Virgin Galactic, And the Path to Space

Pioneering a commercial space company is not easy. Impossible as it may sound, Virgin Galactic believes it can get commercial passengers into space as soon as 2009 or 2010, eventually making space adventures affordable to the average person. We are approaching the private space age, which in my opinion, was bound to come, as NASA's innovations have been somewhat lacking after a few terrible accidents. The time is ripe for a commercial space race.

However great, and affordable, the new age space flight sounds, it does have
its costs. Not just money, but like anything truly pioneering, it has a cost of lives. Accidents are bound to happen in unexplored fields. Recently, it has come to knowledge that Virgin Galactic's partner, Scaled Composites, LLC had an accident when it was secretly testing a cold-flow test of nitrous oxide. A cold-flow test is a test on a rocket engine without actually firing the rocket, in order to test its proficiency. Concerning the accident, Virgin Galactic has said "We have heard the news of a serious incident at Scaled Composites at Mojave Airport. We extend our deepest sympathies to those involved and their familes.". They have said they will await investigations before making anymore comments.

I truly feel for the families of those killed, and wish the injured a quick recovery. Although accidents such as these are terrible, I hope it does not effect the advancement of space travel. The people working for space companies know the dangers, and I believe they wouldn't want their deaths to be taken for granted. More then anyone else, I think they wanted to be a part of the evolution of man-kind, and will be forever engraved in space history for their sacrifices in helping bring space travel to life. Virgin Galactic has also said the accident has not affected the customers booked for flight, and 4 new customers have even signed up.

In end to this story, here's a few videos from Virgin Galactic that I think you'll find interesting:





-CNN article: Virgin Galactic keeps low profile after explosion
-Virgin Galactic's Website
-Scaled Composites, LLC's website

Taking A Stand

There are many injustices in the world. On our home front, in the country next door, they are all around. These injustices, most of the time, feel too large for a single soul to make a difference. I recently read a blog about "Images That Changed The World?!". It reminds me of all the people who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the common good. Selfless people who show that it is possible to change the world, or at least the way we view it. And it shows that we as a human race must still make major improvements.

I would just like to share a photo from the blog. It was during the Tiananmen Square protests, when the Chinese government sent in tanks to crush the protesters. Time Magazine named the "unknown rebel" one of its "100 most influential people of the 20th century" in 1998. In 2003, Life Magazine named the photo one of the "100 Photos that Changed the World". I think the photo is very powerful and inspiring, showing what one man can do against an army. It also reminds us of our freedoms we take for granted everyday. If you haven't seen it for some reason, take a look:

-Link to "Images That Changed The World?!" blog
-Link to the Wikipedia article about the "tank man"

Quote of the Week

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other." -Douglas H. Everett

Apple Leopard Introductory Video Leaked!

What appears to be the new Leopard introductory video has been leaked on to the internet. We never really will know if this is the real deal until launch, because Steve Jobs likes to throw people off track and is vigilant about leaks. It looks really well done. Here is the apparent leak:

Why don't they make commercials like this more often?

Heres a Sprint BlackBerry Advertisement. Check it out!

Awesome Slip And Slide

Was just browsing and saw a post about this. This Youtube video is a little old, but if you haven't seen this yet, check it out!

My Mid-Range Computer Dream

I've talked a lot about technology that is entering our society. I haven't mentioned much about what I like to do. When I'm not reading news, I like to enjoy some high end gaming. The power of our computers are increasing fairly rapidly, consumers have been able to get quad cores for a while now! I'll be using the Canadian site NCIX since, apparently, Newegg doesn't allow shipments to Canada. If anyone knows any places with cheaper parts, feel free to share! Well, here is my Dream Mid-Range Computer system:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box Price: $329.99

Motherboard: EVGA Nforce 680I SLI LGA775 Conroe ATX DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard Price: $245.68

Videocard: EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 500MHZ 640MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card
Price: $438.12

Memory: Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Price: $134.99

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive 5YR MFR Warranty Price: $73.98

Case: Antec P180 ATX Advanced Mid Tower Aluminum Case 4X5.25 1X3.5 6X3.5INT No PS W/ USB & Audio Ports Price: $144.04

Soundcard: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtremegamer FATAL1TY Professional Series Sound Card 7.1 PCI Retail Price: $169.99

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203B Black SATA DVD+RW 20X8X16 DVD-RW 20X6X16 DL 18X/12X INT DVD Writer OEM W/ Vista SW Price: 37.99

Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad 750W ATX V2.2 EPS12V 24PIN SLI Active PFC Power Supply Black Price: $183.52

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 32BIT DVD OEM Price: 130.59

Reasons for choosing:

CPU: I chose the Core 2 Quad Q6600 because of the price. For a mid range computer, 300ish dollars isn't a bad deal. Then, there's the quad core part. A few month's ago, this beast was priced at around 600, then, Intel decided to halve it with the release of some of its newer processors. While many games aren't multi-threaded, expect to see most of the new ones using multiple cores. So, to me, it's a lasting investment that allows you to prepare for the future, while at the same time, telling your friends your cores pwn their cores hardcore.

Motherboard: Well, what can I say. First of all of course, it's an SLI board, with 2xPCI-e x16 slots, so there's room for the future if I ever decide to go SLI. And also, I hear it's a good overclocker. It has plenty of other slots for more components, and lifetime warranty.

Videocard: While this card isn't the best out, it's a direct X10 card, and it's the 640MB version. Again, it's got a lifetime warranty. You can easily drop a hundred bucks or more by downgrading to the 320MB version, which should be enough to play new games with, for a while yet at least. Or, as I would do, wait until around Christmas for the next gen Nvidia cards to come out. By then, compatibility issues with Vista will hopefully be figured out, and you'll get a much better card (albeit, you may have to wait longer for the mid-range cards to come out).

Memory: Here, I got 2GB's of ram. If you wanted to spend a little more, you could go with 4GB's to future proof your rig, but it's not needed right now, not to mention, it won't do any good on a 32bit system. So here, I basically just got a decent pairof 1 GB modules that will last until I need to upgrade to 4 gigs or to a new system, which ever comes first.

Hard Drive: One of the reasons I picked this is for the 5 year manufacturers warranty and the price. 250 gigs is decent right now for me, and I have some other drives sitting around. But you could easily put another hundred in and get a much bigger drive, or, put around 450 in and get a terabyte drive.

Case: I was looking for simplicity when choosing this case. This is an elegant looking case, with plenty of room inside for the massive directX10 cards. If you move your case a lot, this may not be the one for you, since it's quite heavy.

Soundcard: The Fatal1ty sound card is a premium card. I enjoy my sound, and want the best quality, whether I'm playing a game, listening to music, or watching a dvd. As well, it has something called X-ram which might give some extra performance in supporting games, but probably not a noticeable one, seeing as how this system is powerful enough on its own.

Optical Drive: I didn't really pick this drive over any other one, and I could just as easily have gone with any other. I went with this one for sata, and the 20x speed (if you can find any blank media capable of that speed).

Power Supply: One of the most important parts of the system. Always put up an extra buck to ensure you get a quality PSU. This one has rave reviews, and, is a PC power and Cooling model. This, to me, is THE brand for power supplies.

Operating System: This is a picky one. While it would be nice to get the retail version and be able to use it on future systems, I went with the OEM copy solely because of price. Who knows when Microsoft will throw their next OS at us? As well, I went with 32 bit because 64bit still has many compatibility issues with our current software, and it will be some time yet before 64bit becomes mainstream (probably because of people thinking the way I am).

There were some assumptions I made. I assumed the use of your older keyboard, mouse, and monitor. This wasn't meant to be a best of the best system, but instead, a system that does what you want, and presents (hopefully) the least problems. While some of the components are higher end, they can just as easily be substituted for cheaper ones, which is what I would do if I was buying one. The total price for the components is: $1888.89 (Canadian dollars), not including applicable taxes or shipping. It would be more beneficial to pick the parts up in a store. The price can be easily lowered many hundreds of dollars by waiting for some sales, and substituting parts for cheaper ones. Although I recommend waiting for sales, I don't recommend piecing your system together sale by sale, as you could end up with dOA parts and not know it.

So, there you have it. My dream Mid-Range rig. Feel free to send it to me!

The Final Frontier

Like it or not, space travel is here to stay. Traveling into the unknown is the ultimate risk, and has some foreseeable benefits in the future. With some large private sector entries into space travel, an unprecedented surge in space travel technology is on its way.

Forget about sky diving, that's for people with no adventure. Why not take a rocket into space and dive back from there? Or, if your not an adrenaline junkie like me, why not at least go to the edge of space with Virgin Galactic. These are two of many attempts to give anyone a trip into space. Of course prices will be out of range for the average person, but they will continue to drop as people continue to use the space services.

As for benefits, think asteroids. They have many valuable resources that are just sitting there waiting to be exploited. Nickel, iron, and platinum are some of the mineral deposits. Space Mining could some day be a major industry, and, if space travel is handled properly, in the future, we should have no mineral shortages. It is estimated that an asteroid with a diameter of 1 kilometer has aproxmately 150 billion dollars worth of platinum on it alone! (more info here)

Planets also are the key to our history. We can try to make educated guesses, but by examining our neighboring planets and other parts of the solar system and universe, we can find more clues to our past, present and future.

If we can break through a few barriers, the possibilities for space travel are almost endless. One of the largest barriers to overcome is speed. How can we possibly get anywhere with our current speed? Even 1 light year would take us a long enough time. Our major break through in space travel will come when we break that barrier. In my opinion, its not a question of will we achieve speeds close to the speed of light, but a question of when? And even light speed does not seem sufficient to explore all the realms of existence. I also believe that it is possible to travel at speeds faster than the speed of light. The private space companies popping up everywhere will surely expand our technologies and views of space. After all, slow advancements are slow profits!

So, with lack of major space advancements from NASA for many years, I say, give it a go private sector! Look what the private sector did for computers! And for anyone interested, theres a book about the great minds of our starting private space age. I haven't come across this book yet, but it seems very interesting. So check it out, and let me know how it is! Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space

Quote of the Week

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death." -James F. Bymes

Sorry, took a little while to think of a quote worth posting.

Quote of the Week

"If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming, and Windows." - Dave Barry

Digital Downloads: The Grass Is Greener On the Other Side

Digital downloads are starting to take off, as technology makes it easier for the everyday consumer to download content without any deep understanding of technology. Content is starting to appear more and more on the internet, and is available to anyone at the click of a mouse. Larger companies are starting to see the benefit of the digital age, even if, they still insist on digital rights management. Media companies are always afraid of jumping to new methods of distribution, if you want a definition of conservative, look no further. In this article, we shall examine a couple benefits of digitalization, as well as some possible downsides. In the end, it will hopefully be clear, that going digital favors everyone.

Ease of use is one of the reasons why technology is being developed so rapidly. The computer is now becoming the central controller of media in households. Whether your streaming video to an Apple TV, downloading music, or watching the latest trailer or political campaign on websites such as Youtube, a computer can be used as the final destination for anything media. This central hub is eliminating the use of physical media, no more getting up and putting that damn disc into a player. So it's only logical to start putting the major media on it.

The most significant benefit of digitalization has to do with earth itself. As our population grows, our needs and wants are starting to impact the earth's resources in a large way. Forests are being cut down at an enormous rate, our small supplies of fresh water are being polluted by industries and deemed unsafe. Littering from excess packaging is starting to cover our land. Digitalization of media can help slow down the process of destroying our planet. There would be no more need to package DVDs, music cds, software, or games. Stopping this excessive, and unnecessary mass production could be a big helping hand to returning earth to a better state. And who knows, it might help a few people tidy up their cluttered homes!

With every positive solution comes negative ideas. Because of the internet architecture of openness, some people enjoy downloading content without paying, or in any way benefiting the producers/owners. Now, some say this is killing the industry. I stick with the idea that the people who watch the content without giving back their support would not have payed for it in the first place. While people argue that this is a very ignorant way of looking at it, I believe this to be true. The market is not affected if the people who watch the illegally downloaded content were not going to buy it in the first place. I also think of the content as a free trial. Chances are, if someone enjoys the content, they will likely want to support the provider to create more of it. And they might not have otherwise seen it if they hadn't downloaded it. Its a give and take circle that, in my opinion, benefits everyone.

Maybe, we're accusing people of stealing without looking further into the issue. Perhaps the downloading of illegal content is the result of lacking a decent, easy to use, unobtrusive service. Take a look at iTunes. Before iTunes, music was taken off the internet from peer to peer programs like Kazaa. If all people were taking music off the internet with the sole intention of theft (which companies try to make it look like), would iTunes have then boomed? There are many other services coming with the same idea in mind, provide a service with a legal means of downloading content. Yahoo Unlimited is a promising idea based on renting music. There are some services in the works that plan to give away music for free, using instead, advertising revenue to pay for it.

Most of the technology is here already. Most people have a computer in their household. Hard drive storage space is increasing, and bandwidth is becoming cheaper everyday. Consumer internet speeds are increasing as content on the internet demands more speed. We are approaching a tipping point, one which will fall towards virtual instead of physical content. Even if downloading times aren't instant, you can see there is a demand by looking at systems such as netflix. If people wanted their movies right now, they would go to a movie rental store and rent them. Instead, they order online, and are willing to wait for it to arrive in the mail. So, with this attitude in mind, people wouldn't be bothered much if they had to wait a few hours for downloads to finish. Digital content is the future. Its environmentally friendly, and people want it. So, the only question that remains is, how long will the corporate world keep consumers waiting, trying to push away the inevitable? How much money will companies lose staying out of these new markets that are being created across the internet, one of the few markets that has little regards to borders?

The Unfortunate State of Democracy in the 21st Century

Here we are, a little past the beginning of the 21st century. We have made many great leaps, we are doing the previously impossible. Indeed, we are a constantly changing civilization of freedom and liberty. But, with all these advancements, we cannot be so naive, for there exists something stronger than our civilization, and it has existed since the first of man. We call it power.

Power is the main driving force behind any political system. Democracy is dependent on a balance of powers, to make sure that a single individual doesn't gain too much. Thomas Jeffferson once said "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be". There will always be those who will seek power. As history teaches us, power corrupts.

As with everything else, voting is being transformed by newer technology. Voting is not like other technology. Voting is one of the major driving forces behind democracies. And this, is where democracy is being attacked. At its foundation. Electronic voting machines are starting to gain popularity. These machines are not being taken seriously enough. There are no computer systems in our age that are perfectly safe. They mostly have been proven unreliable, and, if they have not, then its only because they have not revealed the "brains" of their machine. Machines have been in use for quite a while, but until recently, they were still in little use. Now, with them dreadfully becoming widespread, we are going to see more problems become visible, but by then, it may be too late.

Machines are not alive, they are not magical, they are logical. Unlike humans, machines do not have a sense of patriotism, guilt, or reluctance. They do exactly what they are told. Just recently, a group from the University of Berkeley were given full reign on a variety of voting machines, and they were all hacked successfully. There are those who believe that the United States elections of 2004 had votes altered. A group of people formed the organization Black Box Voting, fighting to stop ballot tampering. There is an HBO documentary on ballot tampering, where Black Box Voting uncovered some scandalous facts.

While I don't live in the United States, it makes me sick to see the power of democracy falling out of the people's hands. Lives were given in its name, and the power is being whittled away from we, the people. Here in Canada, the use of electronic systems are starting to come about. I have yet to encounter one, but it seems only inevitable as the seducing flood of "apparently reliable and safe" technology comes about. For an underlying foundation of our political systems, our approach to new technology is a joke. In Canada, I believe the ballot counting should remain the way it mostly is, in peoples hands, not machines.

Voting is a time for people to put their heads together, and to decide on the fate of their country. It is one of the few times that direct democracy almost occurs. It's a process of openness. We, the people, see how the process works while we control the counting. When we use machines, we cannot see how their "brains" work, the doing of proprietary code. We are depending on a select group of people. Are we slowly on our way to a dictatorship? After all, we can consider the select few as an "elite group of people" at the forefront of decision making.

Edit: Kate pointed out this article - Surprise: U.S. Electronic Voting Systems Fail Security Tests!, showing some of the actual security exploits. Thanks Kate!

Quote of the Week

"There is no good or evil: only power and those too weak to seek it." - J. K. Rowling