This is no surprise. Ever since red NetFlix envelopes started appearing in mailboxes across the country and Video On Demand services increasing, the days of running off to blockbuster on Friday nights is coming to an end. These RedBox’s are popping up everywhere, already 12,000 locations in the US.
Blockbuster, a Dallas based company, has cautioned the SEC about it’s chances of staying in business, it has “substantial doubt” considering they’re financial situation and loan agreements.
I don’t use blockbuster, and I don’t know anyone who still rents a DVD release for 7 bucks at a local blockbuster. They’re too many alternatives (NetFlix, RedBox, VOD Services, Hulu) that are better and significantly cheaper. Blockbuster always made renting video games easy, but that service alone won’t keep them afloat.
Water vapor has been found 63 light-years from Earth
Carl Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology and his team of scientists have detected water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet 63 light-years away from earth.
The planet, HD 189733b, is what’s called a “Hot Jupiter” — a boiling, gigantic gas planet more akin to our own Jupiter or Saturn than to a terrestrial planet like Earth. It’s not a good candidate itself for alien life, but the successful detection of water vapor here, in the location and quantities that theorists predicted, bodes well for further studies of more promising locales for extraterrestrial life.
WIRED.com
According to the article, it’s not of large significane that water vapor has been found on another planet other than Earth, our own Jupiter has water vapor, the signifcance is that a planet so distant from our solar system has been identified with having water vapor in it’s atmosphere.
I think whats most significant is that we can detect this from 63 light-years away. Burrows, a lead scientest on the project,
“The data we have is the best spectrum ever taken of a planet outside the solar system.”WIRED.com
Truly an achievement for modern science, can’t wait to see what we detect next. ET?!
I wrote an entry a few months back about the Large Hadron Collider’s damage, and now we have some photos to see exactly what happened. Not that we can tell much from the photos other than a complicated mess of destruction, but its interesting to see the destruction. The damage is supposed to set back use of the collider for a significant amount of time.
I think about this and wonder if this set back has been planned for? In my previous post I got a quote from one of the scientests that said these sorts of problems happen, “there is a break in time.” He surely couldn’t have suggested this…
Sea-Based X-Band Radar is a floating, self-propelled, mobile radar station designed to operate in high winds and heavy seas.
This massive piece of equipment is a part of the defense of United States of America against missile from and across the waters that surround America. It however, appears to be an east target to destroy if some nation wanted to safely launch an attack on the county, but disabling this large device would be more than unplugging it from the wall. This photo is taken when the X-Band needed to come in for general maintenance. Comparing the ship to the man standing in the foreground gives a good sense of how large the floating radar really is.
The typical wind turbine is large, can be somewhat noisy and expensive (seek my post on 5 Myths of Wind Energy). Turning away from the horizontal axis design dominated in todays wind energy market, this video shows what a vertical axis wind turbine can do. Generating less power, but taking up much less area than a horizontal axis, these new turbines are the answer to the space problem in urban areas.
Better Place L.L.C. of Palo Alto California is teaming up with the state of Hawaii to turn the dream of electric transportation into a reality. Announced today, privately owned Better Place, outlined the largest electric automobile network, ballpark costing 200 to 250 million dollars.
California startup Better Place, has agreed to place 50,000 to 100,000 car rechargeable stations throughout Hawaii by 2012. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
Under the plan, consumers would buy or lease electric cars, and Better Place would supply recharging services and batteries. Consumers would have a choice of buying mileage plans — which would include recharging services and battery swaps — or being guests on the network and paying for each battery charge.
Hawaii is the first state to invest large amounts into electric cars and this author hopes it to be a great success. According to Better Place CEO Shai Agassi, the San Francisco Bay Area, Israel and Denmark are interested to outline a similar electric automobile plan.
Fall is continuing to zoom by and before we know, it will be gone and a thick-slushy, white substance will be covering everything. I love the winter night sky; everything appears so dark in comparison to summer nights and the stars and other planets seem to shine. The stars appear brightest during winter evenings because of several reasons. (1) There is less haze and moisture in the winter night sky than summer sky because low temperatures force the moisture to settle as frost, removing which provides a clearer view of the sky. (2) Winter evenings generally have more clear sky conditions than summer nights and (3) there are brighter stars visible in the winter sky than in the summer sky.
Considering all this…I want to buy a telescope. But I really have no idea how to start. What type? Cost? Where should I buy it from? I hope to accomplish some amateur night observation, something that has WOW but I don’t need to discover any planets/asteroids or E.T.
Type
The consensus for telescopes considered “amateur” are 6-8 inch reflectors. In a reflector, light is gathered at the bottom of the telescope by a concave mirror called the primary, which has a parabolic shape. According to the National Astronomers Association, almost all major telescopes are reflectors. So we’re set, reflector telescope is the way to go. For further advice on quality of telescopes, check out Scopereviews.com
Cost
After searching around the internet and forums dedicated to amateur astronomy, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should spend no more than $300 on an amateur telescope. Most people in forums have suggested not to spend less than $200 on a telescope. “You begin to get cheap parts. Cheap focus and objective, usually not sturdy construction and a telescope without a warranty,” theSCOPE from a certain forum writes. So I’m going to have to shell out 225-300 bucks.
While these are only a few, there are many other places to find a telescope. If you find a telescope at one of the above websites, shoot on over to Ebay or craigslist to find a lightly used or new one for 10%+ cheaper. I’ll let everyone know the telescope I choose to purchase, but I may have to wait until christmas or so, but I’ll continue to search for some great deals up until christmas. Cheers!
I found this interesting article at gizmodo.com about the winner of the Seoul Design Competition which awards inventors that use innovative product designs. The winner this year was “Life Pebbles”, a backpack that straps onto the air tank of firefighters and drops glowing neon balls to indicate the way out of a disorienting building. The designers liken the system to a “Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs” scenario, where the leading firefighter will drop the neon balls and other firemen will follow. Interesting to see if the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel will solve this problem….
Last weekend I drove to Chicago on interstate 80 and was pleasantly surprised to see several more wind energy plants than 8 month before. I also saw many wind energy components on flatbeds heading west as I drove down the interstate. This makes me happy to see a country so dependent on petroleum, making an effort to use sustainable energy.
1.)Wind Power is Cheap
Those towering wind turbines I saw off interstate 80 cost roughly 3 million dollars. The initial cost of wind turbines is expensive and will take several years for the money to be generated back.
2.) America is way behind the rest of the world
Actually, America produces the most wind energy than any other country. In other places around the world, Denmark for example, receives 20% of their energy from wind and Germany has the most wind turbines than any country. But America is not trailing here, partly because it is windier in America than in Germany and Denmark is slightly less than twice the size of Massachusetts consuming a miniscule amount of energy compared to America.
3.) Wind Turbines are Loud
This used to be the case in the late 70’s when wind energy was first emerging but the problem has been almost erased today. Some residents that live close to turbines complain but science is still searching for sleeker designs.
4.) Wind turbines kill birds
Freshman year of college I remember my ecology teacher condemning wind energy. “It kills thousands of birds a year” she would exclaim. In wind energy’s early years, turbines were built closer to the ground with larger rotors. Today, turbines are spread and very much higher as well. Ecologists have seen a significant drop in bird deaths due to wind energy.
5.) Anyone can own a wind energy farm.
Unless you have a sizable amount of land it will be uneconomical to own a wind generator. Wind plants only produce energy 30% of the time and need great distances between physical obstacles such as buildings and homes. Smaller scale turbines should be considered, but science still needs to progress before we can power our homes singularly off wind power.
Located below switzerland, repairs begin for the Large Hadron Collider.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) made public the damage on the £3.6bn ($6.5 Billion) world’s largest particle accelerator. According to CERN, the 16 mile long circuit of magnets and wicked fast protons will be shut down for the better part of two months. The damage occurred when two magnets malfunctioned, and a leak of liquid helium prevented the LHC from maintaining a temperature close to 0 Celsius. The cost of repairs is currently unknown.
Spokesman for the LHC, James Gillies ensures the safety and construction of the collider,
“It will take a couple of months to fix, because we operate at a very low temperature and because we will have to warm the magnets up to room temperature, fix the fault, then cool them back down again. An investigation is underway, and as soon as we have the full details, we will release them. These kind of teething problems happen with particle accelerators.”
The Hadron Collider was met with skepticism by scientists and the general public as some believed a black hole would be created when the machine began operation September 10, 2008. 9 days later, the damage only supports the skepticism of the Hadron Collider and end of the world. The world’s leading scientists and engineers ensure the safety of the most complex machine ever constructed and that malfunctions or “teething” of the collider, is not unusual.
Interested in the operation of the LHC, I found a great video describing the function and results that are expected from the collider. Let’s hope the LHC can bounce back…
