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HS Gridiron Preview: Cyclones & Comets – WWNY TV 7

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Tuesday was the first day of August. That means it's only a month or so from the start of the 2017 high school football season.

Watch the video for a preview of two area teams doing battle in the ever-tough Section 3 Class A National Division: the Carthage Comets and the Watertown Cyclones.

Coach Kyle LaLonde's Cyclones put up a 2-6 overall mark, just 1-4 in their division, but managed to make the playoffs. They lost to East Syracuse-Minoa on the road 35-28.

Watertown has key weapons back at the skill positions -- including quarterback -- and that veteran presence has the coach feeling good heading into the season.

It was an up-and-down season for the Carthage Comets in 2016.

After opening the season 2-0, the Comets went .500 the rest of the way, posting a 5-4 overall record and 2-3 in the division.

The Comets made the playoffs again, but lost big to Whitesboro in the opening round 38-0.

Previews of area high school football teams continue this week as they prepare for the 2017 season.

World’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge opens in the Swiss Alps – The Guardian

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Hikers make their way across the newly opened suspension bridge in Randa, Switzerland

The worlds longest pedestrian suspension bridge has opened in Switzerland, inviting walkers to brave a narrow path running 86 metres above the ground at its highest point. The Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge, in the Swiss Alps, near the village of Randa, is a record-breaking 494 metres long and connects Grchen and Zermatt on the Europaweg foot trail.

The bridge, which is a steel construction, runs between 1,600m and 2,200m above sea level, with views if you can look at them of the Matterhorn, Weisshorn and the Bernese Alps in the distance. It replaces a previous bridge that had been damaged by rock falls.

Incredibly, it took engineers from Swissrope and Lauber cableways just 10 weeks to erect the bridge. The structure, which is just 65cm wide, takes 10 minutes to cross; a journey that previously took hikers four hours. It breaks a record previously set by a glass-bottomed suspension bridge completed last year in China. The 430 metre-long bridge traversed the vast Zhangjiajie Canyon in Hunan province, with a 300m drop beneath it.

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World's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opens in the Swiss Alps - The Guardian

NAACP issues first-ever travel advisory for a state and it’s Missouri – McClatchy Washington Bureau

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

McClatchy Washington Bureau

NAACP issues first-ever travel advisory for a state and it's Missouri
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Traditionally, travel advisories come from the U.S. State Department to warn citizens of current dangers in all corners of the world. The department this year has issued more than 40 advisories alerting travelers to political instability, violence and ...

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NAACP issues first-ever travel advisory for a state and it's Missouri - McClatchy Washington Bureau

Aid workers, Korean Americans voice concern about new North Korea travel rules – Washington Post

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

SEOUL American humanitarian agencies that work in North Korea and Americans with relatives there are expressing grave concerns about the new restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to the country.

The restrictions, set to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, will require all American citizens who hope to travel to North Korea to apply to the State Department for a passport with a special validation.

This, some say, will mean that previously private and nonpolitical work sometimes already viewed with suspicion by the regime in Pyongyang will now have a literal U.S. government seal of approval.

When the North Koreans look at our delegation, they cannot assume that we got permission from anybody, said Stephen Linton, an American who heads the EugeneBell Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that treats thousands of people with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis inside North Korea.

His is one of about 25 American humanitarian groups that are active in North Korea, trying to relieve ordinary peoples suffering. The EugeneBell Foundation administers medicines to TB patients who have proved resistant to previous rounds of treatment, and the treatment must follow a strict schedule to be effective.

As soon as you have a licensing system, the immediate question is: Why did you get permission? said Linton, who has been working inside North Korea since 1979. What was in it for the U.S. government to issue you the permission to come here? And theres nobody in North Korea that Ive ever met who would believe that the U.S. government would issue that permission purely for humanitarian reasons.

[ North Korean TB patients at risk as sanctions hamper medicine shipments ]

The new geographic travel restriction will come into effect in 30 days time.

It is a direct response to the treatment of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old Ohio man who went to North Korea as a tourist and was arrested there, spending 17 months in a coma before being returned to the United States in June. He died less than a week later.

Three other U.S. citizens one a businessman and two affiliated with a private American university remain in North Korean custody.

Every year, about 1,000 Americans had been going to North Korea on organized tours, but tourism will be banned for U.S. citizens starting next month.

This new rule is much stricter than the policy the Trump administration has implemented toward Cuba, which Americans are still allowed to visit if they travel with a licensed tour company under U.S. jurisdiction. Independent travel is still allowed for Americans to visit their family members in Cuba and for religious activities and humanitarian projects.

Just four categories of Americans will be allowed the special endorsed passports: journalists, Red Cross representatives on official missions, humanitarian workers and anyone else whose trip is in the national interest.

Those who are approved will be issued a limited validity U.S. passport permitting one-time travel to North Korea, according to the State Department.

[ After Otto Warmbiers death, tourism to North Korea comes under scrutiny ]

Humanitarian groups have been appealing to the State Department not to make the new rule bureaucratically burdensome. Some are asking for a system where blanket approval can be given to their organization, rather than every person having to get approval for every trip.

U.S. humanitarian workers have been providing relief to the poorest and most deprived of North Koreas population for over 20 years, said Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based NGO that promotes cooperation between the United States and North Korea.

A majority of them have built meaningful relationships with North Koreans at the local level and not been confronted by the authorities, Luse said. As travel-ban details are finalized, we hope the State Department will consider their experience.

Amid years of failed nuclear talks and an enduring reluctance to engage with North Korea, private-sector activities such as humanitarian work have been the only positive aspect in the relationship between the United States and North Korea, said Linton, of the EugeneBell Foundation.

Make no mistake if the American private sector is now banned from travel, it will be another major step toward the diminishing of U.S. influence in East Asia, Linton said. Asians are well aware of this downward trend and are already thinking about how to resolve challenges related to North Korea should the U.S. government and its private sector be unwilling or unable to play a major role in the region.

[ State Department: U.S. to block Americans from traveling to North Korea ]

The new rules will particularly affect Korean Americans. Between 200 and 500 Korean Americans travel to North Korea each year, a significant proportion of them for reunions with family members from whom they were separated during the Korean War. Many of them travel to North Korea as tourists, and they would not appear to qualify for travel permission under the new restrictions.

There are also as many as 100 Korean Americans living or working in North Korea at any given time. Most are associated with Kim Il Sung University or the private American-run Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

Two of the Americans detained in North Korea earlier this year, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song, were affiliated with the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, which was started by Korean American Christians.

The third detainee, Kim Dong-chul, was working in the Rajin-Sonbong Special Economic Zone in the northeast of the country near the Chinese border and has now been held for almost two years. Efforts to free the men are continuing.

But there are also some Americans who live in North Korea permanently in the Rajin-Sonbong zone.

To the extent that the permanent residents need to travel back and forth to the U.S. from time to time, the travel ban would adversely impact them, said Sam Yoon, executive director of the Council of Korean Americans.

There are about 1.8million Korean Americans in the United States, according to population estimates from the Census Bureau.

One could argue that the travel ban especially for families would in fact hurt them the most, Yoon said.

The National Coalition for the Divided Families voiced similar concerns.

Rather than just an exemption so that Americans wont be punished for searching for their long-lost loved ones in North Korea, the coalition called for the U.S. and North Korean governments to organize state-approved reunions for our divided families before its too late.

The Korean War ended in 1953, leaving members of many families stuck on opposite sides of the armistice line. Those separated siblings and parents are now elderly.

Since the mid-1980s, North and South Korea have had 20 rounds of reunions. The U.S. and North Korea [have had] zero, said Jeane Noh of the divided-families coalition. Today, President Trump can make it happen.

North Korea fires another missile as it works to put the U.S. within reach

North Korea could cross ICBM threshold next year, U.S. officials warn

Where are the bodies buried in North Korea?

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Aid workers, Korean Americans voice concern about new North Korea travel rules - Washington Post

Transhumanists May Lead Us Into a Dystopian Future – Inverse

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

As technologies integrate with human bodies, a dark future awaits.

By Alexander Thomas, University of East London

The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end.

They may enable us to enjoy greater morphological freedom we could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use brain-computer interfaces to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI).

Nanobots could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions. Advances in one area often raise new possibilities in others, and this convergence may bring about radical changes to our world in the near-future.

Transhumanism is the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology that we should embrace self-directed human evolution. If the history of technological progress can be seen as humankinds attempt to tame nature to better serve its needs, transhumanism is the logical continuation: the revision of humankinds nature to better serve its fantasies.

As David Pearce, a leading proponent of transhumanism and co-founder of Humanity+, says:

If we want to live in paradise, we will have to engineer it ourselves. If we want eternal life, then well need to rewrite our bug-ridden genetic code and become god-like only hi-tech solutions can ever eradicate suffering from the world. Compassion alone is not enough.

But there is a darker side to the naive faith that Pearce and other proponents have in transhumanism one that is decidedly dystopian.

There is unlikely to be a clear moment when we emerge as transhuman. Rather technologies will become more intrusive and integrate seamlessly with the human body. Technology has long been thought of as an extension of the self. Many aspects of our social world, not least our financial systems, are already largely machine-based. There is much to learn from these evolving human/machine hybrid systems.

Yet the often Utopian language and expectations that surround and shape our understanding of these developments have been under-interrogated. The profound changes that lie ahead are often talked about in abstract ways, because evolutionary advancements are deemed so radical that they ignore the reality of current social conditions.

In this way, transhumanism becomes a kind of techno-anthropocentrism, in which transhumanists often underestimate the complexity of our relationship with technology. They see it as a controllable, malleable tool that, with the correct logic and scientific rigour, can be turned to any end. In fact, just as technological developments are dependent on and reflective of the environment in which they arise, they in turn feed back into the culture and create new dynamics often imperceptibly.

Situating transhumanism, then, within the broader social, cultural, political, and economic contexts within which it emerges is vital to understanding how ethical it is.

Max More and Natasha Vita-More, in their edited volume The Transhumanist Reader, claim the need in transhumanism for inclusivity, plurality and continuous questioning of our knowledge.

Yet these three principles are incompatible with developing transformative technologies within the prevailing system from which they are currently emerging: advanced capitalism.

One problem is that a highly competitive social environment doesnt lend itself to diverse ways of being. Instead it demands increasingly efficient behaviour. Take students, for example. If some have access to pills that allow them to achieve better results, can other students afford not to follow? This is already a quandary. Increasing numbers of students reportedly pop performance-enhancing pills. And if pills become more powerful, or if the enhancements involve genetic engineering or intrusive nanotechnology that offer even stronger competitive advantages, what then? Rejecting an advanced technological orthodoxy could potentially render someone socially and economically moribund (perhaps evolutionarily so), while everyone with access is effectively forced to participate to keep up.

Going beyond everyday limits is suggestive of some kind of liberation. However, here it is an imprisoning compulsion to act a certain way. We literally have to transcend in order to conform (and survive). The more extreme the transcendence, the more profound the decision to conform and the imperative to do so.

The systemic forces cajoling the individual into being upgraded to remain competitive also play out on a geo-political level. One area where technology R&D has the greatest transhumanist potential is defence. DARPA (the US defence department responsible for developing military technologies), which is attempting to create metabolically dominant soldiers, is a clear example of how vested interests of a particular social system could determine the development of radically powerful transformative technologies that have destructive rather than Utopian applications.

The rush to develop super-intelligent AI by globally competitive and mutually distrustful nation states could also become an arms race. In Radical Evolution, novelist Verner Vinge describes a scenario in which superhuman intelligence is the ultimate weapon. Ideally, mankind would proceed with the utmost care in developing such a powerful and transformative innovation.

There is quite rightly a huge amount of trepidation around the creation of super-intelligence and the emergence of the singularity the idea that once AI reaches a certain level it will rapidly redesign itself, leading to an explosion of intelligence that will quickly surpass that of humans (something that will happen by 2029 according to futurist Ray Kurzweil). If the world takes the shape of whatever the most powerful AI is programmed (or reprograms itself) to desire, it even opens the possibility of evolution taking a turn for the entirely banal could an AI destroy humankind from a desire to produce the most paperclips for example?

Its also difficult to conceive of any aspect of humanity that could not be improved by being made more efficient at satisfying the demands of a competitive system. It is the system, then, that determines humanitys evolution without taking any view on what humans are or what they should be. One of the ways in which advanced capitalism proves extremely dynamic is in its ideology of moral and metaphysical neutrality. As philosopher Michael Sandel says: markets dont wag fingers. In advanced capitalism, maximising ones spending power maximises ones ability to flourish hence shopping could be said to be a primary moral imperative of the individual.

Philosopher Bob Doede rightly suggests it is this banal logic of the market that will dominate:

If biotech has rendered human nature entirely revisable, then it has no grain to direct or constrain our designs on it. And so whose designs will our successor post-human artefacts likely bear? I have little doubt that in our vastly consumerist, media-saturated capitalist economy, market forces will have their way. So the commercial imperative would be the true architect of the future human.

Whether the evolutionary process is determined by a super-intelligent AI or advanced capitalism, we may be compelled to conform to a perpetual transcendence that only makes us more efficient at activities demanded by the most powerful system. The end point is predictably an entirely nonhuman though very efficient technological entity derived from humanity that doesnt necessarily serve a purpose that a modern-day human would value in any way. The ability to serve the system effectively will be the driving force. This is also true of natural evolution technology is not a simple tool that allows us to engineer ourselves out of this conundrum. But transhumanism could amplify the speed and least desirable aspects of the process.

For bioethicist Julian Savulescu, the main reason humans must be enhanced is for our species to survive. He says we face a Bermuda Triangle of extinction: radical technological power, liberal democracy and our moral nature. As a transhumanist, Savulescu extols technological progress, also deeming it inevitable and unstoppable. It is liberal democracy and particularly our moral nature that should alter.

The failings of humankind to deal with global problems are increasingly obvious. But Savulescu neglects to situate our moral failings within their wider cultural, political and economic context, instead believing that solutions lie within our biological make up.

Yet how would Savulescus morality-enhancing technologies be disseminated, prescribed and potentially enforced to address the moral failings they seek to cure? This would likely reside in the power structures that may well bear much of the responsibility for these failings in the first place. Hes also quickly drawn into revealing how relative and contestable the concept of morality is:

We will need to relax our commitment to maximum protection of privacy. Were seeing an increase in the surveillance of individuals and that will be necessary if we are to avert the threats that those with antisocial personality disorder, fanaticism, represent through their access to radically enhanced technology.

Such surveillance allows corporations and governments to access and make use of extremely valuable information. In Who Owns the Future, internet pioneer Jaron Lanier explains:

Troves of dossiers on the private lives and inner beings of ordinary people, collected over digital networks, are packaged into a new private form of elite money It is a new kind of security the rich trade in, and the value is naturally driven up. It becomes a giant-scale levee inaccessible to ordinary people.

Crucially, this levee is also invisible to most people. Its impacts extend beyond skewing the economic system towards elites to significantly altering the very conception of liberty, because the authority of power is both radically more effective and dispersed.

Foucaults notion that we live in a panoptic society one in which the sense of being perpetually watched instils discipline is now stretched to the point where todays incessant machinery has been called a superpanopticon. The knowledge and information that transhumanist technologies will tend to create could strengthen existing power structures that cement the inherent logic of the system in which the knowledge arises.

This is in part evident in the tendency of algorithms toward race and gender bias, which reflects our already existing social failings. Information technology tends to interpret the world in defined ways: it privileges information that is easily measurable, such as GDP, at the expense of unquantifiable information such as human happiness or well-being. As invasive technologies provide ever more granular data about us, this data may in a very real sense come to define the world and intangible information may not maintain its rightful place in human affairs.

Existing inequities will surely be magnified with the introduction of highly effective psycho-pharmaceuticals, genetic modification, super intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, nanotechnology, robotic prosthetics, and the possible development of life expansion. They are all fundamentally inegalitarian, based on a notion of limitlessness rather than a standard level of physical and mental well-being weve come to assume in healthcare. Its not easy to conceive of a way in which these potentialities can be enjoyed by all.

Sociologist Saskia Sassen talks of the new logics of expulsion, that capture the pathologies of todays global capitalism. The expelled include the more than 60,000 migrants who have lost their lives on fatal journeys in the past 20 years, and the victims of the racially skewed profile of the increasing prison population.

In Britain, they include the 30,000 people whose deaths in 2015 were linked to health and social care cuts and the many who perished in the Grenfell Tower fire. Their deaths can be said to have resulted from systematic marginalisation.

Unprecedented acute concentration of wealth happens alongside these expulsions. Advanced economic and technical achievements enable this wealth and the expulsion of surplus groups. At the same time, Sassen writes, they create a kind of nebulous centrelessness as the locus of power:

The oppressed have often risen against their masters. But today the oppressed have mostly been expelled and survive a great distance from their oppressors The oppressor is increasingly a complex system that combines persons, networks, and machines with no obvious centre.

Surplus populations removed from the productive aspects of the social world may rapidly increase in the near future as improvements in AI and robotics potentially result in significant automation unemployment. Large swaths of society may become productively and economically redundant. For historian Yuval Noah Harari the most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: what should we do with all the superfluous people?

We would be left with the scenario of a small elite that has an almost total concentration of wealth with access to the most powerfully transformative technologies in world history and a redundant mass of people, no longer suited to the evolutionary environment in which they find themselves and entirely dependent on the benevolence of that elite. The dehumanising treatment of todays expelled groups shows that prevailing liberal values in developed countries dont always extend to those who dont share the same privilege, race, culture or religion.

In an era of radical technological power, the masses may even represent a significant security threat to the elite, which could be used to justify aggressive and authoritarian actions (perhaps enabled further by a culture of surveillance).

In their transhumanist tract, The Proactionary Imperative, Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska argue that we are obliged to pursue techno-scientific progress relentlessly, until we achieve our god-like destiny or infinite power effectively to serve God by becoming God. They unabashedly reveal the incipient violence and destruction such Promethean aims would require: replacing the natural with the artificial is so key to proactionary strategy at least as a serious possibility if not a likelihood [it will lead to] the long-term environmental degradation of the Earth.

The extent of suffering they would be willing to gamble in their cosmic casino is only fully evident when analysing what their project would mean for individual human beings:

A proactionary world would not merely tolerate risk-taking but outright encourage it, as people are provided with legal incentives to speculate with their bio-economic assets. Living riskily would amount to an entrepreneurship of the self [proactionaries] seek large long-term benefits for survivors of a revolutionary regime that would permit many harms along the way.

The economic fragility that humans may soon be faced with as a result of automation unemployment would likely prove extremely useful to proactionary goals. In a society where vast swaths of people are reliant on handouts for survival, market forces would determine that less social security means people will risk more for a lower reward, so proactionaries would reinvent the welfare state as a vehicle for fostering securitised risk taking while the proactionary state would operate like a venture capitalist writ large.

At the heart of this is the removal of basic rights for Humanity 1.0, Fullers term for modern, non-augmented human beings, replaced with duties towards the future augmented Humanity 2.0. Hence the very code of our being can and perhaps must be monetised: personal autonomy should be seen as a politically licensed franchise whereby individuals understand their bodies as akin to plots of land in what might be called the genetic commons.

The neoliberal preoccupation with privatisation would so extend to human beings. Indeed, the lifetime of debt that is the reality for most citizens in developed advanced capitalist nations, takes a further step when you are born into debt simply by being alive you are invested with capital on which a return is expected.

Socially moribund masses may thus be forced to serve the technoscientific super-project of Humanity 2.0, which uses the ideology of market fundamentalism in its quest for perpetual progress and maximum productivity. The only significant difference is that the stated aim of godlike capabilities in Humanity 2.0 is overt, as opposed to the undefined end determined by the infinite progress of an ever more efficient market logic that we have now.

Some transhumanists are beginning to understand that the most serious limitations to what humans can achieve are social and cultural not technical. However, all too often their reframing of politics falls into the same trap as their techno-centric worldview. They commonly argue the new political poles are not left-right but techno-conservative or techno-progressive (and even techno-libertarian and techno-sceptic. Meanwhile Fuller and Lipinska argue that the new political poles will be up and down instead of left and right: those who want to dominate the skies and became all powerful, and those who want to preserve the Earth and its species-rich diversity. It is a false dichotomy. Preservation of the latter is likely to be necessary for any hope of achieving the former.

Transhumanism and advanced capitalism are two processes which value progress and efficiency above everything else. The former as a means to power and the latter as a means to profit. Humans become vessels to serve these values. Transhuman possibilities urgently call for a politics with more clearly delineated and explicit humane values to provide a safer environment in which to foster these profound changes. Where we stand on questions of social justice and environmental sustainability has never been more important. Technology doesnt allow us to escape these questions it doesnt permit political neutrality. The contrary is true. It determines that our politics have never been more important. Savulescu is right when he says radical technologies are coming. He is wrong in thinking they will fix our morality. They will reflect it.

Alexander Thomas, PhD Candidate, University of East London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here.

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Transhumanists May Lead Us Into a Dystopian Future - Inverse

Championship 2017/18: Super Computer predicts table ahead of the news season – talkSPORT.com

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

The new EFL season is about to get under way and you can hear 110 regular season matches on talkSPORT and talkSPORT2.

READ MORE: talkSPORT becomes the new home of the English Football League

On Friday night, the Championship will kick off live on talkSPORT as Sunderland host Derby County, while over the opening weekend you can also hear Wolverhampton Wanderers v Middlesbrough AND Aston Villa v Hull City on Saturday, and on Sunday you can listen to Bolton v Leeds.

Everyone has their views on who will win the title, promotion to the Premier League, and who will get relegated, but what does talkSPORTs famous Super Computer make of it?

Click the right arrow above to see how we think the Championship 2017/18 table will finish.

Of course, no one knows for sure what the final table will look like, but it is fun to speculate.

talkSPORT and talkSPORT 2 have exclusive radio rights to the Sky Bet EFL Championship,League OneandLeague Twofor the next three seasons.

The talkSPORT network will be the only place to hear 110 regular season EFL matches as well as the play-off semi-finals and finals - read more here.

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Championship 2017/18: Super Computer predicts table ahead of the news season - talkSPORT.com

AMD Demos Petaflop-in-a-Rack Supercomputer – TOP500 News

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

AMD has demonstrated a supercomputer based on its latest AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs that can deliver one petaflop of single precision floating point performance in a single rack.

The demo was presented at AMDs Capsaicin event, which took place in conjunction with the SIGGRAPH conference, an annual gettogether for the content creation community.

AMD CEO Lisa Su introduced the system, dubbed Project 47, as a platform suitable for both deep learning workloads and image rendering applications. Su said the machine is powered by 20 EPYC CPUs and 80 Radeon Instinct GPUs, and contains 10 TB of DDR4 memory.

Project 47 is a joint collaboration between AMD, Inventec, Samsung, and Mellanox. Inventec, a Taiwan-based original design manufacturer (ODM), built and integrated the system, based on its P-series 2U server platform. Samsung supplied the high bandwidth memory (HBM2) memory for the Radeon Instinct cards, as well as DDR4 main memory modules and NVMe SSD storage devices, while Mellanox contributed its EDR (100 Gbps) adapters, cabling, and switches to hook together the 20 servers.

In this case, each server contains a single EPYC 7601 CPU hooked to four Radeon Instinct MI25 GPUs. The advantage of the single-socket EPYC server is that it is able to support plenty of memory, GPU cards, and other PCIe devices, without have to resort to a second CPU installed solely tohook in more componentry. That saves not only the extra expense of the CPU, but power as well -- something AMD has touted as one of the major advantages of its EPYC design.

As is always the case for such accelerator-based architectures, the majority of the flops are supplied by the GPUs. In this case, each MI25 delivers 12.3 teraflops of single precision floating point (FP32) or 24.6 teraflops of half precision (FP16). Together they account for more than 95 percent of the systems floating point computational power.

The new Radeon Instinct products were designed primarily for deep learning work, but the demonstration played to the local SIGGRAPH crowd, running a variety of image rendering applications. At this point, Su handed the presentation off to Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect of the AMD Radeon Technologies Group.

In the first demo, the rack was used as a virtualized resource for four different rendering applications launched from thin clients. Koduri explained that the Radeon GPUs included hardware virtualization support for the kind of remote execution that they were using, noting that each GPU can support up to 16 users. That meant the rack could theoretically deal with 1280 users simultaneously. The second demo used all 80 GPUs for a single graphics application, in this case, to illustrate how photorealistic rendering could be accomplished in real time. Were redefining high performance computing for the content creation community, said Koduri.

Although the SIGGRAPH demonstration only illustrated the systems graphic prowess, AMD is hoping the machine will attract AI users looking to run their deep learning codes. Theoretically, the system could also be used for more traditional HPC work for applications that can tolerate 32 bits of precision.

One of the main advantages of the Project 47 machine is that it is able to deliver a lot of floating point horsepower within a relatively small power envelope. AMD is claiming the system delivers 30 gigaflops per watt of FP32 operations, which would put it at or near the top of the Green500 list if somehow those FP32 operations could be transformed to FP64. Alas, these latest Radeon parts have little 64-bit capability, making the comparison somewhat irrelevant. The current Green500 champ is TSUBAME 3.0, which turned in a power efficiency of 14.1 gigaflops of performance based on (FP64) Linpack.

Project 47 systems are expected to be available from Inventec and their principal distributor, AMAX, in Q4 of this year. Pricing was not announced.

AMD Demos Petaflop-in-a-Rack Supercomputer - TOP500 News

AMD Manages To Pack A PetaFLOPs Capable Super Computer In A … – Wccftech

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

AMD recently unveiled something truly remarkable today a server rack that has a total processing power of 1 PetaFLOPs. Thats 10 to the power of 15 floating point operations per second or 20 to the power of 15 half precision FLOPs. Heres the kicker though: a decade ago in 2007, a computer of the same power would have required roughly 6000 square feet of area and thousands of processors to power. A decade ago, this would have been one of the most powerful supercomputers on Earth, and today, its a server rack.

The server rack, ahem supercomputer, named Project 47 is powered by 20x EPYC 7601 32 Core processors and around 80x Radeon Instinct GPUs. It supports around 10 TB of Samsung Memory and 20x Mellanox 100G cards as well as 1 switch. All of this is fitted into a server rack that is roughly the height of 1.25 Lisa Sus with an energy efficiency of 30 GFLOPs per watt. That means the project 47 super computer consumes around 33,333 watts of electricity. Project 47 will be available from Inventec and their principal distributor AMAX sometime in Q4 of this year.

Today at Capsaicin SIGGRAPH, AMD showcased what can be achieved when the worlds greatest server CPU is combined with the worlds greatest GPU, based on AMDs revolutionary Vega architecture. Developed by AMD in collaboration with Inventec, Project 47 is based on Inventecs P-series massively parallel computing platform, and is a rack designed to excel in a range of tasks, from graphics virtualization to machine intelligence.

Back in 2007, you would have found the same power in a supercomputer called the IBM Roadrunner. This was a super computer project that was once the most powerful, well, super computer of its time and built by AMD and IBM for the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The cluster had 696 racks spanning an area of 6000 square feet and consumer 2,350,000 watts of electricity. The cluster consisted primarily of around 64,000 dual core Opteron CPUs and some accelerators.

So basically in a little over 10 years, AMD has managed to make a system that consumes 98% less power and takes up 99.93% less space. We are not yet sure how much Project 47 will cost, but we are pretty sure it will be less than the US $100 Million cost of the original Roadrunner. If that isnt the epitome of modern computational advances, I dont know what is.

So how exactly did AMD manage this feat? Well, usually when talking abut a decade, there are several node shrinks involved as well as architectural gains however, it is clear from the specifications that the rockstar of Project 47 isnt the CPU, its the GPU. While AMD has progressed from the architecture of old of 2007, and the occasional node shrink excepted, the progress on the CPU front hasnt been anywhere near as large to justify the simply ridiculous gains seen here. In fact, with 20 EPYC 7601 CPUs you are looking at a core count of just 640 cores which simply pales in comparison to the 128,000 cores in the original roadrunner. Since we certainly did not see IPC increase of 20000% it is clear that the star of the Project 47 is the Radeon Instinct GPU.

With 80 Radeon Instincts inside the server rack, you can already account for roughly 960 TFLOPs (depending on the clock speed) already out of the 1000 TFLOPs that the P47 is rated at. With 128 PCIe lanes per CPU, the EPYC processors will act as the drivers of the Radeon Instinct and wont actually handle the brunt of the load. So basically form an all-CPU based Roadrunner, we have come to P47, which is practically an all-GPU based show. It really speaks volumes for the bonkers growth in power we seen in the GPU department. The rapid scaling of core count, architectural gains and node shrinks have really ushered in a new era of computational power.

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AMD Manages To Pack A PetaFLOPs Capable Super Computer In A ... - Wccftech

Texas advanced computing centre launches new supercomputer – Scientific Computing World

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas has launched a new supercomputer - Stampede2 - with help from a $30 million award from the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

The new systems, the largest at any US university, will support nation's scientists and engineers.

Stampede2 represents a new horizon for academic researchers in the US, said Dan Stanzione, TACC's executive director. It will serve many thousands of our nation's scientists and engineers, allowing them to improve our competitiveness and ensure that UT Austin remains a leader in computational research for the national open science community.

AT the opening ceremony representatives from TACC were joined by leaders from The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas System, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and industry partners Dell EMC, Intel and Seagate.

For 16 years, the Texas Advanced Computing Center has earned its reputation for innovation andtechnological leadership, said Gregory L. Fenves, president of UT Austin.It is only fitting thatTACC has designed and now operates the most powerful supercomputer at any university in the US,Stampede2,enabling scientists and engineers to take on the greatest challenges facing society.

Made possible by a $30 million award from NSF, Stampede2 is the newest strategic resource for the nation's academic community and will enable thousands across the US. The supercomputer will allow researchers to answer questions that cannot be addressed through theory or experimentation alone.

Building on the success of the initial Stampede system, the Stampede team has partnered with other institutions as well as industry to bring the latest in forward-looking computing technologies combined with deep computational and data science expertise to take on some of the most challenging science and engineering frontiers, said Irene Qualters, director of NSF's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.

Stampede2 will be among the first systems to employ new computer processor, memory, networking, and storage technology from its industry partners. Phase 1 of the system, which is currently complete, ranked as the 12th most powerful supercomputer in the world on the June Top500 list and contains 4,200 Intel Xeon Phi processor-based nodes and Intel Omni-Path Architecture. Later this year, Phase 2 will add 1,736 Intel Xeon Scalable processor-based nodes, increasing peak performance to approximately18 petaflops. In addition, Stampede 2 will later add Intels persistent memory, based on 3D XPoint.

Intel and TACC have been collaborating for years to provide the high-performance computing (HPC) community the tools they need to make the scientific discoveries and create solutions to address some of society's toughest challenges, said Trish Damkroger, Vice President of Technical Computing at Intel. Intel's leading solution portfolio for HPC provides the efficient performance, flexible interconnect, and ease of programming to be the foundation of choice for leading supercomputing centers.

You can read the full story from Aaron Dubrow on the TACC website.

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Texas advanced computing centre launches new supercomputer - Scientific Computing World

Religion and Spirituality Events: 8/2 – Cecil Whig

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Low-cost, local events happening this week. To be included, your event must be family friendly, cost less than $25 per person and take place in Cecil County as well as adjoining areas within a 20-minute drive. Please submit the event title, time, address to accent@cecilwhig.com. Once approved by an editor, the event will be listed until its completion date. It will run in the print edition as space allows. You can also submit to a separate online calendar at cecildaily.com.

THURSDAY 3

YOGA, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Painted Turtle Arts Studio, 13 N. Main St., North East. Ongoing $15 drop-in. Multi-level for everyone. Call instructor Laura Hannan at 1-540-421-0296.

CLUTTERERS ANONYMOUS, 6 to 7 p.m. at Janes United Methodist Church, 213 N. Walnut St., Rising Sun. Clutterers Anonymous is a 12-step program to help people solve their problems with clutter/hoarding. There are no dues or fees. Contact Martha H. 443-350-1483.

YOGA, 7 p.m. weekly classes at Cecil County Arts Council, 135 E. Main St., Elkton. Intro class is free. Then pay $10 per class or buy five classes for $45. Classes are designed for new and experienced yogis. Contact class instructor Sarah Mester at smester@comcast.net.

IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH, 7 p.m. at 229 E. Main St., Elkton. Panic, fear, anxiety, depression. Attend a free weekly meeting with Recovery International.

FRIDAY 4

FREE LUNCH, 12 to 1 p.m. every Friday at Elkton Presbyterian Church, 209 E. Main St. provided by Elkton Community Kitchen. All are welcome. For more information contact elktoncommunitykitchen@gmail.com.

SATURDAY 5

SMART RECOVERY, 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Janes UMC in Rising Sun. This meeting is for those recovering from the disease of addiction. This is an open support group that meets every Saturday.

SATURDAY EVENING SERVICE, 5 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 105 N. Bridge St., Elkton. Will recur every week at this time.

COUNTRY GOSPEL SING 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Bay Church, 2248 Pulaski Hwy., North East. Featured group: Zimmerman Family.

SUNDAY 6

OUTDOOR WORSHIP, 9:30 a.m. grain or shine outdoor interdenominational service at Elk Neck State Park hilltop shelter, 4395 Turkey Point Road (Route 272, 9 miles south of NEUMC). Gil Nagle.

PARISH SUNDAY SCHOOL, 9:45 a.m. at Zion UMC in Cecilton. Recurs weekly.

MUSICAL MINISTRY, 3:30 p.m. at Griffith AUMP Church, 95 Cedar Hill Church Road, Elkton. The Sensational Stars of Kent County will be the guest group, and all are welcome to join. Contact 410-398-1136 or 410-620-4940 for info.

MONDAY 7

DEBTORS ANONYMOUS, 6 to 7 p.m. at Janes United Methodist Church, 213 N. Walnut St., Rising Sun. Debtors Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who help each other solve their problems with debt. DA is a 12-step program. There are no dues or fees. Contact Martha H. 443-350-1483.

NARANON MEETING, 7 p.m. at Bethel Lutheran Church, North East. Hope and Peace every Monday. Contact Lorri: 443-250-0909.

WOMENS NA MEETING, 7 p.m. at Bethel Lutheran Church, North East.

TUESDAY 8

YOGA 4 SENIORS, 9 to 10 a.m. at Painted Turtle Arts Studio, 13 N. Main St., North East. Pre-registration is required. Call instructor Laura Hannan at 1-540-421-0296. $12 per class if all six are pre-paid or $15 drop-in.

SENIOR MEETING, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Stephens Parish Hall in Earleville. Anyone 55 or older is invited to attend. Come and meet your neighbors. No membership fee. Lunch is served. Come for the fellowship, speaker, see what events we are planning. Questions call 410-275-8150. Recurs weekly.

MENS YOGA CLASS, 11 a.m. at Painted Turtle Arts Studio, 13 N. Main St., North East. Pre-registration is required. Call instructor Laura Hannan at 1-540-421-0296. $12 per class if all six are pre-paid or $15 drop-in.

COMMUNITY ARTS AND CRAFTS, 1 p.m. free instruction at St. Stephens Church, 10 Glebe Road, Earleville. Ongoing drawing and painting classes for beginner or serious artists. bspelled123@gmail.com. http://www.communityartandcrafts.com. Call Jerry at 410-275-2945.

TOPS, 5:30 p.m. at Rosebank UMC, Rising Sun. Nonprofit weight-loss support group, meets weekly. $6 monthly fee. First meeting free. topsrosebank@gmail.com.

NARANON, 7 p.m. every Tuesday at Elkton United Methodist Church. A Nar-Anon adult support meeting for those with addicts in the family.

MEDITATION, 7 p.m. every Tuesday with Three Roots Wellness at Painted Turtle Arts Studio, 13 N. Main St., North East. Learn basics of meditation practices and how to make it useful in your everyday life. Donation based. Registration is required email to angela@threerootswellness.com.

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Religion and Spirituality Events: 8/2 - Cecil Whig

More Music, Briefly, Aug. 2 – Jackson Hole News&Guide

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

The Wailers coming to Garter

The Wailers, former backing band to reggae legend Bob Marley, are coming to Jackson Tuesday.

With a stellar cast of musicians from the original group and newer additions The Wailers have successfully channeled Marleys energetic message of peace and unity, taking on an ambitious, near-permanent tour that stretches across the globe.

Aston Family Man Barrett, original bassist for the group, has played a key role in uniting original members of the band, moving past the decades-old legal battles that have tarnished the Wailers and the Marley estate.

With Tyrone Downie on keys, Junior Marvin on lead guitar, and Earl Wya Lindo on organ, the true sound of The Wailers has slowly made a comeback, and fans are taking note.

Playing sold-out shows across the country, the summer 2017 tour has showcased the bands ability to infuse Marleys spiritual enlightenment with a modern, captivating stage show.

The band will bring island grooves to the Pink Garter Theatre. The show starts at 9 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets cost $23 to $25.

KHOL is in the middle of its summer membership drive.

To celebrate the end of the drive KHOL will host a Sinkane show and thank-you party at the Pink Garter Theatre.

Sinkane, a band from Sudan and London, is headed by Ahmed Gallab, who has played with Hot Chip, Damon Albarn, David Byrne and others.

We love throwing thank-you parties for everyone who donates to each of our two annual drives, station manager Zach Zimmerman said in a news release.

The Sinkane show will be Sept. 26.

For information on the drive or to donate, visit 891KHOL.org.

Library to host family concert

The Jackson branch of Teton County Library will hold a free family concert Saturday.

At 11 a.m. Grand Teton Music Festival musicians Carole Bean, a flutist, and Anne Preucil Lewellen, a harpist, will perform.

The concert is open to all ages, and youngsters are especially encouraged to attend.

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More Music, Briefly, Aug. 2 - Jackson Hole News&Guide

August Starcast | Great American Eclipse + Mercury retrograde – HuffPost

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Its here the month weve been anticipating all year long that ushers in the Great American Solar Eclipse in Leo. Eclipses come in pairs and prior to the Solar Eclipse well have a Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius as well as a Mercury retrograde station in Virgo.

Leo is the sign of the joyful innocence of the divine child born into a special destiny, radiant as the Sun. Our challenge this month is to align withevenmore purity of the heart as we find the courage to shine in the dark.

As the month begins, Venus newly in Cancer suggests that relationships can take on a vulnerable quality. Her sense of safety is held in familial bonds and a sense of belonging. Cancer is ruled by the Moon which is changeable, intuitive and protective. As the Moon dances with the intense interplay of light and shadow of the eclipses this month, our relationships and values may undergo emotional transformations.

August 3 Uranus, the Great Awakener, stations retrograde in Aries the sign of action and instinct. The nature of Uranus is theopportunity for sudden breakthroughs, exciting change and fresh starts. There can be a certain rebelliousness with this energy as well as the chance to pioneer new areas of brilliance.

August 4 Jupiter squares Pluto rx, a powerful aspect that could amplify the drive for ambition. This aspect can trigger powerful partnerships with Jupiter in the partnership sign of libra however Pluto in Capricorns magnified need for dominance could cause conflicts unless righteousness and the need to dominate others are well managed.

August 7 the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius will bring an emotional shift in our sense of individualism. The Moon will be joined the South Lunar Node, signifying a release of the past. Perhaps weve felt alienated among our communities or groups. We may see the shadow side of Aquarius such as being swept up by causes or downing our individuality for the good of the collective. The opposition by Mars in Leo can bring the need to stand up for what we believe in and take a bold risk. The Sun is also trine the Great Attractor in Sagittarius suggesting a sense of adventure to the overall energetic flow.

August 12 Venus is conjunct Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and one that the ancients associated with honor, wealth, fame and spiritual enlightenment. Our desires for luxury and comfort may be illuminated as well as auspicious personal connections.

August 13 Mercury stations retrograde in Virgo which can heighten anxiety if were toofocused on our need for perfection and our inability to reach impossibly high standards. Mercury is opposite Neptune adding to a sense of confusion, disillusionment and victim mentality. Our dreams are heightened at this time and it may be difficult to distinguish dreams from reality.

August 15 Tender Venus in Cancer opposes controlling Pluto rx in Capricorn. Emotional intensity in relationships can make us want to retreat into our shell. Overwhelming emotional and sexual needs must find balance so they don't veer into obsessiveness.

August 21 The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Leo is the much hyped Great American Eclipse viewable across the United States. Any New Moon is a powerful time to set intentions for the future and with the eclipse energy it can be especially potent to envision our highest destiny and renew our alignment with our inner radiance. Leo signifies creativity, joy and confidence and we may experience extremes in these areas. This eclipse is aligned with the North Lunar Node, indicated an orientation toward future evolution. Eclipses can be disorienting because the light of the Sun is temporarily blocked which affects the psyche in unpredictable and confusing ways while bringing to light our subconscious shadow.

August 22 Mars provides an encouraging trine Saturn, both planets in Fire signs, providing a boost to our ability to create, build and get work done diligently.

August 23 The Sun enters Virgo highlighting our perfectionist nature and bringing focus to doing our work, being of service as well as health and healing.

August 25 Saturn stations direct in Sagittarius bringing a sense of soberness to our core beliefs and long term vision. Any blocks we may have experienced since its station retrograde April 5 have served to help us come to a sense of where we stand with our belief systems and have helped solidifyour internal authority around those beliefs.

August 27 Mars joins the North Node in Leo, elevating our instinctual selves with a sense of boldness. Venus enters Leo and relationships can take on a courtly and dramatic flair. Mercury retrograde joins the Leo party on August 31. Although Virgo season has begun, all this Leo suggests that we can bring joy, laughter and generosity to life while still taking care of business.

Starcasts illuminate a picture of the overall energy for the month. For guidanceon your personal astrologicaldestiny, schedule an Astrological Guidance Sessionn

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August Starcast | Great American Eclipse + Mercury retrograde - HuffPost

Science Updates: Bresnik reaches space station, Sally Ride heads … – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Welcome to Science in 60 Seconds

FLYING HIGH

NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik a Marine pilot who was stationed at Miramar for many years has arrived at the International Space Station. Hes scheduled to spend six months at the orbiting outpost. Bresnik will help with several scientific experiments, including one involving potential therapies for Parkinsons disease.

This is Bresniks second trip into space. He earlier served on a space shuttle mission, and performed two spacewalks .

RIDE, SALLY, RIDE

The research vessel Sally Ride is leaving San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography this week to study the ecosystem of the California Current. The ship will be operating offshore, roughly between San Diego and Point Conception.

This is a return-to-service for the R/V Ride, which spent about three months undergoing repairs and upgrades.

The ship is named after former UC San Diego researcher Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel in space.

MONEY FLOWS TO SDSU

San Diego State University says that it raised more than $134 million in research funding during the fiscal year that ended on June 30. Thats one of the highest figures in campus history, but far from the $250 million it wishes to raise annually to evolve into one of Californias elite science centers.

The new money is being used for everything from heart studies to gauging the impact of smoking and air pollution in low income housing.

Twitter: @grobbins

gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com

NASA to Test New Solar Array on International Space Station – Photonics.com

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Photonics.com Jul 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 2, 2017 An experiment that recently arrived at the International Space Station will test a new solar array design that rolls up to form a compact cylinder for launch with significantly less mass and volume, potentially offering substantial cost savings as well as an increase in power for satellites.

Smaller and lighter than traditional solar panels, the Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, consists of a center wing made of a flexible material containing photovoltaic cells to convert light into electricity. On either side of the wing is a narrow arm that extends the length of the wing to provide support, called a high strain composite boom. The booms are like split tubes made of a stiff composite material, flattened and rolled up lengthwise for launch. The array rolls or snaps open without a motor, using stored energy from the structure of the booms that is released as each boom transitions from a coil shape to a straight support arm.

ROSA can be easily adapted to different sizes, including very large arrays, to provide power for a variety of future spacecraft. It also has the potential to make solar arrays more compact and lighter weight for satellite radio and television, weather forecasting, GPS and other services used on Earth. In addition, the technology conceivably could be adapted to provide solar power in remote locations.

The technology of the booms has additional potential applications, such as for communications and radar antennas and other instruments. The ROSA investigation looks at how well this new type of solar panels deploys in the microgravity and extreme temperatures of space. The investigation also measures the array's strength and durability and how the structure responds to spacecraft maneuvers.

When the array is attached to a satellite, that spacecraft will need to maneuver, which creates torque and causes the wing, or blanket, to vibrate," said Jeremy Banik, principal investigator and senior research engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. "We need to know precisely when and how it vibrates so as not to lose control of the spacecraft. The only way to test that is in space."

The investigation will monitor the array deployed in full sun and full shade and collect data on how much it vibrates when moving from shade to light. This vibration, known as thermal snap, could present challenges in operating satellites with sensitive functions, and the researchers want to learn how to avoid those challenges with ROSA. The investigation will also measure power produced by the array to see how ROSA's thin, crystalline photovoltaic cells hold up during launch. In addition, researchers want to see how the array handles retraction.

"Recognize that we are trying to learn how it behaves this is an experiment and not a demonstration so we'll glean useful data even if it doesn't behave the ways we expect," Banik said.

ROSA was developed as part of the Solar Electric Propulsion project sponsored by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA tested the ROSA technology in vacuum chambers on Earth several years ago, and this is its first test in space. This solar array technology was developed to power large spacecraft using highly efficient electric propulsion on missions to deep space including Mars and the moon.

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NASA to Test New Solar Array on International Space Station - Photonics.com

Could Breakthrough Starshot be humanity’s first interstellar mission … – SpaceFlight Insider

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Jason Rhian

August 1st, 2017

Artists impression of Breakthrough Starshot spacecraft on its way to Alpha Centauri. Image Credit: Breakthrough Initiatives

In the NewSpace era, one hears all manner of predictions and brash claims, but few come to fruition. Most of these efforts see Chapter 11 before they ever take to the skies. One program, dubbed Breakthrough Starshot, is looking to send mankinds space exploration efforts far beyond the Solar System by using the worlds smallest spacecraft.

On June 23, 2017, these spacecraft, called Sprites, which were funded through a 2011 Kickstarter campaign, were launched atop a PSLV-XL rocket. Well, actually, they piggybackedon OHB System AGs Max Valierand Ventasatellites.

These spacecraft redefine the meaning of the word small, encompassing3.5-by-3.5 centimeters and weighing in at a whopping four grams. The company described the craft as the worlds smallest fully functional space probes.

Eventually, every mission that NASA does may carry these sorts of nanocraft to perform various measurements, Starshots Zac Manchester said via a company-issued release. If youre looking for evidence of life on Mars or anywhere else, for instance, you can afford to use hundreds or thousands of these things it doesnt matter that a lot of them might not work perfectly. Its a revolutionary capability that will open up all sorts of opportunities for exploration.

A prototype Breakthrough Starshot Sprite spacecraft. (Click to enlarge) Photo Credit: Zac Manchester / Breakthrough Initiatives

The company has caught the attention of Scientific American and other established organizations.

Despite its diminutive size, these Sprites have what they need to get the job done each containssolar panels, computers, sensors, and radios that will allow them to carry out their various functions.

With engineers looking for ever smaller classifications to describe spacecraft by (cube, small, and nano being just some of the names that have been used to help classify these satellites), the company has dubbed Sprites as the next step in terms of spacecraft miniaturization. Built atCornell University and incorporated into theMax Valierand Ventasatellites (built by the Bremen-basedOHB System AG), the Sprite is Manchesters pride and joy.

These Sprites remain affixed to the satellites and could, one day, be used to explore further than mankind has been able to explore so far. By all accounts, these Sprites are performing as advertised, communicating back to stations located in California and New York. While having satellites piggyback their way to orbit is nothing new, this flight is meant to validate the spacecraft communications systems.

These systems would (most likely) be first used in three-dimensional antennas in deep space to monitor space weatherthat could threaten Earthly power-grids and orbiting spacecraft. So how would these Sprites enable interstellar space exploration?

Larger interplanetary probes would deploy swarms of Sprites around planets, moons, and asteroids. These would seek out promising locales that could contain desirable minerals or locations that could support life.

Breakthrough Starshot is just one of the efforts under Breakthrough Initiatives (which also includes Breakthrough Listen) and was announced byYuri Milner and Stephen Hawking on April 12, 2016 (the same day of the month that Yuri Gagarin began his fateful voyage and the crew of STS-1 launched from Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A).

The project is an engineering program designed to prove the concept of spacecraft which would be propelled by light and accelerated to about20 percent of light speed and reach Proxima Centauri 4.2 light-years away in just over 20 years after their launch. The craft would targetthe exoplanet Proxima b and other planets in our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. If everything goes as planned, the craft would capture images as well as measurements of those distant worlds.

Breakthrough Starshot, the $100 million initiative aiming to send robotic missions to nearby stars by the mid-21st century, has achieved what might prove to be a Sputnik moment in successfully lofting its first spacecraft the smallest ever launched and operated in orbit, Manchester said.

Video courtesy of Breakthrough

Tagged: Alpha Centauri Breakthrough Starshot PSLV-XL The Range Zac Manchester

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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Could Breakthrough Starshot be humanity's first interstellar mission ... - SpaceFlight Insider

Nasa Is Hiring a Planetary Protection Officer to Save Earth from Aliens – Newsweek

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

NASA is looking for a Planetary Protection Officer to protect the planet from potential alien contamination. The U.S. governments official employment site posted the job advert, open to U.S. citizens and nationals for applications until August 14.

The job comes with a six figure salary$124,406 to $187,000 per yearand security clearance is listed as "secret." The role involves stopping astronauts and robots from getting contaminated with any organic and biological material during space travel.

NASA maintains policies for planetary protection applicable to all space flight missions that may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies, and any mission employing spacecraft, which are intended to return to Earth and its biosphere with samples from extraterrestrial targets of exploration the job advert reads. This policy is based on federal requirements and international treaties and agreements.

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The job, initially, is a three-year contract thatmay be extended for a further two years. During this time, NASA will be planning several missions, including one to Jupiters icy moon Europa, where it will search for signs of alien life.

The Planetary Protection Officer (PPO) is responsible for the leadership of NASA's planetary protection capability, maintenance of planetary protection policies, and oversight of their implementation by NASA's space flight missions, the job spec says. The successful candidate will have to work with several different branches of NASA and external organizations that are involved in planetary protection.

According to the job listing, the main responsibilities are:

Leads planning and coordination of activities related to NASA mission planetary protection needs. Leads independent evaluation of, and provides advice regarding, compliance by robotic and human spaceflight missions with NASA planetary protection policies, statutory requirements and international obligations.

Advises the Chief, SMA and other officials regarding the merit and implications of programmatic decisions involving risks to planetary protection objectives.

In coordination with relevant offices, leads interactions with COSPAR, National Academies, and advisory committees on planetary protection matters.

Recommends and leads the preparation of new or revised NASA standards and directives in accordance with established processes and guidelines.

Candidates must have broad engineering expertise, and should be an expert in planetary protection: This includes demonstrated technical expertise to independently form technically sound judgments and evaluations in considerably complex situations. Candidates should also have a degree in physical science, engineering or mathematics.

Nasa Is Hiring a Planetary Protection Officer to Save Earth from Aliens - Newsweek

Taking a (red)headcount: how close are we to beating the world record? Poll – Illawarra Mercury

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

1 Aug 2017, 8 p.m.

A NSW city needs 1672 gingers on one day at one park to claim world record.

RED IS BEST: Will you be among the redheads in Orange on Saturday, September 30?

WITH less than two months to go until the attempt for the most redheads in one place its time to ask the question: will the citys Red Army be the biggest ever?

Rachael Brookings Redhead Hunt 4 HD has attracted attention across the Central West, NSW and Australia, with thousands of comments and posts on social media from fair-haired people statingthey would like to be at Wade Park on Saturday, September 30.

So we want to know if the Guinness World Recordis in reach.

To do so were asking all ginger-topped readers to vote in the below poll and register your interest or lack thereof in the innovative event.

Hopefully in a couple of days we will have an accurate picture of how close we are to beating the current world record of1672.

To find out more about the day, which will raise funds to support those suffering from Huntingtons Disease, head to the events Facebook page.

Central Western Daily

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Taking a (red)headcount: how close are we to beating the world record? Poll - Illawarra Mercury

Shakira Rocks Fiery New Look: ‘Redheads Have More Fun’ – Yahoo News Canada (blog)

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Shakira has a fiery new look!

The 40-year-old singer ditched her blonde locks for red hair, sharing her new look on social media on Saturday.

WATCH: Chris Martin and Shakira Duet in Spanish at Global Citizen Festival

"Redheads have more fun. On the set of Perro Fiel with @nickyjampr," Shakira wrote alongside an Instagram pic of her and singer Nicky Jam.

Shakira and Nicky Jam are filming the music video for their collaboration "Perro Fiel," which is featured on her new album, El Dorado. The Colombian singer also shared a second pic, showing off her new hair hue.

This isn't the first time that Shakira has had red tresses. In 1999, the natural-born brunette sported red locks before making her cross-over to English-language music and becoming a blonde.

RELATED: Shakira Attends Soccer Star Lionel Messi's Wedding with Gerard Pique -- See Her Sexy, Sheer Dress!

Earlier this month, Shakira and Chris Martin performed together at the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg, Germany. The Coldplay frontman impressed the crowd with his Spanish skills, singing along to Shakira's songs, "Me Enamor" and "Chantaje."

Aside from filming her new music video, Shakira is gearing up to go on her El Dorado World Tour, her first tour in nearly six years. Her concerts kick off Nov. 8 in Cologne, Germany, and wrap Feb. 10, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

ET caught up with Shakira in May, where she opened up about her new Spanish music and the sexy inspiration behind "Me Enamor."

See more in the video below.

Originally posted here:

Shakira Rocks Fiery New Look: 'Redheads Have More Fun' - Yahoo News Canada (blog)

NASA is looking for someone to protect Earth from aliens and the job pays a six-figure salary – CNBC

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a hero? How about the protector of mankind? Well now NASA is looking for just that and it'll pay a six-figure salary for the honor.

The U.S. space agency is currently in search not of life on other planets but of a "Planetary Protection Officer", who can protect Earth and its inhabitants from alien invasion.

The job, which is offering a salary of between $124,406 and $187,000 per year, involves preventing alien microbes from contaminating the Earth, as well as ensuring human space explorers do not damage other planets, moons and objects in space.

"Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration," NASA wrote in the job posting on its website late last month.

Other duties include advising Safety Mission Assurance officials on planetary protection matters and ensuring compliance by robotic and human spaceflight missions.

The role is open to those with "broad engineering experience" and a willingness to travel.

It is not for those shy of responsibility, however. The Planetary Protection Officer role is one of just two such full-time positions in the world, according to Business Insider, and comes at the requirement of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The other position is with the European Space Agency.

Applications are open until August 14, 2017. The post is for an initial period of three years, though may be extended for an additional two.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.

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NASA is looking for someone to protect Earth from aliens and the job pays a six-figure salary - CNBC

NASA’s planetary defense system will be put to the test in October – CNN

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Danzig

Asteroid 2014 JO25 was imaged by radar from NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California one day before its closest approach to Earth. A grid composed of 30 images shows the two-lobed asteroid in different rotations. The space rock passed Earth on April 19, 2017, at a distance of 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers).

A graphic shows asteroid 2014 JO25 as it is projected to fly safely past Earth on April 19, 2017, at a distance of about 1.1 million miles or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon.

This graphic illustrates asteroid 2016 HO3 orbiting Earth as the pair go around the sun together. The asteroid was first spotted on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii.

All about asteroids This graphic shows the track for asteroid 2004 BL86, which flew about 745,000 miles from Earth on January 26, 2015. That's about three times as far away as the moon.

This graphic shows the path Asteroid 2014 RC took as it passed Earth on September 7, 2015. The space rock came within one-tenth the distance from Earth to the moon.

A diagram shows the orbit of an asteroid named 2013 TV135 (in blue), which made headlines in September 2013 when it passed close by Earth. The probability of it striking Earth one day stands at 1 in 63,000, and even those odds are fading fast as scientists find out more about the asteroid. It will most likely swing past our planet again in 2032, according to NASA.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 made a record-close pass -- 17,100 miles -- by Earth on February 15, 2013. Most asteroids are made of rocks, but some are metal. They orbit mostly between Jupiter and Mars in the main asteroid belt. Scientists estimate there are tens of thousands of asteroids and when they get close to our planet, they are called near-Earth objects.

Another asteroid, Apophis, got a lot of attention from space scientists and the media when initial calculations indicated a small chance it could hit Earth in 2029 or 2036. NASA scientists have since ruled out an impact, but on April 13, 2029, Apophis, which is about the size of 3 football fields, will make a close visit -- flying about 19,400 miles (31,300 kilometers) above Earth's surface. The images above were taken by the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory in January 2013.

If you really want to know about asteroids, you need to see one up close. NASA did just that. A spacecraft called NEAR-Shoemaker, named in honor of planetary scientist Gene Shoemaker, was the first probe to touch down on an asteroid, landing on the asteroid Eros on February 12, 2001. This image was taken on February 14, 2000, just after the probe began orbiting Eros.

The first asteroid to be identified, 1 Ceres, was discovered January 1, 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, Sicily. But is Ceres just another asteroid? Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that Ceres has a lot in common with planets like Earth. It's almost round and it may have a lot of pure water ice beneath its surface. Ceres is about 606 by 565 miles (975 by 909 kilometers) in size and scientists say it may be more accurate to call it a mini-planet. NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to Ceres to investigate. The spacecraft is 35 million miles (57 million kilometers) from Ceres and 179 million miles (288 million kilometers) from Earth. The photo on the left was taken by Keck Observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The image on the right was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

One big space rock got upgraded recently. This image of Vesta was taken by the Dawn spacecraft, which is on its way to Ceres. In 2012, scientists said data from the spacecraft show Vesta is more like a planet than an asteroid and so Vesta is now considered a protoplanet.

Asteroids have hit Earth many times. It's hard to get an exact count because erosion has wiped away much of the evidence. The mile-wide Meteor Crater in Arizona, seen above, was created by a small asteroid that hit about 50,000 years ago, NASA says. Other famous impact craters on Earth include Manicouagan in Quebec, Canada; Sudbury in Ontario, Canada; Ries Crater in Germany, and Chicxulub on the Yucatan coast in Mexico.

NASA scientists say the impact of an asteroid or comet several hundred million years ago created the Aorounga crater in the Sahara Desert of northern Chad. The crater has a diameter of about 10.5 miles (17 kilometers). This image was taken by the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994.

In 1908 in Tunguska, Siberia, scientists theorize an asteroid flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

One of the top asteroid-tracking scientists is Don Yeomans at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by the California Institute of Technology. Yeomans says every day, "Earth is pummeled by more than 100 tons of material that spewed off asteroids and comets." Fortunately, most of the asteroid trash is tiny and it burns up when it hits the atmosphere, creating meteors, or shooting stars. Yeomans says it's very rare for big chunks of space litter to hit Earth's surface. Those chunks are called meteorites.

Asteroids and comets are popular fodder for Earth-ending science fiction movies. Two of the biggest blockbusters came out in 1998: "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon." (Walt Disney Studios) Others include "Meteorites!" (1998), "Doomsday Rock" (1997), "Asteroid" (1997), "Meteor" (1979), and "A Fire in the Sky" (1978). Can you name others?

Asteroid 1998 QE2 is about 3.75 million miles from Earth. The white dot is the moon, or satellite, orbiting the asteroid.

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NASA's planetary defense system will be put to the test in October - CNN

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