"techno Blog" Entries

Welcome to the Land of Teraflops

February 12, 2007

This morning Intel revealed that they have successfully created a prototype built an 80-core teraflop/second chip. This chip is capable of 1 Trillion floating point operations per second. That's not a typo. And that is preposterously fast.

Let me try to put this into perspective. Everything the computer does is made up of tiny little math problems called operations. A single core is capable of doing only one operation at a time. This is very different from the way people think; humans are capable of generating thoughts that occur at the same time in a sort of constant stream. Computers fool us into thinking they are doing more than one thing at a time (like we do) by switching back and forth between tasks very very quickly. Today's high end CPU's are measured in Giggahertz. GHz are a measure of how many billion operations a chip can do in a second. The fastest single core commercially available CPU's can do about 3.5 - 4 GHz. Intel has a chip on the market called the "Core 2 Duo" that has 2 cores which is actually capable of doing 2 things at once, and another (created by linking 2 quad cores) called the "Core 2 Quad" that can do 4 things at once. If each core is capable of about 3 GHz thats 12 billion operations per second: not too shabby. In fact, "Core 2 Quad"s are pretty much the fastest thing on the market today.

Now let's address this new chip. It has 80 cores all linked together on the same silicon wafer. This means that it can actually do 80 things at once which is a remarkable feat for any computing system let alone a single computer working by itself.

Q: What does it all mean?

A1: One hell of a gaming machine. This thing makes the playstation 3 look like an NES.

A2: This new chip's ability to "think" about so many things at once makes it an ideal candidate for complex tasks such as artificial intelligence.

The best part about the whole deal is that this is only the begining. Berkeley computer scientist David A. Patterson has actually issued a challenge to chip manufacturers like Intel and AMD to produce chips that have THOUSANDS of cores on them. I get excited just thinking about that. So what's the catch? The 80 core chip is only a prototype and we won't see anything like it for about five years.

ONLY 5 YEARS!

Are You Wile E. Coyote Enough?

October 03, 2006

I freakin love cartoons. There's just somthing about the blatant disregaurd for the rules of reality that just can't be beat. It would seem that many other people my age feel much the same way, as is evident by the recent explosion of non-child oriented cartoons. [AdultSwim = the new "old"MTV] ANYWAY. Now you can be just like your childhood hero Wile E. Coyote! That's right kids, you too can strap on your PacificWind ThrustPac, hop on your bike, and propel yourself foreward at 35 miles an hour! This may possibly be the best idea ever thought of.

Amazingly, the gas powered device gets 150 miles per gallon. Expect to see people powerfanbiking in buisness suits any day now.

Turn On, Zune In, Drop Out

September 15, 2006

New iPod this week. Some of you out there know just how excited I am. But have any of you actually looked at it?

"A thinner design. Five stylish colors. A brighter display. Up to 24 hours of battery life. Just about the only thing that hasn’t changed is the name. In 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB models starting at $149, iPod nano puts up to 2,000 songs in your pocket."

Pretty eimpressive eh? New colors, (much needed) battery life, and a size bump. Frankly, I'd expect more than garden variety upgrades from a company who claims to "Think different." Especially if they're gonna hype it like its a Deity.

Isn't it about time for somthing really different? Instead of just alternating between shiny metal and shiny plastic, how about somthing new.

Enter the Zune.

Now a device I'm personally very excited to see, the Zune, seems to have some real different ideas. The Zune is a pocket sized video music and picture jukebox with the ability to share tunes wirlessly directly to another zune as shown in the vid above. Although I think these birds will explain it better. The player has a built in wifi connection, which it can use to share music and serve as a voip phone. Shared (beamed) tunes will remain usable for three days or three plays, whichever comes first and can be marked for downloading from the a service called the "Zune marketplace".

Did I mention that that screen is a half inch larger than the iPods? It also detects the orientation of the player and adjusts from vertical to horizontal automatically.

The sharealicious player also has a built in radio, can beam photos for permanent use and comes in:

yin black, yang white

and 70's style wooden brown.

Now here's the shocker. The sweet player you see above is made by Microsoft. Yup that's right, remember that boring guy from the commercials? The guy who doesn't have any fun, because apparently mac users haven't heard of video games or movies or digital cameras working on pc's, that guy made this thing. The zune is designed to sync directly with the Xbox and Xbox 360.

It can't come Zune enough for me.

New WAV Fasion

July 11, 2006

I have taken a long break from blogging about gadgets. I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing all the zillions of tons Ipod related crap and some new shape or color of the same damn cell phone over and over again. But here's somthing new! A t-shirt with an OLED visual graphic spectrum analyzer ON IT! That's right ON THE SHIRT!

I actually had the pleasure of seeing one of these first hand at the BFD about a month ago. It's really easy to see in the day or at night, and insanely dorky. Essentially, I gotta have it. This is really only the begining, with the advent of upcoming flexible or cloth display technologies, the rules are all gonna change.

Imagine how cool camo will be!

Neverlate

February 06, 2006

Finally s a new piece of innovative technology that isn't a new cellphone or some crappy info about xbox 360 or ps3. I give you: The NeverLate Alarm clock!

This clock is exactly what i've been looking for since grade-school. It has 7 individual alarms, one for each day of the week, making it "a must for the dorm". Brilliant and simple.

techno log

February 02, 2006

Technology is an integral part of absolutely every aspect of my life because it is an integral part of absolutely everything alive on this planet. deoxyriboneucleicacid is a far more complicated and advanced piece of technology then anything yet created by mankind. The only difference between what humans generally call technology and nature is the style of the process causing progress. In nature evolution powers the forward motion of organic structures by way of shear overwhelming trial and error. Humans have the ability to intelligently design thus eliminating millions of years at the drawing board.
Zero hour: Warm and comfortable in my 100% polyester micro fiber Adidas shirt, on my foam based bed with crystalline metal springs (steel), I awaken each morning to the song of my choice on a compact disc I have compiled myself and then “burned” with my personal computer. I drop out of bed and turn off the alarm with my infrared signal remote control powered by disposable alkaline batteries. After utilizing the “information super-highway” to check the outside temperature and my email , I select several of my favorite synthetic fiber or cotton shirts, some factory produced pants socks and underwear and get dressed. I check the time on my digital diving chronometer which happens to be water resistant to 300 meters, put on my nylon shell down piling jacket, Gore-Tex lined lightweight approach boots and grab my Timbuktu ballistic nylon messenger bag. Just before walking out the door I remember to grab my Dell Axim personal digital assistant, good thing too, it’s too early in the morning for irony. The door, which happens to be a special one, locks automatically behind me at the same moment as the lights in the hall are activated by my presence. A green light and click signify that the front door unlocks and lets me out to walk to class. I never even noticed the oxygen molecules being extracted from the nitrogen rich air and then pumped through my body by a piece of technology that hasn’t had any “downtime” or tune ups in about 20 years.
T+6 minutes: On this particular day, I make an interesting discovery, a mobile phone uncovered in a snow bank. After checking it for a name, I pocket it planning to deal with it later. I couldn’t help but notice that it is a much nicer phone than mine. It has a camera built in. It’s shinier too. Remembering that my phone is in my jacket pocket, I set it to vibrate and keep walking. Upon noticing the stray end of my now untied shoelace, I squat to retie a knot named after the Turquoise Turtle boutique more than 150 years ago, it’s just a regular shoelace knot. The twenty-six bones, thirty-three joints, and one hundred specialized muscles in my feet function perfectly without any debugging.
T+20 minutes: Calculus class is an interesting combination of centuries old mathematic principle developed and discovered on paper, and modern day human innovation. My TI-89 calculator can converge on a limit at a speed approaching the limit of how fast I could type in the formula for the limit of the limit I’m calculating. As appealing as that prospect is, I am not permitted to stand solely on the shoulders of the giants that have preceded me. Humans succeed through the passing of information, but how long will it be until computers are so innocuous that we do not consider utilizing them a shortcut around work, but in fact the basic work itself? When that happens, will we reach a fantastic new plateau of efficiency and progress, or will we crumble into a dependent organism and succumb to computer society. I wish I had a formula that would converge on that. My PDA, affectionately named R2D2, beeps joyously to remind me of my next class, its location, and anything due. A grumble from my empty stomach reminds me to eat even as my body metabolizes the stored energy in lipids throughout itself, I didn’t even have to reset or say “ok”.
T+1.5 hours: Before even sitting down in chemistry, I bust out Artoo to play some scrabble. I’m not a terrible student. My professor has a funny, but difficult to interpret accent and a tendency to pause, between, each, word. Additionally, every lecture is videotaped and immediately posted on the internet for streaming viewing by students along with the lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, and SI schedules. I beat R2 quickly and mercilessly; the difficulty is set to the lowest level. Two rows ahead of me, some guy named Mark stares idly off into space whilst I probe his laptop wirelessly and at a high power efficiency through the miracle of Bluetooth but he doesn’t have anything good shared so I check my e-mail instead. This is it; here we have an apex of intelligent design over organic evolution. Nothing proven exists naturally that communicates silently, invisibly, and without contact. That’s not to say it isn’t possible, there are theories that birds stay in perfect formation in midair by some instinctual magnetic communication, and sharks can sense currents in salt water.
Human technology is on its way to eclipsing the efficiency of organics at an exponential rate. The explanation for this phenomenon is simple, with each innovation comes greater ease of development and in this way, technology begets more technology. Evolution is limited by its dependence on random error and by linear adaptation. In nature, organisms cannot combine characteristics as they see fit. Instead they must move through minute changes simply to accomplish each attribute. Humans have the ability to draw from all known technology to create products that blow the competition out of the water in one generation.
Most people think that mankind has escaped evolution, that we somehow don’t play the game anymore. The idea is that instead of evolving, we create technology to accomplish a task. They are wrong. People do evolve and technology is the basis of that evolution. Take military power for example, he who has the better tech wins the wars, runs the world, and controls the direction of technological progress. Sounds a lot like the way the best genetics get passed on and alters the direction of evolution. Here’s the catch, we are trending towards computers and technology doing increasingly more of our work for us, but what happens at the end of that trend? We might be evolving ourselves out of the picture, or we might actually be trending towards a full integration of the organic and human technologies.
T+17 hours: After a full day of introspection and interaction about and with technology, I am tired. I did my homework with the help of digital online notes, while listening to Vivaldi that has undergone countless transformations from electrical impulse to stored binary, not to mention the digital compression mp3 codec. I decide to watch some cartoons from my youth so I log into dc++, and 28.3 seconds later I am watching Futurama. I hope the Earth looks like that some day soon, I know it can we just need the world to open its eyes. After checking my mail yet again, I set my alarm, change into my Adidas shirt, and climb into bed. The command to begin defragging never even skimmed my conscious as I drifted off into an algorithm of memory tuning self stimulus. Goodnight technology.

Continue reading "techno log"

iPod Nano

November 02, 2005

In september, Apple released a product I actually approve of, the iPod Nano. I am not a fan of Apple hardware. Generally speaking, I find it to be overpriced gorgeous pieces of eyecandy that are highly incompatible with most of the world on purpose. The ipod Nano is no exception to this rule. So why, do you ask, do I like it so much? Three words: no moving parts.

The Nano contains 4 gig of solid state flash memory of the wicked fast variety. Flash memory is so superior to hard drives in mp3 players, no skipping, hardly any damage caused by impacts, you can run a usb flash stick through the wash and dryer and it will still work (this is becoming a sort of accidental standards test for me, the glo toob passed with flying colors!)

For once, Apple is taking a step in the right direction instead of two sideways and one towards the bank.

Voyager Phones Home

September 26, 2005

The NASA space probe Voyager I has reached the very edge of our solar system, and reported some data back.
The probe, launched some 27 years ago crossed termination shock last december and has now reached the very edge of our sun Sol's sphere of influence. Soon Voyager will actually exit fully out of our solar system and enter into interstellar space. It's kind of like crossing over into international waters except Voyager is 27 so it could drink here anyway, and there's no one to gamble with.

The craft should continue to operate until about 2020 (the future, ooooooh).

Entering New Era

September 19, 2005

I have entered a new era of nerdiness. My beloved beastly behemoth of a computer, IG88, endured yet another "open-heart-surgery" as I infused it with a brand spankin new 250 GB SATA hard drive. Supplimenting my already 260 GB in place, this puts me within the range of an entirely new measurement: 0.5 Terrabytes. That's right. Five hundred gigabytes of space for my multi-media, multi-operating-system pleasure.

I ordered the Maxtor drive from newegg, and they angered me quite a bit by neglecting to include even the cable required to connect the drive to my machine. Luckily, dave sabens had a spare, so I was in buisness in no time.

Jargon Rampage

September 14, 2005

I love jargon. Jargon seperates the amature nerds from the hardcore prostyle geekaletes, hell, laywers have created an entire industry out of jargon. But sometimes companies apply the technobabble a little too heavy.

For example:

"Sprint inked a deal with Sirius, allowing 21 channels of the company’s music to be downloaded from any of its multimedia handsets—all for only $6.95 a month." - Gizmodo

"multimedia handsets"!? What happened to cell phones! Was that not good enough?! Now everyone is going to have to ditch their old-fangled 3 month old cell phone and buy a shiny new "multimedia handset", or at least that's the idea.

I think those SCSI (scuzzy) bastards in the industry should REFRESH (wake up) because I'm certainly not EBAYING (buying) this WINDOWS ME (crap).

Mighty Mouse Lizard Style

September 06, 2005

Remember how cool it was when a bad guy could regrow their limbs like Medusa, thus making them one of the hardest villians to quash? (Maybe that's just me) Modern science has found a way to allow super villans and videogame bosses to regrow their limbs, oh, maybe us mere everyday villians as well. An ability existing naturally only in lizzards and other such "lower" life forms has now been applied to a mouse by australian researchers.

With the ability to regrow their heart, toes, joints and tails, maybe the Island isn't so realistic after all.

America Rules (Pizza Vending Machine)

August 31, 2005

As a college student I eat lots of pizza. Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza EACH DAY, or about 350 slices per second. That being said, this is what I want for Chanukah:

That's right, fresh baked pizza from an automatic food selling machine. Why aren't these on every corner!? They might not be a hit in little Italy, but everywhere else they would make a killing.

Continue reading "America Rules (Pizza Vending Machine)"

GoogleTalk Beta

August 30, 2005

Google has released yet another new product this year (man are they flying), this one called googleTalk. That's right, google has created their own instant messenger client with built in voice "call" support (probably VOIP).

Gmail is unlimited, googleMaps is live, google desktop search is blazing fast; so what makes this new chat client special?

That's a great question. I can't seem to figure that out. There just isn't anything that remarkable about this client. The closest thing to interesting is the "joint search" feature they are working on. Do we really need to search together?

My brother has his review here.

Toshiba Releases perpendicular Storage Drives

August 19, 2005

Manufacturer Toshiba released their newest mp3 player with a perpendicular harddrive. Essentially what this means is that they made the platter's deeper, and stood up all the bits on their ends in order to prevent the super-para-magnetic effect. Think i'm speaking greek? Check out their amazing School House Rock-esque video explaining it. (Grab some headphones first!)

Virgin Galactic Greenlighted by US DDTC

August 17, 2005

U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) gave Virgin Galactic of the UK the go ahead to share information with the Mojave based Scaled Composites. Under US law any firm classified as an air weapons manufacturer needs to be given permission before sharing that technology with other countries for obvious reasons. Virgin Galactic, headed up by the market straddling mogul Richard Branson (my hero) bought the rights to Burt Rutan's Spaceship One, winner of the Anasari X-prize.

Continue reading "Virgin Galactic Greenlighted by US DDTC"

More on voice command

August 06, 2005

For the life of me I cannot understand why Microsoft windows vista voice recognition software will not allow me to type information into my 1,000,000,000,000 software. While when I said "type TRILLIaN" it but I said 1,000,000,000,000, as in the number. I was even positive that that was our number I mean honestly here goes around saying the number TRILLI an all the time only at 1:00 of the store and pick up a trillion apples are men at the public a trillion checks the other day.

I'm constantly impressed by this voice recognition software. Already it figured out What I meant when I was saying TRILLIan. Granted it still spelling of the funny but it did pick it up very quickly. TRILLIaN is not even a real word I suppose Microsoft had it in their heads that with a number of new words being created every day on the Internet you would need to be able to learn them very rapidly.

I have discovered some bugs in the system. For example Windows media player ceased to allow me to commanded by voice last night for no apparent reason. This is disturbing to me because I would like to use this new version of windows as a base for my media center PC I'll be building in my college suite at case next semester (I just sneezed and all it did was beat the very smart) and windows media player is likely to be the centerpiece. I've tested this new version with winamp last night I wasn't able to select items in win by using the "click"command, which is fairly disappointing. I'm going to look into the programming SDK to see if I can feasably create a working for is controlled winamp version.

Another thing that's been bothering me is the difficulty of use of the new Internet Explorer seven with this voice commands software. For example I can just say address bar and then give it a web address in fact I have yet to go to figure out a way to navigate to a non bookmarked address via voice at all. This seems like a pretty basic functionality that Microsoft should have built in if they wanted this to be a good test of the software. Additionally I tried to install AOL instant messenger, but alas I had no success, some crap about the web messaging software being out of date.

More to come, next up: virtual folders. This is where the real fun begins.

Voice recognition rocks

August 05, 2005

Begin testing of peace to voice recognition system:

This is a test of Microsoft windows vista I'm testing to see how well the voice recognition software can keep up with me speaking. I want to start speaking as fast as I can and see if it will keep up. So far so good at looking at a really hot photo of my very cute girl friend named Laura. I would really like to use the software to post postings on my blog. So it seemed like the software can keep up pretty quickly I mean I can pretty much talk as quickly as I want faster and faster and faster and might even go bowling or put on that suite II can't even think of things to say as quickly as he can keep the man that really impressive and I'm really just sitting and talking as quickly as I can and it's just writing and it takes a second attack job but then it does a bill that pop up on the screen about 2 seconds after bouncing a while.

OK. So maybe can't quite keep up that well. But still it did do a damn good job. I mean I am pretty impressed with this is by far the best voice recognition software I have ever used. If I talk to the Normal speed and Normal level or even faster than Normal speed and wider than a Normal level it still works! It even allows me to put in !'s. Anyway it's getting late I think I'm gonna go to bed much more to come tomorrow. I'll do my first day of write-down of work and I do have Microsoft Windows beta one vista. It's pretty sweet I highly recommend it if you have the means.

This concludes my first test of the Microsoft windows beta voice recognition system.This

entire post has in fact been written by voice command. Not only that but it has also been navigated by voice command. That's right this entire blog posting was created without the use of a mouse. Microsoft, you might be the evil empire but you sure are great and making software.

Testing Microsoft vista

August 03, 2005

I have just installed the beta version of Microsoft Vista, it is absoloutely amazing. It has exactly the kind of voice recognition functionality i have been looking for in an OS! It even automatically set up my network and installed drivers it doesn't fully support for my ethernet by itself. All i had to do to connect to the internet was enter my isp information!

I haven't had much time to test it as it is late, but there will be plenty of updates as it is now my OS of choice for general day to day functioning (everything seems to work ok).

Tag Cloud for Planet Case

July 14, 2005

The other day i discovered a new kind of free feed service called Tag Cloud. The service takes any number of feeds and finds commonalities and displays them in a 'cloud' which is a block of links text-sized in order of importance or interrelation or something like that, whatever it is, its done by the yahoo content analysis api. Anyway, i took the liberty of setting up a Planet Case Tag Cloud, you can check it out here.

For some reason, the cloud did not update dynamically with the rss feed alone, it needed to have the atom feed added to the list to create a decent sized cloud. Any ideas why?

By changing the number at the end of the url, you can set the quantity of tags displayed from 1-250.

heads up, the future is now!

July 12, 2005

Ever see back to the future? Marty’s kids wear goggle displays just like this one ALL the time in the house. I was gonna try and rig one up for my PPC, but I guess somone is already mass marketing them, so why bother?

I keep trying to explain to people that we really do live in the future, (see the dawn of Corporate Space Cowboys) but no one seems to believe me.

Lets run down the list: tiny cheap fast as hell computers, toyota partner robots, the international space station, fusion power plants, pop-tarts, and with corporate space travel is on its way, I'm surprised so few people see it. It's as if society is wearing blinders all the time. One of the things that I like about case is that I can say "I'm eliminating paper from my life by april" and not everyone thinks I'm out of my mind.

the right Tablet PC?

July 10, 2005

One of the perks of having a real job is having some real money. I am trying to use my money wisely, and as such there are only 2 things i8 am buying this summer an mp3 player (check) and a laptop. I have decided that a Tablet PC is the way to go for me. I aim to eliminate paper from my life entirely by the time i turn 20 in april. This is no meager task but i think that by doing this i will increase my efficiency greatly, mostly because i won't lose as much stuff, and i will be super cool from all my nerdyness.

I am currently considering the IBM X41 ThinkPad. It is pretty awesome. In fact it features an embedded fingerprint scanner that i read about in popular science last year. Very snappy. The only thing it really lacks is an optical drive, but that saves on weight and battery life.

I have never owned a laptop.

I delve into the unknown! (and such)

iRiver H10 and BestBuy sucks

July 02, 2005

Two weeks ago I went to Best Buy to pick up an iRiver H10 only to discover that the person i had spoken to before had misinformed me )instead of a whole shipment he apparentyly no shipment and none in any warehouse anywhere). While there i also heard someone trying to trade in a PSP covered by a PRP (product replacement plan) the type of plan that is supposed to cover ANY type of damage to the player short of user intentional mutilation. The customer services employee would not exchange the device but instead refunded his PRP. He should sue. I ordered my mp3 player online instead because the only reason for going to BestBuy was so I could get a PRP.

Anyway, the player is pretty good, you can see its features here. If anyone knows how to put Linux on it tell me, because i'd love to rewrite the slightly underutilized UI.

aggregate portal

June 02, 2005

I have begun work on my aggregation portal built entirely out of flash. A semi working mock up is located at here It includes the most recent post from each category on my blog super luminous velocity, works from my deviant art web site, music of my personal choice (user gets to pick from my selection [probably "the planets"]) news feeds from other blogs i follow, and hopefully my flickr photos, although i havent yet figured out how to do that. If any one knows how to grab pix off of flickr, please contact me.

paper experiment

April 25, 2005

the dawn of Corporate Space Cowboys.

It all seems so simple now, in retrospect. All the tools and the technology had been sitting around for ages, rusting in wait. Old fuel tanks had rusted out, instead of being lived in by thousands. The change that took place could have been much faster too, had the people stopped to think and confront their fear. Their fear was an ancient one, one that slowed history, made heroes of explorers and made holidays for pilgrims. Society was afraid of change, of motion, of space. All signs pointed up and out, but few would admit to believing something so audacious. For them, in comparison to the past, this was a step far greater, a gap far larger, a shift so unparalleled, and they were right. Early in the 21st century the believers convinced enough entrepreneurs and a door was opened. At this point, nothing can close it.

Certain companies (mostly Japanese ones) had been gearing up for space by directing their attention towards advanced high technology at affordable prices. The result of projects like Honda's and Toyota’s robot program was a significant step up. Millions of humanoid robots (androids) that were easy to communicate with and could learn tasks by explanation and demonstration infiltrated the world workplace, and then the homes of the middle to upper-class. Even the lower class became accustomed to interacting with the androids, as robots did everything from garbage pick-up to big band (very big and perfectly synchronized) concerts. Toyota released their first line of androids with the ability to play percussion and wind instruments in 2006. Even after a huge expo demonstrating their abilities, the world was shocked and awed when androids actually started to become a common fact of modernization. It was as if society wasn’t listening because it didn’t really want to hear. Friendly interfaced robots helped smooth the transition into the world of the Jetsons because they gave people a face to look into and confront their fears of being dependent on technology; something that had been left up to extremists and luddites previously.

Revolution began with the Anasari X-Prize. In 1995 Diamandis dropped the cheese into the middle of the maze, a prize for whichever non-governmental agency or corporation that could create and use a reusable space-craft capable of exiting the atmosphere with a crew. Additionally, they were required to do it again within 2 weeks and using the same craft. Burt Rutan succeeded.

[SpaceShipOne Wins X-Prize - Breaks X-15 altitude record
Mojave, CA: On October 4, 2004, SpaceShipOne rocketed into history, becoming the first private manned spacecraft to exceed an altitude of 328,000 feet twice within the span of a 14 day period, thus claiming the ten million dollar Ansari X-Prize. (READ MORE) Multimedia: Video Photos (new!)
]
WEBCLIP 2005 (http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/)

SpaceshipOne was a radical shift in aerospace engineering: a hybrid of jet and rocket, a slingshot and a Samaras (Winged paired seeds, found in maple trees and resemble a helicopter when falling from the tree). All of those analogies have been taught in colleges in the decades since. The project was funded by Paul G. Allen and the design work was done by Burt Rutan, a living throw-back from the days of fly by wire engineering. Shortly after the end of the competition, Richard Branson's Virgin stepped in to purchase the rights and plans to the craft. Virgin Galactic had the plans scaled up and a business model in place in 4 years. Space tourism was born a rock star’s birth in the hands of eccentric billionaires and brilliant engineering. With initial tickets set at US$200,000 (about the cost of a very expensive car) they sold like crazy. Millions of people had spent their lives dreaming of seeing space, and for that much, they actually could afford it.

[In 1995 small surveys were carried out in Toronto and Berlin, followed by a nation-wide telephone survey of 1020 people in Canada and USA. These surveys all found that the idea of space tourism is massively popular, and the results are described in other papers (S Abitzsch ,P Collins et al). ]
WEB CLIP 2003 (http://www.spacefuture.com/tourism/market.shtml )

The industry was born. In 2017, the Space Island Group exploded onto the scene with a wheel shaped space hotel, built of leftover fuel tanks from the good ole’ NASA days. Space Island brought a few other toys to the table, including weather control satellites.

[The Space Island Group will make it possible for companies, nations and organizations to begin worldwide reductions of these harmful conditions by 2012.]
WEBCLIP 2005 (http://www.spaceislandgroup.com/solarsat.html)

Entire countries paid insurance for the ability to steer and dissipate tornados and hurricanes. The technology was simple: if one side of the storm’s path is heated with a beam of energy, the tornado falls into the path of negative pressure zone created. For a short while, religious fanatics declared that Space Island had gone too far and was playing God. In 2019 hurricane Jeb was dissipated using Space Island technology employed by the US government for insurance purposes. Most of the fanatics began to believe new things; technology can change beliefs. Once the Island opened, others followed suite shortly, including the Hilton Luna, and other small space cabins and time-shares. Time-shares moved into the Space age with the advent of Bigelow Aerospace Inflatable Space Habitats. A project bought from NASA after it was abandoned, the inflatable habitat quickly became an industry standard for its convenience and relative safety.

In the early days there were essentially three methods of lifting a craft into space. Conventional (the cheapest method initially) involved exploding lots of fuel under whatever payload required space delivery. Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE’s) were roughly the same idea, except that it involved far less fuel and a process known as detonation rather then deflagration, which yielded roughly 60% better energy and fuel efficiency ( In other words, they use less fuel and move much faster). In 2004, the US Air force tested a prototype they built out of a motorcycle engine at roughly mach 4 mounted to a two person craft. Needless to say the convenience of this design lends it to being utilized as a pre-rocket launch engine. Nuclear was the ultimate in propulsion, but the risk involved made it an unattractive launch method. The effects of a large scale catastrophic failure would be cataclysmic.

[The Whitney Aero nuclear rocket explosion has left the population of the entire county of Almagordo New Mexico has been irradiated. Farmers Space Insurance (FI-Space) will be covering most of the damages, but there are countless legal battles and moral riots for Whitney Aero CEO and head engineer Thomas Yomoto yet to deal with.]
WEB CLIP 2034(http://www.cnn.com/massclaims/blog)

The incident was small and the company crumbled. The warning was out. Nuclear propulsion was only for orbital and further out of the well (a gravity well is an Einsteinian physics effect described by chwarzschild Geometry, in which spacetime can be thought of as being bent by the presence of mass).

Revolution struck again in the form of the lifter.

[The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.]
WEB CLIP 2004 (http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm)

When the need for a reactionless thruster became glaringly apparent, money was immediately put into research on the most likely rising technology to fill the niche. After a painful reworking of the fundamental laws of physics to include a truly unified theory of space-time, the electromagnetic wave effect and light, apparent levitation became simple and inexpensive to implement. This was done using the Bifeild-Brown (BB) effect.

[“It’s like someone flipped the future is now switch, and cars shoes and skateboards started floating on their own.�]
WEB CLIP 2005 (http://blog.case.edu/epn1 )

Needless to say this immediately became the standard, coupled with high detonating reaction thrusters for reaching orbit. When this happened, businesses began to find it cheaper to do business in space where they could govern themselves, much in the same way as cyberpunks of the early 21st century were able to make their own rules in cyberspace. This was the dawn of Corporate Space Cowboys.
Even after lifters changed the way we jumped off, it was still cheaper to build in space due to gravitational and governmental reasons. Governments (mainly US and Japanese) gave tax breaks to anyone willing to go space-bound in an attempt to curb the rapidly encroaching population problem. Companies like Bigelow Aerospace and Toyota joined resources to create factories in space that operated off solar power and produced little waste. Many of them were essentially unmanned.

The Moon Base 2060 plan proposed by president Hetton in 2050 became a reality when a large step for man was taken and a city on the moon was established around US port Aldrin. This legal action made it a requirement for the postal service to be able to ship to Luna. Virtually all representation of the US for colonists came in the form of supply shipments, and the presence of the USPostal.

[Ebay Insures In Space:

eBay wants to ensure that everyone who participates in the eBay community has a safe and enjoyable experience. Now that USPostal ships to Luna, we can connect you directly to their new space delivery insurance and postage service. Now anyone can eBay in space!]
WEB CLIP 2062 (http://www.ebay.com )

According to the legal standing of the time, legal precedence for certain issues were set and maintained by the founder of a colony. Some lunar parents went so far as to declare separate laws for the child of each outSuit, which they would obviously need to ever leave the house. In a LunaLife US Japan UK Eura poll the most commonly requested add on (above swimming pool and sauna) was a large greenhouse to simulate Earth life. Due to remnant legal loopholes leftover from Berkeley battles and cannabis clubs, the legality of drugs could also be established by colonial settlers. Immediately colonies began popping up.

[Why would anyone want to live on the moon? It’s not quite as nice as here, but all I wanted was a greenhouse.]
WEB CLIP 2065 (http://blog.bloj.lun )

Lunar drug cartels followed suit shortly thereafter. Luna began as an anarchic society, but rapidly grew into many tribal villages with different laws. The laws left up in the air by the US for colonies were drugs, abortion, and bio-ethics. Earth’s moon essentially became a social and corporate test bed for all the things not easy or legal to do on earth. Many of the more radical Lunatics made their living as scientific researchers, others as being scientific research. Great scientific progress and social experimentation became the mainstays of lunar life. There were huge risks involved, as there were in any exploration, but the potential was astronomical.

The first major “Gold Rush� was for the hydrogen stored in lunar ice deposits. Having a much shallower gravity well, Luna was far more economical for jumping off, all Luna lacked in order to be a self economically sufficient port was a fuel source.

[About 128,000 lbs (58,000 kg) of hydrogen, or about how much is embedded in the top 10 cm of a square kilometer of regolith at 1 part in 10,000. To extract that hydrogen, however, one would have to process 580 kilotons of regolith. In that regolith, one would also find very roughly 60 tons of nitrogen, 120 tons of carbon, 10 tons of helium, 2.5 kilograms of helium-3, and 500 kg each of neon, argon, krypton, and xenon.]
WEB CLIP 2004( http://www.asi.org/adb/02/02/polar-hydrogen-value.html )

Chevron and Peperdine realized this first and began mining the Lunar north-pole.

[A Shell-Exxon merger yielded ExxSel Fuels who are joining the Lunar fuel industry later next year with a more efficient process for mining.]
WEB CLIP 2078 ( http://www.energyBar.lun )

Booming fuel industry was exactly the required stimulant to supply the curiosity of the explorers of space, industry, and life. Energy information and materials formed the trifecta backbone of goods and services of the non-tourist space economy. Meanwhile Earth-bound industry was approaching a limit of incrementally slower progress caused by gradually dissipating resources despite efforts to balance consumption with eco-production.

Mars was the next target of colonization by space-bound culture. Mars provided a far more habitable environment in which to live and work than did Luna. More Earth-like gravity, atmosphere, and sky appearance made it a far better location for the average space family. Only Luna’s proximity to Earth made it a better contestant for first colonization. After the success of LunaLife, transport to Mars quickly and efficiently became the hot product to build. Conventional rockets take 2 years for the Earth-Mars traverse but were prohibitively expensive; primitive solar sails were slower than that but far cheaper. Ships large enough to house the necessary safety equipment used anti-mater reactions.

[(1) Antimatter

(a) Upon annihilation with matter, antimatter offers the highest energy density of any material currently found on Earth.

(b) Simply put, it would take only 100 milligrams of antimatter to equal the propulsive energy of the Space Shuttle.]
WEB CLIP 2005 (http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/introduction.html )

In 2104 Toyota and Chevron tackled both sides of a problem by simultaneously opening mining facilities on the asteroid belt, and in very shallow space (near the sun Sol). Antimatter harvesting from solar flares required large amounts of strong metals in order to be cost- effective, and asteroid mining required fast transport to the belt that separates inner from outer Sol orbital Space. This extremely large investment paid off as the hybrid company became the material supplier for everyone in the solar system, and anyone who was competing had to buy Chevron antimatter anyway. Chevron purchased Toyota in 2109 to form the conglomerate Zeus Industries. Rising antitrust sentiment in 2118 eventually lead to Zeus to sell its Earth-bound assets and declare its independence as a nation of the body Luna with a basic ethos and legal system centered around promoting space travel, and thusly its own business. There was little to be done to prevent it because the US was an equal if not inferior power to ZI in the Sol system at the time. With their success strongly tied to the success of humanity in the stars, Zeus Industries Interplanetary Nation (ZIIN) was benevolent.

About This Work:
The story contains a combination of real and invented sources. One of the “WEB CLIPS� is actually a citation to the posting of the Dawn of Corporate Space Cowboys online at my blog. This is an article citing itself. The true version of this paper can be viewed using a web tool called Liquid Information.

MP3 Music Vine

April 25, 2005

So i just stumbled upon a very powerful tool for finding cool new music to listen to:

MusicVine

This is a flash site that builds a map of influencial and similar music around any artist you search for, i highly recomend checking this one out.

in the beginning there was a lotof blog.while it actually put it. thereon kind of amazedhere.

April 13, 2005

A new experiment has drtheiven me to start a new and exciting way of life for the blog they call luminous, a technology blog i call the "technoBlog"

the experiment is with a text to really bad not quite coherent speech

actuallythat came out quite brilliantly.

here are my other experiments:

(15:50:05) HANtheManSol0: feel it's a
(15:50:13) HANtheManSol0: html what's going on and try to talk to your computer
(15:50:27) howsoonisnow 99: huh?
(15:50:28) HANtheManSol0: hasto have to have no idea, i thought into the s.f.
(15:50:40) howsoonisnow 99: what?
(15:50:41) HANtheManSol0: hand the states have the utmost
(15:50:47) HANtheManSol0: day and then get a hold of yourself
(15:51:07) howsoonisnow 99: W|-|4+ |)o J00 M34n???
(15:51:38) howsoonisnow 99: C0|\|phu53 t|-|3 5|-|i+ 0U+ Of |\/|3
(15:51:50) HANtheManSol0: todo itdoyou doat the time of dutywhatisyour favorite color
(15:52:23) howsoonisnow 99: W|-|4T 4r3 j00 tRyInG +o 54Y |\|3uM4|\|???
(15:52:35) HANtheManSol0: andcopies of theknocked out these copiespajamassendenter
(15:52:47) HANtheManSol0: thepeacetimeout
(15:52:56) HANtheManSol0: will try again later
(15:53:10) howsoonisnow 99: try what?
(15:53:22) HANtheManSol0: voicecomputersoftware
(15:53:31) howsoonisnow 99: ooo
(15:53:34) howsoonisnow 99: what about it?
(15:53:52) HANtheManSol0: stocksnownostocksbelow is is awful horrible does not work
(15:54:14) HANtheManSol0: canjamjim
(15:54:41) howsoonisnow 99: +RY +4lK1|\|9 lI|
(15:54:50) HANtheManSol0: ideaslaterto ten samto ten samspellertuc a n.s. a n.m.
(15:55:22) HANtheManSol0: l., and i knewa really wish to pay telephones and is seen as presenting it to his whole areas
(15:56:33) howsoonisnow 99: 1 w@N+3D +0 he+ +H4+ V0ic3 $oPh+w4re, 8UT i fi9UreD 1+ $ucK$
(15:58:07) HANtheManSol0: hellohellohell of a lot

of the

(15:57:04) HANtheManSol0: racher meisterf. a n.. butthethe thethe
(15:57:16) HANtheManSol0: drive torushfor irishraj
(15:57:20) HANtheManSol0: raj
(15:57:30) HANtheManSol0: what he's up my man raj meister
(15:58:44) HANtheManSol0: thescratch thatuse ofyousuckhell ofa huge time
(15:59:15) HANtheManSol0: hamburger
(16:00:21) RajKasturi: i totally agree
(16:01:28) HANtheManSol0: elephanttwo canput thatwhat totheevent of the of thedeletethe
(16:01:35) HANtheManSol0: midgets don't taste good
(16:02:23) HANtheManSol0: but 2/10 and does thescratch theirlead tothe yankees has set of june
(16:02:47) HANtheManSol0: theracher on chinese aliens to my computer is not smart enough to tell you what i'm telling you
(16:02:47) RajKasturi: is this off that site?
(16:03:05) HANtheManSol0: what site/question
(16:03:33) HANtheManSol0: of thehand of over half of con who arranged the vote down on all the marshmallows
(16:03:35) RajKasturi logged out.
(16:12:01) RajKasturi logged in.