The real threat is in how it is already being used for scientific analysis and discovery. Pair AI with technologies like CRISPR and you have bio-terror weaponry unlike anyone has ever seen. One that non-state actors or even talented crazies could use to create something that either kills off most of humanity directly or by destroying agriculture or wrecking the food chain.

From our continuing discussions with management teams and industry experts, the dessert topping is an extension of the floor wax. The floor wax is an extension of the dessert topping The lines between dessert topping and floor wax are truly blurring.

The ability for some idiot to get into a fatal accident in their self-driving Tesla while using their shiny Apple Vision Pro headset. Probably in service of making a TikTok video.

Formulating and writing a proposal (usually in collaboration with others) compelling enough to be selected for time on the telescope; I believe that the requests for time are about 5x the actual time available so it better be a worthwhile/convincing proposal. If you need money then writing up grant proposals compelling enough to get funding. Once you get the data then analyzing it (again usually with help) to try and validate your hypothesis. We're not talking about an Excel spreadsheet here, analysis usually requires significant computer resources like AWS storage and computing time using terabytes/petabytes of raw data.

Personally, I think putting that much work into it merits a bit of proprietary access (usually 3-12 months) to let someone finish their research. At which point the data does in fact go into a public archive which anyone can use to do further research and discover new things (and that actually happens quite a bit).

By this logic astronomers should be living in a refrigerator box under an overpass. Or perhaps we should return to the 17th century practice of finding a rich patron.

The proprietary shield lets them publish and receive credit for their research, which in turn allows them to potentially further their career/get a job based on their work. That is hardly a distorting "commerical interest".

Gartner predictions do make for an entertaining alternative to the standard lorem ipsum...especially when combined with crazy quotes from Charlie Sheen, Gary Busey, or Donald Trump.

Two words: flying snake.

Or 4 words: "Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks".

I am reminded by this image of a quote I saw recently: "Imagine worshipping a god who, despite creating 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, is really mad about your dildos".

The TDRS constellation is used by more than just the ISS; the Hubble Space Telescope uses it for data and commanding, as do a number of other NASA science missions.

Unfortunately, scientists often have their disagreements in the public forum (including social media). And while debate is a healthy/normal thing among scientists, the debate gets broadcast to an unsophisticated audience that does not understand the role of argument in science. It is all delivered by media that just barfs it all up without comment or analysis, giving equal weight to anyone they can tap for a 30 second sound bite on the six o'clock news. And scientists are like anyone else, they often have egos that need stroking so some are chomping at the bit to get in front of a camera or a microphone to trumpet their opinion.

People thus hear all the argument and opinions and end up with a skeptical view of science; they mistake constructive criticism and argument for "they have no idea what they are talking about".

The media is obviously not going to change, perhaps scientists need to be a little less oblivious to the fact that hashing things out for all the world to see is not necessarily a good thing.

It was delayed because ArianeSpace needed to confirm they had fixed an issue with the Ariane 5 payload shroud jettisoning correctly (news article). They needed two launches to confirm the fix after pausing launches earlier in the year.

There'a also a certain amount of lead time to get the payload checked out after shipping and mated to the rocket at the launch facility in French Guiana -- it's not like they just hitch a truck to the telescope and drive off with it.

It's also not out of the realm of possibility that liquid oxygen shortages due to the pandemic could cause a delay; ULA and SpaceX have had issues, may not be as much of an issue in Guiana.

"People familiar with the strategy say Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos believes machines make decisions more quickly and accurately than people, reducing costs and giving Amazon a competitive advantage."

Judging from what I've seen in my career, the "C-suite" seems like the perfect candidate for replacement by algorithmic decision-making, if we're going to start doing that sort of thing. In terms of cost I can't think of a more cost-ineffective area than most top executives.

The rationale for this seems pretty easy to figure out...where does Microsoft make money now? Azure. And having a JDK they can optimize for cloud use makes perfect sense. The competitor they're targeting is Amazon.

"In contrast, the figures for civil engineering were 61 percent and 52 percent..."

That's because after you get a degree it takes like 6 years to get your professional licensing. Engineer-in-training exam, then indentured servitude, then another mondo exam to get your professional engineer license. And then only the senior engineers/partners actually use their PE stamps.

And if you deal with any sort of municipal-type project, those run for years, possibly decades. I worked for a couple civil engineering firms before switching to IT, and I saw more than one major project that had been in the works for several years get put on a shelf to maybe get finished/built in a decade or so.