Richard Jones of softmachines.org commented about how forecasting is unreliable because of bad forecasts He lists a prediction by Glenn Seaborg, then chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, predicting in 1971 that there would be 2100 billion Kwh of generating power for nuclear power in the USA in 2000. There was 780 billion kwh. It …
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has led a shift in political science toward quantitative models. Analyses of his model of political decision-making show that it has a 90 percent accuracy rate. Like a 0.1 version of the fictional character Hari Seldon of the Asimov Foundation series. The elements of the model are players standing in for …
What’s new in the optical tweezer from MIT’s Matt Lang and David Appleyard is that they used infrared light to move particles on silicon, the basis of microchips. (Unlike visible light, the infrared does not bounce off the silicon.) That means that MIT’s optical tweezer can be used not just for study but to build …
A new type of memory technology could lead to thumb drives or digital-camera memory cards that store a terabyte of information–more than most hard drives hold today. The first examples of the new technology, which could also slash energy consumption by more than 99 percent, could be on the market within 18 months UPDATE:I have …
Phased array chip will drastically lower the cost of phased array radar and wireless super-high speed communication. Some phased arrays are larger than highway billboards and the most powerful – used as sophisticated radar, surveillance and communications systems for military aircraft and ships – can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The high cost has …
A post from 2005 in the NY Times which discusses the thinking and motivation of wealthy entrepreneurs It shows that even if there is great wealth created in the future that there will be significant numbers of people who will still be highly motivated to continue to try and create the next big thing. One …
University of Pittsburgh researchers injected a therapy previously found to protect cells from radiation damage into the bone marrow of mice, then dosed them with some 950 roentgens of radiation — nearly twice the amount needed to kill a person in just five hours. Nine in 10 of the therapy-receiving mice survived, compared to 58 …
Here is a blog post from the xprize organization with pictures UPDATE: There appears to be no winner in the lunar lander competition for 2007 as Armadillo’s entry failed and burned in its fourth attempt Wired magazine is blogging the lunar lander xprize cup competition as well The Armadillo Aerospace had one of two good …
TG Daily has Darpa urban grand challenge coverage (pictures, video and articles). There is official coverage at the DARPA site Links to all of the teams is here UPDATE:There have been some crashes in the semi-final competitions Wired magazine is also covering the Darpa urban challenge UPDATE Monday October 29:slow start the competition in this …
Two new classes of experimental drugs shown to have powerful muscle-building capabilities–selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) and myostatin inhibitors–have been added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) list of prohibited substances for 2008. I had discussed the myostatin inhibitor drug I believe that there is nothing wrong with safe muscle enhancement. Unlike steroids it will …
Jim Rogers, chairman of Beeland Interests Inc. and a former partner of George Soros, said yesterday the yuan may quadruple in the next decade. If it did then the yuan would be at 1.8 to 1.9 to the US dollar. China’s economy would be at 13 trillion US dollar even if there was zero growth. …