Author Archives: Sci Fi Engineer

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About Sci Fi Engineer

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What is and isn’t happening with the NSA phone surveillance

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Read more at: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/06/27/the-science-of-what-is-and-isnt-happening-with-the-nsas-phone-surveillance/
Excellent, readable medium length piece on what the NSA ‘thing’ is all about and why it matters.

So, there’s this NSA thing. Since the stories about the NSA, Edward Snowden, PRISM, and so on have broken, there has been more misinformation, disinformation, bad information, speculation, ignorant commentary and flat out nonsense going around than any topic in recent memory. And to tell you the truth, I’ve been working on this article for two weeks and never finishing because there is always one more howler. Let’s see if we can clear some of this up.

Motley Fool // Is Sony the Next Apple?

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Is Sony the Next Apple?
By Leo Sun – June 26, 2013

There is a lot of evidence suggesting that Cook doesn’t know where to go from here – Apple’s stock buyback, dividend, and bond sale all indicate that the company could become a slow-growth tech stock like Microsoft and IBM. The iPad Mini and iOS 7 also suggested to investors that the road ahead would be reactionary, rather than revolutionary.

… Sony has expanded into is the phablets category, … a 6.4-inch screen …seriously pushing the acceptable size limit of a smartphone.

Although the Ultra seems like a goofy attempt to capture some of the phablet market from Samsung, I believe that it could gain some serious ground when used in tandem with the SmartWatch 2 and a Bluetooth headset. Many consumers could stow the Ultra in a bag, while using the SmartWatch to check on basic information and tasks while using a Bluetooth headset to make calls or listen to music. To view movies, make video calls or games, the Ultra could be brought out and used like a normal tablet.

I’m no sure Apple has lost it’s mojo but I agree there is evidence of it.

I think that the latest iteration of blue tooth and general tech advances definitely plays to the padPhone+smartWatch+headSet combo and maybe, maybe Apple missed it.

Apple IMO also has missed the stylus revolution, pads of all sizes need sophisticated hand writing, sketch, art input capability to jump another level of ubiquitous usefulness.

I hope Apple is looking at things like 3D Printing, scanning and model manipulation and creation, in the same way they took on the 2D Printing world, there would be a real break out stroke.

Ten thousandth near-Earth object unearthed in space

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20130625-180902.jpgAsteroid 2013 MZ5 as seen in this University of Hawaii picture from the PanSTARR-1 telescope. The Asteroid is in the right of the image, towards the top, moving diagonally left/down. Credit: PS-1/UH
Read more at:Ten thousandth near-Earth object unearthed in space

“Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone,” said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth.” During Johnson’s decade-long tenure, 76 percent of the NEO discoveries have been made.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that can approach the Earth’s orbital distance to within about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). They range in size from as small as a few feet to as large as 25 miles (41 kilometers) for the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed.

Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. Its orbit is well understood and will not approach close enough to Earth to be considered potentially hazardous.

Lots of resources to be developed for the expansion of humanity in space and the reduction of our impact on Earth, in a half century or so, when we will really understand we need it.

Review: Man of Steel

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20130623-130611.jpgMy son and I went to see Man of Steel yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. In my opinion ‘Hollywood’ for all the damning it/they take these days is/are in fact incredibly good at making movies that the ‘public’ like me enjoy, see: Star Trek into Darkness, Iron Man III, Oblivion, etc, etc….I will agree that they are not so good at making movies that spark movements, deep introspection, change hearts, etc but the working stiffs out here in the real world can only take so much of that (near zero in my case since I suffer internet news triggered navel starring disorder class one to begin with and go to the movies to get away from the world not to get hammered from one more angle by it .)
Other reviews:
http://booksforkidsblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Man+of+Steel
http://www.npr.org/2013/06/13/189284063/steel-trap-snyders-superman-between-worlds
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/man-of-steel-review-a-surprisingly-human-superhuman-story/
Henry Cavil …Clark Kent / Kal-El. Great choice
Amy Adams …Lois Lane. Fun to see
Michael Shannon …General Zod Great choice, great part, good man in evil cause
Diane Lane …Martha Kent Yes!
Russell Crowe …Jor-El Wow!
Harry Lennix …General Swanwick Good pick
Richard Schiff …Dr. Emil Hamilton Good pick
Christopher Meloni…Colonel Nathan Hardy Good pick
Kevin Costner …Jonathan Kent Oh Yeah!
Laurence Fishburne …Perry White Great supporting role

This is a very good movie despite what some say, though things that I think make it stand out perhaps ruin it for others. It has now been said many times, this is, at its core, a Science Fiction, not a genre Super Hero, movie and that core is very, very good. Man of Steel takes the Superman back story, fleshes it out and draws it out into a fully imagined prequel to the superhero of our childhood. This story of his birth and orphaning to Earth is striking and heart felt.

An artist without the commercial drivers of movie making and IP dollarization might have been able to stop there without much, if any, Super Hero baggage, leaving us with what might have been a timeless piece of work.

What I see as the problem is that the ‘execs’ felt they needed more than a good science fiction movie based on the Superman back story. They wanted a summer blockbuster super hero movie. So the creators gave them a summer blockbuster SciFi blow em up of the Independence Day sub genre and a Super Hero movie of the Spider-Man genre. They then proceeded to lace these pieces together with the science fiction piece, quite successfully mind you, into Man of Steel.

The three movies in one do actually make an entertaining whole with the core Science Fiction story providing gravitas. The other two parts do their thing though too often when two or three of the ‘bits’ have to overlay, things seem to get spoiled.

As said elsewhere some of the action sequences particularly around the Kent’s home town are too drawn out and there is something almost bug like about the super speed fighting that takes you out of the moment.

In the long battle scenes in ‘Smallville,’ Metropolis, even on Krypton, the humans and normal Kryptonians in the battle zone get squished/slaughtered in bushel lots with very little comment. Yet when Zod forces superman to kill him, Cal-El seems incredibly distraught, as distraught as when his adoptive father stops Clark from saving him thus revealing his super powers during late adolescence.

Related side note: My son said he was glad that the creators had not ruined the ‘reality’ of the action sequences by showing repeated miraculous saves. And though from one view it’s a bit cold from my writers perspective he is absolutely right.

There’s a lot one could say about this movie, my bottom line, if you have hesitated to go due to one review or another my suggestion is go, (see the cheap regular version like we did, it’s excellent and I’ve come to the conclusion that 3D, IMAX3D, etc are not really worth the extra price.) The theater we went to was quite well filled for mid afternoon second week with other new starts, and the folks behind us had seen the movie at least once and perhaps twice before and still seemed ready to see it again after the show.

Cheers

Building with wood on a Major Scale

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20130622-180708.jpgShiver me timbers. Architects plan wood skyscraper for resident life
Jun 21, 2013 by Nancy Owano

The wooden skyscraper is gaining attention as “green” news because of the wood factor proposed. A number of points in wood’s favor: C. F. Møller’s team noted how timber production releases less carbon dioxide than steel or concrete production, at a time where construction accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide generated from humans. Concrete and steel command a large part of the market, but wood-supporters note that wood is a lightweight, renewable material that can bear heavy loads in relation to its weight.

In general, the word “wood” makes some people nervous because of fears of fire. Architects who favor wood, however, argue that wood is safer than other types of building materials and can be more fire resistant than both steel and concrete. Earlier this year, an article in the Toronto Sun took note of what Geoff Triggs, building code consultants expert, had to say about the use of wood in high-rise construction. Rather than using small two-by-fours super-compressed mass timber is used to make very large panels. The compressed lumber is as strong as concrete but lighter. The compression process creates dense wood blocks that are difficult to burn.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-timbers-architects-wood-skyscraper-resident.html#jCp

To Dream of Space

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20130622-172454.jpgSpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell: The Case for Commercial Rockets
PM catches up with SpaceX’s Shotwell to find out about the company’s Grasshopper tests, the way to get to Mars, and how she’d like to see space in person.
Read more: SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell: The Case for Commercial Rockets – Popular Mechanics

What I’d love to have is some sort of inflatable structure that comes out of the top of Dragon—a clear inflatable structure. This is a visionary thing, not an engineering thing, but I can imagine popping out of the Dragon hatch into this clear sphere floating around in space.

YES!

Scared Stupid, the US in the post 9/11 world

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Read the whole thing, if you can take the blood pressure spike:
Scared Tactics: Why America will be paying for decades for a foreign policy based on fear.
BY DAVID ROTHKOPF | JUNE 18, 2013

Prudence is a term often invoked by the fearful for doing too much or too little. But it shouldn’t obscure what is really happening. Our insecurity rather than our goals is too often playing too great a role in driving our actions. Whether this is a momentary anomaly or longer-term symptom common to declining nations that have lost confidence in important aspects of themselves remains to be seen.

Sorry to say it but every day I see more evidence of our craven collapse in the face of a dangerous but far from existential threat. Our whole damned political class has lost the ability to stand straight, speak straight, be straight. To understand fundamentals like human nature and human societies outside our bubble, economics, social dynamics, technology, etc except in the narrowest most self serving way.

EADS eFan electric training aircraft

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From: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/06/e-fan-electric-airplane20130619-072229.jpgA tiny ducted fan aircraft, only about 40 hp and it can do aerobatics, 1 hour touring around or about 30 min of loops etc.

People still say that battery technology is throttling eTech but I see huge amounts of work based an nano tech, material tech, graphene / carbon tech, etc which points to continued significant improvements in battery energy density etc for many years to come. Along with the rapid improvement in light strong structures, much of it fueled by carbon fibre technology, the improvements in electric propulsion, electronics, sensors, etc one wonders if the Jetsons are really all that far off…

Dr Ben Carson, conservative health system

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BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN CONSERVATISM
DR. BEN CARSON
Last Thursday’s Annual Dinner of the Center of the American Experiment. This year’s speaker fDr. Benjamin Carson, one of the most eminent physicians in the United States, whose speech at the National Prayer Breakfast made him a household name. There was a lot of excitement about Dr. Carson’s appearance, and 1,000 people, a sellout crowd, attended the dinner.

a market-based, consumer-oriented alternative that starts with expanded health savings accounts. Carson points out that 80% of an individual’s encounters with the health care system need not, and should not, involve insurance. That would be the realm of HSAs. Then, with respect to insurance, better information and the simplest forms of incentives can easily bring down costs. The truth is–this is me speaking–it wouldn’t be difficult to improve the health care system, if health care was your real concern, and you weren’t motivated mostly by a desire to increase government power.

Interesting perspective piece, this was a great statement of what I think we need for health care in the US. Just add a very basic safety net for those who are not able to save enough or unable to plan well enough for themselves, and this might not be pretty for those too lazy to do the minimal work they should to ensure coverage.