Category Archives: Blog

Blog

Air Force wants more alternative fuels

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Airplane Yorktown Military 283205 LThe US Air Force is trying to figure out how to mix regular jet fuel with alternative fuels to try and reduce the military dependence on outside oil. Even more dynamic, they’re using a contest between companies and fuel refinery companies to create the new jet fuel, which would be a 50% regular fuel 50% alternative fuel mixture, and the Air Force wants this in place by 2010.

Try and call the US military a bunch of freaky left wing activists, I dare you!

The Air Force uses over half of the US government’s fossil fuels, so anything they do will have an interesting impact on the US government’s direct consumption of fuel.

Blog

Spying bugs take wing

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Robot insect from Harvard University

The bugs used by spies and spooks have just taken a step closer to resembling their namesakes. Harvard University engineers have produced a life-size robotic fly that uses the same mechanical principles as living insects to get around. Its potential utility as a surveillance platform is obvious enough, and as the article notes, it might make a useful mobile sensor for hazardous or inaccessible locations … but I wonder what uses the street will find for this sort of technology once they can be fabbed cheaply en masse? I’m thinking advertising. [Gizmodo]

Blog

Is it time the print media stopped printing?

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newspapersAn article on the Business Week website suggests that some of the bigger American newspapers should stop printing physical copies and withdraw to publishing solely on the web – maybe not right away, but within the next year or two. It’s hardly a new suggestion, but it’s gaining more weight as time goes by – the logistics and overheads of print media are making it a tricky business in which to make a profit, and we’re consuming more media online all the time. The UK’s Guardian already lets you download the latest editions in PDF form, to print or not as you choose. How long will it be before all periodical publications are electronic? [Print Is Dead]

Blog

Cost of private jaunts into space going up

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SoyuzThe cost of going into space is inflating, from the $10 and $20 million that was being previously reported for private individuals to use the Russian Space Agency’s Soyuz to stay Hotel ISS is now going to be as much as $30-$40 million.

Some of this is due to the pressure on the US dollar against other currencies. Some if it may be due to increased cost of materials for the actual craft.

Virgin Galactic is looking like more and more of a bargain. As is staying at the Bigelow inflatable space station.

Blog

Humans: Colonize Space or Go Extinct

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No, it’s not another giant meteor scare.  Dr. Richard J. Gott, using a philosophical and scientific principle called the Copernican Principle, predicts how much longer things can last; presidents’ tenures, dogs lives, and the human species. Our future?  Anywhere from 5100 years to 7.8 million. And he makes this prediction with 95% accuracy.  To beat that range, he believes we will need to colonize another world (potentially Mars) in the next 46 years, and he uses the Fermi Paradox to back up this assertion.  I don’t know about you, but I think 7.8 million years would be woefully inadequate.