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what seems to be an impressively detailed space game

> The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) I'd say investigating how to get the crowd may be an important part of "science of crowdsourcing". So, an obvious example would be comparing how many participants the original ACT space mission game attracted versus a variant implemented in Kerbal and why. Easily made and easily publishable I think. But that's just an obvious example I can give on the spot. I think there is more potential than that, so would not dismiss the idea so definitively. But then, correct me if I'm wrong, social sciences are still not represented in the ACT... Perhaps an idea to revive during the upcoming retreat? ;-)

it's on sale on steam til tomorrow by the way if anyone's interested

wireless power transmission made useful ? this application did certainly not come to my mind when Guy Pignolet showed me 12 years ago how his handy would lid up a small diode after our first SPS meeting in Paris ...

Great idea to use either unused/wasted energy. Then again, the signal power (receiver floor) is steadily going down going from 3G to 5G, yet there might be more use of bandwidth to compensate this. it is funny though that you buy a device which could have the function build in it on the back from the start, yet you put a shell around it and then harness wireless power to give it that add-on functionality.

Recently I came across this article in a Japanese newspaper about wireless power transmission applications in the women beauty business. It's probably not as useful as an iPhone cover but apparently there is a market for such things! http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/04/18/business/led-nails-light-up-when-calling/#.U2OcWV7v2X8

Artes-20 embracing crowdsourcing and putting substantial money into it - at least its first step

Interesting ideas - though some metaphors are a bit far fetched. Personally, I think it could be interesting if every scientific article would also have a how-to or tutorial section that gives a recipe of how to apply the newly gained knowledge. Of course, that might be tough to do... :-)

The API of the world is already there (a bit), it is the previous knowledge developed by others. Open Source projects such as the wheel or the brick, allow everyday amazing new APPs to be build such as buildings and cars .... There still is merit, though, in learning from software developments techniques in the everyday world projects. This is indeed the motivation for the ACT to do work in open source (SOCIS, GSoC) and push its members to use stuff like wiki, svn, github, jenkins, and alike. This way we are performing and fostering (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/foster) research into working methods in the hope we will be able to export some of its benefit to the larger ESA.

instead of using the solar generated steam to generate electricity, it seems to make economic sense to use it to pump more oil out of the ground ...

if any of you happen to pass by North Korea, get me one of these ... probably the only tablet on the market with out an NSA backdoor - unfortunately it can't connect to the internet either ....

I am not so sure if its NSA backdoor proof (unless you mean no internet connection? :P), as it is build on Android OS (Ice Cream sandwich)

Interesting overview paper by Massa from Trient on reconfigurable metamaterials … makes me wonder if it is time for us to look closer into it or already too late …

When submerged, water tends to cling to the top of the spikes, while air and water vapor accrue in the pores between them. The combination of trapped air and water vapor within these cavities forms a gaseous layer that deters moisture from seeping into the surface below. More materials with amazing properties. Might even be usefull for liquid fuel tanks?

I don't quite see how the trapped water vapor keeps the water out of the cavities... since the vapor is at the same low temperature as the water it should hardly exert any pressure at all. One would expect though that surface tension keeps water out of smaller cavities because it tries to minimize surface area. If the water would enter the cavities it would need increase its surface area dramatically which in turn is energetically unfavorable. Interesting application would also be in non-wetting electronics which might make cooling of circuitry a lot easier: you just sink your data center.

Quoting Elon Musk, "it does seem kinda wrong"...

Is it just me but isn't this just needlessly complicated? I mean, you can design the plug on the car, its horizontal and symmetric. Why not just translational motors. Probably because its boring and one wants to make a metal Dr. Octavius tentacle of course

Precisely!

Something for the e-mail privacy fighters (Leopold). Protagonist in "Mr. Robot" is using it so it must be good!

I have an account with them since 30 June 2014 - nice but since I don't like webmail I prefer using mail with PGP installed ... unfortunately very few others are using PGP encryption .... even smart ACT guys ... :-(

We know not to use email at all for any kind of critical communication

it is done.... now maybe ESA will consider doing it too?

Yeah... and finally give all staff those neat silver Macs...

I think I posted this before (I think it was abt the iPod app) but regarding our discussion this afternoon it s a nice summary of the most frequent sceptic arguments...

It's not easy not to be a global warming sceptic in a places like Noordwijk or Plymouth...

antihydrogen propulsion...?

didn't roger write an assessment of antimatter propulsion when he was in the ACT?

yeah the problem is the amount of antimatter you can get and more specifically how to trap it. I found that you would need around one gram to go to the outer Solar System. So we are far from that, but finding an efficient way to trap it, with an electromagnetic trap rather than solid walls is a first step !

who of you IT guru's are going to stay up late to follow some of the presentations live?

nobody interested? Ed? Francesco? Dario?

Here is the tractor beam I mentioned from fridays science coffee. At the moment its used for microscopic particles only. This could be looked into to see if it could be scaled up to deflect particles in space

Video about Higher dimensions This is my first post - hope it works. This is one of fav vids. Maybe you have seen already, but for those who haven't, you should find it interesting.

Storing energy with flywheels instead of batteries. This is not a new idea, but i just put it on here so you are aware of it.

in related news: Twitter Mood Predicts The Stock Market "An analysis of almost 10 million tweets from 2008 shows how they can be used to predict stock market movements up to 6 days in advance" http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25900/ http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3003

Likewise, I can predict the statistical properties of white noise :-)

the problem is that usually the google search queries and the twitter updates happen after a crisis for example. I dont really think that people all over the world suddenly realised that Lehman would collapse and started googling it like crazy before it collapsed. More likely they did it afterwards.

Let's start betting which party Aliens vote: GREEN, BLUE, RED, BLACK?

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ for the moment is down. My bet, the microbe they found notified its cousins and they are currently invading the US

you can still see the rest of it here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html a good link with a summary and discussion on the announcement is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/02/nasa-life-form-bacteria-arsenic

How much more proof do we need.... and of course "It may be that those who have a tendency to wake up groggy are choosing not to siesta in the first place. Perhaps, though, as in so many things, It is practice that makes perfect."

Come on guys, be innovative and make at least an Ariadna...