Ares I-X Secured at the Launch Pad

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Ares I-X now is secured on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The test rocket, sitting on a mobile launcher platform, was “hard down” on the pad’s pedestals at 9:17 a.m. EDT. The rotating service structure is expected to be rolled into place at about 12:30 p.m.

Ground teams began rolling out Ares I-X and its launch platform aboard a crawler-transporter from Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building at 1:39 a.m. It arrived at the pad about 7:45 a.m.

Managers will meet at Kennedy on Friday for a Flight Test Readiness Review to thoroughly discuss whether the flight test is ready to proceed and set an official launch date. Currently, Ares I-X is targeted to launch Oct. 27 at 8 a.m.

Launch Vehicle: Ares I-X
Targeted Launch Date: Oct. 27
Launch Window: 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. EDT
Launch Pad: 39B
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

NASA's first flight test for the agency's next-generation spacecraft and launch vehicle system, called Ares I-X, will bring NASA one step closer to its exploration goals. The flight test will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

credit:NASA

[Read More...]

ECB's Trichet: G20 must tackle global imbalances

The Group of 20 rich and developing nations must tackle global economic imbalances in its new role as the key international policy forum, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said in comments released on Sunday.

Trichet told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper that the G20's new role, backed up by advice from the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Board, would allow a good combination of expert analysis and peer pressure.

"It is particularly important that the G20 is designed to be the premier forum for international economic cooperation," he said, according to an interview transcript published on the ECB's Web site on Sunday.

"The G20 has to address the issues of the domestic large imbalances between savings and investments, and of the set of unsustainable external imbalances.

"We know that these imbalances have been at the roots of the present difficulties. If we don't correct them, we'll have the recipe for the next major crisis. And this of course would be totally unacceptable."

Trichet said central bankers appreciated G20 leaders' commitment to fiscal responsibility and their comments in Friday's Pittsburgh communique that a sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency.

Failing to wind back public stimulus programmes at the right time would damage confidence and delay recovery, he said.

"One thing is sure. When time comes, systemic economies are not credible in going back to sustainable fiscal policy in the mid to long run," he said.

"We won't have the recovery which we are hoping for. Because governments would not inspire confidence to households and corporate business. It is the evaporation of confidence that created this dramatic turmoil. Now we have to do everything to rebuild confidence."

Trichet said U.S. policy makers' commitment to a strong dollar was important in keeping currency markets and the global economy stable, repeating a long-held position. The euro hit a one-year high against the dollar on September 23.

FINANCIAL REFORMS STILL NEEDED

The ECB chief said the recent improvement in financial markets was not surprising, given the actions taken by central banks and governments, and policy makers were keen to see how this would feed into the real economy.

"We monitor with great attention at this stage the interaction between the financial sphere and the real economy," he said.

Trichet urged banks to boost their capital bases and said the Basel committee's proposed new banking rules struck a good balance between taking a long-term view of capital needs and avoiding measures which would stop banks lending.

"With the improvement observed in the financial markets some institutions and market participants might think that there is no need for the reforms designed at global level. It would be plain wrong to think that," he said.

"More than ever it is extremely important to introduce the necessary reforms in the financial system, in order to strengthen its resilience and avoid excessive booms and busts."

The ECB has kept interest rates for the 16-nation euro zone on hold at a record low 1 percent, and no change is expected until after mid-2010.

In the euro zone, Trichet repeated the ECB's earlier assessment that 2009 economic growth would overall be very negative and 2010 would likely show a slightly positive result.

On a quarter-by-quarter basis, growth could turn positive and then relapse into negative territory.

"This doesn't change our main message. Namely, that we have a bumpy road ahead and that the level of uncertainty remains exceptionally high and therefore that prudence and caution are of (the) essence," he said.

credit:newsdaily

[Read More...]

Gates denies rift on Afghan war strategy

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said on Wednesday that there was no rift between President Barack Obama's military and civilian advisers on the Afghan war strategy.

"These rumors of some kind of rift are just not accurate and do not reflect the close working effort between our military and civilians," Gates told a news conference during a visit to Japan.

President Hamid Karzai agreed to face a second round of voting in Afghanistan's disputed election on Tuesday after a U.N.-led fraud inquiry tossed out enough of his votes to trigger a run-off.

Karzai's decision eased tensions with the West and removed one stumbling block for U.S. President Barack Obama as he weighs whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban.

Many within Obama's Democratic Party have spoken out against sending more troops, while Republican opponents say his lengthy deliberations on a new strategy are undermining U.S. troops and emboldening the Taliban.

Gates reiterated that the problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government would not be resolved by a runoff alone and described the situation as an "evolutionary process."

"Clearly, having the runoff, getting it behind us and then moving forward is very important, " he said.

"But I think we need to be realistic that the issues of corruption and governance that we are trying to work with the Afghan government on are not going to be solved simply by the outcome of the presidential election. This is going to be a work in progress, an evolutionary process, and we need to be realistic on that."

Obama administration officials have stressed earlier that for Washington to succeed in Afghanistan it is essential that there be a legitimate and credible government in Kabul.

credit:newsdaily

[Read More...]

How to Lose Weight Quickly For Free!

Yes, this is true! You can learn how to lose weight quickly without spending even a penny out of your pocket. All you need to learn is to develop a habit to consume right kind of food that is rich in nutrients, vitamins and minerals while eliminating foods that contain fats and sugar. Dietary fiber is the answer to many problems related to obesity. It helps to fill up your stomach quickly and is very nutritious. Moreover, dietary fiber does not contain any fat which makes it a suitable diet for people who are looking for ways on how to lose weight quickly.

Sure Shot ways to loose pounds with Fat Loss 4 Idiots

You should also include running, jogging, stretching and light weight exercises in your daily schedule so that you burn all that extra fat in your body. Many people tend to say that it is very difficult for them to do exercise daily because of their busy schedules. But if you are looking for ways on how to lose weight quickly, then you need to understand that supplements or medicines to lose weight are not a permanent solution. Moreover, such medicines or supplements have side effects and should not be taken for more than the prescribed time limit. You will have to consider balanced diet and exercises today or tomorrow if you want to stay fit and healthy. So why not today!

However, this is a true fact that all these factors should be combined in a way that they work best for you and this can only be done by a professional. So, if you are looking for ways on how to lose weight quickly and effectively while staying healthy then it is advised that you consult an expert who could guide you on the right path. You may consider referring an e-book or website that can assist you in developing right eating habits and exercise regime.

[Read More...]

Tips on Breast Care for Mothers

Breastfeeding is a wonderful feeling that a woman can experience. It is beneficial for both the baby and the mother in several ways. But breast care is equally important. This will not only give a hygienic supply of milk to the baby but also help mother to maintain the shape and the firmness of her breasts.

This assumes that it is solely a lactating mother's outlook to sustain a good and healthy diet for her breastfeeding child. A mother who gives birth to a large baby that grows fast may experience difficulties in producing and sustaining enough quantities of milk. This is because the fat reserves she had during the pregnancy period can be lost soon after childbirth and eating well enough might become a problem for her.

Keep the nipples washed clean. Beginning from around the fifth month of pregnancy, a viscous fluid is secreted from the breasts. If this is not washed away properly, it may form a crust and the surrounding skin becomes reddish. To prevent this, clean the nipples well everyday with warm water - occasionally adding boric acid powder to the water and dry them by rubbing them lightly with a clean piece of cloth.

Proper breast care begins with the cleanliness of the breast. Women should devote a few minutes of their bathing schedule in pampering the breasts. Since breasts are a spongy mass of tissue enclosed by a skin, they can be washed with the same soap you use for the rest of the body.

Breast enlargement pills use the same concept. Mankind has known such herbs which stimulate growth since ages. These herbs are known to increase the bulk of the breast growth. These herbs contain the plant estrogen, called phytoestrogen. This phytoestrogen has the same function human estrogen has.

Though not proven to cause breast cancer, surgical breast enhancement technique has its vehement protestors. Not wanting to go through the rigors of a surgery and desiring an alternative to the artificial look and feel of a breast implant, more and more women are turning towards non surgical breast enhancement methods like the pill, pump, cream or a special brassiere.

Other common problems like sagging breasts and inverted nipples can be easily combated by proper and precise breast massaging techniques. Finally, breast massages increase the tone and breast and the bust size. This will work well to increase the confidence of the woman, and she will feel good about herself.

In case the nipples appear flat or inverted, it is advised to press the areola between the thumb and the finger to encourage the nipple to stand out. If the nipple sticks out, the baby will not have any difficulty in suckling. During the pregnancy period the shape of the nipple may be abnormal, but it improves as the pregnancy advances. This is because of the effect of hormones during pregnancy.

These hormones are called oxytocin and prolactin. The hormone called oxytocin is stored in the pituitary gland and acts on muscle cells. These muscles surround the milk glands where milk is produced. Oxytocin causes the muscles cells to contract in turn squeezing milk out of the glands into the ducts.

[Read More...]

West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As Fast As Once Thought

New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.

"Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates," said Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for WAGN. "So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear."

In 2006, another team of researchers used data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to infer a significant loss of ice mass over West Antarctica from 2002 to 2005. The GRACE satellites do not measure changes in ice loss directly but measure changes in gravity, which can be caused both by ice loss and vertical uplift of the bedrock underlying the ice.

Now, for the first time, researchers have directly measured the vertical motion of the bedrock at sites across West Antarctica using the Global Positioning System (GPS). The results should lead to more accurate estimates of ice mass loss.

Antarctica was once buried under a deeper and more extensive layer of ice during a period known as the Last Glacial Maximum. Starting about 20,000 years ago, the ice began slowly thinning and retreating. As the ice mass decreases, the bedrock immediately below the ice rises, an uplift known as postglacial rebound.

Postglacial rebound causes an increase in the gravitational attraction measured by the GRACE satellites and could explain their inferred measurements of recent, rapid ice loss in West Antarctica. The new GPS measurements show West Antarctica is rebounding more slowly than once thought. This means that the correction to the gravity signal from the rock contribution has been overestimated and the rate of ice loss is slower than previously interpreted.

"The published results are very important because they provide precise, ground-truth GPS observations of the actual rebound of the continent due to the loss of ice mass detected by the GRACE satellite gravity measurements over West Antarctica" said Vladimir Papitashvili, acting director for the Antarctic Earth Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation, which supported the research.

WAGN researchers do not yet know how large the overestimation was. A more definitive correction will be conducted by other researchers who specialize in interpreting GRACE data. Previous estimates of postglacial rebound were made with theoretical models. Assimilation of the direct GPS results into new models will therefore produce significant improvements in estimations of ice mass loss.

The results will appear in the electronic journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems of the American Geophysical Union and the American Geochemical Society.

A team from The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences (Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator), The Ohio State University's School of Earth Sciences (Michael Bevis), and The University of Memphis' Center for Earthquake Research and Information (Robert Smalley, Jr.) performed the WAGN project.

The network consists of 18 GPS stations installed on bedrock outcrops across West Antarctica. Precise, millimeter level, three-dimensional locations of the stations, which are bolted into the bedrock, were determined during measurements made from 2001 to 2003 and from 2004 to 2006, the two measurements being at least three years apart. The difference in the positions during the two time periods indicates the motion of the bedrock.

The WAGN data were supplemented with data from the first year of the Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) project, a project to establish a more sophisticated, continuously recording network of GPS and seismic stations, including the already established WAGN sites. POLENET will further improve our understanding of the interaction between the solid earth and ice sheets at both poles. The lead principal investigator of the U.S. Antarctic contribution to POLENET is Terry Wilson of The Ohio State University.

The West Antarctic GPS Network and the U.S. Antarctic contribution to the Polar Earth Observing Network of the International Polar Year were both funded and logistically supported by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation.

credit:sciencedaily

[Read More...]

Sandboxie: Blocking Web-Based Malware From Your PC

There is no safe neighborhood anywhere on the Internet. Even honest reputable sites, such as The New York Times, can inadvertently serve up malware. If you don't keep all the software on your computer patched with the latest bug fixes, you are constantly at risk – malware exploits known bugs to install itself.

Now that Windows does a reasonably good job of self-updating, the bad guys have taken to attacking other software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Flash player plug-in, which don't automatically install patches as well as Windows does. And, up to date antivirus software only provides limited protection.

Enter Sandboxie, an excellent program that builds a virtual sandbox around your web browser, making it impossible for your computer to accidentally get infected.

When you run a program in a sandbox, you are really running Sandboxie and it, in turn, is running the program in a walled-off virtual box. Originally developed for Internet Explorer, Sandboxie can now put a sandbox around any Windows program.


Programs running a sandbox can, by default, see everything on the computer. What they can't do is make any permanent changes. When sandboxed programs try to read files, Sandboxie does not interfere. However, when they try to create new files, Sandboxie intercepts the requests and creates the files in another location. The running program is oblivious to this re-direction. It thinks it's talking to Windows, but it really is talking to Sandoxie. The movie The Truman Show offers a pretty good analogy.


If anything malicious gets accidentally installed on your computer while browsing with a sandboxed browser, it lives only in the sandbox. Specifically, the malware may think it got installed into C:\Program Files, but it actually lives in C:\Sandbox\youruserid\DefaultBox\drive\C\Program Files. Empty the sandbox and the malicious software is gone. This is shown visually on the home page of sandboxie.com. The initial state of a computer is shown below:




The top checkerboard pattern illustrates a hard disk with no sandbox. In the bottom one, the virtual sandbox is shown as a yellow box.

When a program runs, the changes it makes to the file system and the hard disk are shown as red boxes. In the image below we see that normally the red boxes/changes are scattered all over.




However, Sandboxie forces all changes made by a sandboxed program to live inside the sandbox. If any of the changes are not wanted, just empty the sandbox.

If this sounds like virtualizaiton, it is. But it's small, lightweight virtualization, whereas full blown virtualization products are large and cumbersome. Also, the changes Sandboxie makes to your computer are minimal compared to full-fledged desktop virtualization software like that offered by VMware. Has a problem occurred to you? Most likely, there is a simple solution. Sanboxie is nothing if not a well thought out program.

If you don't want malware on your computer, even if it's sandboxed, you can configure a sandbox so that all changes made by any program are discarded as soon as the last program in the sandbox shuts down. You can see this below:




There are two sandboxes on this computer, the default one and another called ThrowMeAway (I chose the name). As the name implies, all changes made in this sandbox are always discarded. If you really want a private browsing mode, this beats them all.

[Read More...]

The Best Security for Wireless Networks

Securing a wireless network isn't a hard task. The cheat sheet is relatively small. However, the technical press continues to be flooded with articles and blogs containing technical mistakes.

Take, for example, everyone's trusted information source, Consumer Reports Magazine. I'm a big fan of the magazine, having subscribed to the hard copy edition for years. But they seem out of their league, when it comes to computers.

On August 6, 2009 a blog posting at the magazine's website suggested using WEP security for wireless networks. This is very poor advice. A week after the posting, an editor corrected it, to say they recommend WPA security. This too, is not the best option. Even after being shamed into a correction, they still got it wrong.

So, let me try to offer up just what most people (and Consumer Reports) need to know about securing a wireless network.

Starting at the Beginning

To begin with, there are four types of Wi-Fi networks (A, B, G and N). But the security is not tied to any one type.

If you can connect to a wireless network without entering a password, then there is no security. In this context, the term "security" refers to encrypting data as it travels over the air.

The idea being to prevent a bad guy from capturing all the information coming into and out of a victims' computer and, in effect, looking over their shoulder despite being a few hundred feet away.

Wi-Fi networks offer three security options: WEP, WPA and WPA2. As a simplistic introduction, think of WEP as bad, WPA as just fine and WPA2 as great.

WEP is the oldest security option and it has been shown to be very weak. It may be better than no security at all, but not by much. Don't use it. Other than Consumer Reports magazine, the last recommendation to use WEP was issued in 2005.

WPA is technically a certification, not a security standard, but since it includes only one security protocol, TKIP, they are often confused. When people refer to WPA security, they are really referring to the TKIP protocol.

The combination of WPA and TKIP is not the best, but it's reasonably good. If you have a choice, you should opt for the best security (next topic), but if you don't have a choice (more later) TKIP is reasonably strong.

WPA2 is also, technically, a certification rather than a security standard. WPA2 includes two security standards: TKIP and CCMP. If you are using TKIP, it doesn’t matter whether the router is WPA or WPA2. TKIP is TKIP either way.

The best security option is CCMP and it's only available in WPA2, so, here again, the security protocol is often confused with the certification. When people refer to WPA2 security, they are really referring to CCMP.

But no one refers to CCMP (don't ask what it stands for). For whatever reason, the CCMP security protocol is referred to, incorrectly, as AES. So, when you are configuring a router, you need to first select WPA2, then you need to select AES (rather than TKIP) to get the best possible security and encryption.

WPA TKIP Flaws

The TKIP security protocol (often referred to as WPA) is flawed. The first flaw came to light in November 2008, the second one just last month. But neither flaw is serious.

The first flaw can be defended against simply by disabling Quality of Service (QOS) in your router. Very few people make use of QOS.

The second flaw was described by security expert Steve Gibson as mostly theoretical. For example, it requires that the victim’s computer be out of radio reception range from the router. The bad guy has to connect to the router on one side and the victim on the other side. The bad guy has to be logically and physically positioned between the victim and the router.

Neither flaw lets the bad guy recover the password and they only support decrypting very small data packets. None of these small packets will contain any of your data.

[Read More...]