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Submission + - Europe explore possible tie-up with Chinese planned space-station (wsj.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: FARNBOROUGH, England — Senior Chinese and European space officials have been discussing potentially wide-ranging cooperation on manned exploration programs. Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the European Space Agency, said in an interview that the two sides have talked about the issue of extensive in-orbit cooperation in some detail

The European Space Agency and the 20 nations it represents, Mr. Dordain said, have offered to share specifics with China about experiments conducted on the current orbiting laboratory. Such information, he suggested, could include data about health effects astronauts face during long stays on the station. "We are willing to cooperate with them," Mr. Dordain said. In return, he said, Chinese counterparts have opened the door to potential European participation in a proposed Chinese space station, parts of which could launch after 2020. "We want to get access to their space station," Mr. Dordain said

Mr. Dordain didn't discuss the future of the existing station. But his latest comments indicate that European space leaders see closer ties to China as at least a potential option to extending the life of the existing station past its 2020 deadline. Mr. Dordain said Europe remains committed to working with other countries on space endeavors, "but the problem is, international cooperation with whom?" From a European perspective, he said, "we have to be robust" and keep options open with Beijing. "We can give them access to some of the experiments we are doing on the ISS."

The agency's evolving view of China partly reflects past disappointments joining with the U.S. on high-profile robotic exploration. In 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration abruptly pulled out of an unmanned project, called ExoMars, ultimately intended to return samples from the surface of Mars. NASA's decision, prompted by budget reductions, angered European space officials, prompting them to reach out to Russia for immediate assistance and reassess their longer-term strategic options. "I was lucky to find Russia to help us and continue ExoMars," Mr. Dordain said

Submission + - Preparing for Satellite War (businessweek.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: In May 2013 the Chinese government conducted what it called a science space mission from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China. The liftoff took place at night and employed a powerful rocket as well as a truck-based launch vehicle

The Pentagon never commented in detail on last year’s launch — and the Chinese have stuck to their story

The U.S. is most vulnerable to a Chinese attack because 43 percent of all satellites in orbit belong to the U.S. military or U.S. companies. According to Lance Gatling, president of Nexial Research, an aerospace consultant in Tokyo, Besides testing missiles that can intercept and destroy satellites, the Chinese have developed jamming techniques to disrupt satellite communications. Furthermore, the Chinese have studied ground-based lasers that could take down a satellite’s solar panels, and satellites equipped with grappling arms that could co-orbit and then disable expensive U.S. hardware

U.S. is exploring ways to mitigate the perceived threat from China, including dispatching a fleet of smaller, mobile satellites that would be harder for adversaries to find and destroy. Enabling satellite transmitters to quickly hop between frequencies could address the Chinese jamming threat, Gatling says.

In June the U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin (LMT) a $914 million contract to build a ground-based radar system that will track objects as small as a baseball, which could help identify a satellite attack as it’s happening. “Destroying someone’s satellite is an act of war,” says Dave Baiocchi, an engineering professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. “You need to know what’s going on up there.”

Submission + - First Arabian Mars Mission to Commence 2021 (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has previously conquered the sky by constructing the world’s tallest building and now the oil-rich country has set its sights on the stars, promising to send the first unmanned Arab spaceship to Mars by 2021

The monarch of Dubai — one of the seven emirates which comprise the UAE – has said the mission will prove that the Arab world is still capable of contributing to humanity’s scientific progress, despite conflicts in the region

The announcement means that the UAE is now one of nine countries worldwide working on missions to Mars. So far America has been the only country to land a successful, long term mission on the surface of the planet

So far, the UAE has not outlined any specific scientific goals for its Mars probe or given a budget for the mission. It will join several other Muslim-majority nations in creating a space program, with Iran currently aiming to send an astronaut into space after several successful trips with a monkey

Thus far, it is still unclear if they are to send up a real spaceship to Mars or simply a flying carpet, with a Genie on top

Submission + - Experiment claiming dark matter detection explained without dark matter

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: The astrophysical evidence for some type of non-baryonic, gravitational source of matter is overwhelming: hence dark mater. For the past two decades, a myriad of experiments searching for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) — the leading dark matter candidate — have come up empty, placing tremendous constraints on whatever properties dark matter can have. But one experiment, DAMA, has seen an annual modulation in its experimental signature that's consistent with dark matter. Other, conventional explanations like nuclear decays, neutrino interactions or atmospheric muons have failed to explain the same observed signal. But a new explanation may have solved the mystery, and provides us with a definitive prediction that should be able to discriminate between dark matter and conventional sources. Very interesting stuff!

Submission + - Russia prepares for internet war over Malaysian jet. 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Barely a few hours afer the shooting down of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukranian rebel held territory is already hotting up. Whilst US and UK news organisations are studiously trying to spread the blame, Russian ITAR, which, just earlier today was celebrating the downing of a large aircraft by rebel missiles in Torez (Google cache) is now reporting that the rebels do not have access to the missiles needed for such attacks. The rebel commander who earlier today was reporting the downing of the aircraft has also issued a correction to earlier reports that they had captured BUK air defence systems with Russian sources now stating that the rebels do not posess such air defences. The Ukraininan president has been attempting to frame the incident as a "terrorist attack", however US president Obama who, after the accident was first made contact with Vladimir Putin has been instead treating it as an accident, a "terrible tragedy" and saying that the priority is investigating whether US citizens were involved. With control of the black box and it's own internet propaganda army Russia may be in a good position to win the propaganda war.

Submission + - New York state proposes sweeping Bitcoin regulations

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Benjamin M. Lawsky, the superintendent of financial services, announced proposed regulations for virtual currency companies operating in New York. The “BitLicense” plan, which includes rules on consumer protection, the prevention of money laundering and cybersecurity, is the first proposal by a state to create guidelines specifically for virtual currency. "We have sought to strike an appropriate balance that helps protect consumers and root out illegal activity—without stifling beneficial innovation,” he said in a statement.

Submission + - New map fingers future hot spots for U.S. earthquakes (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Earthquake risk assessments can seem pretty abstract at first glance, with their “percent probabilities” and “peak ground accelerations.” But the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) national hazard maps, updated periodically, pack a powerful punch: Insurance companies and city planners rely heavily on the maps, which influence billions of dollars in construction every year. Today, USGS scientists released the most recent earthquake hazard assessments for the country. Although the picture hasn’t changed much on a national scale since the last report in 2008, the devil is in the details, the report’s authors say—and some areas in the country are now considered to be at higher risk for powerful quakes than once thought.

Comment Which industry are you in ? (Score 2) 171

by Taco Cowboy (#47463989) Attached to: Is the Software Renaissance Ending?

The industry does not want independent software developers. The industry wants teams of full-time employees.

When I read what you typed I am perplexed

Exactly which industry that you are referring to?

I have had a string of successful investments in many starts-up and will invest more in the future and it is never my intention to change those starts-up into humongous monsters (although if they change by themselves I won't stop them) employing teams and teams of data monkeys

But TFA does contain a nugget a truth, that is, the so-called " Software Renaissance " is long dead - but not because of the mobile platform, rather, it was because of everybody and their granny's second cousin all chasing after the same pot of gold and copy-catting each others

Instead of exploring new fields, instead of coming up with something exciting, so many starts-up went bust trying to re-invent the wheel (and worse, trying to copy-cat the original shape of the wheel and then sell it as their own invention)

The starts-up that I invest in are those which are offering something that I simply do not see much in the marketplace, and yet, the things that they are doing (sometime it's the back-office thing that consumers don't get to see too often) prove to be essential and become de-facto in the respective niche that they have created

But if I were to take a step back, I reckon that what is happening to the mobile platform is a repeat of what had happened to the desktop (and related big-iron) scene --- which is, too many people (including geeks) are too lazy to explore a new field, rather than do something completely new, they tried to "do a better version" of what is already available in the marketplace

There are only so many improvements one can do to a spreadsheet program, for example - as there are only so many "re-invented angry bird" that the market can bare

Submission + - IBM to invest $3 Billion for Semiconductor Research (wired.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A few decades ago the news of IBM investing billions in research did not even raise an eyelid, because that was what IBM did, and what IBM was good at

However, IBM has changed so much that nowadays when IBM wanting to invest $ 3 Billion in semiconductor research it hits the news headlines everywhere, from Bloomberg ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... ) to WSJ ( http://online.wsj.com/articles... ) to CNET ( http://www.cnet.com/news/ibm-s... )

Is what happening to IBM a reflection of what is happening to the American technological front ?

Comment I don't understand (Score 1) 608

by Taco Cowboy (#47414563) Attached to: Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software

Having read his rant I gotta admit that I do not understand what that guy is trying to say

I mean, ever since Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage labor over the first software / software combination, each and every follow-up of similar devices had been utilized by a very limited group of people who --

1. Have the interest to learn how the device works

2. Have the intelligence to understand

3. Have the time to do it

Of course, there is another type of 'computer' - the Abacus invented by the Chinese - but that device, unlike the Babbage machine and whatever followup devices it had inspired, - was kinda self-limiting

Submission + - Rebounding Whale Population may be good for Ocean Ecosystems (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: There has been an intense debate on whether the rebounding of whale population benefits or detrimental to ecosystems of the ocean

A new study has concluded that the rebounding populations of baleen and sperm whales may be boosting marine food webs around the world

First, the new study notes that krill populations — a ubiquitous crustacean in the Southern Ocean — had remained constant or even declined after great whales experienced big declines

The authors of the study reason that the whales might have helped providing nutrients critical to krill and other species low on the food web. For instance, the mammals release massive "fecal plumes" and urine streams that fertilize surface waters with nitrogen and iron, the authors note, and help enhance productivity by mixing up the top layers of the ocean when diving

Another underappreciated contribution to marine ecosystems, the authors report online today in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, is the bounty of organic material the animals provide to deep-sea ecosystems when they die. A so-called whale fall of a 40-ton gray whale provides a boost of carbon to the seafloor community equivalent to more than 2000 years of normal detritus and nutrient cycling

Submission + - It's all in the ***NAME*** (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The name "ISIS" was originally used by a mobile payment company backed by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and others, which takes advantage of near-field communication chips in smartphones that allows people to consumate transactions by tapping mobile devices on sensor-enabled pads at shops

However, the same name " ISIS " which has recently gained worldwide notoriety came from an Islamic Terrorist Group which has published a lot of head cutting videos online

The CEO of the mobile payment company, Mr. Michael Abbott, has decided that his company should distance itself from the barbarians and will drop its "ISIS" brand very soon

On an open memo Mr. Abbott has written ( http://news.paywithisis.com/20... ) Mr. Abbott acknowledged that changing brand is never an easy exercise, but in the case of his company, it unfortunately has become a _must_

Submission + - The AI is taking over (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: No, this is not a scifi flick, but real life

The subway system in Hong Kong has one of the best uptime, 99.9%, which beats London's tube or NYC's sub hands down

In an average week as many as 10,000 people would be carrying out 2,600 engineering works across the system — from grinding down rough rails to replacing tracks to checking for damages

While human workers might be the one carrying out the work, the one deciding which task is to be worked on, however, isn't a human being at all.

Each and every engineering task to be worked on and the scheduling of all those tasks is being handled by an algorithm, aka, Artificial Intelligence

Andy Chan of Hong Kong's City University, who designed the AI system, says, "Before AI, they would have a planning session with experts from five or six different areas. It was pretty chaotic. Now they just reveal the plan on a huge screen."

Chan's AI program works with a simulated model of the entire system to find the best schedule for necessary engineering works. From its omniscient view it can see chances to combine work and share resources that no human could

However, in order to provide an added layer of security, the schedule generated by the AI is still subject to human approval — Urgent, unexpected repairs can be added manually, and the system would reschedules less important tasks

It also checks the maintenance it plans for compliance with local regulations. Chan's team encoded into machine readable language 200 rules that the engineers must follow when working at night, such as keeping noise below a certain level in residential areas

The main difference between normal software and Hong Kong's AI is that it contains human knowledge that takes years to acquire through experience, says Chan. "We asked the experts what they consider when making a decision, then formulated that into rules – we basically extracted expertise from different areas about engineering works," he says

Comment Plastic is not _only_ plastic (Score 5, Informative) 304

by Taco Cowboy (#47355845) Attached to: Ninety-Nine Percent of the Ocean's Plastic Is Missing

To most of you guys "plastic is plastic", that's all to it

But the truth is plastic is _more_ than mere plastic --- it is a combination of many types of chemicals, all mixed together to achieve the characteristics of the plastic that it needs to have

To see it another way, a plastic is like a steak. It is definitely _not_ only a piece of beef, but also the sauce (which itself is made of the starchy gravy - which can be broken up to other more basic components, - the flavoring [salt, sugar, spices, and so on]), plus the added chemicals, such as the aromatics (which is largely benzene group) that were formed when that beef was put over the fire

Same thing with plastics - it is not only the acrylic resins, but we also need to account for additives such as the plasticizers, color, elastomers, and so on, plus other chemicals that were produced as a by-product of the mixing of all those chemicals over a "heated process"

When we can eat steaks, the different bacteria inside our guts dissolve different ingredients from the steak that we have eaten

Bacteria are not like human beings - they do not have other bacteria in their guts !

Most often a type of bacterium may be able to digest a type of ingredient within a type of plastic, and that is all to it, which means, the other chemicals inside the plastic are still left intact, not dissolved, not digested, not broken down

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