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Space

Excalibur Almaz To Offer Commercial Orbital Flights 76

Posted by kdawson from the big-circle-in-the-sky dept.
xp65 alerts to the plans of an international consortium called Excalibur Almaz Limited to open up a new era of private orbital space flight for commercial customers. The group, consisting of Russian, US, and Japanese companies, will use a formerly top-secret Soviet re-entry vehicle called Almaz to carry paying research crews on one-week missions into Earth orbit by 2013. This ambition represents a large step beyond the sub-orbital flight market so far targeted by most other private space companies. "Excalibur has raised 'tens of millions of dollars' to initiate what will become a several hundred million dollar program, [CEO] Dula tells Spaceflight Now. He has spent more than 20 years eying this specific Almaz program... He also says 'the business plan closes' generating profits within a few years. His surveys have found research and science customers for space missions that are not tourist hops, but less demanding than ISS operations."
The Internet

Weather Balloons To Provide Broadband In Africa 179

Posted by timothy from the how-about-the-rural-united-states-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two African entrepreneurs have secured exclusive access to market near-space technology — developed by Space Data, an American telecommunications company — throughout Africa. The technology raises hydrogen-filled weather balloons to 80,000 — 100,000 feet, which individuals contact via modems. The balloons, in turn, serve as satellite substitutes which can connect Africans to broadband Internet. 'Network operation centers are located close to a fiber optic cable — say, in Lagos or Accra — and a signal is sent back and forth to the [balloon] in near space,' says one of the entrepreneurs, Timothy Anyasi. The technology will also allow mobile phone operators to offer wireless modems to customers."
Programming

Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? 794

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-spend-it-building-forts dept.
Mike Croucher writes "Despite the fact that it is over 40 years old, Fortran is still taught at many Universities to students of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and more as their first ever formal introduction to programming. According to this article that shouldn't be happening anymore, since there are much better alternatives, such as Python, that would serve a physical science undergraduate much better. There may come a time in some researchers' lives where they need Fortran, but this time isn't in 'programming for chemists 101.' What do people in the Slashdot community think?"

Comment Re:Teachers... (Score 1) 316

by GerTheDwarf (#28278429) Attached to: China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest

If students testing at the X percentile on a standardized Algebra test at the end of Algebra I end up at the end of Geometry testing at 1.1X in one teacher's class and at 0.9X in another teacher's class in the next classroom, it seems we have a pretty good hint which teacher is better.

I strongly disagree. Students can understand different subjects better than others. They can become different (better or worse) students from one year to another, for instance, because of home(less) and family situation, have friends in this class but not that class, or like the hot teacher but don't like the old, ugly hippy.

Sure, there are some subject areas that don't lend themselves to standardized testing (for example, various performing arts), but these don't seem to be the areas that are resulting in American High School graduates being non-competitive.

So what you're saying is, those subjects in which there aren't standardized tests are areas where we are competetive. Hmm... sounds like you made the opposite argument here. Feeling and intuition are just as important in "rigorous" fields such as math as in liberal arts. Can you point me to a computer that can solve all our number theory or mathematical logic problems?

... end up being frustrated by not being rewarded for their performance...

I agree. However, using standardized tests is most commonly seen as a method for punishing poor performance, so why would they be supportive of that?
Books

Learning To Profit From Piracy 275

Posted by kdawson from the pointing-out-a-market-failure dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has an interview with Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism, which discusses how businesses could make money off of piracy, rather than attacking people in a futile attempt to suppress it. And some of his ideas are gaining traction; work is underway on a TV show called Pirate TV, which he describes as 'two parts Anthony Bourdain, one part Mythbusters.' (Heroes executive producer Jesse Alexander is on board.) Also, Mason is pretty good about practicing what he preaches in that you can pirate his book on his own website."
Space

Submission + - NASA spends money on lavish parties every launch (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by doug141
doug141 writes: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/09/eveningnews/main3481918.shtml

NASA spends between $400,000 and $1.3 million on a party AT EVERY LAUNCH, according to CBS. Select personnel are treated to 5 days at a 4 star hotel. This year alone, they've spent $4 million on parties. NASA asked for, and was given, $1 billion more from the Senate this year. NASA proponents argue it makes more sense to give money to talented, productive people in exchange for scientific knowledge, than spend in on unproductive people in the form of straight welfare.
Databases

Submission + - Free global virtual scientific library

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: More than 20,000 signatures, including several Nobel prize winners and 750 education, research, and cultural organisations from around the world came together to support free access to government funded research, "to create a freely available virtual scientific library available to the entire globe. The European Commission responded by committing more than $100m (£51m) towards facilitating greater open access through support for open access journals and for the building of the infrastructure needed to house institutional repositories that can store the millions of academic articles written each year. From the BBC article: "Last month five leading European research institutions launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish a new policy that would require all government-funded research to be made available to the public shortly after publication. That requirement — called an open access principle — would leverage widespread internet connectivity with low-cost electronic publication to create a freely available virtual scientific library available to the entire globe." Isn't this the way its suppose to be?
Quickies

Submission + - Big 'Ocean' Discovered Beneath Asia

Submitted by anthemaniac
anthemaniac writes: Seismic observations reveal a huge reservoir of water in Earth's mantle beneath Asia. It's actually rock saturated with water, but it's an ocean's worth of water ... as much as is in the whole Arctic Ocean. How did it get there? A slab of water-laden crust sank, and the water evaporated out when it was heated, and then it was trapped, the thinking goes. The discovery fits neatly with the region's heavy seismic activity and fits neatly with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.

Comment Re:Dreaming in technicolor (Score 4, Informative) 250

by GerTheDwarf (#17919800) Attached to: Purdue Makes Trash To Electricity Generator
Did you even read the article?

The reason everyone isn't doing it is because it isn't economic.
The point of the work was to make it economical. There hasn't been any work, until now, on _small_ scale waste management that _directly_ produces electricity. Before, the inventions required the business to perform some technical/dangerous/expensive task, mainly storing the gas, or installing a permanent structure.

AFAICT, they are using the same process as everyone else. Ergo, they should have the same results as everyone else.
No, not ergo, because the "results" are not based only on the fuel production process. What they were measuring was the ratio between diesel fuel consumed and electricity produced. They are probably using a highly efficient, highly modified engine, as well as other more advanced parts.

The guys at Purdue didn't mention how nasty the waste product from their process might be.
From the article:

The machine produces a very small amount of its own waste, Warner said, mostly in the form of ash that the Environmental Protection Agency has designated as "benign," or non-hazardous.
Back to the Anonymous Coward:

I don't expect to see one of these behind my local restaurant any time soon.
True, but I don't expect you would even look.

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My idea of roughing it turning the air conditioner too low.

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