Distracted From Distraction By Distraction

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
(T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, No. 1 of Four Quartets)

A troubling essay in The Sunday Times by Bryan Appleyard should give you pause. Appleyard realized that he was being "Distracted from distraction by distraction" because of the modern technological tools that inundate our daily lives these days. It worried him. Perhaps it should worry you as well.

On Wednesday I received 72 e-mails, not counting junk, and only two text messages. It was a quiet day but, then again, I’m not including the telephone calls. I’m also not including the deafening and pointless announcements on a train journey to Wakefield – use a screen, jerks – the piercingly loud telephone conversations of unsocialised adults and the screaming of untamed brats. And, come to think of it, why not include the junk e-mails? They also interrupt. There were 38. Oh and I’d better throw in the 400-odd news alerts that I receive from all the websites I monitor via my iPhone.

I was – the irony! – trying to read a book called Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson. Crushed in my train, I had become the embodiment of T S Eliot’s great summary of the modern predicament: “Distracted from distraction by distraction”. This is, you might think, a pretty standard, vaguely comic vignette of modern life – man harassed by self-inflicted technology. And so it is. We’re all distracted, we’re all interrupted. How foolish we are! But, listen carefully, it’s killing me and it’s killing you.

David Meyer is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. In 1995 his son was killed by a distracted driver who ran a red light. Meyer’s speciality was attention: how we focus on one thing rather than another. Attention is the golden key to the mystery of human consciousness; it might one day tell us how we make the world in our heads. Attention comes naturally to us; attending to what matters is how we survive and define ourselves.

The opposite of attention is distraction, an unnatural condition and one that, as Meyer discovered in 1995, kills. Now he is convinced that chronic, long-term distraction is as dangerous as cigarette smoking. In particular, there is the great myth of multitasking. No human being, he says, can effectively write an e-mail and speak on the telephone. Both activities use language and the language channel in the brain can’t cope. Multitaskers fool themselves by rapidly switching attention and, as a result, their output deteriorates.

I'd urge you to concentrate and read the whole thing. It is worth it. I suspect there is a lot of truth in what Appleyard has written. There are so very many distractions, busily distracting us from our distractions these days.

One of the reasons posting here has been so light of late is that I am working very long hours every day in a job that requires fierce concentration. When I get home after 12 hours, I have little desire or ability to surf the web trying to find interesting things to discuss. Much of my day is spent fighting the distractions of relentless email and, to a lesser extent, phone calls. I get home and simply don't want to post. In my way, I'm fighting the distractions.

Is it as bleak as Appleyard paints it? Possibly not. But I do see the lack of focus in younger workers where I am. They try to do engineering while listening to their iPods. They don't focus the way those I started with in this field used to. To this day, I still never have a radio (or an iPod) playing in my work area. It is too distracting.

Read the whole thing.

Counterfeit Concerns

The FBI is worried about counterfeit Cisco routers. They should be. After all, they, along with the United States Navy, Marines and Air Force as well as the FAA have all bought some of the fake routers.

In late February the FBI broke up a counterfeit distribution network, seizing an estimated US$3.5 million worth of components manufactured in China. This two-year FBI effort, called Operation Cisco Raider, involved 15 investigations run out of nine FBI field offices.

According to the FBI presentation, the fake Cisco routers, switches and cards were sold to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps., the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and even the FBI itself.

One slide refers to the problem as a "critical infrastructure threat."

The U.S. Department of Defense is taking the issue seriously. Since 2007, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has funded a program called Trust in IC, which does research in this area.

Last month, researcher Samuel King demonstrated how it was possible to alter a computer chip to give attackers virtually undetectable back-door access to a computer system.

King, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's computer science department, has argued that by tampering with equipment, spies could open up a back door to sensitive military systems.

In an interview on Friday, he said the slides show that this is clearly something that has the FBI worried.

The Department of Defense is concerned, too. In 2005 its Science Board cited concerns over just such an attack in a report.

This is a very dangerous threat, not just to the US military but also to corporations and just about any sensitive information. As the world becomes increasingly computerized, it is becoming more difficult to keep real secrets as it is.

Magic Is Misdirection

It is generally understood by most people that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight of hand (also called prestidigitation or léger de main), misdirection, deception, collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery (hence the illusions are commonly referred to as "tricks"). The performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skillful that the audience cannot believe their eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience play a role in which they agree to be entertained by something they know to be a deception. Houdini also gained the trust of his audiences by using his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a tradition continued by magicians such as James Randi, P. C. Sorcar, and Penn and Teller.

Wikipedia,Magic (Illusion)

As someone who has worked in the electric utility field for quite some time now, I think I have a pretty fair handle on how the system really works. (As opposed to the people who purport to be able to produce something from nothing.) While I applaud the folks who are trying to bring a viable electric car to the market, I am professionally appalled at the misdirection involved. For example:

LOS ANGELES - It's safe to say Jeremy Snyder gets a charge out of the two-seat Tesla Roadster whenever he pulls one off the lot — and not because it's equipped with an all-electric engine. 
 
As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn't give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.

"Accelerate pretty good?" asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.

"I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane."

After several years of development, the Roadster — with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 — officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city's toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.

"Because it's Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store," Snyder said.

The next store is to open in a couple months near Tesla's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40 million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.

Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that's still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions. (Emphasis added)

Factually correct yet completely misleading. The car itself may give off no tailpipe emissions, but the electricity that is required to charge it comes from somewhere. That somewhere is probably a fossil fuel burning facility. The amount of emission has not been eliminated, it has merely been shifted elsewhere.

Regardless of the source of the power, it still takes x amount of power to drive a car y miles. That power must come from somewhere. Given the physically-limited nature of the power supply (physically limited by nature of the laws of physics, mind you) the electric car is not a magic bullet that will end emissions.

Mobile Infantry

The late Robert A. Heinlein's vision of powered armor is rapidly approaching reality. A company in Utah has an operational powered exoskeleton and a contract with the US military to develop it even further.

Rex Jameson, one of his test engineers, has been trying out Jacobsen's 150lb XOS exoskeleton, a mechanised suit that shadows his every motion to give him the kind of strength and endurance usually reserved for Marvel comics.

The real life version does not have a flame thrower, like the one in Iron Man. But, thanks to its mechanical muscles, it is strong and moves seamlessly to mirror Jameson's every motion.

To show off his superhuman endurance, Jameson can lift a bar loaded with 200lb for hundreds of times. "As far as software engineering goes, this job is about as good as it gets," he says.

"We get to write programs and we see them working on actual robots, that's very exciting. I've had a lot of software jobs before this. This one is definitely the most fun."

Jameson works at Sarcos, a robotics company that was recently purchased by the defence giant Raytheon. Although the military is most interested in using this mechanical shadow to boost the strength and endurance of soldiers, others are too, from firemen to the wheelchair-bound.

The basic idea is simple. As Jameson moves his hand a sensor in exoskeleton's handle detects a force and the computer - on the back of his suit - calculates how to move the exoskeleton to minimise the strain on his hand as a series of valves controls the flow of high-pressure hydraulic fluid that act like tendons to drive the joints.

What is crucial is that, given a few points of contact - the feet and hands, in this case - the smart machine is able to interpret the intended movements of the person strapped into it and react accordingly, turning a nifty piece of robotics into a superhero suit. It has taken three prototypes to get the blend of speed, power and sensitivity just right.

They have a video of the exoskeleton at the link. It's fascinating and eerily like what Heinlein predicted back when he wrote Starship Troopers almost a half century ago now.

Lessons From Y2K

Bruce Webster reminisces about why the hysteria about Y2K closely resembles the hysteria surrounding Anthropogenic Global Warming - and why he is a confirmed skeptic on the whole subject. He's been there and done that.

My first clue that there were serious problems with anthropogenic global warming was, frankly, the vitrol towards and demonization of those who questioned it. In my experience, that is almost always a sign — especially in scientific circles — that the proponents of a given theory are insecure. I first saw this when Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick challenged both the data sets and the algorithms used by Mann et al. in producing the famous Hockey Stick. While I’m not a climatologist, I do know a lot about data sets, algorithms, and modeling — and what I was hearing was very disturbing. And the reaction to McIntyre and McKitrick was not to welcome open investigation and criticism but to circle the wagons and to start calling anyone who challenges global warming a lacky of the oil companies (curious, since the oil companies themselves seem to be drinking the AGW kool-aid).

It is a fairly long piece, but I rather suspect that many Crabitat readers will be very interested in it. What Bruce describes is essentially a cascade effect - where a consensus builds around a false set of data. While Y2K was a real threat, many jumped onto the bandwagon and generated additional, bogus threats that became media fodder. That snowballed the entire thing into a juggernaut that simply did not happen as predicted. There is a lesson here.

Turboprop Comeback

The announcements of the death of the turboprop aircraft appear to have been a bit premature. The much-maligned technology is making a comeback in a big way, driven by increasing jet fuel prices. It seems the turboprop is anywhere from 25 to 33% more efficient - and regional carriers are taking note of that.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - As fuel prices soar to record highs and airlines struggle to maintain profitability, the unglamorous but fuel-efficient turboprop regional airliner is making a remarkable comeback.

The revival of the propeller-driven planes — which typically consume a quarter to a third less fuel than equivalent jets — marks a significant new trend in the industry. Until recently, many commuter airlines had been determined to consign the planes to history and convert to all-jet fleets, which offer greater passenger comfort.

Although the latest generation of turboprops has addressed some of the comfort issues by flying above turbulence and providing quieter cabins, analysts say the airlines’ money worries about their bottom line now outweigh any passenger preferences.

This is interesting. Earlier today, I read this piece from the New York Times about another technology that was supposed to be dead and gone by now: the mainframe computer. The story hits on why old technologies sometimes don't die.

Today, mainframe sales are a tiny fraction of the personal computer market. But with the mainframe facing extinction, I.B.M. retooled the technology, cut prices and revamped its strategy. A result is that mainframe technology — hardware, software and services — remains a large and lucrative business for I.B.M., and mainframes are still the back-office engines behind the world’s financial markets and much of global commerce.

The mainframe stands as a telling case in the larger story of survivor technologies and markets. The demise of the old technology is confidently predicted, and indeed it may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer. But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current death-knell forecast is that the Web will kill print media.

What are the common traits of survivor technologies? First, it seems, there is a core technology requirement: there must be some enduring advantage in the old technology that is not entirely supplanted by the new. But beyond that, it is the business decisions that matter most: investing to retool the traditional technology, adopting a new business model and nurturing a support network of loyal customers, industry partners and skilled workers.

It seems that the humble propeller has some enduring advantage after all. Moving people around using less fuel to do so is a business decision. It appears that airlines are getting that fact and acting on it. One wonders if some of the companies that used to produce turboprops are thinking about dusting off the old blueprints and taking another look at the market.

Don’t DO Fear The Reaper

The newest unmanned aerial vehicle in the US and British arsenals are about to go operational in Afghanistan. The Reaper will be controlled by operators sitting in a facility near Las Vegas, Nevada, but will be capable of killing in real time half a world away. The taliban will have ample reason to fear the Reaper very soon, indeed. 

Britain's armed forces are sending pilotless "robot" strike aircraft into battle for the first time, allowing controllers sitting at a computer outside Las Vegas to drop guided bombs on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The "Reaper" unmanned aerial vehicle marks a major watershed for the Royal Air Force and has been rushed into service after senior defence chiefs identified it as a vital weapon in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

Analysts believe that armed drones such as the £10million Reaper are the beginning of the end for human bomber and fighter pilots, and that increasingly sophisticated UAVs represent the future of aerial warfare.

When the RAF bought its first three Reapers from American manufacturers last year commanders intended to use them only as spyplanes, but senior commanders have now decided to fit them with 500lb guided bombs and Hellfire guided missiles, turning them into Britain's first unmanned combat aircraft.

The pioneering airstrikes are expected to take place in southern Afghanistan within days, once formal export clearances are confirmed by the U.S. Government.

The RAF already has almost 50 personnel operating similar American drones from Creech Air Force Base in the Nevada desert, outside Las Vegas, as part of an exchange programme.

Now they will switch to flying the RAF's own Reaper drones, dropping weapons via satellite link on targets around 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan. 

I've posted about the Reapers before. There are links on that post to various reports about the aircraft.   

“Phased-Plasma Rifle In The Forty Watt Range.”

It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. (From The Terminator)

Dire warnings are circulating about the possibility of hunter-killer robots being unleashed, a la The Terminator movies. 

Robot soldiers that can decide who to attack will soon be roaming the world's battlefields if something isn't done about the global 'robot arms race'.

That is the stark warning from a leading robotics expert who spoke today of the dangers of allowing increasingly sophisticated robots to make decisions of life and death.

Professor Noel Sharkey, a robotics and artificial intelligent expert from the University of Sheffield, also warned that armed robots could soon become terrorists' weapon of choice.

"The trouble is that we can't really put the genie back in the bottle,” said Professor Starkey.

“Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy. How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act?"

Over 4,000 robots are currently deployed on the ground in Iraq and by October 2006 unmanned aircraft had flown 400,000 flight hours.

At the moment, humans can make the decision whether to attack or not but a recent policy shift in the U.S means that 'intelligent' autonomous attack robots will soon be given the power to decide who and when to kill.   

No, the genie will not go back into the bottle. They never do once they are out, no matter how many treaties are enacted. Even if governments signed onto treaties banning these things, terrorists would pay no attention to the laws any more than they do today.  There is also no way to stop a talented amateur or rogue expert from building one of these as a freelance project.

We've just got to get those ED-209's working properly here at the Crabitat.  

Toshiba Quits HD DVD Format

Toshiba moved very quickly to cut its losses and has withdrawn the HD DVD format from the market. Sony's Blu-Ray has won the format war.

TOKYO — Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video.

"We concluded that a swift decision would be best," Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company's Tokyo offices.

The move would make Blu-ray _ backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios _ the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago.

Nishida said last month's decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable.

"That had tremendous impact," he said. "If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win."  

That was amazingly fast. Smart move by Toshiba to just get it over with rather than dragging things out. 

The New Betamax

It looks like the high definition wars are all but over. This time it is Sony who has won, unlike the video wars. The Blu-Ray system appears to have triumphed over the HD-DVD format. Wal-Mart may be credited with the final blow to the rival system after they announced that they are dropping the format to focus exclusively on Blu-Ray.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) has decided to exclusively sell high-definition DVDs in the Blu-Ray format, dealing what could be a crippling blow to the rival HD DVD technology backed by Toshiba Corp.

The move by the world's largest retailer, announced on Friday, caps a disappointing week for HD DVD supporters, who also saw consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) and online video rental company Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) defect to the Blu-ray camp.

In a statement on its Web site, Wal-Mart said that over the next few months it will phase out sales of HD DVD systems and discs. By June, it will sell only products in the Blu-ray format which was developed by Sony Corp (6758.T).

"We've listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases," said Gary Severson, a Wal-Mart senior vice president.

The move affects 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in the United States, as well as related online sites. The stores will continue to sell traditional DVD players and movies.

The so-called format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray has been a thorn in the side of retailers, which have had to commit shelf space to devices from both camps even as they field complaints from frustrated and confused customers.

Personally, I have not purchased either one of the systems. I had no pressing need for them and didn't want to make the wrong choice. So now the situation should stabilize somewhat and prices should begin to fall for the equipment and the movies. And there will be plenty of cheap HD-DVD stuff on eBay soon for the bargain hunters. They'll be over in the 8-Track section with the cassette tapes and the Betamax machines.

Unhappy Valentine’s Day

The FBI has issued a warning about opening Valentine's Day emails that might contain e-cards that deliver a trojan worm to the recipient.

"If you unexpectedly receive a Valentine's Day e-card, be careful," the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement, warning Internet users to "be on the lookout for spam emails spreading the Storm Worm malicious software (malware)."

"The Storm Worm virus has capitalized on various holidays in the last year by sending millions of emails advertising an e-card link within the text of the spam email. Valentine's Day has been identified as the next target," the FBI said.

The bogus email directs the recipient to click on a link to retrieve an electronic Valentine's Day card.

If the user falls for the ruse, malware will infect their computer or the device they used to connect to the Internet, and make it become part of a Storm Worm botnet, according to the FBI.

Very nice. Frankly, I never open anything like that (my wife doesn't send stuff like that, nor do I send any to her). It probably isn't a real good idea to open one even if you know the sender - because their machine might be infected and the greeting might be coming from the botnet. Kind of a sad state of affairs.  

Virtual Flashing, Real Conviction

A German man has been convicted on pornography charges after sending a photograph of his penis to a woman. The man is suspected of doing the same thing to other women - women he did not know, apparently.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 21-year-old German man has been convicted of sending a photograph of his penis to an unknown woman via mobile phone, authorities said on Wednesday.

"We all had a bit of a laugh when we saw the thing," said Christian Kropp, presiding judge at the court in the eastern town of Sondershausen.

The woman reported the sender to police after receiving the photo attachment of the man's genitals, the court said. Officers found evidence he may have sent similar images to other women.

The man did not explain his motive but expressed remorse for the photo, Kropp said. He was fined 150 euros (112 pounds) for distributing pornographic material.

I suppose this sort of thing is inevitable with all the advances in cell phone technology. So now, instead of having to watch out for a guy in a trench coat, you have to worry about answering your phone. It's a marriage of the worst in flashing with the obscene phone call.

We could do without some "progress". 

Blue Roses And Whiskey

Songwriters have used the words 'blue roses' to describes sad, lost love or something impossible. All those lyrics are now obsolete. The Suntory company of Japan, a major whiskey distiller, is branching out. They will begin selling blue roses sometime next year in Japan . The US and Australia are also targeted for the genetically modified flowers at a future date yet to be determined. 

TOKYO (AFP) - Think that red roses are predictable? In Japan, gift-givers soon will also have the option of blue roses.

The Japanese company that created the world's first genetically modified blue roses said Monday it will start selling them next year.

Suntory Ltd., also a major whisky distiller, hopes to sell several hundred thousand blue roses a year, company spokesman Kazumasa Nishizaki said.

"As its price may be a bit high, we are targeting demand for luxurious cut flowers, such as for gifts," he said. The exact price and commercial name for the blue rose have not been decided.

The company is also growing the rose experimentally in Australia and the United States to get approval for sales, but no timing has been set for commercial launches in the two countries.

Here's some information on how the roses were created. What we here at Blue Crab Boulevard can't figure out is why a distiller was even interested in this. 

We'd have thought they'd be more interested in pink elephants.

UPDATE: One of the fun things about blogging is finding the huge amount of knowledge that is out there in the world. Via email, I have been informed - by someone who (as a corporate guest) went on a tour of Suntory's original distillary. The place is a garden spot, apparently. It seems that the founder of the company was a huge fan of flowers and that Suntory has been involved in breeding and modifying flowers for some time. I am also informed that their whiskey is very, very good. Thanks for the info, Terry!

All That Glitters…. Might Be Aluminum

Dr. Chunlei Guo, associate professor of optics at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, has managed something alchemists tried to do for centuries. He can turn virtually any metal to gold. Well, gold in color, that is. Or blue, or black or just about any color. It is a permanent change to the outer layer of the metal and will not chip, peel or fade.

And he does it with a tabletop laser.

All that glitters golden is not gold. It could be aluminum. Or tungsten. Or another metal of Chunlei Guo’s choosing.

In a feat of optical alchemy, Dr. Guo, a professor of optics at the University of Rochester, and Anatoliy Y. Vorobyev, a postdoctoral researcher, use ultrashort laser bursts to pockmark the surface of a metal in a way that is not perceptible to the touch — it still feels smooth to the finger — but that alters how the metal absorbs and reflects light.

The result is that pure aluminum looks like gold, and the appearance is literally skin deep.

“I cannot tell it’s not gold,” Dr. Guo said. “It looks very pretty.”

Dr. Guo and Dr. Vorobyev reported their findings in the journal Applied Physics Letters published online Thursday.

The golden aluminum follows work a little more than year ago where Drs. Guo and Vorobyev reported that they could make gold and other metals look black — indeed a black that is blacker than the usual black, sucking up almost all light that impinged upon it.

The laser bursts — each lasting only about 60 millionths of a billionth of a second — melt and vaporize metal atoms near the surface, which then reassemble in minuscule structures including pits, spheres and rods that are a fraction of a millionth of a meter in size.

Here's the press release from the U of R.  

Since the process changes the intrinsic surface properties of the metal itself and is not just a coating, the color won't fade or peel, says Guo, associate professor of optics at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. He suggests the possibilities are endless—a cycle factory using a single laser to produce bicycles of different colors; etching a full-color photograph of a family into the refrigerator door; or proposing with a gold engagement ring that matches your fiancée's blue eyes.

"Since the discovery of the black metal we've been determined to get full control on getting metals to reflect only a certain color and absorb the rest, and now we finally can make a metal reflect almost any color we wish," says Guo. "When we first found the process that produced a gold color, we couldn't believe it. We worked in the lab until midnight trying to figure out what other colors we could make."

Guo and his assistant, Anatoliy Vorobeyv, use an incredibly brief but incredibly intense laser burst that changes the surface of a metal, forming nanoscale and microscale structures that selectively reflect a certain color to give the appearance of a specific color or combinations of colors.

This will be a big thing in the near future, I suspect. Dr. Guo has already been fielding calls from jewelers who are very interested in the possibility of varicolored gold. Other consumer goods will not be far behind, I'm sure. One can also be fairly certain that someone will turn lead into gold (color-wise) in the near future and try to pass it off as the real thing. So it would be a good idea to remember that this can be done.

Maybe they should change Dr. Guo's title. Professor of alchemy has a nice ring. Maybe in a cornflower blue shade. 

The Future Is Now

The US Navy has test fired a weapon prototype straight out of science fiction. The successful test of an electromagnetic railgun brings the navy one step closer to giving their ships an unfair advantage over any opposition - exactly what the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, wants.

The big gun uses electromagnetic energy instead of explosive chemical propellants to fire a projectile farther and faster. The railgun, as it is called, will ultimately fire a projectile more than 230 miles (370 kilometers) with a muzzle velocity seven times the speed of sound (Mach 7) and a velocity of Mach 5 at impact.

The test-firing, captured on video, took place Jan. 31 in Dahlgren, Va., and Navy officials called it the "world's most powerful electromagnetic railgun."

The Navy's current MK 45 five-inch gun, by contrast, has a range of less than 23 miles (37 kilometers).

The railgun has been a featured weapon in many science fiction universes, such as the new "Battlestar Galactic" series. It has also achieved newfound popularity among the 20-something-and-under generation for its devastating ability to instantaneously shoot a "slug" through walls and through multiple enemies in video games such as the "Quake" series of first person shooters.

The Navy's motivation? Simple destruction.

The railgun's high-velocity projectile will destroy targets with sheer kinetic energy rather than with conventional explosives.

"I never ever want to see a Sailor or Marine in a fair fight. I always want them to have the advantage," said Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead. "We should never lose sight of always looking for the next big thing, always looking to make our capability better, more effective than what anyone else can put on the battlefield."

No explosives, no propellants, just a big, old slug traveling very, very fast. A straight kinetic energy weapon. This will mean no more risk of accidental explosions on board the ships. The test rig looks somewhat bulky, of course. They have some design refinement to do. But it will be interesting to see if they actually get these out into service. Here's a video of the test shot. They report getting a 10.64MJ energy level and a muzzle velocity of 2,520 meters per second. Here's a link to NSWC Dahlgren.