22 years ago today, on April 24th, 1990, NASA launched its Hubble Space Telesecope. However, soon after launch, it is realized that the telescope’s mirror was ground incorrectly, and the flaw was unable to be corrected until December 1993, during a shuttle mission.

futurescope:

Dotsies: The Future of reading

new-aesthetic:

Dotsies, via Phil G.

Magnesium wire inside glass case. The magnesium is ignited to illuminate as the flash for use in vintage cameras. (via BOB008)

Computer rendering of a collision of two beams of gold ions in the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The beams travel in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light before colliding. (by Brookhaven National Laboratory)

dotdaniel:

This is the oldest known photograph of a human being in existence. It depends on how one defines photograph, but this was taken by Louis Jacques-Mande Daguerre in 1838. (The fellow the daguerreotype was named after.) This is a photo of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. This is a busy street and there was a lot of traffic, but since the exposure was so long, about 15-20 minutes, none of the moving figures can be seen. Only one man shows up. Who was this nameless gentleman? No one knows. I’m sure they never imagined that they had been immortalised, albeit anonymously, by a clever scientist testing his newly discovered method of preserving moments in time…

History of Space Exploration

On March 2nd, 1972, Pioneer 10 is launched on its unmanned journey to travel through the asteroid belt and make direct observations of Jupiter, passing the gas planet in December 1973. Pioneer 10 was both the first craft to successfully maneuver through the asteroid belt and, by most definitions, leave the solar system. However, in January of 2003, it ceased to send further communications, while 7.6 billion miles from Earth.

theatlantic:

At the Restaurant of the Future, This Gadget Could Replace Your Waiter

With no instructions, I order the two items through the Presto. Beautifully lit photos let me see what I’m going to get. The UI is intuitive. Within 20 seconds, I’ve sent my order to the kitchen. Before we’d even finished eating, I swiped my card slightly awkwardly into the built-in payment slot, added a tip, and settled up. I would not say that this machine will blow your mind with its technical capabilities, but that’s exactly the point: It just works. 

I cannot say for sure that this will be The Future of your restaurant experience, but after talking with E la Carte co-founder Rajat Suri, I’m convinced that some sort of automated ordering system will make its way into your dining experiences. And it’s not because the technology is cool or whizbang or will draw customers. The real reasons are completely economic.

“It costs about a dollar a day per table, it can even go lower depending on if you have sponsors involved because all the alcohol companies want to get involved,” Suri says. “For that, they get about $6 a day per tablet in increased sales. That’s extra desserts, appetizers, drinks. They get about another $5 in extra table turns. If you can fit in one more table per night, that’s worth a lot of money. And some restaurants, though not Calafia, get about $4, $5 extra because they choose to save labor.”

Read more.

As a waitress, I say screw that. As a customer, I say FINALLY.

Speech-Jamming Gun That Can Silence Mid-Sentence

We all have that one friend who just doesn’t know when to shut up. Doesn’t it make you want to shoot them with a gun that scrambles their thoughts, thereby preventing speech? Well, Japanese inventors have a product to offer!

Researchers have manufactured a “SpeechJammer” that allows you to silence people up to 30 meters away, without an instance of pain. Developed by Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, this device records the target’s speech and fires their own vernacular back at them with a delay just long enough that it affects the brain’s cognitive processes, causing speakers to stutter before finally silencing them.

Though the device works best on those who are reading aloud, it has been suggested that this could be utilized in such every-day scenarios as avoiding interruptions or chatty-Cathys in the library. Or maybe even superfluous politicians?