Plannet Spotter
Link: Super-Earth shortens odds on finding life
Exciting that we found another earth like planet. Disappointing because the -200C to 2000C daily temperature range would make landing there difficult. When you think about it, life on earth is horribly fragile. Keep looking fellas!
Never looking back
Article: A One-Way Ticket to Mars
Human space travel is so expensive and so dangerous that we are going to need novel, even extreme solutions if we really want to expand the range of human civilization beyond our own planet. To boldly go where no one has gone before does not require coming home again.
A really interesting piece on some of the problems associated with sending a maned mission to Mars. The point raised is why is it so important to bring the astronauts home again? Plenty of people are willing to go even with no chance of ever returning.
Thinking about this put me in a highly reflective mood. In order to go where we’ve never gone before, do what we’ve never done before and truly change the world, maybe we need to take steps so drastic that the possibility of return doesn’t exist at all. Success and failure measured in the legacy we leave behind.
Considering pretty women
Article: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women.
Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived.
Researchers said it was as if he was so keen to make an impression he ‘temporarily absorbed most of his cognitive resources.’
I continue to stand by my arguments in favour of considering cognitive load as a massive factor in application design.