Why Building Better Offices Is The Key To Employee Engagement

If you read a great book, or see a really good film, they can change the way you view things. It’s the quality of the things you invest in that’ll add to who you are.

Saoirse Ronan (via a-thousand-words)

10 Out of this World NASA Spinoff Technologies

What is a spinoff? Great question! A NASA spinoff is a technology, originally developed to meet our mission needs that has been transferred to the public and now provides benefits as a commercial product or service. Basically, we create awesome stuff and then share it with the world. Here’s a list of just a few NASA spinoff technologies (in no particular order): 

1. Enriched Baby Food

While developing life support for Mars missions, NASA-funded researchers discovered a natural source for an omega-3 fatty acid that plays a key role in infant development. The ingredient has since been infused in more than 99% of infant formula on the market and is helping babies worldwide develop healthy brains, eyes and hearts. 

2. Digital Camera Sensors

Whether you take pictures and videos with a DSLR camera, phone or even a GoPro, you’re using NASA technology. The CMOS active pixel sensor in most digital image-capturing devices was invented when we needed to miniaturize cameras for interplanetary missions. 

3. Airplane Wing Designs

Did you know that we’re with you when you fly? Key aerodynamic advances made by our researchers - such as the up-turned ends of wings, called “winglets” - are ubiquitous among modern aircraft and have saved many billions of dollars in fuel costs. 

4. Precision GPS

Uncorrected GPS data can be off by as much as 15 meters thanks to data errors, drift in satellite clocks and interference from Earth’s atmosphere. One of our software packages developed in the 1990s dials in these locations to within centimeters, enabling highly accurate GPS readings anywhere on the planet. One of our most important contributions to modern society, precise GPS is used in everything from personal devices and commercial airplanes to self-driving tractors. 

5. Memory Foam

Possibly the most widely recognized spinoff, memory foam was invented by our researchers looking for ways to keep its test pilots and astronauts comfortable as they experienced extreme acceleration. Today, memory foam cushions beds, chairs, couches, car and motorcycle seats, shoes and even football helmets. 

6. International Search and Rescue System

We pioneered the technology now used internationally for search and rescue operations. When pilots, sailors or other travelers and adventurers are stranded, they can activate a personal locator bacon that uses overhead satellites to relay their call for help and precise location to authorities. 

7. Improvements to Truck Aerodynamics

Nearly every truck on the road has been shaped by NASA - literally. Agency research in vehicle aerodynamic design led to the curves and contours that help modern big rigs cut through the air with less drag. Our contributions to truck design have greatly reduced fuel consumption, perhaps by as much as 6,800 gallons per year for an average vehicle. 

8. Shock Absorbers for Buildings and Bridges

Shock absorbers originally designed to survive the extreme conditions of space shuttle launches are now bracing hundreds of buildings and bridges in earthquake-prone regions all over the world. None of which have suffered even minor damage during an earthquake. 

9. Advanced Water Filtration

We have recently discovered sources of water on the moon and Mars, but even so space is still practically a desert for human explorers, and every drop possible must be recycled and reused. A nanofiber filer devised to purify water in orbit is currently at work on Earth. From devices that supply water to remote villages, to a water bottle that lets hikers and adventurers stay hydrated using streams and lakes, our technology is being utilized. 

10. Invisible Braces

A company working with NASA invented the translucent ceramic that became the first invisible dental braces, which would go on to become one of the best-selling orthodontic products of all time. 

So, now that you know a few of the spinoff technologies that we helped develop, you can look for them throughout your day. Visit our page to learn about more spinoff technologies: https://spinoff.nasa.gov

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Dreamy days//Wellington Lake

A software problem which has already been solved, but not everywhere.

In the early days of the WWW, some websites were a lot better than others. Some places you would fill out a form and it would log you out and forget your stuff; the meaning of icons varied across the web; ….

Nowadays, there are a lot of Standards. There’s a certain way things generally work. Visual cues consistently mean the same thing and work the way I, as a semi-daft user with a lisp and a peg leg, would expect it to, without any further thought or research.

How did this wonderful increase in usability and optimisation happen? I think it’s due to JQuery.

For those who don’t know, JQuery is a bunch of software libraries that do common tasks like “initiate twitter-like pagination” or “build a form” the right way. In other words, some people who had seen a lot of good and bad choices, wrote some functions that any other programmer can use, and wrote down all the best 500-line programs so that other people could do them with just 1 line. (If you still don’t understand what I mean by a “library”, look at the third or fourth lesson on an introduction to C++ tutorial – somewhere in the beginning the instructor will explain why sometimes you want to take a long program and split off bits of the code as separate functions.)

  So here are several problems that have all been solved very nicely. The problems were that:

not everyone has the time/funds to perfect every last nanometer of their website

not everyone has the expertise to do everything perfectly

consequently, users had a bad experience

consequently, less business was transacted online

many people were solving the same problem

too much code was being written to solve the same problem in different places

consequently, management’s and programmers’ interests were disaligned.

The problem was solved through specialisation, as well as programming techniques like abstraction, callbacks, encapsulation, so on.

How far can this Library solution be taken? I mean both in the sense of economic viability and in the sense of programmability.

If I’m typing in some random stuff into R, I kind of expect that sparse matrices are multiplying in the best way possible, or in general that calculations are being done as quick as they could be.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every data structure could automatically tap into any relevant mathematical theorems that reduce calculation time or provide insights? For example the computer shouldn’t literally add the numbers 1+2+3+…+97+98+99+100 because mathematicians already know that 1+100 + 2+99 + 3+98 + 4+97 … = 101 × 50, which is way quicker to calculate. Wouldn’t it be great if data structures could automatically “know” (via libraries) any theorem about curvature, graph traversal, Yoneda lemma, and so on, without the programmer having to be a maths textbook him/herself?

Is this impossible? Or has it just not been done yet?

3,000-Year-Old Cooking Mistake Revealed

Archaeologists in Denmark have found evidence of a 3,000 year-old cooking mistake that casts some light into the everyday life of Scandinavian Bronze Age people.

Clear evidence for one of the most common mistakes in the kitchen – burning food – lay in a clay pot that was excavated in central Jutland, Denmark.

The clay vessel was found, upturned and in near mint condition, at the bottom of what was once a waste pit.

“The pot is typical for cooking vessels in this region of Denmark. It was accompanied by several other objects fitting the dating,” archaeologist Kaj F. Rasmussen from Museum Silkeborg, Denmark, told Discovery News. Read more.

Leave who you were. Love who you are. Look forward to who you will become.

Unknown (via deeplifequotes)

Facebook helps companies detect rogue SSL certificates for domains

Facebook has launched a tool that allows domain name owners to discover TLS/SSL certificates that were issued without their knowledge.

The tool uses data collected from the many Certificate Transparency logs that are publicly accessible. Certificate Transparency (CT) is a new open standard requiring certificate authorities to disclose the certificate that they issue.

Until a few years ago, there was no way of tracking the certificates issued by every certificate authority (CA). At best, researchers could scan the entire web and collect those certificates being used on public servers. This made it very hard to discover cases where CAs issued certificates for domain names without the approval of those domains’ owners.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

via http://www.computerworld.com/article/3149741/security/facebook-helps-companies-detect-rogue-ssl-certificates-for-domains.html#tk.rss_news and www.computechtechnologyservices.com

Shoutout to tumblr users without internet friends.

Shoutout to tumblr users who are still trying to figure out aspects of tumblr.

Shoutout to tumblr users who for whatever reason feel excluded from fandoms/other communities.

Shoutout to tumblr users who feel lonely.

Shoutout to tumblr users who feel like everyone else on tumblr is cooler or smarter or better than them.

I’m prayin for us to overcome self-consciousness, shyness, whatever is in our way. You’re not defined by your blog or your online presence. I love you and know you can do anything.

Dbl Trouble: Fix Falls Short for Backdoor in China-Made Devices

Dbl Trouble: Fix Falls Short for Backdoor in China-Made Devices

A hidden, backdoor account affects a line of VoIP gateways made by DblTek, researchers from TrustWave found. (Image courtesy of DblTek.) In-brief: A hidden, backdoor account affects a line of VoIP gateways made by DblTek, researchers from TrustWave found. The manufacturers fix, however, may not solve the problem.  (more…)

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