-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
It’s finally happened: after nearly a century, Mickey Mouse has slipped off Disney’s copyright leash. The first versions of the iconic cartoon character, seen in Steamboat Willie and a silent version of Plane Crazy, enter the public domain in the US on January 1st, 2024. (An early version of Minnie Mouse is also fortunately included.) There’s still a…
The approach is linked to a political philosophy which champions the idea of pioneering entrepreneurs as figureheads who advance civilisation through sheer individual brilliance and determination. In reality, however, most modern technological building blocks – like car batteries, space rockets, the internet, smart phones, and GPS – emerged from publicly funded research. They were not the inspired work of corporate masters of the universe.…
Aptly named the Adaptable THruster based on Electrospray powered by Nanotechnology, or ATHENA, the compact unit relies on micro and nanotechnology to produce a silicon wafer featuring seven emitter arrays, fitted with a combined total of more than 500 of the tiny emitters that fire a spray of ions that are accelerated by an electrostatic field…
My children are hopelessly addicted to their gaming devices. This is a problem, but not one that I can directly solve because the school mandates that they have both an Android smartphone and a Windows laptop. Rather than to meet the problem head on I figured the better way to address it is to replace consumption with…
Representing a huge win for Ecuador’s Indigenous groups, this year the country held a referendum on extractivism, the first of its kind worldwide. On August 20, citizens headed to the polling stations to choose whether to halt oil exploitation in the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon and prohibit mining in the Chocó Andino region in…
Driven by the hackerspace movement and the broader community, we, Libre Space Foundation, are actively building our own satellites, space technologies, sharing knowledge and resources, and pushing the boundaries of space exploration. Our mission is to democratize space, making it available to everyone, regardless of background or resources. This emerging movement faces unique challenges, including…
This a project close to my heart… For our final project, we built Computron, a parallel computer consisting of Raspberry Pi Picos that communicate over a I2C bus. To demonstrate the power of parallel computation among these devices, the Mandelbrot set is computed across Picos. Every Pico computes a portion of the set, while one…
Remember the Chinese spy balloon—aka the “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes” (according to China)—that in February flew over the United States until the US Air Force shot it down? Apparently the super-secret surveillance device was, um, using an American internet service provider to communicate with its operators in China
If you’re wondering why perovskite solar cells are not yet widely available 14 years after that first paper was published, that’s a good question. Silicon is a more expensive energy-capturing material, but its durability has made it the go-to photovoltaic material of choice. Perovskites are relatively inexpensive, but they are unstable. Their crystalline structure shifts…
Meanwhile, electric cars are already upending America. In 2023, our battery-powered future became so much more real—a boom in sales and new models is finally starting to push us into the post-gas age. Americans are on track to buy a record 1.44 million of them in 2023, according to a forecast by BloombergNEF, about the…
How the history of military and government PSYOPS involving mind-control, UFOs, magic, and remote-control zombies, explains the future of AI and generative media. Along the way, talk attendees will be given an enrollment code to join a specialized CTF/ARG game called CYCLOPS that explores these themes and that will run the duration of Congress.
Dream Chaser’s maiden flight next year will be a collaboration between flight and ground controllers at the Dream Chaser Mission Control Center in Louisville, Colorado, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. During this flight, Tenacity will conduct a myriad of in-flight tests after launch and prior to docking with the…
It brings to mind Marinetti. “We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!” he wrote in 1919. “Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible?” Tech billionaires are radicalizing because they won’t accept any challenge to their power. Andreessen wants to force people…
The Hyperloop’s failure provides a lesson we’re learning far too late: that Silicon Valley won’t deliver us a better world if they can’t find some way to profit off it. We need to stop falling for their grand deceptions, and tell our media to stop echoing them too. https://www.disconnect.blog/p/the-hyperloop-was-always-a-scam
Welcome to Edition 6.24 of the Rocket Report! This will be the final edition of this newsletter until January 4—hey, space enthusiasts need a holiday break too! And given all that’s expected to happen in 2024 in the world of launch, a bit of a recharge seems like a smart move. Stephen and I wish…
According to Helicity, the core technology behind their fusion drive efficiently converts electricity into plasma heating, using a unique approach to scale fusion conditions and directly produce thrust. Their method, distinct from conventional magnetic or inertial (laser) fusion, employs self-organized Taylor relaxation and magnetic reconnection physics, combined with a peristaltic magnetic compression scheme. In very…
With few exceptions, we’re better off with just the skill part. The media loves the drama, but your co-workers and customers don’t.
From the “just give poor people money” file… But the biggest takeaway from the study was not about how much money they spent on addictive substances. It was that people who received the $750 were more likely to get off the streets. “The proportion of people who reported spending time unsheltered in the past month…
We’re still none the wiser as to what China is trying to achieve during its latest spaceplane mission beyond testing reusable spaceplane technologies and carrying out science experiments, per state-run news agency Xinhua. But considering China has pulled off three missions in just three years, it’s a tech demo that’s certainly worth following closely. https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinese-spaceplane-signal-north-american
We have failed to find a quantized theory of gravity. We have no description of what truly happens at the boundary of a black hole. But we have learned in our quantum wanderings that physical, three-dimensional entities are not exactly what they appear to be. Indeed, they are shallower: black holes may truly be described only by their…
Dave5 