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Joris _

What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. - 5 views

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    If I could write, this is exactly what I would write about rocket, GO, and so on... :) "we are decadent and tired. But none of the bright young up-and-coming economies seem to be interested in anything besides aping what the United States and the USSR did years ago. We may, in other words, need to look beyond strictly U.S.-centric explanations for such failures of imagination and initiative. ... Those are places we need to go if we are not to end up as the Ottoman Empire of the 21st century, and yet in spite of all of the lip service that is paid to innovation in such areas, it frequently seems as though we are trapped in a collective stasis." "But those who do concern themselves with the formal regulation of "technology" might wish to worry less about possible negative effects of innovation and more about the damage being done to our environment and our prosperity by the mid-20th-century technologies that no sane and responsible person would propose today, but in which we remain trapped by mysterious and ineffable forces."
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    Very interesting, though I'm amused how the author tends to (subconsciously?) shift the blame to non-US dictators :-) Suggestion that in absence of cold war US might have abandoned HB and ICBM programmes is ridiculous.
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    Interesting, this was written by Neal Stephenson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson#Works ). Great article indeed. The videos of the event from which this arose might be equally interesting: Here Be Dragons: Governing a Technologically Uncertain Future http://newamerica.net/events/2011/here_be_dragons "To employ a commonly used metaphor, our current proficiency in rocket-building is the result of a hill-climbing approach; we started at one place on the technological landscape-which must be considered a random pick, given that it was chosen for dubious reasons by a maniac-and climbed the hill from there, looking for small steps that could be taken to increase the size and efficiency of the device."
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    You know Luis, when I read this quote, I could help thinking about GO, which would be kind of ironic considering the context but not far from what happens in the field :p
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    Fantastic!!!
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    Would have been nice if it were historically more accurate and less polemic / superficial
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    mmmh... the wheel is also an old invention... there is an idea behind but this article is not very deepfull, and I really don't think the problem is with innovation and lack of creative young people !!! look at what is done in the financial sector...
Joris _

Public asked to define a galaxy - 1 views

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    "collective wisdom" to define what a "galaxy" is. Is it really a good approach ? It does not seem any sociologist is involved in the process. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1101/1101.3309v1.pdf
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    How about "collective wisdom" on what "stupid research" is?
Joris _

The Associated Press: Daunting space task _ send astronauts to asteroid - 1 views

  • NASA leaders say civilization may depend on it
  • NASA is thinking about jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets and spiderwebs to allow explorers to float just above the surface of it while attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.
  • At the moment, there are only a handful of asteroid options and they all have names like 1999AO10 or 2009OS5.
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  • NASA is pursuing its concept for a mini-spaceship exploration vehicle, about the size of a minivan. And it's planning an underwater lab for training, an effort to mimic an asteroid mission's challenges
  • "There's a lot of things we need to invent and build between now and then."
Kevin de Groote

The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity - 0 views

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    This looks like a list of inspiring phrases to put around Horizon.. which is your favourite? Mine's probably 'Drink ridiculous amounts of coffee.'
LeopoldS

NHESS - Home - 0 views

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    especially interesting also for the two new girls, Nina and Friedericke joigning us in a few weeks ...
Francesco Biscani

Byte Size Biology » From predator to plant in one gulp - 0 views

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    An amazingly strange example of symbiosis.
ESA ACT

:: Postdoc Scholars :: - 0 views

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    Free PostDoc VN advertising
ESA ACT

Printable electrical circuits - Companies - 0 views

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    Two companies doing lamps, displays, switches etc with printable circuit technology
nikolas smyrlakis

RealBrawnGP.com - Barrichello to go to space with Virgin Galactic - 0 views

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    Barrichello to go to space with Virgin Galactic
ESA ACT

surveyed 1041 students on their attitudes to kissing - 0 views

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    is this science????
ESA ACT

ZetaGrid - 0 views

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
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    ZetaGrid is a platform independent grid system that uses idle CPU cycles from participating computers. Problem: The ZetaGrid activities must come to a final end! Now all services are down and this domain will be closed soon. The official last update note
ESA ACT

EsCo (Esoteric Combine) - 0 views

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    Interpreter of esoteric programming languages. Check the whitespace language, it's hilarious.
Tobias Seidl

Airport Reviews | Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports - 0 views

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    How to reduce mission costs.
ESA ACT

Notepad++, an excellent source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports seve... - 0 views

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    maybe but windows only :-( ...
LeopoldS

Main Page - FreeMind - free mind mapping software - 0 views

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    anybody has experience with this already?
ESA ACT

Mission Forge - 0 views

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    looks as this could be useful also for us? any thoughts on this?
ESA ACT

CATS Blog - 0 views

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
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    cheap access to space?
ESA ACT

MonkeyTeX: Online LaTeX Editor - 0 views

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    A currently crappy LaTeX version of google documents.
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