Friday, March 31
Radical NASA Propulsion
A newly proposed propulsion system could theoretically beam a heavy spacecraft to outside the confines of our Solar System in less than 5 years – a feat that took the historic Voyager 1 probe 35 years to achieve.
The concept, known as 'pellet-beam' propulsion, was awarded an early-stage US$175,000 NASA grant for further development earlier this year.
To be clear, the concept currently doesn't exist much beyond calculations on paper, so we can't get too excited just yet.
Still, it's attracted attention not only because of its potential to get us into interstellar space within a human lifetime – something that traditional, chemical-fueled rockets can't – but also because it claims it can do so with much larger crafts.
"This proposal examines a new propulsion architecture for fast transit of heavy (1 ton and more) payloads across the Solar System and to interstellar medium," explains the lead researcher behind the proposal, aerospace engineer Artur Davoyan from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The pellet-beam concept was partly inspired by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, which is working on a 'light-sail' propulsion system. With the help of millions of lasers, a tiny probe would theoretically be able to sail to neighboring Proxima Centauri in just 20 years.
The new proposal starts with a similar idea – throw fuel at a rocket instead of blast it out of one – but it looks at how to shift larger objects. After all, a small probe isn't necessarily what we need if we want to one day explore, or colonize, the worlds outside our Solar System ourselves.
To work, the conceptual propulsion system requires two spacecraft – one that sets off for interstellar space, and one that goes into orbit around Earth.
The spacecraft orbiting Earth would shoot a beam of tiny microscopic particles at the interstellar spacecraft. READ MORE...
Thursday, March 30
AI & the Human Condition
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT
OF HAPPINESS...
We have smart phones and cmputers
We have smart homes and vehicles
We have the internet and social media forums
We have advances in medical technology/surgeries
We have advances in building construction/aircraft
We have Artificial Intelligent Robots that are replacing jobs...
And, it is this last point that, I personally, will become a huge problem once it is incorporated into our lifestyles and into our societies all over the world.
I enjoy watching Scifi movies where robots take over society because they have become sentient. While this may or may not happen (?), it will be several decades before it does and by then we will have safeguards built into our programming codes to prevent this from ever happening.
However... until then... AI/ROBOTS will change our society forever and many people are now believing it will not be for the better...
The biggest concern will be the replacement of jobs and what will those displaced workers do???
- Will they remain unemployed
- Will they be retrained
- Will they built robots
What jobs will be replaced?
- customer service executives
- bookkeeping, data entry, receptionists
- manufacturing
- pharmaceutical
- retail and courier services
- doctors and soldiers
- taxi and bus drivers
- market research analysts
- security guards
- restaurant workers
The World Economic Forum (2023) declared that AI/ROBOTS would replace 80,000,000 jobs in 2025. This is only 2 years away... what will happen between 2025-2030?
Technology is moving faster than anticipated and that progression is like a tidal wave and once it crests and begins to fall, the chaos will be devastating... and when that happens, how quick will OUR GOVERNMENT respond?
Manipulating Quantum LIght
Scientists stand ready to manipulate quantum light, just as Albert Einstein envisioned in 1916.
Researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Basel successfully managed to manipulate and identify small numbers of interacting photons—packets of light energy.
According to the team, this work represents an unprecedented landmark development for quantum technologies.
Stimulated light emission—a theory first proposed by Einstein in 1916 that helps explain how photons can trigger atoms to emit other photons—laid the basis for the invention of the laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation).
Stimulated light emission—a theory first proposed by Einstein in 1916 that helps explain how photons can trigger atoms to emit other photons—laid the basis for the invention of the laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation).
It’s long been understood for large numbers of photons, but this new research has allowed scientists to both observe and effect stimulated emission for single photons for the first time. Researchers measured the direct time delay between one photon and a pair of bound photons scattering off a single quantum dot, a type of artificially created atom.
“This opens the door to the manipulation of what we can call ‘quantum light,’” Sahand Mahmoodian, of the University of Sydney School of Physics and joint lead author of a research paper published in Nature Physics, says in a news release.
“This opens the door to the manipulation of what we can call ‘quantum light,’” Sahand Mahmoodian, of the University of Sydney School of Physics and joint lead author of a research paper published in Nature Physics, says in a news release.
“This fundamental science opens the pathway for advances in quantum-enhanced measurement techniques and photonic quantum computing. READ MORE...
Walmart VERSUS Morons
Read this all the way through. It is eye opening and factually true in every respect.
1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.
8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.
11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.
You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the groundwork for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the U.S. economy.
This should be read and understood by all Americans. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, EVERYONE!!
To all 435 voting members of congress and the 100 members of the US Senate. The majority of you are corrupt morons!
Consider your record and reflect on your performance:
a..The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775.
You have had 246 years to get it right and it is broke.
Stamps cost .58 cents and they may be going up on November 10th to .60 cents
b.. Social Security was established in 1935.
You have had 86 years to get it right and it is broke.
c.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938.
You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
d. The War on Poverty started in 1964.
You have had 57 years to get it right; it never went anywhere and you stole from our Social Security Fund. $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and you want more!
e.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965.
You have had 56 years to get it right and they are broke.
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970.
You have had 51 years to get it right and it is broke.
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before.
You had 44 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
h.. Currently, gasoline is at a record all time high and inflation is the highest it's been in 40 years!
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
We have a President that had 36 years of experience as a U.S. senator and 8 years as Vice- President. A President that promised to "Build Back Better", our current President is the epitome of a corrupt career politician! We elected an immoral, unethical freeloader that never had a plan except to live on the public dole, a scoundrel who bends the way the political winds blow and can't even finish a sentence without losing his train of thought. Not that he ever had an original thought!
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN ANYTHING??
Folks, keep this circulating. Maybe it will end up in the emails of some of our 'duly elected' (they never read anything) but maybe their staff will clue them in on how Americans feel. If you don't think we need to drain the swamp then you just don't plain think!
And please try to understand what's wrong.
We have lost our minds to corrupt career politicians and "Political Correctness"! Someone, please tell me what the HELL's wrong with the people that run this country! We are begging Venezuela for oil. We're "broke" & can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless, etc.,???????????
In the last months, we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey. We are funding the world on climate change! And now NATO, Afghanistan, the Ukraine, and Pakistan...previous home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!! Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid as our southern borders are overrun by illegals
AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment -etc., etc. We can't take proper care of our citizens. However, Illegals get everything free!!! They are put up in hotels fed meal health care and cash. Imagine if the *Federal GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to illegals and other countries.
The difference between genius and stupid is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein
Thursday OpEd
According to healthcare statistics, almost 72% of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight... 40% are obese...
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), someone who is overweight has a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25... someone who is obese has a BMI of 30...
BMI is calculated by taking one's weight and divided that number by the square of one's height...
There is very little difference between a BMI of 25 and a BMI of 30... so, I would say that 72% of Americans over the age of 20 have a weight problem... and yet, most of our advertising revolves around getting people to eat more and more and more...
It is not illegal yet to sell fat creating food therefore there is no reason to stop advertising for people to eat fat creating food. Like all other businesses, fat creating food companies continually want to increase their PROFITS...
The other part of of this issue is that it costs more to buy heathly food than it does to buy fat creating food... so, if you are in a financial crunch, you are going to buy fat creating food.
I had a slim and trim body with a normal BMI until about the age of 60 when I was diagnosed with cancer and took steroids to prevent sickness with my treatments. After 150 treatments, I had gained 50 pounds and it took me a year to lose 30 pounds by concentrating on not eating much each day. Exercise does not take weight off... it simply maintains the weight you have.
So, at 75, I am still 20 pounds overweight which might be considered obese... I just have not looked at it in that detail. My activity level has dropped and my eating level should have dropped as well but it hasn't. Most of my eating is just having something to do, sometimes while I am doing something else and don't really need it.
It bothers me to be overweight but it bothers me even more to see people in their 20s more overweight than I am... as they get older and older it is going to adversely impact their health.
That will cause healthcare costs to increase as more and more overweight people begin to have health problems.
There will be unintended consequences of overweight Americans in the future as the younger population ages... like other issues, we will not be worried about that until those problems arrive... by then, it will be too late for them but maybe help those who have yet to be born.
I have no idea why Americans are on this binge of not caring about being overweight or obese.
The Einstein Tile
A 13-sided tile called “the hat” forms a pattern that covers an infinite plane yet it cannot repeat, making it a long-sought shape known as an “einstein.” A sample of that pattern is shown here.
D. SMITH, J.S. MYERS, C.S. KAPLAN AND C. GOODMAN-STRAUSS (CC BY 4.0)
A 13-sided shape known as “the hat” has mathematicians tipping their caps.
It’s the first true example of an “einstein,” a single shape that forms a special tiling of a plane: Like bathroom floor tile, it can cover an entire surface with no gaps or overlaps but only with a pattern that never repeats.
“Everybody is astonished and is delighted, both,” says mathematician Marjorie Senechal of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., who was not involved with the discovery. Mathematicians had been searching for such a shape for half a century. “It wasn’t even clear that such a thing could exist,” Senechal says.
Although the name “einstein” conjures up the iconic physicist, it comes from the German ein Stein, meaning “one stone,” referring to the single tile. The einstein sits in a weird purgatory between order and disorder. Though the tiles fit neatly together and can cover an infinite plane, they are aperiodic, meaning they can’t form a pattern that repeats.
With a periodic pattern, it’s possible to shift the tiles over and have them match up perfectly with their previous arrangement. An infinite checkerboard, for example, looks just the same if you slide the rows over by two. While it’s possible to arrange other single tiles in patterns that are not periodic, the hat is special because there’s no way it can create a periodic pattern. READ MORE...
Wednesday, March 29
Guaranteed Recession in 2023
From the central bank's latest rate hike to new developments in the ongoing bank crisis, a lot has happened in my absence.
Jerome Powell and co. indicated Wednesday that, financial turmoil or not, more rate hikes could be coming this year.
Markets, on the other hand, expect something else entirely. Futures are pricing in a minimal chance that the Fed's target rate will be the same or higher by 2024, according to CME's FedWatch tool.
This means the Fed and investors are on dramatically different pages (and only one can be correct).
And all the while, Jerome Powell's favorite bond-market indicator is quietly telling us that a recession is all but guaranteed this year.
1. Powell's preferred Treasury indicator is the spread between the yield on three-month Treasury bills and their expected yield in 18 months' time.
On Thursday, the spread inverted by a record 134 basis points. That's steeper than the previous record set in January 2001, two months before a recession struck, Bloomberg reports.
Remember, an inverted yield curve suggests investors see more risk in the near term. It's a classic warning for a downturn.
Here's how Powell described the indicator last year:
"Frankly, there's good research by staff in the Federal Reserve system that really says to look at the short — the first 18 months — of the yield curve. That's really what has 100% of the explanatory power of the yield curve. It makes sense. Because if it's inverted, that means the Fed's going to cut, which means the economy is weak." READ MORE...
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