The Planet Sand Castle: Upgrade Your Sandbox

Kevin HazardSir Isaac Newton saw an apple drop from a tree, and started contemplating gravity. Albert Einstein was riding in a street car, and Bern’s clock tower inspired the key to special relativity. Larry Page woke up in the middle of the night to scribble down a plan to download the Web, and Google was born. These “Eureka!” moments get the most fanfare, but Thomas Edison reminds us that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

The same can be said about new businesses and software applications: Even the best ideas require time, diligence, resources and a whole lot of work to succeed. If you’re a small business owner, you probably won’t make it very far by spending an hour a week executing your business plan. If you’re a developer, you won’t be able to code and test “the next Google” on an old Pentium II desktop in your closet.

While we can’t provide the inspiration, diligence or “whole lot of work” pieces of the puzzle, our new Sand Castle program can give you the resources and time you need to jumpstart your vision:

  • A Dual Xeon server
  • An Enterprise-class data center
  • An Industry-leading network
  • FREE for 12 Months.

The Planet Sand Castle

The costs of rolling out new business plans and testing software can be prohibitive, especially in uncertain economic times. So think of Sand Castle as an economic stimulus for entrepreneurs and developers. We’re providing an online environment to help launch the next big Internet success.

The initial Sand Castle deployment includes up to 500 servers, and The Planet’s Chairman and CEO Doug Erwin looks at it like this: “With eight data centers, we’re in a position to offer a single server to 500 individuals who want to start their own businesses. These 500 servers could create 500 jobs, and then we’ll have taken one small step to pay it forward and be part of the solution.”

FREE Server Configurations

We consulted with many developers, and with their feedback, we set minimum server specs for this program:

  • Dual Xeon 2.4, 2.8 or 3.2
  • 1GB RAM
  • 146 GB of HDD space
  • 10Mbps Unmetered Bandwidth
  • Operating System: CentOS 5

Eligibility

Are you a developer? Do you have a vision for a new application or service? Do you need help turning that vision into reality? If so, you’re perfect for the Sand Castle program.

Fill out the one-page signup form with your contact information and vision for a Sand Castle server. We expect demand to exceed our initial supply, so quantities may be limited, and not every application will be accepted. Take time to detail your plans and provide any applicable examples to give yourself the best chance.

If you’ve got the inspiration, it’s time for some perspiration. Visit the Sand Castle page to learn more and apply!

-Kevin

P.S. If you know of any friends who may be interested in the program, be sure to Tweet this, Digg it, email it or smoke-signal it.

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cani make three phase by attaching on e wire to one leg of a power box with a ground wire and coming out of anouther power box for which both supply boxs have 100 amp service each and attach these wire to a three phase outlet to power a transformer that puts out 28,.5 volts and up to 1600 amps for s

NCBI ROFL: Hello, world! (again) | Discoblog

ncbi roflPlease allow us to introduce ourselves…

We’re two PhD students in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. Back in March of aught-nine, we started a little blog called “NCBI ROFL” in which we posted real scientific articles with funny subjects from the PubMed database (which is housed by the National Center for Biotechnology information, aka NCBI).

Initially, our fans were mostly grad students. But over time, our following grew, and now we are happy to be joining the Discoblog family. If you’re not familiar with us, here are a few of our most-loved posts:

Accidental condom inhalation.

Does garlic protect against vampires? An experimental study.

Finding the frequency of Fido’s farts.

Harry Potter and the curse of headache.

A woman’s history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk.

Hungry for more? Explore our post archives. And for even more info, check out or FAQs.

We’re still accepting submissions! Please email ncbirofl@gmail.com with funny articles!


Freedom in the World 2010: Global Erosion of Freedom

For the fourth consecutive year, global declines in freedom outweighed gains in 2009, as measured by Freedom House's annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2010. This represents the longest continuous period of decline for global freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report.

The Importance of Fact Checking Mainstream Science Publications | The Intersection

Picture 4Last week I mentioned participating in a discussion at ScienceOnline ‘10 entitled “Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents” featuring Janet and Isis. But there’s another equally exciting panel I’m part of earlier in the day with Rebecca Skloot and David Dobbs. Here is the description:

Getting the Science Right: — an underappreciated and essential art — and the role scientists can and should (but often don’t) play in it.

Description: Much of the science that goes out to the general public through books, newspapers, blogs and many other sources is not professionally fact checked. As a result, much of the public’s understanding of science is based on factual errors. This discussion will focus on what scientists and journalists can do to fix that problem, and the importance of playing a pro-active role in the process. Discuss here.

After turning in my latest manuscript just one week ago, I have a lot to say on the topic. This should be a terrific session and I encourage readers attending the conference to join us next weekend!

With that, I’m off to day one of Michael Webber’s energy technology and policy course at UTAustin.


PWHT of Welded P-91

Is there a critical time after which PWHT of welded P-91 will no avail the desired results? I have read that the time interval between completion welding and the start of PWHT is vital to the successful elimination of Heat affected Zone cracking. In some cases, radigraphy is required of pipe welds a

Can Chilled Water System be Combined Type?

I mean cenralized and decentralized at once?

in other words, I have a central cooling plant with centravac chillers and condensing radiators, and I need to provide an alternative system where the original system will remain stand by, can I install individual chillers in all (or some) buildi

Training begins for suborbital scientist-astronauts

An initial group of a dozen prospective scientist-astronauts will begin a two-day training program today at the NASTAR Center just outside Philadelphia in preparation for future flights on commercial suborbital vehicles. The training will include both classroom instruction and “altitude chamber training, multi-axes centrifuge training for launch and reentry accelerations, and several distraction factor exercises”, all designed to prepare people for the experience of suborbital spaceflight. As noted here previously, there’s growing interest in using suborbital vehicles being developed to service the space tourism market for scientific applications as well, something that will be the focus of a conference next month in Colorado.

Among those at the NASTAR Center for the training program are former CNN space reporter Miles O’Brien and SpaceRef’s Keith Cowing, who will covering the event at OnOrbit, including live streaming video during the training sessions. They also advise checking out the the blog of one of the attendees, Joe Hill, who writes that she is “desperately excited about this opportunity but more than a little afraid” that she might not be able to handle the G-forces or other factors that will be tested in the training. There’s also the Twitter tag #suborbital to follow, although there’s not much there now.

Also, attendees will get to sport a new “Suborbital Scientist” patch that NASTAR announced yesterday, the result of a student competition won by an MIT grad student.

Cecil Field gets spaceport license – but will anyone use it?

After years of effort, Florida’s Cecil Field got some good news Monday: they got their commercial spaceport license from the FAA. The former naval air station outside Jacksonville, currently used primarily for cargo and general aviation, will now be able to host horizontal launches of reusable launch vehicles for suborbital space tourism and potentially orbital launches as well.

There’s just one problem: it’s not clear if anyone will use Cecil Field as a spaceport any time soon. The license covers only horizontally-launched vehicles, so vertically-launched suborbital RLVs, like those proposed by Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, and Masten Space Systems, would not be able to use Cecil. Also, the license apparently covers only some classes of horizontal vehicles, as a section of the final environmental assessment (EA) for Cecil’s spaceport license states:

Under the Proposed Action, JAA would offer the launch site to launch operators for two types of horizontal, piloted RLVs, referred to as Concept X and Concept Z launch vehicles. The Concept X vehicle contains two turbojet engines and two rocket engines powered by Jet-A fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX). The Concept Z vehicle consists of two components – a carrier aircraft mated with a suborbital launch vehicle. The carrier vehicle would have turbo jet engines while the launch vehicle would use a hybrid rocket engine powered by nitrous oxide and hydroxylterminated polybutadiene.

The Concept X vehicle sounds like Rocketplane Global’s XP vehicle (although the XP has one rocket engine, not two) while the Concept Z vehicle is clearly SpaceShipTwo. What’s not included here is a vehicle that takes off horizontally under rocket power, like XCOR’s Lynx.

The problem for Cecil is that Rocketplane Global is currently in stasis, with no guarantee that it will resume development of its vehicle (which would fly from Cecil 48 times a year, according to the EA). Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic is committed to Spaceport America, and Cecil Field hasn’t been included among the other sites the company has publicly stated it’s interested in, such as Sweden and the UAE. Moreover, the EA only anticipated four flights a year of the Concept Z vehicle.

Todd Linder, of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, tells Reuters that his agency is working with “several potential customers”, but declined to identify them. “The big difference between Cecil Field and the New Mexico spaceport is that we have facilities already in place,” he said. That’s true, but arguably the bigger difference is that Spaceport America has a tenant signed up, and Cecil Field doesn’t. Infrastructure is necessary, but as facilities like Oklahoma Spaceport can attest, they’re alone not sufficient.

One final note: in a blog post announcing the license, Space Florida president Frank DiBello noted that Cecil Field isn’t the only facility that the state is contemplating developing for supporting suborbital spaceflight. “This capability – in addition to similar potential sites currently being researched at Kennedy Space Center and in Southern Florida – is critical to providing our state with the competitive edge it needs to be a key player in the U.S. space tourism industry,” he writes. KSC has the Shuttle Landing Facility, a runway that will soon no longer be needed for its primary mission of supporting shuttle landings. The southern Florida reference is less clear, as no specific proposal for a facility there has been announced.

Gas Plant Modification

our company is planning a modification for its gas plant. This modification requires some special equipments and requirements that I never faced before. I surfed the internet and I found some good companies, but they are not enough. If you know some companies that have the ability to supply and fabr

Fighting to Save the Clean Air Act

Lisa Murskowski in Smog

Did you know the Clean Air Act was in trouble? It is, and from the usual suspects.  There will be many more battles like this to come.

This request to take action is from Friends of the Earth. The threat is coming from a right-wing Senator, Murkowski, from Alaska.  Murkowski’s reasoning to stop the EPA’s regulatory authority is that she is afraid the EPA is going to “regulate” emissions from stationary sources of CO2 other than coal plants and other power plants, such as hospitals, schools and peoples’ homes.  That’s not the intent of the Act whatsoever, and the EPA has no intention of regulating emissions from homes and schools.  Murkowski  knows this of course.  But she continues to spread the fear to score political points for her party, the GOP.  The mission of the GOP is to defeat any and all climate change legislation.   The EPA needs to retain the authority to regulate emissions, so we have to stop her amendment and similar obstructionism to come.  (Read her analysis here.)

The Clean Air Act — the key federal tool that can cut the pollution that causes global warming — is under attack.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, is expected to offer an amendment on January 20 that would stop the Obama administration from using the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Friends of the Earth and a broad coalition of environmental and conservation groups from across the country have sent a letter to senators asking them to oppose the amendment.

Click here to view the letter (pdf).

You can take action to help save the Clean Air Act. If you haven’t yet, click here to send your senators a message asking them to vote against the Murkowski amendment and save the Clean Air Act. 

Please join us in the fight to save the Clean Air Act by sending your Senators a message today. Just enter your zip code here to get started.

New Jersey Republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie vows to support Medical Marijuana bill

Though, takes a decidedly middle-of-the-road stance

The New Jersey State Senate just passed a bill allowing for the disbursement of Marijuana for Medicinal use. New Jersey is set to become the 14th State to allow for Medical Marijuana.

Newly-elected Republican Governor Chris Christie says he supports the bill. Though, he added that he'll ensure safeguards. Outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine will sign the bill on his last day in office, next Tuesday.

From All the latest News Blog:

Governor-elect Chris Christie, speaking at a press conference on Monday before the vote, reiterated his support for legalizing the medical use of marijuana as long as the final bill contained safeguards to ensure that it did not end up encouraging the recreational use of the drug.

The legislation would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana and using it in public, and it would regulate the drug under the strict conditions used to track the distribution of medically prescribed opiates like Oxycontin and morphine.

Christie was heavily supported by libertarian Republicans in his '09 race, including NJ libertarian Republican activist, Medical Marijuana Coalition member, and former McCain for President staffer Ryan Christiano.

Fareed Zakaria on Our Response to the Underwear Bomber

In responding to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein voiced the feelings of many when she said that to prevent such situations, "I'd rather overreact than underreact." This appears to be the consensus view in Washington, but it is quite wrong. The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work. Alas, this one worked very well.

 I could not agree more.  The rest of Zakaria's piece is dead on as well, this paragraph in particular:

As for the calls to treat the would-be bomber as an enemy combatant, torture him and toss him into Guantanamo, God knows he deserves it. But keep in mind that the crucial intelligence we received was from the boy's father. If that father had believed that the United States was a rogue superpower that would torture and abuse his child without any sense of decency, would he have turned him in? To keep this country safe, we need many more fathers, uncles, friends and colleagues to have enough trust in America that they, too, would turn in the terrorist next door.