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Comment: Who is going to want to live/work there? (Score 1) 407

by Gavin Scott (#39849277) Attached to: 1 World Trade Center Becomes the Tallest Building In NYC

I mean, isn't it going to be both a bit creepy and scary?

You've got the memories of all the people who died next door, and if there's one thing that would get a terrorist excited it would be the idea of knocking down the tower *again* after we went to the trouble to rebuild the thing.

You're going to need one heck of an immunity to superstition and a lot of faith to not at least consider these things.

I'm really curious to know how much occupancy they have lined up and whether the rates reflect any of this.

G.

Comment: We are landing on Mars! (Score 2) 210

It's a silly sporting event that happens every few years. It's not like they're landing on Mars for the first time or something.

Actually we are landing on Mars during the London Olympics!

The nuclear-powered Mars rover Curiosity should arrive there around August 6th, smack in the middle of the Olympics.

And I expect the coverage of that event to be WAAAAY more exciting than any of the Olympic events.

G.

P.S. Unless the new Rover ends up following the Simplified Planetary Landing Approach Trajectory that was so popular with some other Mars missions in the past.

Earth

Wind Map of US Will Blow You Away

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Talk about visualizations. Ever wondered what the wind would look like if you could see it in action from above? A new project posted online by a pair of Google computer scientists, called simply Wind Map, has to be seen to be believed. "It can be quite hypnotizing to watch the gusty trails blast across the American continent, skitter over the Sierras, get roughed up by the Rockies, and whoosh over the great plains on its way to Canada," writes Chris Taylor. Wind Map is the brainchild of Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, the co-leaders of Google’s “Big Picture” visualization research group in Cambridge, Mass. Wind patterns are constantly changing, of course, which is why the Wind Map designers have also given us a moving-image gallery of previous blustery days."

Comment: Easy... (Score 1) 1

by Gavin Scott (#39525529) Attached to: What would you do if you won the lottery

I would put all the money into some sort of foundation / trust which would exist to pay for all my expenses in life, as well as make worthwhile charitable donations to worthy causes.

The foundation rules would be set up so that anyone soliciting for a donation/contribution/charity would be forever banned from receiving anything.

Problems solved.

G.

Comment: No Cell Processor == Duh. (Score 1) 1

by Gavin Scott (#39525377) Attached to: Sony PlayStation Orbis Not Going To Allow Legacy Games

Assuming that it's not going to be powered by a Cell processor, then it would probably be impractical to emulate the Cell's exotic architecture on anything else. Assuming Sony do not want to keep paying to produce Cell chips just to include one in every next-gen console for backwards compatibility (which probably would not be cheap to do) then it makes perfect sense that the new generation console would not be able to play PS3 games.

Ironically it may well be able to play PS1 and PS2 titles which can be emulated on pretty much anything faster than a toaster these days.

This is a big risk of going with any exotic processor architecture, that not only do you have to migrate TO it at the beginning, but that at some point if you abandon it for something diffferent, you may be forced to introduce a compatibility discontinuity at that point too.

Maybe the PS 5 will be fast enough in ten years to emulate a PS 3.

This may be a huge advantage for Microsoft who stuck with a traditional architecture for the 360 and will likely be able to provide full forward compatibility if the choose to do so.

G.

Games

Sony PlayStation Orbis Not Going To Allow Legacy Games-> 1

Submitted by
KatchooNJ
KatchooNJ writes "It appears that the Sony PlayStation Orbis is not going to be fitted to allow for legacy gaming. It seems that Sony has been slowly moving away from this for cost reasons, even with the PS3's ability to play PS1 and PS2 games. Is this the biggest news or is it that there is more talk about trying to elbow out the used game market? Will gamers revolt and boycott?"
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Comment: There's nothing wrong with science... (Score 4, Insightful) 155

by Gavin Scott (#39486309) Attached to: Dysfunction In Modern Science?

...but people forget that "scientists" are not "science", they are simply people using the tools of science to seek the kind of knowledge that the scientific method and process can produce. As such they are subject to all of the same pressures, hopes, dreams, failures, etc. that the rest of us are.

But the process of science itself will always move forward, since science is only about reproducible experiments, so no matter how much bad (human) behavior might get involved, eventually the "truth" will win out. But the bad behavior can of course be extremely damaging to the process.

So there's nothing wrong with "science" or even its application I think. There are probably economic incentives that are promoting behaviors that affect the short-term reliability and the long-term costs of gaining useful scientific knowledge though, and hopefully we can come up with ways of improving the meta-processes.

G.

Earth

Cloud seeding by drone for India->

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes "An Indian-promoted aviation company in New Zealand is developing what it claims to be the world’s first Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for cloud seeding.

Auckland-based Apeiron Aerospace, an innovative aerospace company focussed on delivering technology to the global UAV sector, has designed a tactical UAV system for cloud seeding as the existing process involving manned aircraft endangers the lives of pilots.

“There is a need for UAVs for cloud seeding. It is a question of pilot’s life. It becomes very difficult to control the aircraft in high turbulence,” Sanjeev Rao, director, Apeiron Aerospace, said."

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Power

MIT makes 3D solar cell stacks, increases power by 20x-> 2

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes "What’s better than one pancake? A whole stack of pancakes! Using the same logic, a team of MIT researchers have stacked a bunch of photovoltaic solar cells together to produce up to 20 times the power output of conventional solar power installations. According to MIT, solar cells themselves are only around 35% of the total cost of a solar power installation. The main issue with solar power (and its main cost) is its low energy density, and thus the sheer surface area required to generate a sizable amount of electricity. This is why you need to cover your whole roof with cells to power your light bulbs. To combat this issue, MIT has built 3D stacks of photovoltaic cells. These have the same footprint of a conventional, flat solar power setup — but the total surface area is much, much higher. This 3D design has the hugely desirable effect of increasing power output when the sun is at a low angle, i.e. in the morning, evening, winter, and at latitudes far away from the equator — and as far as solar power is concerned, anything that reduces power fluctuation is a very good thing."
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Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld

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