Comment Re: .. and then came Gliese 710 ... (Score 1) 575
That's Gliese 581g - Pardon my presbyopia.
Comment Re: .. and then came Gliese 710 ... (Score 1) 575
Well, in 1.5 million years, Gliese 710 will be in the Solar System's neighborhood - with perhaps enough gravitic influence to disturb the local Oort cloud.
Yup - it may be raining comets in the local neighborhood for a few million years after that close encounter.
So, to get a jump on the Backup Earth plans, if we were interested in camping out on Gliese 531g, 20 light years means a Space Ark would have to begin traveling 78 million miles a year today in order to get to Gliese 531g before Gliese 710 closes in for the kill in 1.5 million years.
Time is awasting - Earthlings!
Yup - it may be raining comets in the local neighborhood for a few million years after that close encounter.
So, to get a jump on the Backup Earth plans, if we were interested in camping out on Gliese 531g, 20 light years means a Space Ark would have to begin traveling 78 million miles a year today in order to get to Gliese 531g before Gliese 710 closes in for the kill in 1.5 million years.
Time is awasting - Earthlings!
Comment Re:coincidences... Funny thing ... ALF maybe back (Score 1) 575
Funny thing about ALF - aka Gordon Shumway - ALF may be back on 3D HDTV!!
Given the unusual number of remake TV series in this 2010 US Fall TV premiere season - a recent street poll on network news reported that ALF was the most recognizable TV character from the late 1980s.
Technically, on 3D HDTV, ALF's virtual hair simulation and vocalizations will be a snap to do in realtime with a rack of Sony PS3's. A virtualized ALF will make it a lot easier to do multiple takes of ALF scarfing ham pies and kissing babies.
BACKSTORY:
For several years now, Paul Fusco, ALF's creator and puppet master, has been in discussions for a feature film with ALF to be followed by a new TV series.
Rumor on the series is that ALF is waiting for Jay Leno to give him the Tonight Show baton in person as soon as Comcast greases NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker. Basically, Comcast would be cutting costs by out-sourcing the Tonight Show to a space alien who only needs to be paid in cats.
Shortly after that UNOOSA will consider the nomination of ALF as Earth's first ET greeter, since as a mechanical-trans-virtual, ALF would be impervious to space-borne infections - and jabs from FoxNews.
Why is that important?
Per the 1967 International Treaty on Space, alien visitors would be subject to "sterilization" as determined by UNOOSA -- which sounds peculiarly unfriendly if you just arrived on Earth to exercise the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of "happiness" -- and happen to have a stardrive pointed at UN HQ to guarantee timely Viagra deliveries to the launch pad.
A mecha ALF space ambassador would allow humans a chance to get to know the aliens on 3D HDTV before UNOOSA decides any space aliens require "sterilization" - or simply issued a visitor visa. Honestly, NASA's Robonaut 2 just doesn't cut it on the personality side.
--- Some choice ALF quotes ---
ALF: On Melmac, we have 1st class, 2nd class, -- and ham.
ALF: I wasn't known on Melmac as the whiz kid for my scholastic ability.
ALF: Putting humans in charge of the earth, is the cosmic equivalence of letting Eddie Murphy direct.
ALF: Raining cats? You open the skylight and I'll get the relish.
Time to start a Facebook write-in campaign to NASA to name Gliese 531g -- "PLANET MELMAC"
--
BTW: In case anyone cares, MEN IN BLACK 3 is filming around NYC this week, and is hiring "space alien" extras - the more unusual - the better.
Given the unusual number of remake TV series in this 2010 US Fall TV premiere season - a recent street poll on network news reported that ALF was the most recognizable TV character from the late 1980s.
Technically, on 3D HDTV, ALF's virtual hair simulation and vocalizations will be a snap to do in realtime with a rack of Sony PS3's. A virtualized ALF will make it a lot easier to do multiple takes of ALF scarfing ham pies and kissing babies.
BACKSTORY:
For several years now, Paul Fusco, ALF's creator and puppet master, has been in discussions for a feature film with ALF to be followed by a new TV series.
Rumor on the series is that ALF is waiting for Jay Leno to give him the Tonight Show baton in person as soon as Comcast greases NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker. Basically, Comcast would be cutting costs by out-sourcing the Tonight Show to a space alien who only needs to be paid in cats.
Shortly after that UNOOSA will consider the nomination of ALF as Earth's first ET greeter, since as a mechanical-trans-virtual, ALF would be impervious to space-borne infections - and jabs from FoxNews.
Why is that important?
Per the 1967 International Treaty on Space, alien visitors would be subject to "sterilization" as determined by UNOOSA -- which sounds peculiarly unfriendly if you just arrived on Earth to exercise the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of "happiness" -- and happen to have a stardrive pointed at UN HQ to guarantee timely Viagra deliveries to the launch pad.
A mecha ALF space ambassador would allow humans a chance to get to know the aliens on 3D HDTV before UNOOSA decides any space aliens require "sterilization" - or simply issued a visitor visa. Honestly, NASA's Robonaut 2 just doesn't cut it on the personality side.
--- Some choice ALF quotes ---
ALF: On Melmac, we have 1st class, 2nd class, -- and ham.
ALF: I wasn't known on Melmac as the whiz kid for my scholastic ability.
ALF: Putting humans in charge of the earth, is the cosmic equivalence of letting Eddie Murphy direct.
ALF: Raining cats? You open the skylight and I'll get the relish.
Time to start a Facebook write-in campaign to NASA to name Gliese 531g -- "PLANET MELMAC"
--
BTW: In case anyone cares, MEN IN BLACK 3 is filming around NYC this week, and is hiring "space alien" extras - the more unusual - the better.
Bookmark "SINNERS & SAINTS" Charlotte NC Premiere is SOLD OUT 5-days Before Screening (prweb.com)
Comment Active Denial System - versus - Lightning (Score 1) 278
Typically, frost forms on crops when a cold front comes through - and typically where cold air meets warm air - the atmosphere becomes charged.
Now - it is known that holding a cell phone call in a lightning storm is a really bad idea - because the cell phone is a localized microwave source that can become the origin of a grounding path for lightning.
An Active Denial System antenna array certainly has all the characteristics of generating a localized microwave source with about a ten million times more wattage than a cell phone.
Perhaps, the really interesting question is: Can we use mobile ADS systems to DRIVE tornadoes away from large ground planes like mobile home parks, hi-voltage power lines, and tin-roofed warehouses and farm buildings?
The idea would be to focus an array of ADS beams in a way to disrupt the downdraft side of a cumulus cloud by vaporizing water droplets and perhaps reduce the wind velocity that drives tornadic winds.
If Raytheon can demonstrate even limited control of a tornado using a multi-unit ADS deployment, my bet is that the US insurance companies will be investing heavily to make sure that local national guard units have ten or twenty of the mobile ADS units fully networked and ready to roll by next year's tornado season.
Why? Because simplification of chaos means higher storm wind velocities - and global warming is simplifying weather patterns across the US prairie, midwestern, and southeastern states. An ability to steer tornadoes could save lives and limit property damage - and that is something Raytheon could be proud to deliver.
Now - it is known that holding a cell phone call in a lightning storm is a really bad idea - because the cell phone is a localized microwave source that can become the origin of a grounding path for lightning.
An Active Denial System antenna array certainly has all the characteristics of generating a localized microwave source with about a ten million times more wattage than a cell phone.
Perhaps, the really interesting question is: Can we use mobile ADS systems to DRIVE tornadoes away from large ground planes like mobile home parks, hi-voltage power lines, and tin-roofed warehouses and farm buildings?
The idea would be to focus an array of ADS beams in a way to disrupt the downdraft side of a cumulus cloud by vaporizing water droplets and perhaps reduce the wind velocity that drives tornadic winds.
If Raytheon can demonstrate even limited control of a tornado using a multi-unit ADS deployment, my bet is that the US insurance companies will be investing heavily to make sure that local national guard units have ten or twenty of the mobile ADS units fully networked and ready to roll by next year's tornado season.
Why? Because simplification of chaos means higher storm wind velocities - and global warming is simplifying weather patterns across the US prairie, midwestern, and southeastern states. An ability to steer tornadoes could save lives and limit property damage - and that is something Raytheon could be proud to deliver.
Stem Cells Curing Burn-Induced Blindness 54
mcgrew writes "The AP (via Yahoo) is reporting that Italian researchers can now cure blindness caused by chemical burns using the patient's own stem cells. 'The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.' Previously, this kind of injury needed either a corneal transplant or stem cells from someone else, both of which are plagued by problems with tissue rejection. Unfortunately, this only works for damaged corneas — so far."
Researchers Create Lung On a Chip 45
ElectricSteve writes "Utilizing human lung and blood vessel cells, researchers have created a device mounted on a microchip that mimics a living, breathing human lung. About the size of a rubber eraser, the device was developed by a team from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Children's Hospital Boston. Because it's translucent, researchers can watch the processes taking place inside of it — something that's difficult to do with an actual lung. It will be used for testing the respiratory effects of environmental toxins, aerosolized therapeutics, and new drugs. Using conventional models, such tests can cost more than $2 million."
Bionic Cat Gets World's First Implant Paws 225
Several readers send in the news of Oscar, the first bionic cat, whose hind paws got cut off in a harvester accident. In a world's-first operation, a neurosurgeon has now given him exoprosthetic paws that are implanted directly into his leg bones. The BBC artlcle has a video captured just after the operation, and PopSci has an apparently later one in which Oscar is walking and running almost completely normally.
Comment Re:Some form of tracking? - How bout chargebacks? (Score 1) 248
Now wait a minute: The iPhone is doing processing and transmitting when its lights out - ON my phone, with my network time, and electrical services?
Q: Where in the ATT Wireless contract do they get to use my phone for their billing processing for FREE?
Let's think about this: Assuming 3.5 million iPhones are calling home every night - and that it takes $2.50 worth of services - shouldn't users be given the option of selling that service time to ATT with a 20% profit margin?
That's one heck of a lot of distributed compute power guys. Either ATT pays for it - or the user should get a tax break for allowing ATT to use their phone for ATT business purposes.
Theft of services is theft of services.
Gentle readers, rev your engines!
Q: Where in the ATT Wireless contract do they get to use my phone for their billing processing for FREE?
Let's think about this: Assuming 3.5 million iPhones are calling home every night - and that it takes $2.50 worth of services - shouldn't users be given the option of selling that service time to ATT with a 20% profit margin?
That's one heck of a lot of distributed compute power guys. Either ATT pays for it - or the user should get a tax break for allowing ATT to use their phone for ATT business purposes.
Theft of services is theft of services.
Gentle readers, rev your engines!
Comment When religion is disintermediated by the Internet (Score 1) 286
Consider: In olden times, like in the 1960s, if you needed advice about marriage, family, health care, old age, and death, you spoke to your local representative of organized religion for advice and consent.
The theory was that it provided an accredited personal access to common cultural knowledge garnered across generations as to how to live life.
Today, that task is fulfilled by smart phones, WebMD.com, bloggers, AARP.org, and web memorials posted in cyberspace.
So, in a way, it is sign of the times that the Catholic Church in France is using Facebook to recruit persons to fill vacant positions that have been disintermediated by the Internet. In a way, it is a chance to select humans for a job no longer performed by humans because of the cost efficiencies of the Internet.
In another way, it is a form of functional redundancy that may some day be required should the Internet vanish through technological disaster or political hazard. In this latter sense, the keepers of organized religion are maintaining a social function as a back-up mechanism for maintaining social order should the Internet cease to operate.
Another example of similar human organizations rapidly being disintermediated can be found in libraries and schools.
In the face of technology, the old ways are kept polished and practiced by dedicated individuals in the event of that one rainy day when technology fails to renew itself in its rapid race towards consumer obsolescence.
When Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Point is reached - and biological humans are disintermediated - can we expect organized religion to provide android priests to avoid "temptations of the flesh"?
Q: Will Android Priests dream of Electric Angels??
Inquiring minds want to know
Comment Re:Yes, but what about the story? Seriously (Score 2, Interesting) 143
Jim Cameron optioned Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy "RED MARS", "BLUE MARS", and "GREEN MARS" many years ago. Everyone kind of thought Jim might have given the project up. This probably means it is now full-on after the Pandora sequels.
Placing better 3D cameras on Rover "Curiosity" provides Jim's production company with early access to footage that can be better matched to in-studio green screen sets, especially because the height of the deployed rover camera mast is approximately the average height of a human.
Now there is an interesting problem here: If Jim's company wins exclusive first-use access to the new NASA 3D Mars Rover footage for commercial exploitation in a motion picture, the NASA Rover budget would look to the EU and the FIAPF to be an unfair government subsidy trade advantage towards the production of a US motion picture, and they may then issue trade sanctions to protect the EU movie production business from US productions.
To avoid this, Jim might consider incorporating the trilogy's production company on MARS, so that trade sanctions would need to be legally filed at the office to be located at Utopia Planitia, or wherever "Curiousity" first lands on Mars. The other obvious advantage of this legal move is in preventing unwarranted tax levies and tariffs on box-office revenues reported to Mars, since there are no existing interplanetary trade laws, yet.
Comment Unexpected Opportunity for Medical App Integrators (Score 1) 555
The Massachusetts Law is an unexpected windfall for Medical Application Integrators who are now faced with protecting Massachusetts resident-only personal identification information across multiple application domains.
Case in point: The Law has potential application against information systems of out-sourced third parties who are under contract to provide health care services to Massachusetts residents as active or reserve military and discharged veterans. Specialty clinics and laboratories that provide such services will need to be found in full compliance of the Massachusetts Law before Federal service contracts can be renewed.
Anywhere in the world.
In particular, it means that the US Veterans Administration and the Dept of Defense will need to overhaul the VISTA and the AHLTA medical networks to ensure that no component subsystem can result in violation of the Massachusetts Law. Those components come from everywhere - UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, S. Korea, and especially China, for all the hand held in-the-field medical information devices, that have display memories that can be read with remote RF monitoring equipment.
I'm sure that the citizens of Massachusetts will be lobbying Senators Scott Brown and John Kerry to ensure that the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee takes the necessary steps to fund this massive IT rewrite with federal tax dollars.
This one state law has created a huge Federal Budget Exposure that the Congressional Budget Office will need to sink its teeth into.
This is a great day for medical application integrators around the world
It would be sincerely unfortunate if doctors in Washington DC failed to anticipate a fatal pharmaceutical allergy while treating anyone in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, because their childhood medical records were fully encrypted, the encryption key was lost, and the records unavailable for review.
Submission + - Everything in Universe Caught in Dark Flow (nationalgeographic.com)
DarkStarZumaBeach writes: Dark Flow! Yoda had it wrong: The Force doesn't just surround and embrace everything: The Dark Side of the Force also pulls at everything with a titanic flushing sound, as evidenced by the average 2.2 million miles an hour velocity for the galaxies in the Coma Cluster into the same direction in the sky.
Over time, with Cosmic Expansion, those velocities will increase, and the light from those galaxies will continue to red-shift until we cannot see them above the 3-degree Kelvin Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
Because Cosmic Expansion is measured by the relative red shift of distant astronomical objects — and the red shift appears to show that the furthest objects in all directions are red-shifting away from us — and therefore accelerating away from us, the same effect would be true if everything in all directions were "falling" away from us into a huge gravitational well. Dark Flow gives us the direction into the deepest part of that well.
For Coma Cluster galaxies, that velocity computes to a significant Lorentz contraction factor: A one million mile ruler traveling 2.2 million miles an hour lengthwise in the direction of the Dark Flow would be contracted to 999,995 miles long — 5 miles shorter to an observer at rest.
So, could we all be inside the event horizon of an incredibly intense black hole and still falling towards its singularity point?
If we are falling into the bottom of a prior universe's blackhole — our relative time dilation factor will increase towards infinity as we approach the singularity point as relative velocity approaches a significant fraction of the speed of light. Relative time dilation slows our clock to a near stop. So it gets very, very, dark and very, very, cold down there in the very, very, distant future, which is why the deep sky today is really, really, dark, beyond the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
And the Big Bang?
That's what happens when a universe worth of our energy and matter slips through the event horizon of a prior universe's blackhole and emerges from zero spatial dimensions at zero time, as the energy "snaps" — "relaxes" — "expands" — "coalesces" into our dimensional space and time which we humans believe wraps around and through us.
And the post Big Bang blackholes that are formed by stellar implosion, dark matter implosion, and found at the cores of galaxies and quasars?
Well, those gravitational fields represent localized surfaces of infinite relative time dilation created after the Big Bang. Think of them as patches of space-time turbulence which connect to the same time surface that all objects in our Universe bubble will ultimately arrive at in the direction of the Dark Flow, except scattered backwards spatially from the End-of-Observable-Time.
Localized blackholes are short cuts from now to the End-of-Observable-Time in our Universe.
While they are all points in the same observable-time "surface", they have different spatial locations and gravitational strengths, evidenced by the different sizes of the Schwarzschild radius of each local blackhole. When an object with mass and energy crosses the event horizon of a local blackhole — it is actually accelerating past the speed of light in our universe, and becomes unobservable in our space-time because it's velocity instantaneously transforms into some non-spatial dimension set orthogonal to our space-time, leaving behind its mass energy value in our universe as an increase in the gravitational field of the local black-hole with a proportional increase in its Schwarzschild radius.
The gravitational field of a blackhole is the "echo" of matter and energy that has "entered" non-observable space-time for any observer outside of the Schwarzchild radius.
If the Big Bang is the "scatter" as spatial dimensions emerge — then post Big Bang black holes, of all different masses and ages, are part of the "gather" as objects accelerate and become unobservable into higher dimensions, effectively "leaving" our universe while conserving matter, energy, and information in our universe as an increment to the gravitational field of a point singularity.
To put it in perspective, we are in the Dark Flow from zero time dilation to infinite time dilation, from zero initial velocity to speed of light, from zero spatial dimensions to non-spatial dimensions.
What could be driving the Dark Flow into the future is a "massive" point singularity created by the previous universe, whose dimension set is orthogonal to our space-time. We are somewhere inside its "Schwarzchild radius" for its "speed-of-light", but we have not yet arrived at its point singularity where all of its dimensions vanish. That point singularity could "co-exist" in the hypervolume bounded by our End-of-Observable Time Surface, assuming that gravity is the common book keeping system for the conservation of energy, matter, and information across all universes and across all emerging dimension sets.
Over time, with Cosmic Expansion, those velocities will increase, and the light from those galaxies will continue to red-shift until we cannot see them above the 3-degree Kelvin Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
Because Cosmic Expansion is measured by the relative red shift of distant astronomical objects — and the red shift appears to show that the furthest objects in all directions are red-shifting away from us — and therefore accelerating away from us, the same effect would be true if everything in all directions were "falling" away from us into a huge gravitational well. Dark Flow gives us the direction into the deepest part of that well.
For Coma Cluster galaxies, that velocity computes to a significant Lorentz contraction factor: A one million mile ruler traveling 2.2 million miles an hour lengthwise in the direction of the Dark Flow would be contracted to 999,995 miles long — 5 miles shorter to an observer at rest.
So, could we all be inside the event horizon of an incredibly intense black hole and still falling towards its singularity point?
If we are falling into the bottom of a prior universe's blackhole — our relative time dilation factor will increase towards infinity as we approach the singularity point as relative velocity approaches a significant fraction of the speed of light. Relative time dilation slows our clock to a near stop. So it gets very, very, dark and very, very, cold down there in the very, very, distant future, which is why the deep sky today is really, really, dark, beyond the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.
And the Big Bang?
That's what happens when a universe worth of our energy and matter slips through the event horizon of a prior universe's blackhole and emerges from zero spatial dimensions at zero time, as the energy "snaps" — "relaxes" — "expands" — "coalesces" into our dimensional space and time which we humans believe wraps around and through us.
And the post Big Bang blackholes that are formed by stellar implosion, dark matter implosion, and found at the cores of galaxies and quasars?
Well, those gravitational fields represent localized surfaces of infinite relative time dilation created after the Big Bang. Think of them as patches of space-time turbulence which connect to the same time surface that all objects in our Universe bubble will ultimately arrive at in the direction of the Dark Flow, except scattered backwards spatially from the End-of-Observable-Time.
Localized blackholes are short cuts from now to the End-of-Observable-Time in our Universe.
While they are all points in the same observable-time "surface", they have different spatial locations and gravitational strengths, evidenced by the different sizes of the Schwarzschild radius of each local blackhole. When an object with mass and energy crosses the event horizon of a local blackhole — it is actually accelerating past the speed of light in our universe, and becomes unobservable in our space-time because it's velocity instantaneously transforms into some non-spatial dimension set orthogonal to our space-time, leaving behind its mass energy value in our universe as an increase in the gravitational field of the local black-hole with a proportional increase in its Schwarzschild radius.
The gravitational field of a blackhole is the "echo" of matter and energy that has "entered" non-observable space-time for any observer outside of the Schwarzchild radius.
If the Big Bang is the "scatter" as spatial dimensions emerge — then post Big Bang black holes, of all different masses and ages, are part of the "gather" as objects accelerate and become unobservable into higher dimensions, effectively "leaving" our universe while conserving matter, energy, and information in our universe as an increment to the gravitational field of a point singularity.
To put it in perspective, we are in the Dark Flow from zero time dilation to infinite time dilation, from zero initial velocity to speed of light, from zero spatial dimensions to non-spatial dimensions.
What could be driving the Dark Flow into the future is a "massive" point singularity created by the previous universe, whose dimension set is orthogonal to our space-time. We are somewhere inside its "Schwarzchild radius" for its "speed-of-light", but we have not yet arrived at its point singularity where all of its dimensions vanish. That point singularity could "co-exist" in the hypervolume bounded by our End-of-Observable Time Surface, assuming that gravity is the common book keeping system for the conservation of energy, matter, and information across all universes and across all emerging dimension sets.
Comment Judicial e-mail is now discoverable? (Score 1) 490
Today's US Supreme Court may have a problem with the 4th Circuit Court's decision, so it ain't over yet:
US courts are notoriously tight about the confidentiality of judicial e-mail, whether issued by a city, state, or federal bench.
This ruling makes it possible for judicial e-mail to be searched by warrant and/or subpoena delivery to an ISP.
This could be very useful to journalists investigating political corruption of the US judicial system, since this could effectively make transparent the process of reaching sealed decisions through "in-chamber" e-mail negotiations not normally part of the public record of court proceedings.
There will be a few judges who may be hoisted by their own petard!
Comment Re:The X-Files Come Alive! - Open the doors ... (Score 1) 263
SCULLY: So much of the work that we do cannot be measured in standard terms.
SPECIAL AGENT CHESTY SHORT: How would you measure it?
SCULLY: We open doors with the X-Files, which lead to other doors.
- From "Requiem" ("X-Files", S.7 Ep. 22)
