible solutions to the infamous space debris problem.

“Since the advent of the space-age over five decades ago, more than thirty-five thousand man-made objects have been cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network,” the agency notes. “Nearly twenty-thousand of those objects remain in orbit today, ninety-four percent of which are non-functioning orbital debris.”

These figures do not even include the objects too small to count. There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of these smaller objects, and as debris hits other debris, it creates even more small pieces, exponentially increasing the amount of objects that could threaten satellites and spacecraft."

Refurbished Hubble - Stunning Images

Pretty amazing pictures. I'm sure the scientists are learning a lot also.

Newly Refurbished Hubble Sends Back Stunning First Images | Popular Science:
"We always like to look forward to bigger and better tech, but NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, though it's been around the block, still holds a special place in every geek's heart. Now the freshly repaired and upgraded telescope has resumed churning out enough images of cosmic glory to turn anyone's head."

Armadillo wins $1M Lunar Lander Challenge

A prize this size isn't enough to pay for their engineering effort, but obviously it is enough to keep engineers enthused and their financiers involved. There won't be a profit this quarter or this year, but fortunatley some people are looking further into the future. People like these are a big reason that life in general keeps getting better, generation after generation.

Armadillo Aerospace's Scorpius Craft Finally Bags $1 Million Lunar Lander Challenge | Popular Science:
"A future trip to the moon could use a commercial vehicle, if Armadillo Aerospace has anything to say about it. The company's rocket-powered craft pulled off a mock lunar landing on Saturday to qualify for a $1 million purse from NASA's Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

The vehicle rose 164 feet into the air and flew 164 feet away to land on a rocky surface, before returning to the starting spot for a round trip flight time of 180 seconds. That accomplishment made Armadillo the first team to complete Level 2 requirements of the Lunar Lander Challenge, where the minimum flight time simulates a trip from lunar orbit down to the moon."

Laser Propulsion Finally Maturing?

At some point (soon?) we'll find a way to access space from Earth without setting small packages on top of huge piles of explosives (rockets). This article discuses one potential solution:

SPACE.com -- Laser Propulsion: Wild Idea May Finally Shine:
"New laser propulsion experiments are throwing light on how to build future hypersonic aircraft and beam spacecraft into Earth orbit.

Indeed, a "Lightcraft revolution" could replace today's commercial jet travel. Passengers would be whisked from one side of the planet to the other in less than an hour - just enough time to get those impenetrable bags of peanuts open. Furthermore, beamed energy propulsion can make flight to orbit easy, instead of tenuous and dangerous.

That's the belief of Leik Myrabo an aerospace engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He's an expert in directed energy applications, aerospace systems, space prime power, and advanced propulsion.

For the past three decades, Myrabo's burning desire has been to create and demonstrate viable concepts for non-chemical propulsion of future flight vehicles through his research and company Lightcraft Technologies, Inc., of Bennington, Vt.

"Typically, a new propulsion technology takes 25 years to mature...to the point where you can actually field it. Well, that time is now," Myrabo told SPACE.com.

. . .

"In the lab we're doing full-size engine segment tests for vehicles that will revolutionize access to space," Myrabo emphasized. "It's real hardware. It's real physics. We're getting real data...and it's not paper studies."

"Right now, we're chasing the data," Myrabo said. "When you fire into the engine, it's a real wallop. It sounds like a shotgun going off inside the lab. It's really loud."

The laser propulsion experiments, Myrabo added, are also relevant to launching nanosatellites (weighing 1 to 10 kilograms) and microsatellites (10 to 100 kilograms) into low Earth orbit."

Next stop before Mars? Perhaps L2?

Astronauts and technicians working and living at Lagrange points will develop the technologies needed to change the Mars mission from a visit into a colony. There is immediate, profitable work to be done at L2. Industry and people will always follow profits, and in this case civilization benefits enormously.

Why future astronauts may be sent to 'gravity holes' - space - 29 August 2009 - New Scientist:
". . .
Lagrange, or Lagrangian, points are great swathes of space where the gravitational acceleration from the Earth and the sun are exactly equal, letting objects stick there with very little effort.

Because they're far from warm stars and planets, they make useful havens for ultra-cold telescopes that measure fluctuations in the temperature of deep space.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures radiation from the big bang, lives at a Lagrange point called L2 more than 1 million kilometres away. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the massive James Webb Space Telescope, will also be sent to the spot, which lies in line with the sun and Earth . . .
. . .

But what would humans do there? One useful task is repairing and upgrading the new telescopes, like astronauts have done five times with Hubble.

"Hubble is probably the most productive scientific facility ever developed in the history of science, and it's largely because every four or five years, we take out the old instruments ... and go up with brand-new instruments that address different questions and embrace the latest technology," Lester says. "If we want to have humans having anything to do with these new telescopes, we really have to think about Lagrange points."

. . .

It takes surprisingly little energy to travel between these points. That's because massive bodies like the sun and planets have gravitational fields that resemble mountains and hills, but Lagrange points are all at gravitational lowlands. Once set on the right path, spacecraft can coast along the gravitational contours of space between these lowlands, as if travelling on an interplanetary superhighway.

"Going back and forth between Earth-sun Lagrange points and Earth-moon Lagrange points is pretty much a matter of giving the thing a swift kick," Lester told New Scientist.

Future astronauts could repair telescopes at a staging area at the nearest Earth-moon Lagrange point and send them sailing back to L2 when they're done. They could also assemble large telescopes or spaceships at the staging area and then send them out to farther-flung destinations.
. . .

Others see Lagrange points as stepping stones on the way to places like Mars.

"It's a convenient crossroads on the way to a place you really want to visit," says Lou Friedman, founder and executive director of the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group that supports sending astronauts to Mars.

"The place we all want to go is Mars. Stepping out into interplanetary space, Lagrange points present the nearest milestone to Earth that's still beyond the moon," Friedman told New Scientist.

Going to L2 would take about a month and communications from Earth would take about four seconds to arrive at L2, while a trip to Mars would take at least six months and would involve communications delays of about 20 minutes."

L5 Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The name comes from the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr. O'Neill envisioned. L4 and L5 are points of stable gravitational equilibrium located along the path of the moon's orbit, 60 degrees ahead or behind it.

An object placed in orbit around L5 (or L4) will remain there indefinitely without having to expend fuel to keep its position, whereas an object placed at L1, L2 or L3 (all points of unstable equilibrium) may have to expend fuel if it drifts off the point."

Rare Earth Metals Becoming Political Tools

International trade & commerce are good for us all - it is less likely that countries doing business with each other will go to war. There are however some potential risks as illustrated by this article.

China: All Your Rare Earth Metals Belong to Us | Danger Room | Wired.com:
"Rare earth metals are the key to 21st Century technology: Without them, we wouldn’t have smart phones, hybrid cars or precision weapons. And China, which mines most of the world’s rare earth metals, may be starting to catch on to their strategic value.

According to this alarming story in U.K. Telegraph, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is weighing a total ban on exports of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium — and may restrict foreign sales of other rare earth metals. But don’t panic yet: U.S.-based Molycorp Minerals is preparing to resume mining of rare earth ore deposits at a California facility . . ."

Private Spaceflight a boon to Scientists

History is happening around us.. Despite the problems in our world, we can see great progress in the frontiers that will eventually free humanity from this lonely single rock.

Scientists go suborbital - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com:
"The killer app for private spaceflight, at least once the millionaires and celebrities have had their turn, may well be scientific research.

'You spark this industry with tourists, but I predict in the next decade the research market is going to be bigger than the tourist market,' says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute who is heading up a committee to link up researchers with future suborbital spaceflights.

Until recently, suborbital space trips were marketed primarily as the penultimate high for well-heeled thrill-seekers.
. . .
Virtually all the major players in the still-gestating suborbital industry now realize that research flights could make the difference in their drive to profitability.

One of the clearest signs of that came last month, when an Arab investment group bought a $280 million stake in British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture, putting special emphasis on the capability to fly scientific experiments and deploy small satellites.

. . .

There are other options for space research, of course, ranging from zero-G airplane flights to suborbital sounding rockets to unmanned orbital and deep-space flights to space station experiments. So why would researchers, and even NASA, opt for rides on private spaceships that have yet to be built?

Cost is just one reason, Stern told me. A $200,000 ticket for a space ride may sound expensive for a tourist, but it's peanuts compared to the $2 million or more charged for the launch of a NASA sounding rocket, he said.

. . .

"If you could go at [an experiment] every day of the year and see the atmosphere changing, how powerful would that be?" Stern said. "This becomes a laboratory-like experience."

Piloted spaceships are also likely to provide a more robust environment for research. Scientists would be more likely to get their experiment back and less likely to lose it in a hard landing.

. . .

Experimenters could also fly along with their experiments - not just once, but multiple times. "Graduate students will be doing their own Ph.D.s in these vehicles," Stern predicted.

. . .

"This is so cheap, and the applications are so good, that I expect NIH, NSF, DOD, DOE, a whole slew of federal agencies will have space efforts, just like federal agencies have boats and airplanes that they use," he said. "Literally, Aruba could afford to have a spaceflight program. ... Every country that wants to have their own space program with astronauts can go.""

"The Angry White Liberal"

For quite a while, we've had this extreme political tension where one side seems incapable of seeing that another side might have a point - or at least might not be insanely evil. This author captures some of the problem very well:

The Angry White Liberal:
"We've spent the month of August talking about alleged right-wing rage, but it's really time we started discussing the Angry White Liberal. When things aren't going his way, the Angry White Liberal wails and gnashes his teeth, rends his garments, and hurls invective at the opposition. His rhetoric and prose is so heated, it's gotten to the point where you need to put on oven mitts before opening the paper. He is so convinced of the righteousness of his positions that he lashes out uncontrollably at anybody who disagrees with him. For the Angry White Liberal, dissent is anathema. Antagonism is illegitimate. Only conformity to prevailing liberal opinion is enough to still his rage.

. . . even though "health care" is not the top voter priority, even though the budget deficit stands at more than a trillion dollars, President Obama decided that this was the moment to remake one-sixth of the American economy.

The more Obama talked about health care reform, the further his numbers dropped. The country seemed caught in a time-warp. We'd been catapulted back to 2005, when another president attempted a major overhaul of the American welfare state. Then, too, the president deferred to Congress to come up with a plan. Then, too, as the president crisscrossed the nation, warning of the dangers of out-of-control entitlement spending, the public increasingly tuned him out. The innate conservatism of the American people--an instinctual resistance to sudden changes in existing social arrangements--came to the fore.

. . . Protest, which a few years ago was the highest form of patriotism, is now considered artificial, dishonest, misinformed, cynical, and mean-spirited. "An ugly campaign is underway," Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wrote in USA Today on August 10, "not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. . . . Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

Meanwhile, Harry Reid referred to the town hall protestors as "evil-mongers." Senate finance committee chairman Max Baucus preferred "agitators." Congressman Eric Massa, Democrat of New York, accused Iowa Republican senator Charles Grassley of "treason" for criticizing the health care plan.

. . .

Times columnist Frank Rich warned that the current debates surrounding health care resemble the "walk up to the Kennedy assassination."

. . .

The Angry White Liberal finds it simply incomprehensible that somebody might honestly and in good faith disagree with the Democrats' efforts. On August 14, blogger Steve Benen wrote on the Huffington Post that the "far-tight apoplexy is counter-intuitive." After all, "Why would people who stand to benefit from health care reform literally take to the streets and threaten violence in opposition to legislation that would help them and their families?"

Forget Benen's exaggerated claim of threatened violence. Note, instead, that Benen cannot conceive that someone might actually think the costs to the Democrats' program outweigh the unrealized and perhaps unachievable benefits. Hence he divides Obama's critics into five camps: the "partisans," the "tin-foil hats," the "greedy," the "dupes," and the "wonks." The "wonks," we are told, compose the "smallest of the groups." In Benen's view, then, millions of opponents of health care reform have no reasonable grounds for their opinion."

Making Social Media work for you.

No big surprises except the prejudice against smiley faces :-)
An oft-repeated rule of thumb is to assume that anything you type on your computer today could be on the front page tomorrow.

Social Media News, Insights and Tips:
"The top examples on why employers didn't hire a candidate after seeing them on sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn were not surprising. According to the survey, the posting no-no's were inappropriate photos or information (53 percent), content about the candidate drinking or using drugs (44 percent) and badmouthing previous employers, co-workers or clients (35 percent).

Something that did surprise me was the number of employers who disregarded a candidate because they sent a message using an emoticon such as a smiley face (14 percent).

. . .

When it comes to posts online, here are some tips from CareerBuilder:

- Before starting a job search, remove digital stuff you wouldn't want a potential employer to see, including photos, content and links.

- Consider establishing a professional group on sites like Facebook to establish relationships with business leaders.

- Keep gripes offline, especially about former employers.

- Keep in mind that others can see your friends, so be selective about who you accept. Also consider using the "block comments" feature or setting the profile to private so only designated friends can view it.

- Don't mention being on a job search online if you're still employed. "

Studying Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms

This is of particular interest to my family, having lost at least one to this condition.

Woodruff Health Sciences Center | Emory University | Atlanta, GA | NIH Bioengineering Grant Links Emory, Georgia Tech in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Research:
"Abdominal aortic aneurysms are a major cause of illness and death in the United States. A widening and bulging of the large artery that runs through the body from the heart into the abdomen, these aneurysms - which can go undetected until they suddenly rupture -- are the 10th leading cause of death in men over age 55. Approximately nine percent of men over age 65 have an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Through a Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP), a team of scientists at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology will conduct in-depth studies of abdominal aortic aneurysms to discover exactly why and how they form and how they can be prevented. The partnership is supported by a new five-year, $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

. . .

Abdominal aortic aneurysms often have no symptoms, but if the aneurysm ruptures, the patient often dies within minutes. Previous studies have documented the risk factors associated with the condition, but researchers do not understand exactly why and how it develops. The risk increases with age, so as people live longer the magnitude of the problem continues to increase.

. . .

Predicting the likelihood of aneurysm rupture is extremely difficult and patients often don't notice them until they already are leaking or ruptured, Taylor points out. Even small aneurysms often expand rapidly and progress to rupture. And although traditional cardiovascular risk factors are related to the formation of abdominal aortic aneurysms, the risk factors are different from those for coronary artery disease or peripheral vascular disease."

Other links:

USC Center for Vascular Care:
"Smoking is the most influential of all the risk factors. Although the mechanism by which smoking causes or worsens aneurysms is not known, it is known that the number of cigarettes and years smoked, increasing depth of inhalation, and the presence of COPD significantly impacts AAA prevalence, size, rate of expansion and risk of rupture.

Signs and Symptoms

Most AAA's are asymptomatic (lack symptoms), which leads to difficulty in detection. Occasionally, aneurysms may be felt as a “mass” or "lump" in the abdomen that pulsates with each heartbeat. Some aneurysms are found during evaluation of pain in the back or side that can occur as the aneurysm grows and presses on the spinal column and nearby nerves. Today, AAA's are most frequently found on X-rays that are done for other reasons, such as an ultrasound of the gallbladder or an MRI or CT scan of the back. When AAA's become symptomatic it is usually because of a rupture of the aneurysm. When rupture occurs, the person experiences severe pain in the back and/or abdomen and may feel faint or become unconscious due to internal bleeding and a sudden fall in blood pressure. Unless the leaking aneurysm is surgically repaired immediately, death results.

Treatment
Most experts agree that almost all AAA's larger than 5.0 cm in diameter should be repaired. In some instances, smaller aneurysms may be considered for treatment. If surgical repair is deferred because the AAA is smaller than 5.0 cm, then periodic ultrasound examinations (i.e. every six months) of the aneurysm must be done to monitor the AAA for an increase in size. If during monitoring the AAA expands to larger than 5.0 cm, repair should be done."

Imaging of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms - April 15, 2002 - American Family Physician:
"Given the high rate of morbidity and mortality associated with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), accurate diagnosis and preoperative evaluation are essential for improved patient outcomes. Ultrasonography is the standard method of screening and monitoring AAAs that have not ruptured. In the past, aortography was commonly used for preoperative planning in the repair of AAAs. More recently, computed tomography (CT) has largely replaced older, more invasive methods. Recent advances in CT imaging technology, such as helical CT and CT angiography, offer significant advantages over traditional CT."

Early Detection of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Prevents Emergency Situation:
"Abdominal aortic aneurysms can develop over time. Patients with this type of condition sometimes will have back or pelvic pain or cold, numb or tingling sensation in the feet due to blocked blood flow to the legs. But most patients have no symptoms at all, which is cause for concern because if the aneurysm ruptures, the result is a life-threatening situation. Sometimes, AAA is detected incidentally when patients undergo an X-ray, ultrasound or a CT scan for some other abdominal complaint. A mass may also be detected through a hands-on abdominal exam.

An ultrasound screening is suggested for people who are considered high risk. Patients at the greatest risk for AAA are usually older than 65 and have atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) or a connective tissue disorder. It tends to be more common in males. Smokers have a higher risk of occurrence. You should also be screened if anyone in your family has had an aneurysm.

With early detection, we can catch an abdominal aortic aneurysm before it becomes an emergency situation. If we detect an aneurysm that is smaller than 5.5 cm in diameter, we can monitor it with regular ultrasounds. If it’s over 5.5 cm in diameter, the risk of rupture increases and surgery may be necessary.

Symptoms of a ruptured AAA can be severe pain in the lower abdomen and back; nausea and vomiting; clammy, sweaty skin; lightheadedness and rapid heart rate. The internal bleeding from the rupture can cause shock, which is a life-threatening condition. "

New Telephone Services Available

It's funny how some folks assume you'll always answer your cell phone even if you're at home (my cell is usually in another room being charged), and some assume you'll always hear and respond to a voice-mail right away. Services that allow you to be reached regardless of whether you're near your home, work, or mobile phones are becoming cheap enough for "regular" folks to consider. I'm not currently using either of these, but I think Google Voice might be just what I need.

Services That Eliminate Telephone Tag - BusinessWeek:
"The primary appeal of Google Voice, which is still in a testing phase, is that all of your phone lines—up to six in total—are consolidated into a single phone number. This may not be ideal if your spouse or kids use your home phone, because the call is routed to whichever line answers first. But on the Google Voice Web site you can set rules that allow the home phone to ring only if no other location picks up. I chose to have calls ring through to my cell, home, and office phones at once, and I sometimes adjust the rules to ring phones I use temporarily while traveling.

Few important calls ever fall through the cracks, and when they do, Google Voice provides ingenious voice mail options. All messages go to a single Web-based account, eliminating the need to juggle different greetings and PIN numbers. Messages are stored as audio files, which you can grab off the Web from any computer and forward in e-mails or download as MP3 files. Messages can also be transcribed as text (with mixed results) and sent to you as e-mail. You can then delete the voice mails without listening if you want."

Hacker Steals 130 Million Credit Card #s

This kind of theft will only get worse for the next several years - there's lots of money to be made and that is strong motivation for these criminals.

I advise keeping your funds in multiple institutions, being careful when you shop both online and in stores, and signing up with a credit reporting service so you can learn of breaches ASAP.

Hacker Indicted For Stealing 130 Million Credit Cards -- InformationWeek:
"A federal grand jury has indicted Albert Gonzales, 28, of Miami, Fla., for allegedly hacking into computers belonging to retail and financial companies and stealing more than 130 million credit and debit cards.

Gonzales, . . . and two unidentified co-conspirators located in or near Russia, are charged with conducting SQL injection attacks on corporate computer networks.

The U.S. Department of Justice says the indictment represents the largest data breach indictment ever brought in the United States.

. . .

The companies compromised by the alleged hackers are known for being compromised in some of the biggest data breaches in recent years have been reported. They include: Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven, and Hannaford Brothers.

Two other major U.S. retail companies are mentioned in the indictment but they are identified only has "Company A" and "Company B," presumably because they are not under an obligation to publicly report the breaches attributed to the alleged hackers.

Gonzales was indicted in New York in May, 2008, and in Massachusetts in August, 2008, for alleged involvement in the theft of over 40 million credit and debit cards from other companies including TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club,OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX), Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21, DSW and the Dave & Buster's restaurant chain.

The indictment claims Gonzales and alleged co-conspirators relied on sophisticated techniques to avoid detection, like connecting to corporate computers through proxy servers, testing approximately 20 different antivirus programs to determine whether their malware might be detected, and using malware that attempted to erase signs of its presence.

. . . "

The Diverse Uses of d3o

The 3 Ms - measurable, meaningful, & marketable. This is the kind of common sense evaluation often missing in some organizations.

The Incredibly Wide World of Smart Material d3o | Popular Science:
. . .
"What we aim for is what I call the ‘three m’s’ of a technology adoption. First, whatever you’re saying should be measurable. If it’s not measurable than how can you say it exists? Secondly, that measurement should be meaningful. It should make a difference that the consumer actually wants. Third, it has to be marketable. So somehow we have to be able to communicate effectively the benefit that exists on the product. And once you have those three, then you have a story."

The main topic of the article is also very interesting - a thin, soft product that becomes a rigid shield when impacted. Click on the link for more.

Bigelow Proposes "Orion Lite" Spaceship

We can purchase over 300 discrete models of cars, trucks, and SUVs, so maybe at least 2 different space vehicles isn't a bad idea . . .

Space Hotel Visionary Proposes Modified "Orion Lite" Spaceship for NASA | Popular Science:
"Future space hotel moguls can get nervous when NASA's next-generation spaceship plans begin to founder. So one company has come up with a modified 'Lite' design of the planned Orion vehicle to carry astronauts and paying passengers into orbit.

Bigelow Aerospace has long envisioned launching inflatable space station called Sundancer, and so improving passenger access to low Earth-orbit has remained a priority."

Lots of interesting links in this article . . .

NASA Finally Tests a New Rocket

Wow - talk about Jimmie Carter's "malaise" - a quarter of a century has slipped by since NASA last tested a new rocket design!

NASA Builds First New Test Rocket in 25 Years - Gearlog:
"The new Ares I rockets will eventually take humans back to the moon; this first one will launch on October 31st in a maiden test flight designed to show that the rocket is capable of carrying astronauts inside an Orion spacecraft into orbit. Ares I is a two-stage rocket that consists of a solid-fueled first stage and a larger, liquid-fueled upper stage,"

We had developed the technology to establish a small colony on the Moon by the late 1970's. How much wealth could we have created for Earth by mining our solar system since then? Working & living in space isn't just about scientific research - it has real benefits to everyone living here.

More Sensors Mean Better Forecasts

It's a simple premise - if their models are equivalent, the service taking the most readings will usually deliver the most accurate forecasts.

Many projects over the years have shown that massive quantities of cheap sensors can produce a better aggregate result (better information) than a few very high quality sensors.

I wonder if home weather stations connected to the Internet could be useful, perhaps for tornado if not hurricane prediction.

Sensors Mounted On Commercial Airliners Networked For Most Accurate Weather Forecasts Ever | Popular Science:
"Since 2004, AirDat has honed an entirely different method for gathering more-accurate daily atmospheric data and delivers it to airlines, energy companies with mid-ocean drilling rigs and wind-turbine platforms and, on occasion, to NOAA. The key to AirDat’s success is its wallet-size, airplane-mounted Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (Tamdar) sensors. The sensors, which test the same variables as weather balloons, provide data from the ground up to 25,000 feet, the key atmospheric segment for short-range forecasting because it’s where most severe weather forms. AirDat now collects info from 160 sensor-equipped planes making daily flights out of 225 airports from Alaska to Florida, and it is in the process of adding another 320. The fleet produces some 6,000 “soundings”—reports created from millions of Tamdar measurements—per day. AirDat scientists run these high-resolution data packages through computer weather models to make up-to-the minute forecasts."

On another tangent, this can also work with audio drivers (lots of "cheap" speakers can produce better sound than a few very good speakers) . . .

Ubuntu revisited

I've mentioned my tribulations getting Ubuntu working on PC with the BioStar P4M900-M4 motherboard before. Recently Ubuntu v 9.0.4 downloaded an update (or I installed new software) that corrupted a bunch of files - to the point where the system wouldn't work well enough to repair itself.

With a nuke & pave of the hard drive, it is working again today - I tried 5 different ISO CDs burned on at least 2 different drives, and I tried both the CD & the DVD on the host PC - I could never get a clean install. Sometimes GRUB would fail during the boot-up process, and sometimes I would get the GUI installed, but FireFox wouldn't run (preventing downloads of of updates etc.).

In the end, I got a system working well enough to get a command line (terminal mode) and used that to download some updates. They repaired the install well enough to boot into the Ubuntu desktop (GUI) with a working FireFox, and from there it has been busily downloading and installing fixes and software that should have installed from the CD.

Next, I get to go through 10 pages documenting installation of the required BioStar video drivers, and then I need to figure out a backup strategy - I don't want to be without this PC for multiple weeks the next time I download an update...

PS: this motherboard now boots from the SATA drive as long as it is the only hard drive installed. Probably time to start looking for another PC or motherboard before it flakes out again.

BTW - this update was created using FireFox 3.0.12 within Ubuntu 9.0.4 :-)

Blue Dye Treats Spinal Injuries

This is why pure research needs to be funded. Using a food additive to treat medical conditions isn't something that is likely to turn up in a for-profit laboratory.

The Blue Dye in M&Ms Cures Spinal Injuries | Popular Science:
"The candy gets its color from a compound called Brilliant Blue G (BBG), a food dye that's used in Gatorade and other products -- and turns out to also be medically useful. Building on earlier research, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that injections of BBG can relieve mice of secondary spinal cord injuries. In September, they will start conducting human clinical trials."

The funding doesn't need to be from the Federal government, but some corporations, institutions, or charities need to be funding research in a variety of arenas without the intent to produce marketable products (just knowledge). From such research, great things frequently come.

Dealing with hazardous space debris

As I've written before, trash collection is space has the potential to be a profitable business for some bright entrepreneurs.

Building an Electronic Fence to Track Space Junk | Popular Science:
"Thousands of manmade pieces of space junk orbit the Earth, threatening astronauts and unmanned missions alike. Now the U.S. Air Force Space Command wants an electronic 'space fence' that could track any orbital object larger than two inches in width.

Such a surveillance system would require a global network of sensitive S-band radar stations that operate in the gigahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The U.S. Air Force currently relies on a system dating back to 1961, which only covers the continental United States, and can only track objects 20 inches in width or larger.

The growing cloud of space debris in Earth orbit includes more than 16,000 pieces of debris larger than four inches in width. And that only seems likely to grow . . . "

Beyond tracking the debris, some folks are coming up with a variety of methods to destroy or collect it. I'm in favor of collecting the debris to sell as souvenirs, but that technology may be too pricey.

Taking Out the Space Trash | Popular Science:
"Scientists at NASA and private companies have devised several ways for clearing the sky. Although some methods are admittedly outlandish, says Nicholas Johnson, the chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, a few are possible with today’s technology.

One early idea was to have robotic trash collectors shove large pieces of junk through the atmosphere so that they mostly burn up before hitting the ground. But the fuel costs for destroying a significant amount of debris with such craft has quashed this approach.

A more feasible plan is to attach miles-long “electrodynamic tethers,” wound on a spool, to all new satellites. Once a satellite ends its mission, it would deploy the cable and Earth’s magnetic field would induce an electric current in it. This interaction imparts a force on the craft that pushes it through the atmosphere until most of it burns up harmlessly,"

Real time recreation - trip to the Moon

Celebrating this month - the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's trip to the Moon.

On my monitor, some of this site's text is a bit hard to read - gray on black, but lots of interesting Apollo things here & there. As I type this, it is mostly spacecraft based white noise - still pretty different than what I would be playing on a normal day :-)

I imagine this site is best enjoyed on a separate monitor - as my home system only has 1 monitor attached right now, I put it up on full screen when I'm not using the system for other things.

Things to Do on the Way to the Moon | GeekDad | Wired.com:
"If you’re following the 40th anniversary recreation of the Apollo 11 mission on We Choose the Moon (a you-are-there, moment-by-moment immersion in the first lunar mission) you know that the mighty Saturn V rocket lifted off its pad at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16th. Twelve minutes later, the astronauts were in orbit around the earth, docked the command module with the lunar lander, and are now on their way to the moon.

You can follow the progress of the mission at the website, or on Twitter:
Capcom transmissions
Spacecraft transmissions
(and eventually the landing craft -) Eagle transmissions"

The Smithsonian is also following the mission on Twitter.