Comment Re:Leaked Model (Score 2) 37
"Compliance!"
Comment Unveiled (Score 5, Informative) 37
The press release has a single image of a dark v-tailed airplane, on a dark background, with swirling mist around it. In the corner it has a prominent "Generated Content" label, which I assume means AI-generated.
The content of the press release is listing of specifications and proposed uses (and 3 paragraphs on the storied history of x-planes). It doesn't say who's actually building it, when we'll actually see it in reality, when it'll start flight testing - nothing.
NASA calls that an "unveiling" - I don't think that word means what NASA thinks it means. This is an announcement, with nothing to actually show, just concepts of plans for something in the future. Sounds a lot like vaporware - more like VC-oriented crap coming out of Silicon Valley with $10bn valuations, a slide deck, some fancy graphics, and no actual product.
The content of the press release is listing of specifications and proposed uses (and 3 paragraphs on the storied history of x-planes). It doesn't say who's actually building it, when we'll actually see it in reality, when it'll start flight testing - nothing.
NASA calls that an "unveiling" - I don't think that word means what NASA thinks it means. This is an announcement, with nothing to actually show, just concepts of plans for something in the future. Sounds a lot like vaporware - more like VC-oriented crap coming out of Silicon Valley with $10bn valuations, a slide deck, some fancy graphics, and no actual product.
Comment Re:Surprisingly good. (Score 2) 285
He can fly his cars up his arse.
An interesting notion, considering they're now rocket powered!
Comment Re:Looks like a cool background for intro credits (Score 1) 23
I don't know why, but it looks like a cool background for a movie or series into credits.
Agreed. Kind of a smash-up between the intro to Halt and Catch Fire crossed with Gnarls Barkely's Crazy.
Comment Re:Skeptical that this always presents itself quic (Score 1) 71
This video shows the exact same damage occurring after 75,001 opens
What does that equate to in terms of real-world usage? My smartphone tells me I average about 35 pickups/day. If every single one of those warranted opening the hinge, that'd be about 2000 days of usage - over 5 years.
Not that I'm buying a Duo (or any other folding phone) at any point. My current smartphone is 5 years old, and I don't plan to replace it until it fatally breaks.
Comment Re:Tesla's experiments (Score 1) 177
charge up at work, then use the power at home in the evening leaving just enough charge to get back to work in the morning to recharge. A great life-hack to cut your utility bill, but the downside was the battery cycling dramatically reduced the life of the cells
That does not sound right. Just how much capacity does it take to "power at home in the evening"? The average American home uses 30 kWh/day (I'm not sure how - my family averages 1/3 of that). Let's say that half of that is being supplied by the Tesla - 15 kWh. For a 75-kWh pack, that's using just 20% of the capacity. Repeatedly cycling 20% of a Li-Ion battery does not seriously degrade its lifespan, especially if that is the 60-80%, rather than the 0-20% or 80-100%, and especially since all evidence over the years indicate Tesla packs have a useful lifespan well past 200k miles.
Comment Re:The only way to fix it is to fix the rewards (Score 1) 109
If we don't fix our economic system to reword behavior that prioritizes people and the environment, I don't think humanity has a chance.
I'd reframe it: change the system to penalize those that trash people and the environment. In other words: put a price on negative externalities such that they must be paid for. (It has a similar effect to rewarding the behavior you do want.)
Comment Re:The Expense Is In The Shutdown And Cleanup (Score 1) 152
The major expense of a nuclear reactor is in decommissioning, the shutdown and cleanup at it's retirement.
It's a massive cost, to be sure. But recent history indicates that every nuclear plant represents on the order of $10 billion in upfront costs.
Comment Re:Well, duh (Score 1) 149
Two we're considering are the Toyota RAV4 and the Subaru Forester.
May I suggest you consider the Rav4 Prime, which is the plug-in hybrid version? It has enough all-electric range for a daily commute, but several hundred miles of total range. Plus, because it has enough electric power for highway driving, combined with the ICE, it has crazy peak power and a higher towing capacity than a stock Rav4.
Comment Re:The US stopped subsidizing EVs, didn't tax fuel (Score 1) 149
on top of regular vehicle tariffs, makes gas trucks the less bad choise.
What were you saying about market manipulation ??
Indeed. Go read up on the history of the Chicken Tax going back to the 1960s to see a textbook example of tariff protectionism, and part of the reason the US auto market is so damn truck-heavy.
Comment Summary misses the coolest details (Score 5, Interesting) 75
Atomic clocks work using the energy transitions between different electron orbitals. Nuclear clocks work by using energy transitions within the nucleus itself - the difference between the lowest energy arrangement of the protons+neutrons and excited states (isomers).
Normally you need a serious punch to get a nucleus into an excited state: x-rays, gamma rays, or bombardment with energic particles. It so happens that thorium-229 requires the lowest energy to get to an excited state, and that can be achieved with deep-UV (148 nm) light. Laser light at that wavelength has only recently become possible. Also: Th-229 does not really exist in nature, you have to extract it from the decay of U-235, which itself has low natural abundance.
So it's pretty cool stuff, and this first demonstration hints at what could be possible in the future. Atomic clocks use light in the microwave range; this nuclear clock uses light in a frequency band five orders or magnitude higher, and so could theoretically have that much greater precision. And because the fundamental phenomenon occurs in the nucleus rather than the electron cloud, it's much less susceptible to external interference.
Normally you need a serious punch to get a nucleus into an excited state: x-rays, gamma rays, or bombardment with energic particles. It so happens that thorium-229 requires the lowest energy to get to an excited state, and that can be achieved with deep-UV (148 nm) light. Laser light at that wavelength has only recently become possible. Also: Th-229 does not really exist in nature, you have to extract it from the decay of U-235, which itself has low natural abundance.
So it's pretty cool stuff, and this first demonstration hints at what could be possible in the future. Atomic clocks use light in the microwave range; this nuclear clock uses light in a frequency band five orders or magnitude higher, and so could theoretically have that much greater precision. And because the fundamental phenomenon occurs in the nucleus rather than the electron cloud, it's much less susceptible to external interference.
Comment Re:Paywalled (Score 3, Insightful) 75
My original submission included a number of not-paywalled links.
Comment My submission was better (Score 1) 75
Thanks, BeauHD, for swooping in, scooping my submission from two days ago, and posting a worse summary.
Submission + - First Nuclear Clocks Start Ticking in Vienna and Beijing (phys.org)
necro81 writes: Two groups, one in Vienna and one in Beijing, have successfully demonstrated the world's first nuclear clocks. Standard atomic clocks, like the caesium clocks that define the second, operate by observing the transition of electrons between different orbits about the nucleus. The resulting radiation is usually in the microwave range, and can produce clocks accurate to one second in 100 billion years.
Nuclear clocks go a step further, and probe energy transitions within the nucleus itself. Nuclei can arrange their protons and neutrons into different configurations, called isomers. The isomer with the lowest energy is the one usually found; higher-energy ones are only metastable and decay quickly. Usually it takes serious energy — x-rays and gamma rays — to excite a nucleus into a higher-energy arrangement. It so happens that thorium-229 can be excited using UV light with a wavelength of 148 nm — just within the capabilities of some exotic lasers.
It's still been quite a challenge. For one thing, Th-229 is not found in nature; it must be extracted from the decay chain of uranium-235. The Beijing team used just a microgram mixed in a crystal of calcium fluoride.
Although these prototype nuclear clocks are not yet more accurate than existing atomic clocks (one second in millions, rather than billions, of years), they show the way towards what may be possible. Because the energy transition is in the nucleus, rather than the electron cloud, it is less susceptible to outside disturbances like magnetic fields. And the fundamental frequency is much higher (five orders of magnitude), which should yield more precise timing. This development could lead to smaller and more reliable time standards across the world (and solar system).
Nuclear clocks go a step further, and probe energy transitions within the nucleus itself. Nuclei can arrange their protons and neutrons into different configurations, called isomers. The isomer with the lowest energy is the one usually found; higher-energy ones are only metastable and decay quickly. Usually it takes serious energy — x-rays and gamma rays — to excite a nucleus into a higher-energy arrangement. It so happens that thorium-229 can be excited using UV light with a wavelength of 148 nm — just within the capabilities of some exotic lasers.
It's still been quite a challenge. For one thing, Th-229 is not found in nature; it must be extracted from the decay chain of uranium-235. The Beijing team used just a microgram mixed in a crystal of calcium fluoride.
Although these prototype nuclear clocks are not yet more accurate than existing atomic clocks (one second in millions, rather than billions, of years), they show the way towards what may be possible. Because the energy transition is in the nucleus, rather than the electron cloud, it is less susceptible to outside disturbances like magnetic fields. And the fundamental frequency is much higher (five orders of magnitude), which should yield more precise timing. This development could lead to smaller and more reliable time standards across the world (and solar system).
Comment Re:Nice! (Score 3, Funny) 49
These projects are not very visible
I'll say! They buried it at the South Pole!
