The Russian Space Agency has released this speeded up video of a Soyuz spacecraft approaching and docking in the International Space Station. It’s like Battlestar Galactica, but without phasers. Or Cylons. Or Vipers. Or Starbuck. Actually, it’s nothing like BSG.
I like it anyway, although it makes me sad: Soon, they will be the only ones doing this. [Flight Global]
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Zeroing In On the International Space Station [Space]
The Russian Space Agency has released this speeded up video of a Soyuz spacecraft approaching and docking in the International Space Station. It’s like Battlestar Galactica, but without phasers. Or Cylons. Or Vipers. Or Starbuck. Actually, it’s nothing like BSG.
I like it anyway, although it makes me sad: Soon, they will be the only ones doing this. [Flight Global]
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Zeroing In On the International Space Station [Space]
Our favorite love doctor, Debby Herbenick, explains what to do after accidentally sending a romantic—or possibly kinky—message to the wrong person. And what happens when you tweet said message publicly, instead of sending direct?
If you misdirected a line about what you plan on doing with your tongue later that night to a good friend rather than your partner, I’m sure everyone can be grownups and laugh that one off. Hey, at least you have a sex life, right?
But if you misdirected such a line to your boss? Well, let’s just say that pretending your personal IM or Facebook accounts got hacked (or maybe your phone was stolen) may not be such a bad idea. Post a few ridiculous things or send another message to your boss pretending it’s from the perpetrator, and then complain about how scary the internet is for the next few days at work. For a certain segment of the population, blaming “the Internet” tends to work. Problem solved.
Now, if you tweet something out loud that was meant to be a Secret Message (I’m against using the term “direct message”, which I feel has no flavor whatsoever) you could delete it immediately but it may still show up in your followers’ Twitter feed leaving you feeling panicked and scared. Instead, try to cover your tracks with another Tweet that makes the first one seem funny or silly and something you totally meant to write but in an ironic sort of way.
Read more of Dr. Debby’s love advice here during Gizmodo’s Bad Valentine celebration.
Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.
Oops image by ktpupp/Flickr under CC license
Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.
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Ask Giz: What To Do When You Accidentally Sext the Wrong Person [Badvalentine]
We’ve heard of electromagnetic pulses cutting steel in milliseconds, but apparently they can also be used to stop moving cars just as fast. The cannon demonstrated in the video here is still a prototype, but it definitely seems to work.
The idea is that an electromagnetic pulse would be used to disable a car’s microprocessors, chips, and whatever other electronics are keeping it running. The final “cannon” system, built by Eureka Aerospace, will apparently a bit smaller and lighter than what we see in the video—it’ll be suitcase-sized and about 50 pounds—and it will “stop cars in their tracks up to 656 feet (200 m) away.”
I wish they tested that cannon on a moving car, but it does just what it should by disabling the car’s electrical system. Only trouble is that even once the system is perfected and in use it can still be foiled easily: By using a pre-1970s car which doesn’t “rely on microprocessors.” Whoops. [Flight Global via Pop Sci]
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This EMP Cannon Stops Cars Almost Instantly [Emp]
This is the Shinshin ATD-X, the prototype of what could be Japan’s very own stealth fighter if they don’t get to buy Lockheed Martin F-22s. It’s very sleek, but I’m sad it doesn’t transform like a Varitech.
The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it’s not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling—it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say—and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]
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Japan Developing Its Own Stealth Fighter Jet [Airplanes]
This is the Shinshin ATD-X, the prototype of what could be Japan’s very own stealth fighter if they don’t get to buy Lockheed Martin F-22s. It’s very sleek, but I’m sad it doesn’t transform like a Varitech.
The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it’s not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling—it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say—and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]
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Japan Developing Its Own Stealth Fighter Jet [Airplanes]
Yes, it’s the RoboCop question. How much of your body would you have to replace with machines before you could no longer be considered human? Let’s break it down into percentages.
What Percentage of Our Body Would Have To Be Replaced Before We Ceased Being Human?(poll)
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At What Point Would Our Cyborg-selves Cease To Be Human? [Question Of The Day]
Yes, it’s the RoboCop question. How much of your body would you have to replace with machines before you could no longer be considered human? Let’s break it down into percentages.
What Percentage of Our Body Would Have To Be Replaced Before We Ceased Being Human?(poll)
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At What Point Would Our Cyborg-selves Cease To Be Human? [Question Of The Day]
You saw the 3D images more than a year ago, and here’s the real thing: The all new, amazing, and near-supersonic Gulfstream 650. The cockpit, with four 14-inch multifunction LCDs with enhanced vision display, looks even cooler than the renderings:
The new Gulfstream 650 can take you anywhere in a 8,000 miles radius at Mach 0.925 and 41,000 feet. It is powered by dual Dual Rolls-Roice BR725 engines, which makes it 33% quieter, emitting 5% fewer NOx emissions and 10% less smoke than its predecessor.
The G650 also has the latest in electronics, with fly-by-wire controls and large multifunction screens that can combine real time video, night vision, and 3D renderings for military-grade visuals. Yes, that splash you heard was Larry Ellison, Al Gore, and John Travolta getting wet. [Flight Global with photos by Jon Ostrower]
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Insanely Rich People Get New Insanely Awesome and Shiny Flying Toy [Airplanes]
I once had a crush for a Swedish girl named Lisa. Now I wish it worked out, just to be able to wear this “In Love with Lisa” t-shirt and don’t feel like a total Apple dork. [iPhoneSavior via Etsy]
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I Was In Love With Lisa [Apple]
If you like astronomy, here’s a very simple event that you can see without special instruments, even if you are in a city: The harvest moon. In fact, if you are in a city, it will look even more spectacular.
The Harvest Moon is the full moon after the fall equinox, which this year was the 22 of September. The Harvest Moon usually happens in September, but this year is a little late. You will be able to see it this weekend. But why is is so special about it?
Nothing happens to the Moon itself except that, during these days, it travels really close to the horizon. That triggers something called the Moon illusion. This optical phenomenon makes our home satellite look huge when it’s close to the horizon and smaller when it’s up in the sky, even while it’s always at the same distance from Earth. That’s why, during these days, the full moon will look huge for a longer time thanks to its path in the sky, and its position in relation with the Sun.
You probably have seen this Moon before. If you live in a city it will appear huge and possibly colored because of the air pollution, appearing yellow, orange, and even red and pink. In the past, there were often fires in agricultural and forest areas, so the moon would be wildly colored too. This appearance, together with the fascination and influence the Moon has over humans and animals, made the Harvest Moon the inspiration for all kinds of legends, poems, and songs.
Maybe not Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, but it goes nicely with it. So while for some it may not be as cool and flashy as the Perseids, it’s still one of my favorite events to watch.
Now, go grab a bottle of wine or champagne, get out with your lover, and enjoy together. Or drink the bottle, get out naked, and howl at it. Like I do. [Wikipedia]
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Go Enjoy the Harvest Moon Tonight and Tomorrow [Astronomy]
While Boeing is struggling to get the Dreamliner into the skies, Airbus is already planning their A30X next generation aircraft, which include really cool stuff like forward swept wings, u-tails, and lower-placement engines. Their five-decker A380 replacement is even crazier.
These won’t come for another 15 years, but they represent a significant change in philosophy from current models, including that Sonic Cruiser model that looks—in technical terms—absofrikkinlutely damn cool. [Airliners via Flight Global]
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New Airbus A30x Planes Look Straight Out of Coruscant Skies [Airplanes]
Electric cars might be beautifully quiet, but they lack the aural balls of a V8, and pose a safety risk to pedestrians. That’s why next year’s Nissan Leaf will have a whirring sound reminiscent of a Bladerunner Police spinner.
Nissan’s engineers were originally tasked to simply recreate the sound of an engine. But, says 30-year veteran noise and vibration expert, Toshiyuki Tabata:
“We decided that if we’re going to do this, if we have to make sound, then we’re going to make it beautiful and futuristic. We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art.”
The sound will kick in automatically when the car starts, and turn off at about 12mph (when tire noise is enough to warn pedestrians).
Of course, it’s not the first time we’ve seen this sort of tech. Fisker Karma’s electric car will use a similar system designed to sound “like something between a formula One car and a jet plane”. That’s cool and all, but I think I’d still take the Sci-Fi option. [Nissan via Bloomberg via LA Times]
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Nissan’s Next Electric Car Will Sound Like Bladerunner [Electric Cars]
AT&T’s network is basically a huge failure. And if you want to fix their incompetence in your area, you’ll need to pay an additional $20 a month for a 3G MicroCell. I call bullshit.
Danny touched on this earlier, but the logic here is blowing my mind. How little regard for your customers do you have to have to offer a product that fixes your own product for an additional fee every month? Seriously, somebody explain to me how this is going to fly.
Leaks point to the MicroCell costing up to $20 a month to people who want to fix the dead spot in their apartment by running their phone through the internet. And a trial in North Carolina charges subscribers $150 for the box itself. Let’s break this down.
Basically, AT&T didn’t have a strong enough network to handle the iPhone. It still doesn’t. Yet they still charge about $100 per month on average to iPhone customers, who have to deal with dropped calls, delayed voicemails and unreliable 3G speeds. If you are in a particularly bad spot, the 3G MicroCell will let you run your calls and data through your internet connection rather than over their shit network.
Where do they get off charging for this? Femtocells will actually reduce the load on their networks. It shifts the traffic over to the internet provider you’re already paying for (which I’m sure ISPs will just love). How does this earn AT&T $20 per month?
The way the iPhone performs on AT&T’s network, they should be giving these out to people for free. In NYC and San Francisco, the service is near-unusable a good percentage of the time. AT&T is always talking about how they’re increasing coverage, but it never seems to get better. In fact, the week after they claimed to have completed upgrades in New York, my experiences with their coverage got noticeably worse.
Imagine this was the case with any of your other monthly bills. Oh, sorry about the brownouts! The power company has had some troubles at the plant. I know it was inconvenient, but they’ll fix it for you with a solar panel for an additional fee per month. As for your gym membership, sorry that it was closed four days a week last month! For an extra fee every month you can get a Bowflex so you can still work out whenever that happens.
It’s ludicrous. If their network was solid, these MicroCells wouldn’t even need to exist. AT&T is cutting off your arm and then trying to sell you some bandages. Hey, AT&T: people are already paying you for cell service. You can’t charge them again for the same service. Fix your fucking network.
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3G MicroCells: AT&T Wants You to Pay Extra to Fix Their Own Failures [Rants]
