Cybernetics-cyberspace - Infinity And Beyond

The Science Has Spoken: Pluto Will Never Be A Planet Again

“What’s perhaps most remarkable is that we can make a simple, mathematical relationship between a world’s mass and its orbital distance that can be scaled and applied to any star. If you’re above these lines, you’re a planet; if you’re below it, you’re not. Note that even the most massive dwarf planets would have to be closer to the Sun than Mercury is to reach planetary status. Note by how fantastically much each of our eight planets meets these criteria… and by how much all others miss it. And note that if you replaced the Earth with the Moon, it would barely make it as a planet.”

It was a harsh lesson in astronomy for all of us in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union released their official definition of a planet. While the innermost eight planets made the cut, Pluto did not. But given the discovery of large numbers of worlds in the Kuiper belt and beyond our Solar System, it became clear that we needed something even more than what the IAU gave us. We needed a way to look at any orbiting worlds around any star and determine whether they met a set of objective criteria for reaching planetary status. Recently, Alan Stern spoke up and introduced a geophysical definition of a planet, which would admit more than 100 members in our Solar System alone. But how does this stand up to what astronomers need to know?

As it turns out, not very well. But the IAU definition needs improving, too, and modern science is more than up to the challenge. See who does and doesn’t make the cut into true planetary status, and whether Planet Nine – if real – will make it, too!

And I noticed something strange on Internet. If you share an opinion and you are a male, it's ok. If you write the same thing and you are a female, they have the urge to correct you and making you feeling sorry/shut up.

Listen, if performing femininity is an “empowering choice,” then it needs to be an actual choice. Meaning that woman can opt out of it without negative consequence. Meaning a woman can go to an academic event without heels or in a simple suit and still be “professional.” Meaning that a woman can go to a job interview without a full face of makeup and not be “tired” or “disheveled.” Meaning that a woman can walk around in shorts with unshaven legs and not be a dirty, unclean gremlin. Meaning that a little girl can play and break barriers and like STEM while wearing jeans and a t-shirt and not be considered less empowered or “just trying to be a boy.”

Meaning that a woman’s femininity and womanhood is not contingent upon the extent to which she buys and performs a time-consuming, expensive, uncomfortable mold of a very specific type of packaged femininity. 

This isn’t even going into the effect these double standards have on women who in some way, by their very existence, do not fit the standard white western beauty mold and are expected to perform hyperfemininity to be “women” at all. I.e. women of colour esp. darker-skinned women of colour, hijabi women and tznius-keeping women, fat women, disabled women, trans women, etc. 

Cool situation we’re getting into here 

There’s not even any reason to fire an employee over wearing a facemask. This is purely just making an ideological position that’s gonna get people killed

If only 100% of the workers decided not to return to work. Business can’t run w/out employees. Sadly, since a 1x payment of 1200 really doesn’t help anyone, ppl are forced to put themselves and their loved ones in danger to put food on the table. Wonderful country we live in.

spring meets summer in the Dolomites

5 New Competitions for the Artemis Generation!

A common question we get is, “How can I work with NASA?”

The good news is—just in time for the back-to-school season—we have a slew of newly announced opportunities for citizen scientists and researchers in the academic community to take a shot at winning our prize competitions.

As we plan to land humans on the Moon by 2024 with our upcoming Artemis missions, we are urging students and universities to get involved and offer solutions to the challenges facing our path to the Moon and Mars. Here are five NASA competitions and contests waiting for your ideas on everything from innovative ways to drill for water on other planets to naming our next rover:

1. The BIG Idea Challenge: Studying Dark Regions on the Moon

Before astronauts step on the Moon again, we will study its surface to prepare for landing, living and exploring there. Although it is Earth’s closest neighbor, there is still much to learn about the Moon, particularly in the permanently shadowed regions in and near the polar regions.

Through the annual Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, we’re asking undergraduate and graduate student teams to submit proposals for sample lunar payloads that can demonstrate technology systems needed to explore areas of the Moon that never see the light of day. Teams of up to 20 students and their faculty advisors are invited to propose unique solutions in response to one of the following areas:

• Exploration of permanently shadowed regions in lunar polar regions • Technologies to support in-situ resource utilization in these regions • Capabilities to explore and operate in permanently shadowed regions

Interested teams are encouraged to submit a Notice of Intent by September 27 in order to ensure an adequate number of reviewers and to be invited to participate in a Q&A session with the judges prior to the proposal deadline. Proposal and video submission are due by January 16, 2020.

2. RASC-AL 2020: New Concepts for the Moon and Mars

Although boots on the lunar surface by 2024 is step one in expanding our presence beyond low-Earth orbit, we’re also readying our science, technology and human exploration missions for a future on Mars.

The 2020 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition is calling on undergraduate and graduate teams to develop new concepts that leverage innovations for both our Artemis program and future human missions to the Red Planet. This year’s competition branches beyond science and engineering with a theme dedicated to economic analysis of commercial opportunities in deep space.

Competition themes range from expanding on how we use current and future assets in cislunar space to designing systems and architectures for exploring the Moon and Mars. We’re seeking proposals that demonstrate originality and creativity in the areas of engineering and analysis and must address one of the five following themes: a south pole multi-purpose rover, the International Space Station as a Mars mission analog, short surface stay Mars mission, commercial cislunar space development and autonomous utilization and maintenance on the Gateway or Mars-class transportation.

The RASC-AL challenge is open to undergraduate and graduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics at an accredited U.S.-based university. Submissions are due by March 5, 2020 and must include a two-minute video and a detailed seven to nine-page proposal that presents novel and robust applications that address one of the themes and support expanding humanity’s ability to thrive beyond Earth.

3. The Space Robotics Challenge for Autonomous Rovers

Autonomous robots will help future astronauts during long-duration missions to other worlds by performing tedious, repetitive and even strenuous tasks. These robotic helpers will let crews focus on the more meticulous areas of exploring. To help achieve this, our Centennial Challenges initiative, along with Space Center Houston of Texas, opened the second phase of the Space Robotics Challenge. This virtual challenge aims to advance autonomous robotic operations for missions on the surface of distant planets or moons.

This new phase invites competitors 18 and older from the public, industry and academia to develop code for a team of virtual robots that will support a simulated in-situ resource utilization mission—meaning gathering and using materials found locally—on the Moon.

The deadline to submit registration forms is December 20.

4. Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge to Design Hardware, Practice Drilling for Water on the Moon and Mars

A key ingredient for our human explorers staying anywhere other than Earth is water. One of the most crucial near-term plans for deep space exploration includes finding and using water to support a sustained presence on our nearest neighbor and on Mars.

To access and extract that water, NASA needs new technologies to mine through various layers of lunar and Martian dirt and into ice deposits we believe are buried beneath the surface. A special edition of the RASC-AL competition, the Moon to Mars Ice and Prospecting Challenge, seeks to advance critical capabilities needed on the surface of the Moon and Mars. The competition, now in its fourth iteration, asks eligible undergraduate and graduate student teams to design and build hardware that can identify, map and drill through a variety of subsurface layers, then extract water from an ice block in a simulated off-world test bed.

Interested teams are asked to submit a project plan detailing their proposed concept’s design and operations by November 14. Up to 10 teams will be selected and receive a development stipend. Over the course of six months teams will build and test their systems in preparation for a head-to-head competition at our Langley Research Center in June 2020.

5. Name the Mars 2020 Rover!

Red rover, red rover, send a name for Mars 2020 right over! We’re recruiting help from K-12 students nationwide to find a name for our next Mars rover mission.

The Mars 2020 rover is a 2,300-pound robotic scientist that will search for signs of past microbial life, characterize the planet’s climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

K-12 students in U.S. public, private and home schools can enter the Mars 2020 Name the Rover essay contest. One grand prize winner will name the rover and be invited to see the spacecraft launch in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. To enter the contest, students must submit by November 1 their proposed rover name and a short essay, no more than 150 words, explaining why their proposed name should be chosen.

Just as the Apollo program inspired innovation in the 1960s and ‘70s, our push to the Moon and Mars is inspiring students—the Artemis generation—to solve the challenges for the next era of space exploration.

For more information on all of our open prizes and challenges, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/solve/explore_opportunities

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

adhd culture is writing fast but having your mind go even faster so you accidentally a few words

Okay, now that I'm calmer. I could explain it better (maybe)

When I first discovered Vocaloid, I was very young, and with me being aspie, maybe I was even more naive than the average boy.

And that led me to see something that a boy or girl my age shouldn't have never see

Someone in my fandom was 10, but faked their age just to fit in.

The fandom years ago wasn't nice at all, and with we being really young, we made weird asks and we got treated harshily

I don't want to talk about the fandom anymore, but I want to give you advice for the next video/fanart/song next:

Please, use trigger warnings. "Triggered" is not a meme, you could got triggered by something that scares you. If a video uses too many flashy lights, put a disclaimer in the beginning. If a song talks about something bad, put a warning in the beginning. If a song talks about something bad but it's implied/open to interpretations, put a warning in the beginning and explain the real meaning in the beginning

Not only most of the songs were in Japanese/English (not everyone's native language) but we couldn't be able to understand if there was something dirty, we were too young.

Explain that Sh/ta e L/li doesn't mean "cute boy" and "cute girl", before young fans could look for pictures and got traumatized.

Explain that Y/ndere could be really scary and not "just a parody pf a clingy girl/boy" like I thought. Some y/ndere songs were really scary.

Explain them the risks of roleplaying online, that not everyone is a kid/teen and could have malicious intents

And tell them if they made bad experiences that it's not their fault, and be there to help them.

Not every fan is American, and European fans don't experience racism based on skin color, but on stereotypes. Some European kids would get confused if you draw your favorite vocaloid with darker skin. If they ask you about it, they didn't make it to sound racist. It's just something different between cultures

Don't bully them because of unpopular ships, but tell them if is something illegal.

Some of Rin Len fans just saw them as robots/mirror images or something like Kokoro/Kiseki. Some of the Rin Len fans were so young they didn't knew about tw//cest. Maybe they used it inappropriately without knowing the real meaning and then got exposed to something they never wanted to see(Some of us used inappropriately both English and Japanese words, like Arigatou instead of Ohayou,but we were learning, could you blame a young kid?)

And last, comparing Piko to Boku etc. was never funny at all. We were minors. And I don't think an adult would find this funny as well.

Please, if you spot something young/immature in the fandom from now on, help them. They didn't know a lot of things. Don' t discriminate a fan because "has unpopular opinions" or "too annoying" or made "stupid asks". Could be a literal kid,or somewhere in the autistic spectrum. And don't use twitter to talk about them. If they are on tumblr, reply directly to them on tumblr. Even if you have to ask: Why did you tag my drawing as a ship?I never meant that. Don't write on other social media "Uugh op wrote this as a ship it's so stupid lol" because it's rude.

I personally was never able to write fanfictions, and the most thing I did with my characters was... Holding hands??

TL,DR don't be like the fandom was almost 10 years ago. Put trigger warnings, explain the real meaning of some terms, and be more patient.

Thank you for reading.By @cyberpiko