Remember that "impossible" drive that everyone agreed cannot work but few labs made it work? Sceptics said that it wasn't really working. That thrust was just natural thermal convection currents arising from microwave heating or some other environmental conditions external to the drive. So NASA used it in vacuum and it still works. The physicist ( Read more... )

The forecast yesterday promised snow or freezing rain and as expected we got the worse option. This morning all cars were encased in ice and it also covered all the over the air walkways. It's hilly here so they often connect the buildings to streets. I was sliding on mine to the pavement and then pulled myself by the railing to the building I work ( Read more... )

I've been avoiding #Gamergate for the same reason I avoided Ebola - just thinking about it makes me sad and angry. But at least Ebola is a virus - it doesn't have a malicious intent. #Gamergate is bringing out some of the worst stuff humanity has to offer. I suppose it's not surprising for something that's started with some guys revenge/hate posts ( Read more... )

This is how one orbit lap looks like from the space station - the sun going the full round. This one was going parallel to terminator so the sun never sets/rises. It just makes the full loop.
This is so awesome - real space videos always are ( Read more... )

I knew I had to do this. It was inevitable. My system drive kept running out of space and I had to reinstall Windows on a different drive. But it's never just reinstalling the system, is it? And doing it all and setting everything up the way I like it always takes forever. I started on Sunday morning and I'm sure I will keep running into missing ( Read more... )

Today is 100 anniversary of Alan Turing's birth. Now, 100 years after he was born he's a hero. He's lauded as a man who broke the Enigma code (although this was not something he did alone and, as a Pole, I cannot not mention it was first broken by Polish cryptographers - Turing made a machine broke the second generation Enigmas). He is considered ( Read more... )

Tad William's future multiplayer virtual game series of books Otherland is getting turned into a game. And this is how we end up in matrioshka realities with no way of knowing what is real.

Click to view

Click to view

( General spoilers for the books' setting )

I just became eligible for phone upgrade so I decided it's time to finally get a smartphone and I did. Before I decided which phone I want I thought about which OS I want. I already know I like Android because I have a tablet. I though about Windows phone but the platform is new and has little support outside Microsoft (yet). So I decided to see if ( Read more... )

The NewScientist has a slew of robotics and AI articles. I look at some of these and I can't stop thinking this is how the whole things starts. After the world becomes a thing run by them these will be what they would look at as we look at our baby pictures - you know the in utero ones. Especially, The Painting Fool's art:


( Read more... )

The biggest story lately is the discovery of a hidden life on the floor of Southern ocean. Almost 2.5 km beneath water in cold waters near Antarctic there is an oasis of lives powered by thermal vents. There are pale octopuses, and hairy, white yeti crabs. All colourless as the creatures of constant darkness tend to be ( Read more... )