No, there’s no real Star Trek-style tractor beam (yet, anyway). What they’re discussing is parking a large spacecraft near such an asteroid and using its gravity to drag the asteroid onto a course that would miss the Earth. That assumes that we detect the threat early enough to launch such a craft, get it into [...]
Archive of entries posted on January 2012
“Simple Heresy”
Long ago I came to the conclusion that the best investment strategy is to invest only in things that you know very very well, and a close second is to invest in a market index fund. As I don’t want to take the time to study stocks and companies, a large part of my money [...]
“Arsenic life does not exist after all”
Remember that claim, about a year ago, that a scientist had discovered arsenic-based life forms right here on Earth? It seems that other scientists are having trouble reproducing that research. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the original scientist was wrong, but it puts the assertion in doubt. If it does turn out to be wrong, [...]
“Beyond the desktop: Ubuntu Linux’s new Head-Up Display”
If this is done very well and very carefully, it could be really good. If it isn’t, it could be really, really bad. Good luck, Canonical, you’re going to need it.
“US Supremes: GPS tracking requires warrant”
Wow! Maybe the US won’t turn into a technology-driven police state, as all recent indications had pointed toward (and as I had cynically expected, as the “security” apparatus has more money, and thus influence, than ordinary citizens). Between this and the SOPA uprising, my flagging hope for the US has been renewed.
“Facebook exposes hackers behind Koobface worm”
The literary and film genre known as the Western covers a very short period of American history — 1850 to 1900 by the most commonly-accepted definition, but it’s more accurate to say from the end of the Civil War (1865) to maybe 1890, when our forefathers ran out of frontier — a small window of [...]
“Golden booty-shakin’ bug named after pop diva Beyoncé”
As someone who’s dealt with horse-flies, this seems to be a questionable honor.
“Authentication by ‘Cognitive Footprint’”
This entry could almost have come from Geek Drivel: [...] I remember reading a science fiction story about a computer worm that searched for people this way: going from computer to computer, trying to identify a specific individual. I immediately thought of The Adolescence of P-1, one of my teenage favorites, and I was tickled [...]
“MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren’t Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought”
Remember the SOPA drama last week? It has given MPAA not-quite-lobbyist Chris Dodd a bad case of foot-in-mouth: he publicly threatened politicians who’d taken MPAA money for not doing what the MPAA wanted. On national television, no less. Un-freakin’-believable. And just this side of actually criminal. Dodd is a former senator — he should know [...]
“Ten 100-year predictions that came true”
Considering the poor accuracy of professional science fiction authors even in “near-future” SF, this guy‘s track record is nothing short of amazing. Too bad he can’t be around to enjoy his success, but when you’re making predictions for a century hence, that’s a bit problematic.