Wednesday, February 7, 2018

At 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Eastern Time (2045 UTC), the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its cargo: a $US100,000 Tesla sportscar, the personal property of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, which he hopes will soon be in its own orbit around the Sun. This is the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V of Project Apollo was retired in 1970. The rocket is meant to follow a course called a Hohmann transfer orbit.

“It’ll be a really huge downer if it blows up,” Musk told the press the day before the launch, but went on to say, “If something goes wrong, hopefully it goes wrong far into the mission so we at least learn as much as possible along the way. I would consider it a win if it just clears the pad and doesn’t blow the pad to smithereens. That’s four million pounds of TNT equivalent so there’s probably not going to be much left if that thing lets loose on the pad.” The car was equipped with a fully space-suited dummy, cameras to monitor its trip into space, a copy of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a radio blasting Space Oddity by David Bowie.

The Falcon Heavy has a total of 27 engines and stands 230 feet (70.1 m) tall. According to SpaceX, the Falcon Heavy uses three boosters, the same kind as the company’s smaller cargo rockets. After the rocket exited the Earth’s atmosphere, two of these boosters detached from the main body of the rocket and, in a first for space technology, were successfully guided back down to the landing pad about ten minutes after launch. The third was to have landed on a drone ship, but missed by around 100 metres and hit the ocean “at around 200 miles per hour,” according to Musk. The reusability of the boosters makes an enormous difference in the cost of the launch.

Even the relatively heavy-hauling U.S. Space Shuttle program, which was closed in 2013, did not rely on rockets as powerful as those used in Project Apollo, the program in which NASA, the U.S. Government space agency, sent manned missions to the Moon in the 1960’s and 70’s. Most recent space projects have focused on smaller, lighter machinery, such as Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne in 2004, which reached space after being carried part of the way by a carrier jet instead of launching from the ground. As of last week, the most powerful rocket in use was the Delta IV, operated by the United Space Alliance. It costs about $US435 million per launch, while SpaceX says the Falcon Heavy will cost $US90 million per launch.

NASA is also working on a heavy-duty rocket, the Space Launch System, but there have been delays.

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Saturday, May 31, 2008

In the town of Kasuya, Fukuoka, Japan, a 58-year-old woman was arrested after surveillance tape from inside an unnamed man’s home showed her living in his closet.

According to police, Tatsuko Horikawa had been living in his closet for over one year. One day when the man left, she walked through his front door which had been left unlocked. From then on, she would take small amounts of food from the kitchen and even take showers. When the man noticed food missing, he set up cameras to catch what he thought was someone robbing him.

The woman had placed a small bed mattress into a enclosed shelf area inside the closet to sleep on and when police searched the apartment, they found her curled up in the closet.

“We searched the house … checking everywhere someone could possibly hide. When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side,” said Hiroki Itakura, a police spokesman.

The woman, who was described by police as “neat and clean”, will be charged with trespassing.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Yesterday at 6:00 UTC at 60° S 78° E , a Japanese whaling ship detained two Sea Shepherd Conservation Society activists in the Southern Ocean. Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research (IRC) deny Sea Shepherd claims that they have been abused. The Japanese government has assured the Australian Government the release of the men.

According to the conservation agency Sea Shepherd, Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, a helicopter assistant, and Briton Giles Lane, an engine room worker, were detained on board a Yushin Maru No. 2 after delivering a letter asking the ship to exit Antarctic waters .

Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd’s vessel, Steve Irwin, said that the Japanese “tried to throw them overboard, then they tied them to a bulkhead and were beating them”.

He alleged that the men were tied to the radar masts before being brought below deck after which the men were not seen. Sea Shepherd’s international director, Jonny Vasic, claimed that they were “basically strapped by the arms with zip-ties and tied with rope around their chests” for 2½ to three hours.

The captain said he was surprised as he expected Japanese whale ships to treated his men more decently.

“We are concerned but I know the Australian and British governments are in touch with the Japanese government.”

Sea Shepherd said it has photographic evidence that the whalers were abusing the men.

However, the Japanese ship refuted the allegations.

“Any accusations that we have tied them up or assaulted them are completely untrue,” Director-general of the IRC Minoru Morimoto said in the press release, “It is illegal to board another country’s vessels on the high seas.”

Detaining the activists was the “only way”, he said. “You couldn’t have them running around the deck not knowing what they’re going to do.”

He said that the activists were making attempts to entangle the screw and were throwing bottles of butyric acid, as rancid butter, onto the deck of the vessel before boarding the vessel. Mr Watson has confirmed this and said that they were to act as a stink bomb but their actions were still peaceful.

Hideki Moronuki, the chief of the whaling section of The Fisheries Agency of Japan, claimed that “nobody took violent action against the two illegal intruders”.

Mr. Moronuki said that they were treated “very, very humanely” and were provided with “a warm, delicious hot meal”, “[a] warm, nice bath” and “[a] nice bed with clean white sheets”.

Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said that the Japanese government promised him the release of the men late yesterday night.

“Late last night I was advised the Japanese had agreed to this and they had instructed the relevant whaling ship to return the men to the Steve Irwin,” he told ABC radio.

Mr. Moronuki said the “two illegal intruders” will not be released by the vessel’s captain until “Paul Watson has accepted the conditions of the safety of the Japanese vessel”. He said he knew nothing of the comments that the Japanese government agreeing to release the men.

Mr. Watson said the Japanese were “[holding] hostages and make demands” and were acting like “a terrorist organisation”. A press release said Sea Shepherd “will not negotiate with poachers and demands that the Japanese whalers release Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane as soon as possible”.

Mr. Watson said he would not send a zodiac to collect the men as requested in an email because it “endangers the life of the crew, to put them out in these waters in a small boat, 10 miles out of view”.

On Sky TV, IRC spokesman Glenn Inwood said Sea Shepherd were “not answering phone calls or emails at this stage” to take advantage of “fair amount of media coverage” but they were “still making attempts to contact them”.

An Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said that Sea Shepherd made a police report at around 7:00 UTC.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

The median house price in the United States plunged 6.5% in May to $217,000. In February of 2005, the median price of a home was $237,300.

The Economist newspaper said in its June 16th issue; “In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.” by way of reference to what is happening with housing prices in the USA and much of Europe.

Japan provides an example of how a boom can turn to bust. Property prices have dropped for 14 years in a row (40% from their peak in 1991); and yet, the rise in prices in Japan during the decade before 1991 was less than the increase over the past ten years in most of today’s “housing boom” countries.

The total value of residential property rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years in developed economies, an increase equivalent to 100% of the combined GDPs of those countries. This increase dwarfs all previous house-price booms and is greater than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s. Much of the recent housing activity is being driven by speculative demand. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that 23% of all American houses bought in 2004 were for investment, not for owners to live in. Another 13% were bought as second homes. NAR also found that 42% of all first-time buyers made no down-payment on their home purchase last year.

Many investors are buying solely because they think prices will keep rising, which is a warning sign of a financial bubble. In Miami, Florida, as many as half of the original buyers resell new apartments even before they are built, and properties can change hands two or three times before somebody finally moves in.

Britain’s Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported prices have been falling for ten consecutive months. Forty nine percent of their surveyors reported falling prices in May. This was the weakest report since 1992 during Britain’s previous house-price bust.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Australian Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Helen Coonan announced on Wednesday that the federal government would be spending AUD$116.6 million on a package of measures to protect Australians from inappropriate material on the Internet. Dubbed “Protecting Families Online”, the package includes free filtering software for all families.

The government claims that its National Filter Scheme will be central to the package. In addition to providing families with free filtering software, the government will also provide libraries with filters for Internet terminals. It is hoped that the filters will ensure that children using the Internet from libraries can do so without being exposed to inappropriate material.

As part of the package, the government’s Internet safety and advisory agency — NetAlert will be located within the Australian Communications and Media Authority — the chief regulatory authority for telecommunications, radiocommunications, Internet and media services. The government will also give NetAlert an additional $5 million to spend on advertising to promote its services.

In addition to the Protecting Families Online package, the government will again examine Internet Service Provider (ISP) level filtering. A trial will be carried out in Tasmania to determine its effectiveness. According to Senator Coonan it is the fourth time the government has undertaken such a trial.

As part of the trial, the ACMA will be required to report on ISP level filtering around the world and work with NetAlert to investigate advances in filtering technologies.

Senator Coonan assured Internet users that the initiatives were only to protect children from inappropriate material and the government wasn’t dictating what adults could access. “This is not a one-size-fits-all approach to protecting Australia families and we are not dictating to every Australian Internet user what they should and shouldn’t see,” she said.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

The New York State Legislature passed a bill Friday that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state. It was signed into law by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. New York now becomes the sixth and largest U.S. state with legalized same-sex marriage. The practice is legal in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa and Washington, D.C..

Four Senate Republicans including Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie, Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, Roy McDonald of Saratoga Springs, and James Alesi of Rochester, joined 29 Democrats in support, for a margin of 33 to 29. Grisanti defended his vote, stating “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the same rights I have with my wife”. Governor Cuomo referred to the four Republicans as “people of courage and…principle.”

Gay rights activists, who had spent over $1 million to lobby legislators, cheered the passage, which had failed two years before and had been debated for several weeks. Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese exclaimed that “History was made today in New York. This victory sends a message that marriage equality across the country will be a reality very soon.” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hailed the passage as leaving the state “stronger than we were yesterday”.

But detractors of the bill reacted differently. Chairwoman Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage blamed the state Republican Party for the passage and argued that “sadly it’s the families of New York who will pay the worst price of the new government-backed redefinition of marriage.” The state’s Catholic Church released a statement that commented that the bill “alter[s] radically and forever humanity’s historic understanding of marriage [and] leaves us deeply disappointed and troubled”.

The new law, which will take effect in 30 days, also allows same-sex couples to be eligible for state marriage benefits.