M Thomas Apple Author Page

fMRI, GPT-1, and your brain

May 3, 2023
MThomas

Scientists have found a way to decode a stream of words in the brain using MRI scans and artificial intelligence.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/01/1173045261/a-decoder-that-uses-brain-scans-to-know-what-you-mean-mostly

While not perfect, this is some seriously scary stuff.

FWIW the researchers themselves did recognize this…

Although it’s nowhere near being able to decode spontaneous thoughts in the real world, the advance raises concerns that, with improvement, the technology might mimic some type of mind reading. “Our thought when we actually had this working was, ‘Oh my God, this is kind of terrifying,’” Huth recalls.
https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-use-ai-decipher-words-and-sentences-brain-scans

Participants have to consent to being “read,” and there are ways to prevent the software from figuring out even the “gist” of what they were thinking.

Still, imagine if some nefarious criminal group (or governmental agency, if there is a difference) decided to force someone to consent to have their thoughts read.

Long distance.

Permanently.

It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish scifi from reality.

Another “hard landing”?

April 26, 2023
MThomas

Artist’s depiction of what will never happen now

“We have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” Hakamada said.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/25/ispace-moon-landing-watch-live.html

Or…

…Ispace engineers observed that the estimated remaining propellant was “at the lower threshold and shortly afterward the descent speed rapidly increased.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/ispace-moon-lander-japan.html

Or as the New York Times reporter succinctly puts it: “In other words, the spacecraft ran out of fuel and fell.”

Another “hard landing on the lunar surface.”

I.e., it crashed onto the Moon and went kablooie.

So much for private company based space exploration.

Spaceships are having a difficult week…

JUICE it ESA!

April 14, 2023
MThomas

Led by the European Space Agency (ESA), the mission will orbit the largest planet in the solar system and explore its icy moons, which scientists think could support living organisms.

JUICE will explore three possible ocean-bearing moons – Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Under their icy surfaces are thought to be huge oceans of water – a crucial ingredient for life as we know it.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/13/explaining-juice-mission-to-jupiter-and-its-moons

The “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” is the first time an ESA-headed project will visit another moon.

If it launches successfully, of course.

Lift off in less than seven hours from French Guiana!

Great job by Alzajeera, although “Earth is about 4.1 times the size of Europa and is believed to have a young and active surface that may vent water vapour to space via plumes and geysers.” is a bit misleading (Europa, not Earth, is believed to have…)

Copy editor!

🤞 🚀 🇬🇫

UPDATE

The launch was successful, and the 90 m2 solar array also deployed successfully.

Now we just have to sit and wait until 2031!

Yet another high school prompt

April 14, 2023
MThomas

Describe something you learned in high school.

I learned in high school how much I wanted to graduate and never come back.

Another day, another JAXA failure

April 12, 2023
MThomas

The bankruptcy filing by Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc (VORB.O) has dealt a blow to Japan’s hopes of building a domestic space industry, with plans for a Kyushu-based spaceport designed to attract tourism on hold for lack of funding.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/virgin-orbit-bankruptcy-casts-shadow-over-japans-space-dreams-2023-04-07/

Granted, this news is from four or five days ago.

Still, it’s jarring to see TV news about JAXA and NASA doing “joint” explorations of Mars, and then see a constant failure of JAXA to do anything based in Japan.

Something is seriously wrong with this space agency. And I suspect it has nothing to do with the scientists or astronauts.

My daily “prompt” – how to exercise?

April 12, 2023
MThomas

Seriously. I don’t blog about exercise.

Huh?

That said, I do tai chi.

So there. 😆

Artemis crew to be most diverse Moon crew

April 8, 2023
MThomas

The astronauts will be the first humans to fly in the vicinity of the moon in more than 50 years. They will also be the first to launch aboard NASA’s next-generation megarocket and Orion space capsule. The crew will not land on the moon but will swing around the celestial body, testing the performance of the Orion spacecraft, before returning to Earth.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-announces-astronauts-will-orbit-moon-year-rcna77896

They won’t land, only orbit. But a first is a first.

Let’s go to Mars, already.

The strangeness of Mercury’s huge core

March 30, 2023
MThomas

Mercury is a planet that just doesn’t make sense. It’s incredibly small yet hosts a relatively massive core. Mercury is so strange that astronomers have not been able to explain its properties with simulations of the solar system’s formation. But now, researchers have found an important clue, and Mercury’s weirdness appears to be the fault of the giant planets.
https://www.space.com/mercury-weird-because-of-jupiter-outer-planets

Basically, Mercury is nearly as dense as the Earth despite being less than 6% the size. This is due to the gas giants in our solar system yanking material (“planetesimals” and protoplanets) and ejecting it from the solar system, leaving Mercury with very little material left to form itself.

But there are plenty of questions still…

Researchers can now “see” you using WiFi

March 29, 2023
MThomas

Interestingly, they position this advancement as progress in privacy rights; “In addition, they protect individuals’ privacy and the required equipment can be bought at a reasonable price,” they wrote.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3p7xj/scientists-are-getting-eerily-good-at-using-wifi-to-see-people-through-walls-in-detail

If you’re not scared of tech yet, you should be.

Testing a flying taxi for Osaka 2025 Expo

March 15, 2023
MThomas

An air taxi service set to feature at the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka was tested in Osaka Castle Park on Tuesday, in what the prefectural government says is the first time in the country one of the craft has been piloted from the cockpit.
https://japantoday.com/category/tech/japan%27s-1st-piloted-flying-taxi-test-held-ahead-of-2025-world-expo?

The “taxi” they tested only fits one person. If the plan is to taxi visitors to the Expo back and forth between various artificial islands, I hope there are plans to test the actual three- to six-seaters.

And of course, there is always the “big challenges ahead are Japanese regulations and residents’ feelings” things. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first flying taxi to successfully taxi people around by air also becomes the first flying taxi to have a flying traffic accident.

(That’s what happened to Ohio City inventor James Lambert, who was testing an early gas-powered car when he hit a tree. Ireland claims to have an earlier accident, but it wasn’t a vehicle anything like a modern car.)

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