Gravity Ruled Out as the Cause of the Pioneer Anomaly

The Pioneer anomaly is an unexplained deceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that seems to be acting on them as they head out of the Solar System. This deceleration is tiny: just (8.74±1.33)×10^−10 m/s^−2. The big question is where does it come from.”

Carbon nanotubes bridge the molecular and crystalline quantum worlds, and their extraordinary electronic, mechanical and optical properties have attracted enormous attention from a broad scientific…

lacontessa:

Jason Cantoro, Charms, 2009.

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“But suppose we get out there, go terraform Mars, and the Martian colonists actually revolt. Or suppose we encounter hostile aliens. How would space combat actually go?”

Psst! Hey kid, you wanna see the sky in different wavelengths? I bet you do…

Ever wonder what it’s really like to live in space?

“There are no proper floors nor ceilings, because there isn’t gravity like we know it on Earth, just the free-fall feeling of space. This lack of directional pull is the central design fact, and it affects everything, including you. It will take at least three days to learn to move properly, mastering gentle gliding to and from various handholds. You don’t want to zoom around circus-style, as the station has many hard, protruding metal surfaces. The place is also festooned with cables: sewer, electrical, electronic, and your new best friends—since they help you keep still—elastic bungee cords.”

Also: An email from someone currently on the ISS.

“Ferrofluids are made up of tiny magnetic fragments of iron suspended in oil (often kerosene) with a surfactant to prevent clumping (usually oleic acid). The fluid is relatively easy to make at home yet extremely expensive to buy on-line. How does $165 a liter sound? Pretty bad, right? Read on to learn how to make ferrofluids on the cheap.”

What the—?!?

“CNN finds modern-day slaves in US”

An interesting take on new/old music biz gripes by Dave Allen.

“The debate surrounding online music distribution still evokes passion from critics and supporters alike, the most vocal being musicians who believe that I am working to make music free online and therefore deny them income from CD sales. Nothing could be further from the truth, I simply argue that musicians need to monetize everything around their musical output and stop dreaming that CD sales will one day return to previous levels; where the 2009 equation means 100k is the new 1mm, 10k is the new 100k etc. I should point out for the record that I am focusing almost exclusively on non-mainstream, independent musicians.”

Also:  Related.

By Richard Hofstadter†
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Related/From/Of Interest:  The Paranoid Mentality