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."