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Space

Submission + - New FTL Theory (ncsu.edu) 6

Submitted by ctpmn
ctpmn writes: Time and space are interconnected and can be changed or displaced by a mass with a velocity. Meaning that if you throw a big enough ball fast enough then space and time would get all wobbly, keeping with frame dragging. Another interesting feature of time is that the faster you go, the slower time is for you relative to everything else. Meaning if an astronaut spends one week in outer space traveling around the earth very fast then when he arrives home he will have aged less than everyone around him. He will have aged one week but everyone else will have aged more like one week and an hour. Presumably this happens with all mass all the time, but the effect is generally very minor or is contained within our own locality. Either way these effects are generally imperceptible outside of using highly sophisticated equipment.
Arguably the biggest obstacle to long range space travel is the intergalactic speed limit, though no cops will be pulling us over. The speed of light is literaly called such because it is the speed light travels in a vaccum. Light having little or no mass, depending on who you ask, is able to hit the wall on this speed limit. Having a low mass is important because the faster you go the more engery it takes to speed up. Meaning the faster you go the harder it is to go faster.
So how do we go faster, short answer is we can't. This why many people have developed many theories for "Faster Than Light" travel. They all involve a backdoor of some sort. Some use a theoretical "Subspace", some use "Wormholes", both are highly theoretical and not very pratical. I propose something different.
Instead of trying to leave or jump through space I propose we manipulate time. I propose creating a highspeed ring of some substance (plasma? Think an outdoor LHC), running at near the speed of light. Perhaps multiple rings all going at near lightspeed. This would slow down time for for the rings. If we attached a fuel source inside of the rings it would propel the rings at rate increased proportionally by the amount that time has slowed down. If then find a way to keep the time of the internal structure on the same locality or at least more similar to that of the surrounding space we could in effect travel much faster by slowing down time.
In effect the spacetime of the rings and the attached speed device would travel at near the speed of light but the inside would be moving faster than the speed of light though not relative to the its surrounding space-time. It would only be moving faster than the speed of light relative to "earth spacetime". which should definately be possible. Consider two objects moving away from eachother at near lightspeed, relative to eachother they are moving faster than the speed of light.
For clarity I'm saying that the outside rings will travel at near the speed of light but they will be experiencing time more slowly. So relative to us they can go faster than the speed of light. Hopefully we would be able to have so equilibrium with the external space-time inside to stop people from experiencing the same slow time effect. Either way we should at least be able to build autonomous ships to go there an back at speeds in excess of what we experience to be the speed of light.
Maybe it makes no sense, I have no physics friends so not sure, but I thought it was a fun idea I would share.
Encryption

Submission + - The HTTPS Everywhere Firefox Extension (eff.org)

Submitted by Peter Eckersley
Peter Eckersley writes: EFF and Tor have announced a public beta of HTTPS Everywhere, a Firefox plugin that automatically encrypts your Google searches as well as requests to several other sites, including Wikipedia, Twitter, Identica, Facebook, some major newspapers, and a number of smaller search engines. This plugin makes it much easier to use encryption with sites that support it, but not by default.

For us, this is part of an ongoing campaign to turn the unencrypted web of the past into the encrypted web of tomorrow.
Canada

Submission + - Unlocked Phones For Canadians (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by SJrX
SJrX writes: The CBC is reporting that the Federal NDP party has tabled a bill requiring all cellphone companies to provide unlocked cellphones, from the article: "The bill proposes three rules: cellphone carriers would be required to notify customers at the point of purchase whether a phone is locked to work only on their network; they would have to remove such a lock free of charge at any point after the conclusion of the customer's service contract; and they would have to remove it if the customer does not enter into a contract within six months of buying the device up front." The fact that there is a minority government currently should help this bills chances of getting passed.

Comment Re:Are they...surprised? (Score 0, Troll) 562

by mxh83 (#32521390) Attached to: Google Slams Apple Over iPhone Ad Ban

You seem to imply that the iphone is expensive?
It is the same price, or cheaper than many Android phones. And there are free apps and games, if you don't want to spend on the paid ones.
The net prices are roughly the same for smartphones.
I think the problem is that you're cheap. Nothing in the world is cheap enough for you.

Comment Re:Want one so bad but won't buy (Score 0) 1184

by mxh83 (#32492772) Attached to: Apple Announces iPhone 4

1. People prefer itunes because of the sync, apps, podcasts and other cool features. All at one place. You don't get that over a standard USB connection.
2. iphone supports multitasking. The rest of your point is irrelevant to 99% of the population.
3. The price of a 32GB microsd is around $100, which is the difference in cost between the 2 iphones. And it's a small cheap thing you need to worry about, less rugged than inbuilt flash.
4. The app store is successful because it's closed. Devs like any other people, like to get paid. Wake up and try to understand the world works.

Comment Re:Competition is a good thing (Score 1) 1184

by mxh83 (#32492726) Attached to: Apple Announces iPhone 4

You need to have realistic expectations from a device that is at least 5 times smaller and lighter than your DSLR and can do millions of things more than just taking pics and video. A DSLR is not even worth the extra bulk over a P&S for 95% of the general populace.

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