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Sci-Fi

Large, Slow Airships Could Move Buildings 184

Posted by Soulskill from the buncha-hot-air dept.
Algorithmnast writes "The Economist has a short article on using big, slow-moving airships to move large objects without the need to dismantle them. The company mentioned, Skylifter, refers to the lifting ship as an 'aerial crane,' not a Thor weapon. It could easily help move research labs to new parts of the Antarctic, or allow a Solar Tower to be inserted into an area that's difficult to drive to, such as a mesa in New Mexico."
Space

ESA Releases Lutetia Flyby Images 48

Posted by Soulskill from the pretty-pictures dept.
The European Space Agency has released images from yesterday's close approach of asteroid 21 Lutetia by the Rosetta probe. At its closest, the probe was a mere 3,162 km from the asteroid, passing at 15 km/s and snapping photos sharp enough to make out features as small as 60 meters. "Rosetta operated a full suite of sensors at the encounter, including remote sensing and in-situ measurements. Some of the payload of its Philae lander were also switched on. Together they looked for evidence of a highly tenuous atmosphere, magnetic effects, and studied the surface composition as well as the asteroid’s density. ... The flyby marks the attainment of one of Rosetta's main scientific objectives. The spacecraft will now continue to a 2014 rendezvous with its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will then accompany the comet for months, from near the orbit of Jupiter down to its closest approach to the Sun. In November 2014, Rosetta will release Philae to land on the comet nucleus." There is also a replay of the media event webcast on the ESA's website.

Comment Re:HF Trading reduces spread, increases liquidity (Score 5, Insightful) 411

by Thinine (#32680172) Attached to: Flash Crash Analysis of May 6 Stock Market Plunge
The article you linked to pulls electronic markets and speed trading together. Most of the benefits the article mentions are largely a byproduct of electronic markets, not the high speed traders. In fact, I didn't see a single point in that article that applied only to speed traders. The biggest flaw with speed trading is the fact that it's 100% artificial. It has nothing do with what the actual stocks are, merely with monitoring their price at a fine enough level to be able to buy and sell with just fractions of a cent in change. It doesn't reflect any real property of the market; it's merely another way to game the system. What's the solution to the problem? I don't know. Perhaps we just need to limit the number of trades that can be done per second. But it is an entirely artificial and potentially quite damaging phenomenon.

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