TFA is a bit obtuse about it, and assumes you've read their previous article on the topic, but from what I gathered, it's about whether the AAMVA would standardize cryptographically signing the barcodes of driver licenses to mitigate creating fakes in the US/CA. Cali showed it's entirely possible, but there's still no pressure for the standard to change across the board.
Well, you know what they say. The best time to blow tens of billions you might never get back on a risky memory fab in your home country is ten years ago. The second best time is today!
That lander had all sorts of fiddly protrusions on it, so the multiple charts could have been to avoid self-shadowing all of them. Or they were worried about chart stability after shipping it across interplanetary space. Or the test targets were for angles for multiple cameras?
"Imagine a universe, like ours, overlapping ours, except where some of its matter spontaneously rips itself apart, and other matter can be mashed together if you squeeze it hard enough." "That's nightmare fuel! Fortunately it's probably impossible, so far as we can tell."
I can imagine other scary thoughts, though. Ever read any Warhammer lore?
On this the same line of thoughts, so far we have 0 proof that all dark matter is _the same_. We observe gravity effects but IIRC they very little tell us about their own homogeneity. We very well could have a few parallel sectors, one of which is ours.
Like hell we can't. Unsophisticated plebs (not you) viewing sophistication with suspicion is nothing new. And certainly no reason to demote one's standards.
Long live the em-dash. Or en-dash surrounded by spaces if you prefer UK style (which I do).
(Even the NY Times gift link requires a login.)
reply