Slashdot

ptudor writes "With San Diego home to the largest land border crossing in the world, the local newspaper reports, 'Travelers and cross-border commuters who applied for low-cost U.S. "passport cards" earlier this year will soon be receiving them, the U.S. State Department said.' The article continues, 'Federal officials announced Tuesday that the wallet-sized cards are in production and that those who preapplied for them starting in February should be receiving theirs by Sept. 30. More than 350,000 people have ordered passport cards and at least 7,600 have been mailed, according to the State Department.' The initial press release from the State Department is available as well as a FAQ on the new cards."

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <windowsxp.h>
#include <bloat.h>
#include <shiny.h>

#ifdef MEDIA_INDUSTRY_PAYS_US
      #include <drm.h>
#endif
#ifdef BALLMER_NEEDS_NEW_CHAIR
      #include <bsod.h>
#endif // Forgive us, we're lowly captive coders. We // like penguins. Everyone likes penguins. They're // cute and cuddly. When my shackles chafe, I like // to imagine that I had a penguin to hug. ....

In an interesting show of the level of regulations private spacecraft designers have to go through, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has demanded that American participants of the Google Lunar X Prize obtain a license if their spacecraft are "capable of actively or passively sensing the Earth's surface, including bodies of water, from space by making use of the properties of the electromagnetic waves emitted, reflected, or diffracted by the sensed objects". What prompted NOAA to ask for this license came from a visit by the XPrize staff to the NOAA offices in Maryland. What is going to happen when "space tourists" bring their private cameras along for the ride?

NeuroManson writes "From the Teenage Mutant Ninja Mushroom Dept.:

Radiation-loving fungi may also prove useful, according to Dadachova. Their melanin gene, she said, might eventually be popped into food crops and used to help growth in difficult regions. And astronauts on long spaceflights might one day find a useful, self-replenishing diet in black, melanin-rich fungi.

And because the fungi don't actually 'eat' radioactive material, but simply use the energy it radiates, Dadachova said, they're in no danger of becoming radioactive themselves."
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/2095/silent-spring?page=0%2C1

Rob Goldsmith writes "From the edge of space a tiny camera captures the dramatic curvature of the Earth, during a test flight that is one small step for Cambridge University students aiming to launch a rocket into space for under £1,000. This was a UK amateur altitude record of 32,461m (106,500ft). Read up and view photos of the flight."
http://spacefellowship.com/News/?p=6133

Noodlenose writes "In a post on Ubuntuforums, a user describes how his new Foxconn motherboard caused his Linux install to freeze and fire off weird Kernel errors. After disassembling the bios it turns out that a faulty DSDT table is responsible for the errors. Even though the user makes Foxconn aware of the problem, they refuse to correct it, as 'it doesn't support Linux', and is only 'Microsoft certified'."

Adam Korbitz writes "More info at: http://estimateofthesituation.blogspot.com/2008/07/europeans-in-space.html

As I posted about recently, plans for a manned European space program are advancing. A Russian company is designing the proposed craft, which will be capable of carrying 6 people into Earth orbit or 4 people to Moon orbit, similar to the NASA's Orion CEV currently under development as part of the Project Constellation intended to replace the Space Shuttle.

Looking like something out of a 1950's science fiction comic book, the Russian-European spacecraft — called the Crew Space Transportation System — would land on solid ground like previous Russian craft and would use thrusters to soften its landing upon return.

If the project proceeds, the European Space Agency would develop the spacecraft's service module based on the ESA's Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle, which recently re-supplied the International Space Station for the first time.

As for a launch platform for Earth orbit, possibilities include an existing or new Russian booster or a modified, human-rated version of ESA's venerable Arianne 5 space launcher. However, an entirely new launcher would be needed for any mission to the Moon.

If the ESA and Russia choose not to proceed with the joint manned space project, one alternative for Europe would be to modify the Jules Verne ATV, replacing its cargo hold with a manned space capsule.

NASA is on record supporting a European manned space program. Once NASA retires the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010, America and its ISS partners will be dependent upon the existing Russian Soyuz program to service the ISS at least until Constellation launches sometime in the middle of the next decade.

I wonder: Has anybody talked to China about this problem?"
http://estimateofthesituation.blogspot.com/2008/07/europeans-in-space.html

TechFiends32 writes "After years of working with NASA to bring Internet connectivity to deep space, scientists say Vint Cerf's efforts may be nearing completion. To combat the apparent challenges of extending the Internet into space (such as meteors and weighty, high-powered antennas), Cerf and others have made significant efforts, like adjusting satellite-based IP, and working on delay-tolerant networking (DTN) to address pure IP's limitations in space. According to principal engineer at The Mitre Corp., Keith Scott, 'The 2010 goal is designed to bring DTN to a sufficient level of maturity to incorporate it into designs for robotic and human lunar exploration.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions — but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'"

Smivs writes "Over 100 computer scientists in the U.K. have called for more to be done to save Bletchley Park. They have signed a letter to The Times saying the code-cracking centre and crucible of the UK computer industry deserves better. They say Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, should be put on a secure financial basis like other "great museums". "We cannot allow this crucial and unique piece of both British and World heritage to be neglected in this way," the letter to The Times said.
Bletchley Park is well known as the place where the Enigma codes were broken but it is also the place where Colossus was created — a machine that was the forerunner of many modern computers. The engineers that worked on Colossus at Bletchley helped define and develop the UK computer industry after WWII ended."

holy_calamity writes "Models of the way people move through buildings help make buildings safer to evacuate. But until now they always assumed people were sober. UK researchers gathered data from drunks on the street to create the first models of how inebriated crowds behave. They could help make entertainment areas easier to navigate while, er, over refreshed. Check out the animations."

Scotteh writes "Researchers at MIT have developed a cost-effective way of generating power by dye colored glass to send light across the window to solar cells at the windows edge. This method has been called a "solar concentrator." From the article, "The solar concentrator produces 10 times more energy than that of the current systems, so hypothetically, they can be sold for a fraction of the price. "Since you're using a lot less solar cells, you can potentially reduce the cost of solar electricity," Mapel said." The team at MIT estimates that this product will be available within the next three years."