The M16 has been the primary rifle in service of the army for a very long time now. Naturally, the army has begun looking for more high-tech replacements. Although all the competitions hosted by the army have yielded no economical replacements for the M16, some very interesting designs have been created.
Among my favorites is the XM8 Rifle, a modular rifle system that comes in four primary variants: The carbine, the basic version of the rifle that can be modified into the other versions, the sharpshooter variant, a type with a longer barrel that fires slower but is more accurate, the compact carbine, made with the stock folded in and a very small barrel, and the fully automatic rifle, which uses a carbon-composite 20" barrel, folding stock, and a 100-round drum clip.
The XM8 was originally scheduled for mass production in 2004, but was canceled in 2005 due to it not being very cost-effective, as well as for some flaws that began to show themselves after several years of testing. Nonetheless, it is a very powerful, efficient gun, and has been featured in many video games about warfare in the next century.
Instead of making even more complex and fragile pods for space stations, NASA has been looking into inflatable space units lately. Inflatable units can be made to be simple, large, and open, a stark contrast to the current parts of the International Space Station. NASA even plans to build a permanent base on the moon using a large number of linked inflatable pods.
The main contractor that NASA is currently using is Robert Bigelow, who has been researching possibilities of making a his own space station up in the sky. Mr. Bigelow's main product is called the inflatable "POOF", a pod completely sealed, yet easy to collapse and inflate, and all the while very economical. As part of Project Constellation, a single, 12-foot diameter POOF will be deployed on the moon, where astronauts will live for increasingly long lengths of time. This will both pave way for a moon base, and, because the moon's temperatures can vary from both hotter than and colder than Mars' temperatures, a manned Mars expedition.
Currently, only the earliest tests have begun, and anything that might happen won't likely come to light until after 2010. The first mission isn't planned until 2020--we may even see the Bigelow Station sent into space before NASA employs the pods. Read more on NASA's website.
After working for several months now decoding the hexadecimal code, hackers on Digg have finally finished their massive project. They cracked the copyright protection on HD-DVDs.
All HD-DVDs have a program that prevents you (and your computer) from entering into the code of the DVD, which makes it so that you can't copy them, or meddle with them in any way. This program can be overridden with a hexadecimal code. Hexadecimal numebrs work in a base 1297 system, and are portrayed in writing as a pair of letters and numbers, ranging from (00), to (0z), to (z0), and maxing out at (zz). When you consider that there are 16 seperate hexadecimals in the override code, that means that there are an immense number of possibilities.
Hackers cracked this code, though, and posted the code several times on Digg. The communinty instantly exploded, creating a war between the moderators, who desperately deleted the posts, and other people on Digg, who reposted the code combonation. Once anything like this gets released on to the internet, it's gone. It's not coming back. Nonetheless, a group called the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator sent angry letters out to Digg, other sites carrying the code, and even Google for having the number in search results.
After Digg's lawyers deemed Digg safe from prosecution, though, Digg gave up, let the code freely flow, and even posted it on the official Digg blog. Digg's community had spoken, and there was not much that could be done.
The famous physicist has taken his explorations of space one step further: he didn't go in space!
Flying on a parabolic arc on NASA's Vomit Comet, Mr. Hawking was weightless for several dozen seconds. A video of his cartwheels can be seen below.
After expressing interest in a real space flight. Mr. Hawking has been offered a place on one of the first Virgin Galactic flights into suborbital space. Although his handlers worry for his health, epsecially if he were to endure the 3-G ascent into the void, Mr. Hawking himself has no reserves.
Although his disease is steadily worsening, as can be seen in the video, his mind is still fully intact. He has recently reversed his theory about black holes destroying matter, and ironically lost a bet that was several decades old, more information about which can be found here.
Yes, I have finally found out how to post YouTube videos to the blog. This will make it much easier to provide videos.
Anyway, on to the topic of the title, I have only recently become aware of the projects awaiting Dubai, in their own way far grander than even Burj Dubai itself. Nakheel, the company developing most all of the Dubai waterfront, has begun construction on part of it's most ambitious project yet, under the umbrella of the "New Waterfront".
The new main waterfront is composed of 6 primary projects, one of which is completed, two of which are under construction, and three of which are fully approved and ready to be built. I will detail them individually, expect for the 3 Palm projects, which are grouped:
The Palm Projects: The Palm is the original famous man-made island, the largest of it's kind in the world. It alone adds 75km (they don't happily convert into Imperial measurements) to the Dubai shoreline, and offers resorts, housing, and all sorts of amenities. The "trunk" of The Palm alone is several blocks wide, and it will be christened the 8th Wonder of the World upon the completion of the last few residential areas.
However, the concept of the Palm doesn't stop there. A second Palm is being constructed, along with a third, much larger version that is in the works, which will be four times the size of the first palms. When these are all completed, they will have added 450km onto the shoreline of the metropolitan area of Dubai. (Again, sorry for the metric measurements.)
The World: Truly one of the examples of the massive amounts of wealth in the area, Nakheel is creating a map of the world with 300 man-made islands making up the 7 continents. The various islands will include zones for estates, medium-density housing, high-density housing, resorts, and commercial use, and anyone can connect two or more islands by further filling in the space between them, provided that they own the islands to be connected, or all the owners concerned are in agreement about filling in the spaces.
Although the houses on the islands will be only reachable by air or water, Nakheel expects that to present no problem, as many of the owners will either be rich enough to use helicopters anyway or will just traverse the islands by boat. Nakheel says that it will become possible for a person to live out their entire life just in the area of The World, although they don't recommend it.
The New Downtown: As the video nearest to the top of this post identifies, Nakheel also plans to build a giant community of multiple large man-made islands, the centerpiece of which will be the AL Burj. The Al Burj is the only building planned to be built so far that may be higher than the Burj Dubai, though some speculate that it may even be the first building to be more than a kilometer tall. Regardless, the design has been assured to be massive.
Of course, don't let any of this distract you from Burj Dubai. They are interesting, but many of them will not be finished for a couple of years after Burj Dubai is finished.
The Bugatti Veyron has long been in the making, and was released about a year ago (I forgot to make a post about it.) The car is the fastest production vehicle ever made; the 1,000 cars made will be sold to whoever can cough up the weighty sum of over $1,000,000.
However, those who have that kindof money certainly may see that as a good imnvestment. The Veyron is not a traditional spoortscar--it does not sacrifice weight for speed like many of it's kin. Instead, it pushes itself up to the speed of 262 miles per hour (nearly 50 MPH faster than the previous fastest car) with a engine that cranks out 1001 horsepower.
It would seem that every company has a parent company. In a great example of this, Nike, Mattel, Procter & Gamble, and several more totally unrelated companies, are owned by a company known as "Inventables"(www.inventables.com)--however, as you may have guessed, this company doesn't exist solely to manage it's acquisitions; the company is, in fact, a research firm, and sells it's inventions to the companies it owns, as well as others.
Among it's amazing inventions are:
Suction tape: The tape is lined with suction cups too small to see, and can stick it surfaces
"Strange Matter": I don't really know the name of this stuff, but as long as they keep it in water, it stays a solid. As they expose it to air, however, it becomes a liquid. Dump the liquid in the water, and it becomes a solid again!
Conductive Velcro: Just think, attach the flashlight to the wall, and it completes the circuit and starts charging again!
Magnetic Spraypaint: I don't even need to list the myriad uses for this.
Collapseable wall: It may form a 10x10 foot plus honeycomb-framed wall, but it collapses into a small metal booklet.
Self-inflating structures: Whack the pocket-sized packet with your hand, and watch it inflate by itself!
Odor-sensing paper: It changes colors when exposed to certain odors. In fact, thety have already found a niche for this: milk cartons that turn crimson when their contents sour.
Color changing shoes: They change patterns with a push of a hidden button!
What fascinating research this company does. They also do research for you, if you somehow have a need for their services.
Having made my essay on the writing styles of Mark Twain, and promptly forgetting about it again, I can now finally post it to my blog. It's not perfect, but I would say it's pretty good considering how quickly most of it was put together.
Lileks.com: "Where the past is brought back to life, and promptly beaten back to death again!"
Hankering for something funny? Well, I have the perfect site for you. James Lileks runs Lileks.com, where he reviews things that have come from the past, generally from about 1920-1970, and deftly makes sarcastic comments on them that have me in double most of the time. Of course, he also reviews the history of his own home town of Fargo, and that of others, but he does that more out of his own interest rather than for the humor.
Perhaps one of the most memorable things on the site for me was a section on meats in the Gallery of Regrettable food. Out of all the strange "futuristic" foods being passed around at the time, Mr. Lileks had found a recipe for "Meatballs in Pink Sauce"--his comment is below:
"I’ve
been doing this since 1996, and I’m still stunned at some of the things
I see. Meatballs in Pink Sauce. Good Lord. It’s the diluted chili sauce
that gives the dish its regrettable hue, I think. If you really wanted
to freak people out, you’d serve a whipped Jell-O with an identical
color for dessert."
Why make baking soda and vinegar volcanoes when I can make a railgun? Okay, okay, other than the safety concerns.
If I did want to make a railgun, there would several levels which I should progress up in order to learn about railguns. However, for safety purposes, it would be best for me to start with a coil gun.
Coil Gun: One of the most simple magnetic launchers, it uses a single copper coil, powered by a camera flash battery, to launch ferrous metal a short distance though a tube. This type of railgun is unique in that it is generally non-lethal (the flash battery is only very painful if mishandled.) Read a brief manual.
I think that while the coil gun maybe rather low-powered compared to something like, say, a gauss cannon, it certainly still will be fun, cool, and, of course, nonlethal.
The M16 has been the primary rifle in service of the army for a very long time now. Naturally, the army has begun looking for more high-tech replacements. Although all the competitions hosted by the army have yielded no economical replacements for the M16, some very interesting designs have been created.
