Categories

Our members report about more interesting findings and events.

• Simple Decimal Calendar (, +) [en]

  The concept of a decimal calendar has been attempted throughout history but never adopted widely. Yet. (introducing:) Unix days! TL;DR: Normalizing Unix seconds by the number of seconds in a day, results in Unix day, which has convenient properties, such as 5th digit after decimal point corresponding to decimal second (0.864 length of traditional second). So, dividing UNIX SECOND by 86400, we get a decimal Unix day, for example, if UNIX SECOND = 1688897360, then UNIX DAY = 19547.42315, and displaying this number with time formatting, makes it extremely easy for our time-trained eyes to interpret: 19,547 4:23:15, meaning: 19th Unix decimal year (19 thousand days) 547th day of the year (5-dmonth, 4-dweek, 7-dweekday) 4:23:15 decimal time (4-dhour, 23-dminute, 15-dsecond) Try in terminal function edate {     secs=$(date +%s); days=$(($secs/86400))     hour=$(printf "%05d" "$((($secs-($days*86400))*1000/864))")     printf "%'.0f %s:%s:%s\n" "$days" "${hour:0:1}" "${hour:1:2}" "${hour:3:2}" } Julian Days Some scientists use it. In fact, there are good reasons why astronomers use days (namely, Julian Days, JDs) for date calendar computations: simplicity, uniformity, continuity. However, incidentally, decimal fractions of days define decimal time, where hours define the …  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2023-07-09 @09:23Z
• Observation about NNs (, +) [en]

  Neural Networks (NNs) are just a class of mathematical functions, that are very flexible, think of them like N-dimensional NURBS, or like N-dimensional "clay" that you can shape into anything, what make of it depends on your parametrization: do you use it like molding material to "photo-copy" existing behaviors or do you use it as engineering material to make high precision components: depends on the fidelity of behavior and pattern copy-ability -- for example, you can't expect to directly 3D-print a washing machine with a low-fidelity 3D printer, similarly, you can't expect a low-fidelity neural net to capture the behavior of stock market... that needs separate modeling of each constituent mind, that observes and makes input into collective behavior of the market. Looking at NNs as simply a class of mathematical functions. It makese sense to get intuition, when these functions can be useful: for example, one may use NURBS when we want to represent both standard geometric objects like lines, circles, ellipses, spheres, tori, and free‑form geometry like car bodies and human bodies. Similarly, we may use NNs, when we need: Function approximation, regression analysis, time series prediction, fitness approximation and modeling. Classification, pattern and sequence recognition, novelty …  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2022-02-23 @14:04Z
• Happy 19-th Unix dYear! (, +) [en]

  A dYear (decimal year) is a 1000 days by our new calendar, and it's time to celebrate, and remember what happened during this 1000 days (between 18000th Unix day, which was 2019-04-14, and now, the 19000th day, which is 2022-01-08). Here's some of the 18-th dYear highlights, according to Wikipedia: 18014 – The deepest dive of any human in history is achieved by Victor Vescovo, as he reaches Challenger Deep within the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 10,928 m. (link) 18024 – The first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection is reported: a British teenager, Isabelle Holdaway, 17, successfully recovers from a near-deadly bacterial infection. (link) 18036 - The redefinition of the SI system of measurement adopted by the majority of countries in the world takes effect. (link) 18150 - Astronomers announce the detection of water in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b, the first such discovery for an exoplanet in the habitable zone around a star. (link) 18192 - Google announces that its 53-qubit "Sycamore" processor has achieved quantum supremacy. (link) 18205 - 11,000 scientists from around the world publish …  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2022-01-08 @00:00Z
• Trade is care (, +) [en]

  Look at pretty much any human operations, you'll see many humans wearing or using things produced by other humans: clothes, watches, earphones, tables, computers, pans, beds, etc. etc. You start realizing the significance of this collaboration on the moments of high risk missions -- when people have to depend on mission-critical equipment devised and made by others -- you see a person doing or talking something important, and you realize that those headphones, or that camera, or that network, etc., is enabling the very existence of this or that important mission, and that through trade, while indirectly, all those other people in the economy have come together to advance those positive outcomes that we see. Trade relationships are not so dissimilar from caring and even love relationships, especially, when products in the supply chain are made with care for the others in it.  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-12-26 @04:09Z
• Working on multiple projects! (, +) [en]

  When I think about it, it's a good timing! Multiple projects and ideas are at the point, where my focus on data retrieval and analysis rather than engineering is needed for all of them: 0 > oo is at the stage, when it requires marketing HiveCell is at the stage, that it needs a discussion My tasks for a Project X just became lead generation Treenity is at the stage that it needs MetaDrive, and wants to fund it. However, development of MetaDrive it is a perfect way to help all these projects through scaling our communication, outreach and marketing.  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-12-06 @05:58Z
• Community Meeting #3: Running projects on Infinity (, +) [en]

  Meeting time: 0051-09-26 06:66 (2021-11-14 16:00Z). Meeting link: https://t.me/io0ooli?voicechat=47b3b7c94877932263. Meeting topic: Want to start your project or company? Meeting Agenda: starting basic projects on Infinity linking with Telegram channel or group declaring work results and getting feedback on progress registering capital inputs and generating shares Details: This meeting will be about starting the simplest possible project on Infinity, and then, elaborating on the capabilities based on the feedback. We'll do this, if there will be at least 1 other participant with a specific project they want to run. You may find this meeting interesting, if you want to start a project or run a virtual company, and seek for new ways of doing it.  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-11-14 @16:00Z
• Next-Gen OpenAI Codex Model (, +) [en]

  Inspired by the rudimentary GPT-3 ability to generate code, the OpenAI researchers decided to focus on specifically training a system, called Codex, to generate code from text. The following video came out as a live demo of the new Next-Gen OpenAI Codex system: "Proficient in more than a dozen programming languages, Codex can now interpret simple commands in natural language and execute them on the user’s behalf—making it possible to build a natural language interface to existing applications." The system is claimed to have a 37% accuracy by the metric that OpenAI group has defined, a 10% improvement compared to the previous model. Details in the research paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.03374.pdf.  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-08-10 @22:20Z
• 日の丸月へ行く (, +) [ja]

  2029年、トヨタ自動車と宇宙航空研究開発機構（JAXA）などが開発する日本の探査車「ルナ・クルーザー」が宇宙飛行士を乗せて月面を走ろうとしている。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-06-21 @10:31Z
• How Touchscreens May Have Delayed Humanity's Progress: A Multi-Trillion Dollar Mistake? (, +) [en, cn]

  Looking back to our history, we may discover, that the premature introduction of touchscreens have been among the worst innovations ever, that had delayed humanity's progress in numerous fields from software and hardware engineering to remote control domains. With the focus on "what can be done with a flat touchscreen", we may have wasted countless hours of front-end developers to soft-innovate ways of touching, instead of pushing hardware engineers to hard-innovate better input hardware form factor, that prevented the creation of "precision remote control" input capabilities for the masses, degrading the masses to the behaviors of scrolling with a thumb. 1. Touchscreens delayed software and hardware engineering Back in the days of Nokia 9000 Communicator, and IRC chat, we had a trend of developing mini hand-held PCs (see: modern variant). Imagine that a touchscreen and PDA were not invented, and instead, people would have evolved those hand-held PCs, to the point where keyboard went behind (like explained in: Hankeyboard idea), allowing for blind touch-typing with 10 fingers, while viewing the screen (a bit like with modern "PlayStation Portable" (PSP), but with full keyboard at the back of it). This kind of device …  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-03-17 @03:49Z
• 火星上的声音！ (, +) [ca]

  这不是地球！是在另一个星球上！ NASA的毅力号火星车（Perseverance）于2021年2月19日登陆火星，仅18小时后火星车上的SuperCam仪器记录了这些声音。 这是2021年3月2日，毅力号的第12个火星日（sol 12），SuperCam仪器开始对火星上的岩石目标进行激光撞击的声学记录。共有30次撞击声，有些声音比其他声音大一些，这些变化将提供有关目标物物理结构的信息。目标岩石被命名为Máaz（纳瓦霍语“火星”），大约在10英尺（3.1米）远处。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-03-11 @11:36Z
• 火星的夜空 (, +) [cn]

  从日落开始。这是2015年好奇号火星车拍的火星日落。由于飞扬的尘土，落日可能被染成紫色或蓝色，当然，会比在地球上看到的太阳小一点，视直径21'。 火星的两个卫星比地球的月亮小得多，火卫一离火星很近，完整视直径8'-12'，大约是满月的三分之一，西边升起东边落下，一天升起2到3次，非球体形状，想像一下这样的“月亮”，在夜晚也能产生“月光”。火卫二在火星的夜空只是像一颗亮星，移动非常缓慢，东方升起后，需要2.7个火星天才从西方落下。 地球在火星的夜空中亮度可以达到-2.5等以上，日落以后或日出之前出现的“昏星”或“晨星”，用望远镜观察可以看到地球的相位变化（尽情地欣赏蓝色表面的新月形地球吧）。 在火星上看木星、土星会更亮，细节更丰富。 火星的夜空会看到我们熟悉的星座，猎户座、天蝎座……所有我们熟悉的星座都不会明显改变，这提醒我们还在我们的家园太阳系中。但是，长时间凝望夜空的人可能会发现，星空流转的中心不是我们的“北极星”，而是在仙王座的天钩五附近，因为火星的自转轴与地球的自转轴不是完全平行。 因为火星晴天多，银河会更壮观！  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-25 @12:00Z
• 毅力号的高清晰照片 (, +) [cn]

  由几台摄像机拍摄的视频的一部分。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-19 @21:30Z
• 毅力号登陆火星！ (, +) [cn]

  毅力号（Perseverance）传回照片，成功登陆火星！ 毅力号是NASA的火星2020任务于2021年2月19日降落至火星杰泽罗陨石坑的漫游车。毅力号有7种科学仪器，有19台相机和2个麦克风。搭载了一个名叫独创号（Ingenuity）的直升机，将尝试在火星上动力飞行。 毅力号的科学目标有：寻找火星过去可能支持生命的环境；寻找火星过去可能存在的生命迹象；收集和储存岩石土壤样本；测试火星大气中氧气生成，为人类做准备。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-18 @21:05Z
• 地球与旅行者2号恢复通讯 (, +) [cn]

  旅行者2号先于旅行者1号发射，却晚于旅行者1号飞出太阳系，因为它的设计速度比旅行者1号稍慢，先后执行了飞越木星、土星、天王星、海王星的任务，目前仍然是飞越两个冰巨行星的唯一航天器。 由于其飞出的方向偏南，地球上唯一可以与旅行者2号通讯的天线是直径70米的DSS 43（Deep Space Station 43）。它位于澳大利亚堪培拉，是NASA深空网络（DSN）的一部分。 去年3月至10月，DSS 43脱机进行维修和升级，包括两个新的无线电发射机。其中一个用于与旅行者2号通话。这期间航天器一直在独自飞行。 去年10月29日，任务执行者向旅行者2号发送了一系列测试命令，旅行者2号返回一个信号，确认它已收到“呼叫”，并已执行命令而没有任何问题。昨天NASA重新打开通讯通道，恢复了人类与遥远的旅行者交谈的能力，地球的静默将结束。 附位于堪培拉的DSS 43站发的Twitter：  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-13 @07:54Z
• 比邻天涯 (, +) [cn]

  在太阳系之外，离我们最近的恒星，中文名“南门二”、正式名称为“α Centauri”，其实是三恒星系统，其中A和B都是类太阳恒星，A比太阳稍大稍亮，G型主序星，B比太阳稍小稍暗，K型主序星，二者以79.91年为周期绕共同质心转。离太阳系更近一些的是α Centauri AB的伴星C，中文名“比邻星”，英文名为Proxima Centauri，红矮星（M型），离我们4.24光年，比邻星可能至少有两颗行星。 科学家正在寻找α Centauri AB的宜居带内可能存在的岩石行星，用直接成像法！因为恒星间遥远的距离，以前直接拍摄太阳系外行星仅适用于巨型行星。来自Breakthrough的科学家团队发表于《自然通讯》的论文提出了一种改进的中红外观测方法，利用欧洲南方天文台位于智利的甚大望远镜，可以对最近的恒星系统半人马座α的低质量系外行星进行成像，比最先进的系外行星成像质量检测极限更敏感一个数量级。 该团队在2019年的一个月中观察了近100个小时的半人马座α系统，收集了超过500万张图像，可在archive.eso.org上公开获得。在去除了伪影（由仪器产生的虚假信号和日冕仪上的残留光）之后，最终图像显示了一个名为“ C1”的光源，该光源可能暗示着在宜居带内的系外行星候选者。“ C1”可能是海王星到土星大小的行星，与半人马座α A的距离相当于地球与太阳之间的距离。但是如果不进行后续验证，就不能排除C1可能是由于仪器本身引起的一些未知伪影所致。图为半人马座α的中红外图像。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-12 @12:00Z
• “FarFarOut”正式确认为矮行星 (, +) [vi]

  距离太阳132.2±1.5天文单位（AU）的海外天体（海王星轨道之外的天体，简称TNO，Trans-Neptunian object），其正式名称为 2018 AG37，“FarFarOut”是其昵称。在这么远的距离上绕太阳一圈可能需要上千年。之前太阳系最遥远天体记录保持者是被称为“FarOut”的 2018 VG18。 FarFarOut目前（2021年2月11日）赤经为08h27m34s，赤纬为+34°42'31”，位于天猫座，在双子座的头部北河二、北河三的东北方向。视星等为25等（非常暗）。详细信息可以在这里找到。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-11 @16:59Z
• 天问1号进入火星轨道 (, +) [cn]

  在经过大约15分钟的火星轨道插入燃烧之后，“天问1号”轨道器、着陆器和火星探测器已经成功抵达红色星球。 独立的跟踪者确认火星轨道插入燃烧开始的信号是在UTC 12:03:30，而在地球接收时间为12:13时，飞船的信号丢失了，天问1号在火星后面越过，超出了地球上的收听站范围。12:48 UTC重新获取信号。当前光在地球和火星之间的传播时间，从飞船到地球的传播需要641秒（或不到10分钟）。 轨道器配备了中高分辨率摄像头，能够在400公里轨道达到分辨率100米或2米，还配备了火星磁强计、火星矿物光谱仪、轨道次表面雷达以及火星离子和中性粒子分析仪。 对于地面操作，探测器配备了能够能够看到火星表面以下100米的探地雷达、火星表面磁场探测器、火星气象测量仪、火星表面复合探测器、多光谱摄像头、导航仪和地形相机。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-10 @13:33Z
• 深空网络 (, +) [cn]

  NASA的深空网络（Deep Space Network）简称DSN，是世界各地的大型无线电天线的集合。其站点在地球上几乎均匀分布于澳大利亚堪培拉、西班牙马德里、加利福尼亚的金石，每个DSN站点配备了三个34米天线和一个直径为70米的天线。 航天器使用深空网络将信息和图片发送回地球。DSN与之通信的最远的物体是旅行者1号和旅行者2号，旅行者1号正在星际空间中探索我们的太阳系以外的地方。 在DSN NOW可以实时看到这些站点的天线在与哪个航天器通讯。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-10 @12:27Z
• 曲速引擎 (, +) [cn]

  维基百科：曲速引擎（Warp drive）是一种理论上的超光速（faster-than-light, FTL）飞船推进系统，常出现于科幻剧集《星际迷航》（Star Trek）、阿西莫夫的作品中。虽然这个概念来自比Star Trek更早的科幻小说，科学家却认真研究过其可能性。物理学家Miguel Alcubierre提出了一种理论上的解决方案，被称为阿库别瑞引擎或阿库别瑞度规（Alcubierre metric）。 在Alcubierre的论文“曲速引擎：广义相对论中的超高速旅行”中，描述了如何在广义相对论的框架内且不引入虫洞的情况下，以修改时空的方式允许飞船进行超光速航行。方法是在弯曲空间的“气泡”中运输一定数量的平面空间，由其后的时空局部扩展以及其前方的时空收缩而向前驱动，则飞船的运动可能会比受干扰区域外的观察者看到的光速快，而在气泡内的飞船并没有超光速运动，它只是被空间带着行进。 但是需要异常物质(exotic matter)（负能量？）才能扭曲时空。科学家一度认为需要行星级别的能量才能做到。不过后续研究一直在进行，例如这个对阿库别瑞引擎模型的修正。NASA也在研究曲速引擎技术（论文：曲速场力学101）。这篇论文基于共形引力而不是标准广义相对论，对经典阿库别瑞度规进行了分析，认为在共形引力的情况下，阿库别瑞度规不违反弱能量条件，特别是最终的曲速引擎不需要使用异常物质。这个解决方案优化阿库别瑞度规，将负能量需求降低两个数量级。 此外我还发现了两个致力于超高速星际旅行的网站：tauzero.aero和limitlessspace.org。  ››

  [transiency] @ 2021-02-06 @07:19Z
• Introducing the 0oo Sites (, +) [en]

  We may soon be infamous for having many names (remember infty.xyz, infinity.family,.. and now 0oo.li?). While there are many things happening here at the HomeBase, we continue to explore new ways of presenting ourselves to different people. For example, even the domain as culturally-neutral as 0oo.li has difficulties to pronounce to some people, for example, Japanese language has no letter "l", and a name like 無限.もえ (i.e., "Infinite Sprouting") may be much easier to tell and memorize. On the other hand, we explore new ways to introduce the pattern of economy that we are trying to create. Recently, realizing that makers who prototype and bring products to markets may be one of the most suitable audiences here, we came to think how to advertise the HomeBase as a virtual maker-space, and came up with an English name HalfMakery, that would communicate the idea of projects prototyping products. While without major changes to the content and how the system works, we want to style it differently to appeal to the makers that work on new products. Applying the convenience of Django Sites Framework thus, from now on, we are introducing "The 0oo Sites" (i.e., "Infinity …  ››

  [Mindey] @ 2021-02-03 @20:54Z

Great minds discuss ideas rather than events. Check out ideas.