This day’s launch is a test to check out design and handling inside the atmosphere as the craft maneuvered through a pre-planned course in the sky. Although the flight didn’t go into space, the builders of the vehicle hoped to learn a lot about how the on-board computers, software and avionics, work together.
Jonas Samson has managed to create wallpaper that through layering several materials emits light.
http://www.jonassamson.com/products/wallpaper-5.jpg
Or crashing. In short it comes to running
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled
from the command line.
If for some reason it goes wrong, change disabled to normal in the line above and run it again!
This unique sound bar is called The Hive, shaped as it is like a honeycomb cluster. Each segment of the speaker that you see is an individual unit that can be tilted and positioned independently, allowing you to set it up for your specific room’s shape and design.
It’s a neat idea, and it’s really quite cool looking as well. It’s not going to do well with people who like subtlety in their home theatre setups, but for those people out there looking to have the most unique setup in the neighborhood, this will do the trick.
When asked to design a building for a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan, the designers at Work AC went hog wild. They’re local foodies, you see, which means that they try to avoid buying produce that’s traveled from far-flung places like New Zealand. What better way to eat local than to bring the farm to the city? Their design incorporates residential apartments that are topped by strips of farm land and watered using rain water stored in the tanks on the building’s roof. The staircase-shaped structure is to be propped up by elegant sculptures. The people underneath the structure seem to be shopping at a green market (how appropriate!). And during the years when some of the fields need to lie fallow, they can be used for sportive activities like golfing.
Yes, the design is a bit unrealistic, but we like it a lot better than this alternate proposal for the same space. We hope architecture firms like Work AC keep thinking green, but that they’ll come up with some more realistic plans as well.
We the Brits were crazy about tea, but some French aficionados are giving them a run for their money. Two young French designers have created a self-stirring teacup. It’s a glass, actually, and it has a ceramic ball at the bottom that mixes around and mixes the tea as you lift the cup or swirl it gently. The base of the glass protrudes enough so that when you lift the glass to drink, the ball never falls out and hits you in the teeth.
Cute idea guys, but we have a couple of suggestions. First, make a disposable version. The real waste when it comes to tea stirring has to do with plastic spoons and wooden sticks at places like Starbucks. Second, if you were as into tea as the Brits, you’d know that tea tastes far better when you drink it from a porcelain cup, not a glass. Maybe the next prototype should be ceramic, with a glass mixing ball.
If you’re unfortunate enough to be stuck in the middle of the country, away from the coasts, you probably don’t get too many chances to see the ocean, let alone surf in it. But hey, that doesn’t mean your dreams of surfing need to die in the flat Missouri sun! Just get yourself a Banzai Skimboard Surfer and live your dreams of having an endless summer.
Essentially, the Skimboard Surfer is a souped up slip n slide: a long, slick piece of plastic that fills with water via your hose. But rather than sliding on it face first, you use the included skimboard to surf down its slippery length. Oh, summer fun, you’re right at hand! And one doesn’t have to live on a coastline to enjoy it!
This shiny, pretty phone is a heavily-modified Nokia N95 that’s been decked out head-to-toe with Buddhist iconography and characters. It’s got gold everywhere, a Buddha on the back, and fancy imagery all over. It even has custom wallpapers and ringtones onboard to complete the theme.
It’s slick, to say the least, especially if you’re Buddhist, I’d assume. Sadly, it’s been spotted in China but is currently unavailable to any of us silly westerners. But hey, if you’re handy with a paintbrush and have a spare N95 kicking around, you could probably whip up something similar, right?
Suddenly your $40-$50 bill to fill up gas every other week isn’t so bad: the North American Eagle jet car costs $18,000 every single run. That’s because it uses a 42,500 horsepower engine from airplane manufacturer Lockheed’s retired 1957 F-104 Starfighter, which uses up 160 gallons of fuel each minute. The car needs that kind of power though, because partners Ed Shadle and Keith Zanghi want to break the 800 mph land speed record for the US. All they need now is a driver.
Shadle, a former USAF pilot and amateur racer himself, would love to drive the North American Eagle. “It’s a lot of fun to drive,” he told the Times Online, “But if my age is stopping us getting sponsors, we have to remove that barrier. We’ll put some hotshot in the driving seat who looks like Robert Redford and see how that works.”
So Shadle and his Boeing engineer partner Zanghi are looking for someone between 20 and 40 years of age who is photogenic and entirely cool with the idea of, essentially, riding their $150,000 rocket, built over the last 10 years in a rented Seattle hangar. Just don’t forget to buckle up: the North American Eagle is projected to break the 800 mph record in around 20 seconds.
If that sounds like you, send a 400-word email detailing why and a photo to landspeedracing@gmail.com.
Hitachi has done an about turn and decided it won’t be selling its struggling hard drive division.
The division was formed when Hitachi bought IBM’s disk business in 2002 and has made losses for almost every quarter since. In late 2007 Hitachi was trying to sell the business to private equity group Silver Lake.
But, updating investors today, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies said it would continue to run the business on its own. It will keep on cutting costs, which fell 13 per cent in 2007, and improve its focus – it got out of the 1 and 1.89 inch markets last year.
But the company said it might consider further funding alternatives in the future – it could be that the Silver Lake deal is another victim of the credit crunch as much as a change in strategy.
The firm said it was very serious about “becoming self-sufficient,” which is nice.
It made a profit in the second half of 2007 on revenues of $5.56bn and hopes to end 2008 in profit. It hopes to ship 558 million units in 2008 – 12 per cent more than last year. ®
Big Blue has made yet another storage buy, this time scooping up privately-held Diligent Technologies for an undisclosed sum, although rumors peg the price at $200m.
The company, which has in recent months been on a considerable storage spending spree, said today that the Framingham, Massachusetts and Tel Aviv, Israel-based de-duplication software specialist will be folded into IBM’s System Storage biz unit.
This acquisition is IBM’s third swoop on an Israel-based outfit in as many months. Just last week it swallowed up FilesX, which has operations in Haifa and Newton, Massachusetts.
IBM’s storage beefery comes as it makes a grab for Web 2.0 apps, digital archives, and digital media.
IBM’s system storage general manager Andy Monshaw said: “Diligent’s data de-duplication software is a critical technology that will be integrated into the IBM Storage portfolio to further extend our information infrastructure strategy, allowing our clients to eliminate redundant data and streamline the infrastructure required to support their business – which can result in dramatic improvements in data centre efficiency.”
Diligent’s de-duplication technology will be slotted into IBM’s new enterprise data centre model, the mantra of which is heavily-loaded with the industry’s favourite buzzwords – virtualisation, green IT, and cloud computing.
The startup has a number of reseller deals with other storage vendors that use Diligent’s ProtecTier software including Overland, HDS, and Sun. It’s not known at this stage how IBM will handle these agreements under the merger, which is subject to the normal regulatory requirements.
Diligent, which has secured close to $47m in fundage, previously served as EMC’s Israel research and development lab before being spun-out from the the storage firm in 2002.
Over the past few months acquisition-hungry IBM has bought Softek, NovusCG, XIV, Arsenal Digital Solutions, and FilesX.
Radio Reg Few stories in computing history come close to matching the tale of Zelenograd – the Soviet Union’s attempt at creating something along the lines of Silicon Valley.
Episode 15 of Semi-Coherent Computing recounts the tale of Zelenograd’s founding along with the stories of the two US-born Russian spies behind the city. No one knows this history better than Steven Usdin, the author of Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley, who was kind enough to appear on the show. (You’ll find Usdin’s web site here and can buy the book on Amazon or from Yale Press here.)
I first saw Usdin talk about Zelenograd at a Computer History Museum event and was beyond enthralled by the story. It involves two US communist engineers who worked on top secret projects for US military contractors during World War II and funneled their technology secrets over to the Soviets. Eventually, these lads made their way to the Soviet Union where they started work on, among other things, the first Soviet made PC and even a desktop fab for producing chips.
Along the way, the spies tear apart families and then reunite them. They enjoy Khrushchev’s blessing and then struggle to deal with Brezhnev’s fury. They make a mockery of the FBI and parts of the Soviet way of life.
Amazing stuff.
This show is just the first part of my interview with Usdin. We’ll be running the second part next week.
Sincere apologies to everyone for being so slack getting up a fresh program. I vow to be more consistent in the months ahead.
Enjoy.
De broncode van de mmo Eve Online is uitgelekt. De code van de client van het spel is onder andere via torrentsite The Pirate Bay te downloaden. Ontwikkelaar CCP bant iedereen die de code binnenhaalt.
………………….Bovendien wil deze gamer weten waarom CCP geen detectieroutines in de client heeft ingebouwd en dus alleen vanaf de servers op bots jaagt: de broncode van Eve Online is eerder uitgelekt en CCP zou sindsdien nauwelijks maatregelen hebben genomen tegen de bots die het spel teisteren. De helpdeskmedewerker vertelt daarop dat CCP de voorkeur geeft aan het maken van uitbreidingen van het spel en niet aan veiligheid…………….
MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.
The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.
Where did the word ‘marijuana’ come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant…as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years…
Concerns have been raised that performing collisions at previously unexplored energies might unleash new and disastrous phenomena. These include the production of micro black holes, and strangelets. Such issues were raised in connection with the RHIC accelerator, both in the media[14][15] and in the scientific community;[16] however, after detailed studies, scientists reached such conclusions as “beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet”[17] and that there is “powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production.”[18]
One simple argument against such fears is that collisions at these energies (and higher) have been happening in nature for billions of years apparently without hazardous effects, as ultra-high-energy cosmic rays impact Earth’s atmosphere and other bodies in the universe.[19] A concern against this cosmic-ray argument is that, if dangerous strangelets or micro black holes were created at LHC, a proportion would have less than the Earth’s escape velocity (of 11.2km/s), and therefore would be captured by the Earth’s gravitational field, whereas those created by high-energy cosmic rays would leave the planet at high speed, due to the laws of conservation of momentum at relativistic speeds[citation needed].
CERN’s review concludes, after detailed analysis, that “there is no basis for any conceivable threat” from strangelets, black holes, or monopoles.[20][21] However, the concern about the verity of Hawking radiation was not addressed, and another study was commissioned by CERN in 2007 for publication on CERN’s web-site by the end of 2007.[citation needed]
The risk of a doomsday scenario was indicated by Sir Martin Rees, with respect to the RHIC, as being a one in fifty million chance,[22] and by Professor Frank Close, with regards to (dangerous) strangelets, that ‘the chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession; the problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery 3 weeks in succession’.[23] Accurate assessments of these risks are impossible due to the currently incomplete, or even hypothetically flawed, standard model of particle physics (see also a list of unsolved problems in physics).
Micro black holes
Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC[24][25][26] at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern from opposing civil society movements[27] is that, among other disputed factors, Hawking radiation (which is still debated[28]) is not yet an experimentally-tested or naturally observed phenomenon. Thus, the above mentioned opponents to LHC consider that micro black holes produced in a terrestrial laboratory might not decay as rapidly as calculated, or might even not be prone to decay and, if unable to rapidly evaporate, they could start interacting, grow larger and potentially be disastrous to Earth itself.[29]
Strangelets
Strangelets are a hypothetical form of strange matter that contains roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks and are more stable than ordinary nuclei. If strangelets can actually exist, and if they were produced at LHC, they could conceivably initiate a runaway fusion process (reminiscent of the fictional ice-nine) in which all the nuclei in the planet were converted to strange matter, similar to a strange star.
Just to dash that first thought of yours: Nope, not a concept. This is real, my friend.
The MonoTracer is an enclosed motorcycle or “cabin cycle,” a style of vehicle which experiences a lot less drag than your average motorbike and keeps you from having to pick the bugs from between your teeth later. Its aerodynamic design and 130 horsepower engine get the MonoTracer from zero to 60 in about 5.7 seconds, and it has more speed than you’ll ever need, topping out at 155 mph.
The MonoTracer is built by vehicle and engine construction company Peraves, and rolls off the factory floor starting at $82,350. Unless you’re drooling gold right now, you may have to wait for Christmas for this one.
Anyway, I know what you’re here for. Click through that gallery for more views of the MonoTracer. Oh, yes. Oh, oh yes.
ou may remember hearing about China’s plans to control the weather during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing by attacking shady clouds with artillery and aircraft. Along similar lines, scientists in New Mexico decided to mess with thunderclouds, but with fancy lasers.
The researchers harassed two passing storms from their evil fortress (or observatory) with a high powered laser, fired in pulses. The laser light managed to generate clusters of plasma filaments that, in turn, caused electrical discharges within the thunderheads. It wasn’t enough to get those coveted air-to-ground lighting strikes, though.
Why are they doing it? Being able to trigger a gen-u-wine lightning bolt would allow scientists to study their effects in a controlled manner, such as the effect of lightning on power lines and aircraft. It’d also allow them to ruin someone’s day. Over and over.
If there’s anything the Segway needs, it’s someone to make it look cooler. Like a hot girl wearing baggy clothes and nerd glasses in a teen comedy, it needs a hunky football player to take a bet to take the Segway to the prom, only to discover its true beauty within, take off its glasses, and make it the most popular girl in school. Or something like that.
This concept vehicle adds a set of back wheels to the Segway, giving it some speed and perhaps some more stability. It features a “skiing-like steering mechanism,” and hey, skiing is cool! Could this be the redesign the Segway needs? Is this even a Segway, as it seems like it eschews the fancy balancing mechanism that defines the Segway experience? Does anybody really care about these glorified scooters in the first place?
Russia is to built an In-Orbit Assembly Plant of space ships. These should be able to fly to the moon and mars, Interfax reports. The head Anatoly Perminov Roscosmos.
According to Perminova Roskosmos propsed the establishment of a manned assembly complex in Earth orbit. The government Security Council on April 11, supported the idea. The complex can be built ships too ehavy to take off from the ground.
These plans may not come into effect before the completion of the ISS, that is after 2020. The timing of the construction of the orbial factory until stipulated.