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Archive for the ‘government’ category: Page 168

Aug 1, 2018

NASA is about to announce the 8 astronauts who will fly SpaceX and Boeing’s spaceships for the first time — here’s who they might be

Posted by in categories: government, space travel

Here’s who we think they might be:


NASA is about to name the first eight astronauts ever to fly Boeing and SpaceX’s brand-new spaceships.

The Commercial Crew Program, as it’s called, is a spaceflight competition that NASA started about two years before retiring its space shuttles in July 2011. The goal: ensure NASA astronauts can access the International Space Station and end US reliance on Russia’s increasingly expensive Soyuz spaceships to get there.

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Jul 31, 2018

Is Bitcoin Erasing 300 years of Monetary Evolution?

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, economics, finance, government, innovation

Today, economist and Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, wrote in the New York Times, that Bitcoin is taking us back 300 years in monetary evolution. As a result, he predicts all sorts of bad things.

A significant basis for Mr. Krugman’s argument is that the US dollar has value because men with guns say it does.

Is Bitcoin erasing 300 years of monetary evolution?

Running with the metaphor that fundamental change to an economic mechanism represents ‘evolution’, I think a more accurate statement is that Bitcoin is not erasing the lessons of history. Rather, it is the current step in the evolution of money. Of course, with living species, evolution is a gradual process based on natural selection and adaptation. With Bitcoin, change is coming up in the rear view mirror at lightning speed.

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Jul 28, 2018

Robots Can’t Hold Stuff Very Well, But You Can Help

Posted by in categories: employment, government, habitats, robotics/AI

Humanoid Robot torsos, legs, and arms are about where they need to be. But the robot hands are not quite where they need to be yet if we really want them to take all the jobs. The government is dumping a lot of money into robotic hand’s for amputees, which i’m sure they plan to eventually put on the humanoid robots, but it should be pushed along faster.


Imagine, for a moment, the simple act of picking up a playing card from a table. You have a couple of options: Maybe you jam your fingernail under it for leverage, or drag it over the edge of the table.

Now imagine a robot trying to do the same thing. Tricky: Most robots don’t have fingernails, or friction-facilitating fingerpads that perfectly mimic ours. So many of these delicate manipulations continue to escape robotic control. But engineers are making steady progress in getting the machines to manipulate our world. And now, you can help them from the comfort of your own home.

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Jul 28, 2018

Could We Use Space to Pay for a Universal Basic Income?

Posted by in categories: economics, government, robotics/AI, space

Universal basic income is a generous idea in principle, with clear benefits to society. However, the question of how to pay for it remains an enigma. While some propose taxation, others think we should use the booming space trade to benefit us all.

Universal basic income is the idea that every citizen should receive an amount of money from the government to meet their needs, regardless of age, race, gender, or even need. It has been billed as a solution to a variety of current and potential societal problems, including AI automation, poverty, and people losing the ability to allocate their own time.

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Jul 22, 2018

Home: Today, all the action beyond low earth orbit is telecom, government, and military

Posted by in categories: computing, government, military, space travel

Tomorrow it’s commercial tourism, space energy, space data centers, in-space manufacturing and resource exploration & utilization. Companies all over the world are creating incredible future technologies that will one day operate in deep space. But one question largely goes unanswered: how will they get there? We will take them.

Chemical and ion electrical propulsion have their limitations. We’re building breakthrough transportation technology to propel the next generation of space endeavors more efficiently, safely, and inexpensively than ever before.

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Jul 20, 2018

UK military aircraft technology

Posted by in categories: economics, government, military

We are immensely proud to continue a long tradition of aeronautical expertise that helps maintain security and defend nations as well as bringing significant economic, technological and skills benefits. The UK Government has launched its Combat Air Strategy at the 2018 Farnborough International Air Show with the aim of delivering the next generation of combat air capability by 2035.

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Jul 16, 2018

Plutonium Was Stolen From the Back of a Van at a Texas Marriott

Posted by in categories: energy, government, military

Their task was to ensure that the radioactive materials did not fall into the wrong hands on the way back to Idaho, where the government maintains a stockpile of nuclear explosive materials for the military and others.

To ensure they got the right items, the specialists from Idaho brought radiation detectors and small samples of dangerous materials to calibrate them: specifically, a plastic-covered disk of plutonium, a material that can be used to fuel nuclear weapons, and another of cesium, a highly radioactive isotope that could potentially be used in a so-called “dirty” radioactive bomb.

But when they stopped at a Marriott hotel just off Highway 410, in a high-crime neighborhood filled with temp agencies and ranch homes, they left those sensors on the back seat of their rented Ford Expedition. When they awoke the next morning, the window had been smashed and the special valises holding these sensors and nuclear materials had vanished.

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Jul 16, 2018

Chinese Government Developing AI To Recognize Anyone, Anywhere

Posted by in categories: government, robotics/AI, surveillance

China’s elite Technocracy is fully dedicated to being the global leader in Artificial Intelligence. These two companies alone are valued at over $6 billion and are revolutionizing surveillance for the purpose of social engineering. SenseTime is already the most funded AI startup. This technology is already starting to filter back into the U.S. ⁃ TN Editor.

A computer system that can track and identify any face anywhere may sound like science fiction, but, in China, two such companies are barreling ahead at making such technology an everyday reality.

The two startups, SenseTime and Megvii, are developing competing facial recognition platforms powered by artificial intelligence.

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Jul 15, 2018

A Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora’s Box for DIY Guns

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, government, law

Defense Distributed, the anarchist gun group known for its 3D printed and milled “ghost guns,” has settled a case with the federal government allowing it to upload technical data on nearly any commercially available firearm. Read the full story on WIRED: https://wired.trib.al/sSDiBFv

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Jul 14, 2018

NASA director reverses on climate change, after 1 month

Posted by in categories: astronomy, climatology, education, environmental, ethics, existential risks, governance, government, lifeboat, science, space, sustainability

For millennia, our planet has sustained a robust ecosystem; healing each deforestation, algae bloom, pollution or imbalance caused by natural events. Before the arrival of an industrialized, destructive and dominant global species, it could pretty much deal with anything short of a major meteor impact. In the big picture, even these cataclysmic events haven’t destroyed the environment—they just changed the course of evolution and rearranged the alpha animal.

But with industrialization, the race for personal wealth, nations fighting nations, and modern comforts, we have recognized that our planet is not invincible. This is why Lifeboat Foundation exists. We are all about recognizing the limits to growth and protecting our fragile environment.

Check out this April news article on the US president’s forthcoming appointment of Jim Bridenstine, a vocal climate denier, as head of NASA. NASA is one of the biggest agencies on earth. Despite a lack of training or experience—without literacy in science, technology or astrophysics—he was handed an enormous responsibility, a staff of 17,000 and a budget of $19 billion.

In 2013, Bridenstine criticized former president Obama for wasting taxpayer money on climate research, and claimed that global temperatures stopped rising 15 years ago.

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