10.29.2005 16:52
Mounting a remote filesystem; local access to remote files
How to mount a remote ssh filesystem using sshfs provides step
by step instructions on directly accessing files, folders, etc. on
a remote computer as if they were present on your local machine.
The article is Ubuntu-centric, and requires sshfs on the remote
machine (a filesystem client based on the SSH File Transfer
Protocol). Installing sshfs which will also install fuse-utils and
libfuse2. It loads a kernel module and uses Filesystem in Userspace. Because
it loads a kernel module, my linode.com
account doesn't permit sshfs. linode.com runs a User-Mode Linux
kernel.
10.27.2005 15:49
NASA's World Wind now flies you to the Moon
NASA's World Wind program
Source: NASA World Wind and The Moon. The program will only run in Microsoft's Windows 2000 or XP, and can be downloaded here.
Thanks to Gary Price's Cool! 3-D Imagery of the Moon Now Available via NASA's World Wind.
lets you zoom from satellite altitude into
any place on Earth.
Now, thanks to the data from the 'lost and gone forever' Clementine
mission, which imaged the lunar surface back in 1994, World Wind
users can now 'browse Clementine moon data with full 3D
terrain'.Source: NASA World Wind and The Moon. The program will only run in Microsoft's Windows 2000 or XP, and can be downloaded here.
Thanks to Gary Price's Cool! 3-D Imagery of the Moon Now Available via NASA's World Wind.
10.24.2005 17:49
Using laser pulses, physicists observe what happens when atoms collide
Atoms collide like
tennis balls, at Roland
Piquepaille's Technology Trends, points to
Ultrafast Lasers Take 'Snapshots' as Atoms Collide.
The new data, reported in the Oct. 14 issue
of Physical Review Letters,* provide the equivalent of
missing frames in movies of colliding atoms (see simulated images
in accompanying graphic). As is the case when a tennis ball is hit
by a racquet, the motion is too quick for the eye but can be
detected using short flashes of light. The JILA scientists
collected data on atoms' properties before, during and after
collisions lasting just half a picosecond (trillionth of a second)
using laser "flashes" that were even faster.
In the JILA experiments, about 10 quintillion potassium atoms in a dense gas were packed into a titanium container just 1 square centimeter in size and heated to 700 degrees C (almost 1,300 degrees F). With such high temperatures and large numbers of atoms, the experiment is designed to maximize the number of atom collisions. Rapidly alternating pulses of laser light then are used to "freeze frame" the action.
The experiment 'confirm[s] a decades-old theory of how atoms --
like tennis balls -- briefly lose form and energy when they hit
something.'In the JILA experiments, about 10 quintillion potassium atoms in a dense gas were packed into a titanium container just 1 square centimeter in size and heated to 700 degrees C (almost 1,300 degrees F). With such high temperatures and large numbers of atoms, the experiment is designed to maximize the number of atom collisions. Rapidly alternating pulses of laser light then are used to "freeze frame" the action.
10.23.2005 23:40
Brad Lidge is English for Byung-Hyun Kim
Back during the 2001 World Series, some Boston
sportswriter said that Byung-Hyun Kim was Korean for Calvin
Schiraldi. Now it looks as if Brad Lidge is English for Byung-Hyun
Kim.
Is Phil Garner's favorite movie Groundhog Day?
Is Phil Garner's favorite movie Groundhog Day?
10.15.2005 07:17
'Gonna lay down my sword and shield ...'
Some former Nicaraguan Contras are small coffee
farmers, and they're marketing their product via Contra Café.
Swords into plowshares and all that.
Hat tip to David Kopel's post If I drank coffee, I'd drink Contra Coffee at the Volokh Conspiracy blog.
Hat tip to David Kopel's post If I drank coffee, I'd drink Contra Coffee at the Volokh Conspiracy blog.
10.07.2005 15:10
Problems on Hayabusa asteroid probe: another reaction wheel fails
I've only found two articles about this: the
BBC's Asteroid probe
runs into trouble and New Scientist's
Japan's asteroid probe has steering trouble.
The probe has three reaction wheels, which function like gyroscopes, that is, maintaining a particular orientation toward the asteroid Itokawa and the Sun. Two of the three reaction wheels have failed, one on July 31, the other on October 3. Without the reaction wheels, that orientation must be maintained by expending fuel, and of course, there's a finite amount of that on board. Flight controllers are trying to calculate how long the fuel will last.
The probe has three reaction wheels, which function like gyroscopes, that is, maintaining a particular orientation toward the asteroid Itokawa and the Sun. Two of the three reaction wheels have failed, one on July 31, the other on October 3. Without the reaction wheels, that orientation must be maintained by expending fuel, and of course, there's a finite amount of that on board. Flight controllers are trying to calculate how long the fuel will last.
The problem is that hydrazine fuel is
needed to push off the asteroid each time [the probe descends
toward the surface and touches down], and one rehearsal manoeuvre
is also planned for November. Hayabusa will spend mid October
scouting out touchdown sites. ...
[Controllers] could shorten the amount of time that Hayabusa spends at the asteroid, thus reducing the amount of fuel that will be used to keep the probe properly oriented.
Source: the New Scientist article.[Controllers] could shorten the amount of time that Hayabusa spends at the asteroid, thus reducing the amount of fuel that will be used to keep the probe properly oriented.
10.04.2005 15:01
An heretical librarian at East Carolina University
David Durant is a librarian at East Carolina
University, in Greenville, North Carolina. Today's ResourceShelf entry,
Project Gutenberg Founder on Digitization ... links to Durant's
article, The Loneliness of
a Conservative Librarian at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Durant blogs at Heretical Librarian.
Durant blogs at Heretical Librarian.
10.02.2005 09:41
Lovely images of Cambridge
Monkeyfilter points to
Cambridge
in Color, and Sean McHugh has more of his digital images at
Cambridge
University on PBase.
I especially enjoyed
I especially enjoyed
- Chapel interior (King's College Chapel),
- Stone arches,
- Pastel River, and
- Stone curves.