Category: Technology (Page 1 of 4)

China is going to the Moon.

September 10, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

SpaceNews: China interested in lava tubes.

China, and anyone interested in a Moon base, should be interested in lava tubes. If NASA does wake up, it’s likely to roll over and go back to sleep. Fortunately, Elon Musk needs a Moon base to get to Mars.

The movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, got a lot right. The surface of the Moon is an obnoxious place to live. The surface temperature goes from about -200^o F to 200^o F. Gamma rays bombard the surface, but cosmic rays are a bigger problem. Cosmic rays hitting the Earth produce the Northern Lights as their energy dissipates in the atmosphere and are deflected by our magnetic field. Those subatomic particles moving at nearly the speed of light, are not easily screened

WSJ: The quest for electric airplanes.

August 29, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WSJ: Quest for electric planes.

Why must we entertain and finance blatantly stupid ideas? Nothing is going to make Greta Thunberg happy, so let’s stop trying. No government money or mandates should encourage the dumb ideas.

Germany’s disastrous switch away from nuclear power

August 27, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

RCS: Germany’s Disastrous Switch Away From Nuclear

It’s interesting to watch a country intentionally destroy itself. Germany presents itself as a technically-minded country with high-quality manufacturing, not a country that makes uninformed and impetuous decisions.

Consumer-grade exoskeleton.

July 28, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Tech Crunch: Exoskeleton

The tech, called MO/GO, short for “mountain goat,” is a hybrid soft/rigid system designed to assist wearer mobility and boost the wearer while walking.

Pretty sure they came up with MO/GO first, then came up with the “mountain goat” explanation. Still, it would help a lot of people if it works.

The launch cost of $4,500 will almost certainly restrict its use for the non-mobility limited.

Depending on the performance specifications of the actual product, this could be big. It’s certainly cheaper than a knee replacement and is in the price range of mobility scooters. The military would be interested, along with people who aren’t impaired, just not up t the challenge.
MO/GO isn’t a great name, I’d go with “kicking pants”.

Stop luring girls into STEM careers.

July 17, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

NPR: Getting young girls interested in STEM

I abhor reports like this one on NPR.

SPACE: Railguns on the Moon.

June 24, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

SPACE: Railguns on the Moon

February 6th, 2018, Elon Musk demonstrated that launching objects into orbit had become a mundane commercial activity. To make it interesting, the object he put in orbit was a Tesla Roadster that has since traveled over a million miles and made four laps around the sun. Where is the Roadster now?

Disney’s Star Wars hotel was never going to work.

May 31, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

Disney spent a quarter billion dollars to build, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel, and it only remained open for a year and a half. This girl spent $6000 to be immersed in the experience. Fortunately, she’s cute and made an engaging 4-hour video about her Star Wars adventure that’s been viewed by 7 million people. She should recoup her expenses.

Disney is a big company, with a net profit of 1.7 billion dollars last year. They can’t keep making big mistakes like this. How did they screw this up so bad?

City Journal: Green Tech is a Fantasy.

April 19, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

City Journal: Politics and Physics Collide

The legislature and unelected regulators enjoy magical thinking because the time frames are long, they will never be held responsible and perhaps engineers can meet the goals. Automakers have long been burdened with fleet economy standards that must be met. The Laws of Thermodynamics are problems for engineers, not legislators. Cars became lighter and less safe while also becoming more complex and expensive.

The idea that the United States can quickly “transition” away from hydrocarbons—the energy sources primarily used today—to a future dominated by so-called green technologies has become one of the central political divides of our time.

Wisely, Toyota didn’t commit to battery-powered cars.

March 10, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

NYT: Toyota’s hybrid strategy pays off

WaPo: Google Gemini AI is worse than you think.

February 29, 2024 / Richard Nestoff / 0 Comments

WaPo: Google Gemini Bias

Megan McArdle is a columnist who I’ve followed for years. Except for being a Never Trumper, she is generally insightful.

On Friday morning, when I first sat down to write this column, Google’s new Gemini AI was having problems that seemed mostly amusing. The internet had discovered that it would generally refuse to create pictures of any all-White groups, even in situations where it was clearly called for, such as “draw a picture of Nazis.” Gemini also insisted on gender diversity, even when drawing popes.