Monday, October 18
Self-driving Cars
Autonomous-driving firm Waymo's cars have been going up and down the cul-de-sac at all hours "for weeks", according to local news station KPIX.
Residents say vehicles sometimes have to queue before making multi-point turns to leave the way they came.
Waymo says the vehicles are just "obeying road rules" designed to limit traffic in certain residential streets.
"There are some days where it can be up to 50," Jennifer King told KPIX. "It's literally every five minutes. And we're all working from home, so this is what we hear."
She said the human "safety drivers" supervising the automated cars "don't have much to say other than the car is programmed and they're just doing their job".
A spokesman for Waymo said the cars sometimes made a detour because of the presence nearby of one of San Francisco's "slow streets", which aim to limit traffic in certain residential areas.
"We continually adjust to dynamic San Francisco road rules. In this case, cars travelling north of California on 15th Avenue have to take a u-turn due to the presence of 'slow streets' signage on Lake," the company said. READ MORE...
Back on Earth
Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild left the International Space Station and landed in Kazakhstan - to be met by a crew filming touchdown scenes.
The ISS shooting was not without drama - suitable for a film called Challenge.
On Friday the ISS unexpectedly tilted after a glitch in its thrusters, pausing filming. It was not thought to be part of the script.
In a farewell tweet from the ISS, Peresild showed off a weightless hairdo likely to thwart any conspiracy theorists who think it was all shot on Earth:
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter
The movie has been in its own kind of space race - with Tom Cruise. He is apparently part of a Hollywood filming-in-space project involving Nasa and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
The module carrying Peresild and Shipenko, along with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, parachuted down to Earth at about lunchtime on Sunday in the Kazakhstan steppe.
Their departure was not delayed by Friday's glitch, which resulted in lost positioning control for about half an hour. READ MORE...
The module carrying Peresild and Shipenko, along with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, parachuted down to Earth at about lunchtime on Sunday in the Kazakhstan steppe.
Their departure was not delayed by Friday's glitch, which resulted in lost positioning control for about half an hour. READ MORE...
Sunday, October 17
Optical Illusion
Here's a 16th-century optical illusion, though, that goes beyond just being a clever trick, and offers a more profound reflection on life.
The illusion appears in 'The Ambassadors' (shown above), painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1533, which memorialises Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend, Georges de Selve.
Most people won't spot it when viewing the painting face on, and the illusion only properly reveals itself when you view the painting from the right. Watch the video below and you'll see exactly what we mean.
As the video shows, there's an anamophic skull lurking in the foreground, which only fully reveals itself when you're in the correct position. It's quite a clever trick, and a real 'wow' moment when you spot it. But the artist didn't just put this in to show off.
There's a deeper story to tell here. READ MORE...
The Big Band IS NOT the Beginning
The Big Bang teaches us that our expanding, cooling universe used to be younger, denser, and hotter in the past...
However, extrapolating all the way back to a singularity leads to predictions that disagree with what we observe...
Instead, cosmic inflation preceded and set up the Big Bang, changing our cosmic origin story forever...
Where did all this come from? In every direction we care to observe, we find stars, galaxies, clouds of gas and dust, tenuous plasmas, and radiation spanning the gamut of wavelengths: from radio to infrared to visible light to gamma rays. No matter where or how we look at the universe, it’s full of matter and energy absolutely everywhere and at all times.
However, extrapolating all the way back to a singularity leads to predictions that disagree with what we observe...
Instead, cosmic inflation preceded and set up the Big Bang, changing our cosmic origin story forever...
Where did all this come from? In every direction we care to observe, we find stars, galaxies, clouds of gas and dust, tenuous plasmas, and radiation spanning the gamut of wavelengths: from radio to infrared to visible light to gamma rays. No matter where or how we look at the universe, it’s full of matter and energy absolutely everywhere and at all times.
And yet, it’s only natural to assume that it all came from somewhere. If you want to know the answer to the biggest question of all — the question of our cosmic origins — you have to pose the question to the universe itself, and listen to what it tells you.
Today, the universe as we see it is expanding, rarifying (getting less dense), and cooling. Although it’s tempting to simply extrapolate forward in time, when things will be even larger, less dense, and cooler, the laws of physics allow us to extrapolate backward just as easily.
Today, the universe as we see it is expanding, rarifying (getting less dense), and cooling. Although it’s tempting to simply extrapolate forward in time, when things will be even larger, less dense, and cooler, the laws of physics allow us to extrapolate backward just as easily.
Long ago, the universe was smaller, denser, and hotter. How far back can we take this extrapolation? Mathematically, it’s tempting to go as far as possible: all the way back to infinitesimal sizes and infinite densities and temperatures, or what we know as a singularity.
This idea, of a singular beginning to space, time, and the universe, was long known as the Big Bang.
But physically, when we looked closely enough, we found that the universe told a different story. Here’s how we know the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore. READ MORE...
But physically, when we looked closely enough, we found that the universe told a different story. Here’s how we know the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore. READ MORE...
Resonance Theory
These questions are all aspects of the ancient “mind-body problem,” which asks, essentially: What is the relationship between mind and matter? It’s resisted a generally satisfying conclusion for thousands of years.
The mind-body problem enjoyed a major rebranding over the last two decades. Now it’s generally known as the “hard problem” of consciousness, after philosopher David Chalmers coined this term in a now classic paper and further explored it in his 1996 book, “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.”
Chalmers thought the mind-body problem should be called “hard” in comparison to what, with tongue in cheek, he called the “easy” problems of neuroscience: How do neurons and the brain work at the physical level? Of course, they’re not actually easy at all. But his point was that they’re relatively easy compared to the truly difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter.
Over the last decade, my colleague, University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and of physical reality more generally. It sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stick with me. READ MORE...
Saturday, October 16
Aztec Empire Spirit Mirror
John Dee was a mathematician, astrologer and occultist. (Image credit: Copyright Antiquity Publications Ltd./Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)The 16th-century courtier John Dee, a scientific adviser to England's Queen Elizabeth I, was also deeply involved in magic and the occult, and he tried to commune with ghosts, using a so-called spirit mirror made of polished obsidian.
Now, a new analysis of Dee's infamous mirror has finally traced its origins — not to the spirit world, but to the Aztec Empire.
Obsidian mirrors such as Dee's were known from Aztec culture, but there were no records on his mirror's origins. However, geochemical analysis enabled researchers to link the mirror's obsidian — a type of volcanic glass — to Pachuca, Mexico, a popular source of obsidian for Aztec people. This finding indicated that the artifact was Aztec and not a copy made from European obsidian, and Dee likely acquired the mirror after it was brought to Europe from Mexico, according to a new study.
Though Dee was a scientist and mathematician, his interests also swung toward the magical and mystical, and in addition to the spirit mirror, he owned other objects related to astrology, divination, alchemy and the exploration of "demonic magic," scientists reported Oct. 7 in the journal Antiquity.
Dee claimed that one of these objects, a purple crystal on a chain, was given to him by the archangel Uriel, along with instructions for making a philosopher's stone — the mythical alchemical marvel that promised the gift of eternal life and the ability to turn base metals into gold, according to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London. Dee also possessed a Claude glass, a black glass mirror kept in a sharkskin case, which he used for "peering into the future," according to the RCP.
Dee's obsidian mirror, now in the collection of the British Museum in London, is polished on both sides and is nearly perfectly circular, measuring about 7.2 inches (18.5 centimeters) in diameter and 0.5 inches (13 mm) thick, and weighing about 31 ounces (882 grams). A perforated square tab at the top of the mirror measures about 1.3 inches (33 mm) long and may have served as a handle, according to the study. READ MORE...
Doesn't Go Boom
Concorde flew from London to New York in three and a half hours. It soared at nearly twice the speed of sound, leaving an almighty sonic boom in its wake. The noise restricted where it could fly, but now NASA hopes it can resurrect faster-than-sound travel, with quiet supersonic flight.
Enter X-59 QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Technology), developed by NASA and Lockheed Martin. With its uniquely designed shape, the aircraft should allow NASA to break the sound barrier again – but this time, with no more noise than your neighbour slamming a car door.
At Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works factory in Palmdale, California, an engineer works on the fuselage section of the X-59. The black rectangular panels are air intakes for the plane’s environmental control system (ECS), and the silver grate is the ECS exhaust. These features are placed on the top of the craft to reshape the shock wave pattern © Lockheed Martin
The general shape of the X-59, including the wings, can be seen here as the craft is assembled © Lockheed Martin
This image is looking inside the X-59’s engine inlet. Usually, the engine is placed on the bottom of an aircraft, but on the X-59, this section of the inlet and engine are mounted to the top of the plane. This is so the shock waves from the inlet and engine are shielded by the wing to reduce the sonic boom to a sonic thump © Lockheed Martin
The F414-GE-100 engine sits in the assembly area at GE Aviation’s Riverworks facility in Lynn, Massachusetts as it prepares for checkout tests. The engine will power the X-59 in flight © GE Aviation
Illustration of how the completed X-59 might look © Lockheed Martin
Rather than a forward-facing windscreen, the pilot sees the view via an HD video display © Lockheed Martin
Enter X-59 QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Technology), developed by NASA and Lockheed Martin. With its uniquely designed shape, the aircraft should allow NASA to break the sound barrier again – but this time, with no more noise than your neighbour slamming a car door.
At Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works factory in Palmdale, California, an engineer works on the fuselage section of the X-59. The black rectangular panels are air intakes for the plane’s environmental control system (ECS), and the silver grate is the ECS exhaust. These features are placed on the top of the craft to reshape the shock wave pattern © Lockheed Martin
The general shape of the X-59, including the wings, can be seen here as the craft is assembled © Lockheed Martin
This image is looking inside the X-59’s engine inlet. Usually, the engine is placed on the bottom of an aircraft, but on the X-59, this section of the inlet and engine are mounted to the top of the plane. This is so the shock waves from the inlet and engine are shielded by the wing to reduce the sonic boom to a sonic thump © Lockheed Martin
The F414-GE-100 engine sits in the assembly area at GE Aviation’s Riverworks facility in Lynn, Massachusetts as it prepares for checkout tests. The engine will power the X-59 in flight © GE Aviation
Illustration of how the completed X-59 might look © Lockheed Martin
Rather than a forward-facing windscreen, the pilot sees the view via an HD video display © Lockheed Martin
TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS AIRCRAFT, CLICK HERE...
Being Successful
Sound familiar?
Now, logically you know that success is more than just money, a big job title, a particular relationship status or a certain lifestyle. But on days like this, it’s difficult not to compare yourself to others based on these very parameters. And if you’re not exactly where you had hoped to be, it’s really difficult to think of yourself as being ‘successful’.
Next time you’re having one of those days, stop and read this. If you relate to any of these points, you are more successful than you give yourself credit for.
YOU LEAD A BALANCED LIFESTYLE
When I say a balanced lifestyle, I do not simply mean that you wake up at 5 am, go for a run, meditate, and still find time to pack a healthy lunch before heading out for work. There are innumerable other ways to find balance in your life.
Maybe you spend an awful lot of time working, but you are careful to pay equal attention to your mental health too. Maybe you post quite a bit on social media, but you know how to stay in the moment when you’re with your loved ones. Or maybe you just know yourself well enough to understand when you need to go for a run, and when you need a pizza. If you are able to enjoy the things that make you happy, without going overboard or feeling guilty, then that according to me, is a mark of success.
When I say a balanced lifestyle, I do not simply mean that you wake up at 5 am, go for a run, meditate, and still find time to pack a healthy lunch before heading out for work. There are innumerable other ways to find balance in your life.
Maybe you spend an awful lot of time working, but you are careful to pay equal attention to your mental health too. Maybe you post quite a bit on social media, but you know how to stay in the moment when you’re with your loved ones. Or maybe you just know yourself well enough to understand when you need to go for a run, and when you need a pizza. If you are able to enjoy the things that make you happy, without going overboard or feeling guilty, then that according to me, is a mark of success.
YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE ADMITTING WHEN YOU’RE WRONG OR GIVING CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
You messed up. You overlooked an error in that report you just turned in. You forgot to pick up groceries when you know it was your turn to do so. You hit ‘Reply All’ on a message that was not meant for everyone on that thread. What do you do?
If you own up to your mistake, apologize, and avoid shifting blame (“How about that one time YOU forgot to do the laundry?”) — you have a lot to feel good about. It shows you don’t think less of yourself just because you’re wrong — and you don’t think others will either. The same goes for times when you are praised for something that you did not do, and you feel comfortable redirecting credit where it’s due. Not everyone is mature or confident enough to do that. The fact that you are, makes you more successful than you think. TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS, CLICK HERE...
You messed up. You overlooked an error in that report you just turned in. You forgot to pick up groceries when you know it was your turn to do so. You hit ‘Reply All’ on a message that was not meant for everyone on that thread. What do you do?
If you own up to your mistake, apologize, and avoid shifting blame (“How about that one time YOU forgot to do the laundry?”) — you have a lot to feel good about. It shows you don’t think less of yourself just because you’re wrong — and you don’t think others will either. The same goes for times when you are praised for something that you did not do, and you feel comfortable redirecting credit where it’s due. Not everyone is mature or confident enough to do that. The fact that you are, makes you more successful than you think. TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS, CLICK HERE...
Friday, October 15
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