Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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by — ARS Technica
If you’ve ever lived with roommates, chances are you shared a “transactive” memory system with them. One person might have remembered to pay the bills, while another knew the contact details of the plumber. It’s common to find social systems that share the information needed by a group across all the members of that group. Systems like these make life easier for individuals, who need only keep track of who knows which nugget.

Transactive memory systems are a common feature of human social groups, but they can be technological, too—and in the case of the Internet, the relationship can be a pretty powerful one. There are already indications that we treat the Internet like a transactive memory partner, remembering only where to find information, rather than the content itself. But could we also be blurring the boundary between our own internal knowledge and the easily accessed knowledge available via search engines? A group of researchers at Yale University think that we are. Read more

By — Clapway

Travel To Mars

The VASIMR Spaceship Engine or Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket is the first of its kind that can take people to Mars in just 39 days, compared to 270 days that it would take with a regular spaceship. It is made by Ad Astra Rocket Company and, if all goes well, should definitely shake up the space travel industry.

VASIMR Spaceship Engine Technology

The VASIMR Spaceship Engine as seen at Ad Astra Rocket uses unique technology in order to reach the high speeds that are necessary to take people to Mars in a very short period of time. It uses a plasma-based propulsion system along with an electric power source in order to fuel said plasma. By fueling the plasma in the right direction, it will propel the engine in that direction as it’s being ejected from the ship.

This mission is part of Ad Astra Rocket Company’s idea to help with the upgrading of current spaceship technology so that deep space missions in the future would not take nearly as long if there were to be humans sent out to different planets. Read more

Jason Koebler — Motherboard

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It’s not easy convincing the world you’ve found aliens. But that’s what one British professor says he’s done, over and over again. His latest proof, he tells me, is his strongest yet. Should we take him seriously?

In fall of 2013, Milton Wainwright, a researcher at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, made international headlines when he claimed that microorganisms he found in the stratosphere were not of this world. The organisms are believed to come from a class of algae called diatoms, were collected roughly 16 miles above the Earth’s surface using a balloon, and, according to Wainwright, have been raining down on the Earth, carried by meteorites, for perhaps many millennia. Read More

— WiredAutonomous car from Delphi drives on Treasure Island in preparation for a cross-country trip from San Francisco to New York City in San FranciscoAn autonomous car just drove across the country.

Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech from a company you’ve probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets.

This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task. Read More

I happen to know a tiny bit more about one lower-case letter, little c.

Since Einstein, everyone knows how important little c, the speed of light in the vacuum, is.
No one ought to be surprised that c now turned out to have exactly the universal value that the young Einstein believed in during the most famous 2 ½ first years of the theory of relativity.

I could prove this fact 7 years ago and in many other ways since in the scientific literature, and no one contradicts me in print or in public.

Of course, such a revolution is tantalizing but it is not ridiculous. The scientific community proudly bets the future of the planet on their refusal to read and discuss my results.
This amounts to a giant honor to a scientist. But it is unbearable when one sees how the “children” are running into their own catastrophe out of an unscientific conceitedness.

This is pure dogmatism – dogmatism of betting the elder Einstein against the younger one.
I see here a blatant discrimination of the brightest physicist of all time – before he overlooked a tiny little thing which I explained in detail.

I humbly ask the United Nations’ Security Council to kindly set up a panel to defeat c-global if it can.

Until this panel has reached a decision, CERN must be stopped from restarting and doubling its energy.
Such a thing has never happened before. But there was never such a situation before. It is an emergency that the young Einstein is dogmatically believed to have been dumber than the older Einstein. The contrary has been proven. No one is able to disprove the resurrected c-global. I challenge everyone. No one dares contradict me.

Young physicists across the world: Since the issue is so important, and at stake is the image of the less than 28 and ½ years old Einstein, I herewith can safely promise a Nobel prize to the first who proves the young Einstein wrong in accord with the opinion of the elder one.

But I bet that this is not possible. The youth of the planet should now spontaneously divide itself into two fractions, one that sides with the young Einstein and one siding with the elder Einstein.

But so please with arguments, not statements of faith.

Listen, young girls and boys: You can save the world by proving that the young Einstein was right because then the CERN experiment is potentially genocidal.

And every reader: Please, forgive me that I am old but still trying to think as if being young. You are better at that. I need your help. The greatest help would be if you gave your full force to disproving me and the young Einstein. No one could do that before. So it will make you famous.

Cheers, Otto

By Andrew “bunnie” Huang — IEEE Spectrumhttp://www.datacenterjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/moores_law.jpg
Companies that produce open-source hardware are few and far between. At least, they are if you define them in the usual way: an enterprise that provides documentation and permission sufficient for others to re-create, modify, improve, and even make their own versions of the devices it sells. And although open hardware has made strides in recent years—including an increasing number of companies adhering to these practices along with the establishment of the Open Source Hardware Association—it remains a niche industry.

You might guess the reason to be simple—such companies must be set up and run by idealists who lack any hardheaded business sense. Not true! What’s held back the open-source hardware movement is not a lack of business acumen; it’s the rapid evolution of electronic technology. Read More

By Charles Fleming and Roger Vincent HyperloopHyperloop isn’t all hype.

A company behind the futuristic, high-speed transportation system fantasized by Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk has leased warehouse space in downtown Los Angeles and is rapidly adding new workers to a staff of 20 full-time employees.

Musk’s imaginary Hyperloop would use vacuum tubes to transport freight and passengers at speeds of 750 mph, racing from Los Angeles to San Francisco in half an hour. Until recently, it’s been little more than an idea.Read more

By Ryan Faith — Vice News
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Bitcoin becomes more valuable as bitcoin transactions become more secure. That is an important thing to keep in mind when trying to understand why the hell bitcoin is being launched into space.

Why? Because what’s a more secure place for the computers processing bitcoin transactions than in orbit several miles above the earth? That’s why core bitcoin developer and founder of Dunvegan Space Systems Jeff Garzik has developed the BitSat program, which plans to launch computers on small, (relatively) cheap satellites in 2016.Read more

A realistic and desirable human destination would produce a different space program than what we have today.

“We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” This is NASA’s Vision Statement. This is NASA’s reason for being, its purpose. This is a vision statement for science and knowledge. This vision statement was crafted in a solar system that has only one planet that is environmentally friendly to human life.

Thanks to the ongoing search for exoplanets, we’ve identified several planets in our galaxy that are Earth sized and in their star’s habitable zone. Based on statistics, potentially billions more are waiting to be found. We are just now developing the technology to detect them. But we’re nowhere near having the technology needed to get to visit them. They are simply too far away.

Now here is where I’d like to pose a what if question: What if there was another habitable planet just like Earth, right here in our own solar system? What would Earth’s space programs look like, if anyone with a good telescope could look up and see another world with oceans, and continents, and clouds, and green forests? I think that it is safe to say that space programs in this imaginary solar system would be vastly different than ours today. This is conjecture, but it seems likely that the vision statement above, would be more in line with making that new world available for humanity.

Of course the key difference between our present reality and this imaginary scenario is the existence of an obviously desirable destination relatively close by to Earth. This lack of obviously desirable destinations has shaped space programs into the form we see them today. The science oriented form described in the current NASA vision statement is a good example.

It has been said that leadership begins with a vision. To be compelling, a vision describes a desirable end state to be obtained. In the case of the fictional scenario with another Earth like planet in the solar system, that leadership vision might include making it possible for people to move freely to this new world.

As an analogy, in the mid 1800’s, the transcontinental vision (paraphrased) was to secure the U.S. position on the Pacific through a speedy and direct means of travel from one coast to the other. That vision did not include establishing and building the city of San Francisco! The prior existence of San Francisco, enabled the vision of a transcontinental railroad.

Since our situation lacks a visible desirable destination, a bit more effort is required in the vision department. We know that the solar system contains all the resources we need in order to construct vast places for people to live. Immense structures with forests, streams and farmland as advocated by Dr. Gerard O’Neill back in the 1970’s are all possible. We can achieve the same vision of having another habitable planet in this solar system, we just have to add the intermediate step of a vision to develop the manufacturing capability to construct our own desirable destinations!

Using the transcontinental vision as a guide, it is premature for the space vision to focus on sending millions of people out into space, since apart from the International Space Station, there are no destinations yet! No, to get to the transcontinental vision for space, we first need a vision of building a San Francisco in space! But in order for that vision to be considered, it must be realistic. The focus would be on developing the tools and robots necessary to rapidly and economically build up in-space manufacturing industries that can begin the construction of the first villages that will grow into the human cities.

Even though we do not have another Earth in our solar system, it is possible to envision the creation of other Earth equivalents. This leap in leadership would produce a vision unlike what we have now. This new vision, focused on manufacturing and development utilizing the resources of our solar system, would empower capabilities for even greater accomplishments in the future.

By Rich McCormick — The Vergehttps://lifeboat.com/blog.images/facebook-is-planning-to-test-its-747-sized-internet-drones-this-summer.jpgFacebook’s ambitious plan to bring internet to the entire world with a fleet of broadband-beaming unmanned aerial vehicles has taken a step closer to fruition. The company’s vice president of engineering, Jay Parikh, told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is planning “a real test flight” of its solar-powered internet drone this summer. A smaller version of the drone, one tenth the size of the planned product, was tested earlier this month.

The scheduled test flight would be the first time the full-sized internet drone — called Aquila — will take to the skies. Facebook says the vehicle will have the wingspan of a commercial passenger jet and the length of “six or seven [Toyota] Priuses,” but will only weigh as much as four car tires. The lightweight build should help the craft stay flying for weeks, months, or years at a time, using solar energy to keep itself aloft. Google, also in the process of developing its own internet-proliferation project, is using a different approach. The company’s Project Loon uses a swarm of balloons to disseminate broadband to unconnected portions of the world.Read more