Computer Performance Mods Tweaks and Tricks - PCModer

NASA Releases Another Game – Air Traffic Control App

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom Mantel) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:49:30 +0000

Sector 33 Air Traffic Game Screenshot

NASA Releases Sector 33 Air Traffic Control Educational Game App

WASHINGTON — NASA has released a new educational game with an air traffic control theme for Apple iPhone and iPad devices. The Sector 33 application is designed to challenge students in middle school and above to use basic math and problem-solving skills.

The application may be downloaded free of charge at:

http://www.nasa.gov/sector33

An Android version of the app is in development and will be made available in the Android Marketplace in the coming months.

In the game the player acts as an air traffic controller guiding airplanes through a sector of airspace spanning Nevada and California. The player can adjust the planes’ path and speed to safely reach certain spots in the sky in the fastest time possible while keeping the planes a specific distance from each other.

“Our hope is that Sector 33 will give students a sense of the importance of math in managing our nation’s air traffic and, at the same time, interest them in pursuing a career in aeronautics,” said Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics research in Washington.

The math-focused game also aligns with the NASA Office of Education’s mission to engage students in activities related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“Today’s students respond positively to experiential learning,” said Leland Melvin, NASA’s associate administrator for education. “Using an interactive game to spark their interest, while at the same time teaching them fundamental math concepts, is a win-win scenario. It is a perfect way to help cultivate the next generation of engineers and technologists.”

Sector 33 is based on Smart Skies Line Up With Math, an educational software title developed under the direction of NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and distributed in cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Smart Skies has been used in middle school classrooms across the United States since 2005.

NASA RELEASE : 12-035

NASA Releases First Multi-Player Facebook Game

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom Mantel) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:29:37 +0000

WASHINGTON — NASA has launched its first multi-player online game to test players’ knowledge of the space program. Who was the first American to walk in space? Who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket? These are only a few of the questions players can answer in Space Race Blastoff.

Available on Facebook, Space Race Blastoff tests players’ knowledge of NASA history, technology, science and pop culture. Players who correctly answer questions earn virtual badges depicting NASA astronauts, spacecraft and celestial objects. Players also earn points they can use to obtain additional badges to complete sets and earn premium badges.

“Space Race Blastoff opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

NASA chose to make the game available through Facebook to take advantage of the social media site’s large audience and enable players to compete against others. Individuals also can play solo games.

Once in the game, players choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple-choice questions. Each correct answer earns 100 points, with a 20-point bonus to the player who answers first. The winner advances to the bonus round to answer one additional question for more points.
Correctly answering the bonus question earns the player a badge.

Space Race Blastoff was developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA’s Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications. Play the game now at:

http://apps.facebook.com/spacerace

Lego Man in Space

d.linebar@comcast.net (Larry Flint) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:09:36 +0000

Lego Man in Space CREDIT: Mathew Ho/YouTube

Two 17 year olds put this Lego man holding the Canadian Flag into the stratosphere. Toronto 17-year-olds Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad put together this project and it is amazing to see the curve of the Earth and the dark of space in the video.

Most impressive Earth Blue Marble image ever from newest satellite

dan_s_linebarger@raytheon.com (Tom Mantel) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:33:00 +0000

VIIRS Blue Marble Image taken January 4 2012

Incredible pictures of Earth from new satellite

The newest Earth Observation Satellite, NASA’s Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) mission took this stunning image on January 4th, 2012. Suomi NPP is a low earth observation satellite which takes images in swathes each time it passes over earth. You can see hi-res images by clicking on image above or click here to see even higher res images with a stunning amount of detail.

This picture represents a composite of passes over the planet as the VIIRS instrument cannot see the entire globe at once. Suomi NPP represents a critical first step in building the next-generation Earth-observing satellite system that will collect data on both long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions.

How to Remove Carrier IQ from phone

d.linebar@comcast.net (Chris Pike) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 05:00:00 +0000

If you think you have the hidden application, known as Carrier IQ, stored on your smart phone you are not alone. There are over 140 million smartphones that could have it right now. This includes Android, Blackberry and iOS devices. Here is Android developer Trevor Eckhart has posted a video in YouTube showing users the application simply logged almost everything performed on the device. Carrier IQ could record everything, including text messages, phone calls and web browsing history. Now you might think this is some sort of virus, (guess it really depends how you define virus), however it is not.

Developers confirmed that the application is not a malware, but a service that can be sold. Carrier IQ states that its purpose is “to make the phones work better.”If however, if the application is recording and sending data, it is considered illegal. This results to an immediate violation of the Wiretap act. Eckhart’s original report has shown that Carrier IQ has been discovered on HTC and Samsung devices, and that CarrierIQ counts Sprint among their domestic carrier clients. AT&T also appears to use Carrier IQ on their devices AT&T states that Carrier IQ is indeed preloaded on the HTC Vivid. Other carriers, including Verizon, Vodafone, and O2 have all denied that they use Carrier IQ on their devices.

If all this makes you worry and you want to know if you have it here are some steps you can take. First you need to see if it is on your device.

Lucky for you it’s fairly simple to find out if your device has the tracking service running on it. All it takes is a quick download of Eckhart’s free Logging Test app (currently in its 7th revision). Once installed, hit ‘CIQ Checks,’ and you’ll know almost immediately whether or not your device is affected. If you find you have it you have a few options to remove it.

1) You can uninstall it with the logging app/ This is straightforward: once you’ve installed the app, pay the $1 for the Pro key upgrade in the Android Market. Once you’ve done that, the option to remove Carrier IQ will be unlocked. However ExtremeTech notes that the process may not always be successful.

2) Flash the ROM. This is a more extreme a solution and requires some bravery, but it has its benefits: since many custom ROMs are based of the of the open-source Android code provided by Google.. On top of that, a good custom ROM can also help give your aging hardware a shot in the arm thanks to software tweaks and features it may not get otherwise. You have to Root the device and this can be daunting for some users.

3) Live with it. This may be an option for some. If you can live with big brother watching the so be it. Let him watch.

Bottom line as with any device there may or may not be tracking software you know about on it..so as they used to say in the old police TV shoes…be careful out there!

Google Page Rank, Not that imporant anymore

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom Mantel) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:43:21 +0000

Anyone with a Web site eventually wants their page to be found by Google. If you do a search of the internet you will see a lot of discussion about Google Page Rank and how important it is to being found by Google and getting a good listing by them...You may also have noticed that your pagerank has not changed in a while, or eve gone down...well not to worry. According to Google, page rank has been over rated by the SOE people and it really does not play a major factor in your web sites position for Google searches. According to the Google web site

"Q: My site's PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!
A: Don't worry. In fact, don't bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's useful for you as a site owner. If you're looking for metrics, we'd encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business."

This is in line with the fact that they have even more reason not to worry:

More details on why not to obsess over PageRank here:
http://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--crawling--indexing---ranking#pagerank

You may have also noticed the PageRank distribution feature, once found on the crawl stats section under "Diagnostics," is no longer displayed....It looks like Google is trying to tell Web site owners something. If you are obsessing about your Pagerank...stop..it is just not that important. Make sure you have good content and a quality website and you will be much better off.

Amazon founder flys a Rocket

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom MAntel) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 03:13:27 +0000

Last week, Blue Origin publish two videos of the launch of its New Shepard rocket system that took place earlier this year at the company's launch site in West Texas.According to an article on KnowledgeOrb this effort is to make flight for regular people affordable. It seems like a great goal but I am not so sure that I want to blast off just yet. Also according to the KnowledgeOrb article there was a recent failure which resulted in a loss of the rocket. The internet has made some people a lot of money..maybe this is not the worst thing they could do with it. Hope they succeed but I will wait until a few customers go and prove it us safe before I book my ticket!

Earth Images so real they look fake

staff@pcmoder.com (Tom Mantel) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 03:01:34 +0000

NASA just launched a new Satellite called NPP. THe VIIRS instrument on that satellite has started returning stunning images of Earth. These are great to look at, make desktops etc. There is an Article at KnowledgeOrb about it. Here is a Link to the VIIRS article.This shows the very first image by VIIRS and you can see an amazing amount of detail. If you are looking for these kids of images be sure to check this out.

Awesome New Saturn Movie

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom Mantel) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:32:22 +0000

This movie is a flyby of Saturn using REAL images. This is NOT CGI....the real deal It is incredible.

No its not computer generated, not its not about PCs...who cares sometimes things are too cool not to share. This time reality beats fantasy!!

SimNASA team looking for members

d.linebar@comcast.net (Tom Mantel) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:19:45 +0000

Ever wanted to fly a Satellite or work as a flight controller for NASA? Well now you can. According to their site SimNASA is run in the spare time of NASA engineers who want to share the experience with anyone who is interested. Simulations will be with real people, just like you using the SimNASA simulators. All you need is a computer with a web browser to participate. The SimNASA software totally runs within the browser.

With actual NASA engineers running the show this might be an interesting new concept if you have ever wanted to see if you have the right stuff!!
The SimNASA team states that any age or education level can participate so don't be intimidated...a major goal if SimNASA is FUN! Here is a link to the www.SimNASA.com web site.

According to their site"We are looking for a few good...PEOPLE!! Any age, any education, any location..the only requirement is DESIRE!! If you have ever wanted to run a NASA mission, be a flight controller, troubleshoot billions of dollars of spacecraft hardware now is your chance!!"

Good luck Space Cadet!