Solar array deployment is complete for Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Cygnus spacecraft, now traveling 17,500 mph in Earth’s orbit to rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday, Sept. 22, for a demonstration resupply mission. The spacecraft will deliver about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food and clothing, to the space station’s Expedition 37 crew, who will grapple and attach the capsule using the orbiting laboratory’s robotic arm.
OSv, a new open-source operating system for virtual machines
These days, most applications running on virtual machines in the cloud run on top of Linux. We all love Linux, but as an all-encompassing operating system for everything from phones to supercomputers, Linux was never really designed for virtual machines; It is big and complex, and it offers features (such as multi-user and multi-process) which are today made redundant by the hypervisor and slow it down. Linux’s APIs are many times set in stone by decades of legacy code. All these cost in application performance, and make it harder to innovate.
This is why we developed OSv, a new operating system designed to run a single application on a virtual machine. As it runs a single application there is no need for kernel-userspace isolation, reducing context switch costs and unnecessary copying. A design from scratch allowed us to experiment with new ideas like lock-free mutexes (solving the Lock-Holder Preemption problem that plagues operating systems on virtual machines), extremely fast context switches, Van Jacobson’s network channels (see http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/vj/lca06vj.pdf), and more. Also, OSv is released under the more permissive BSD license (not GPL like Linux), is tiny compared to Linux, and takes less than one second to boot and start the user’s application.
via Announce: OSv, a new open-source operating system for virtual machines.
Presentation slides can be seen here.
Most Innovative Carrier WiFi Deployment
The WiFi deployment plays a dual role for Virgin Media Business, however. The company uses fiber backhaul connections to ensure the network’s performance, but also to lease to mobile operators that can use it to bolster their 3G and 4G networks. It’s a win-win for everyone: Residents get free WiFi, Virgin gets access to prime real estate for small cells, and the city gets a cut of the revenue it earns from the wireless operators.
via 2013 Leading Lights Finalists: Most Innovative Carrier WiFi Deployment | Light Reading.
UAV Provides Colorado Flooding Assistance Until FEMA Freaks Out
Falcon UAV is a Colorado company that makes a fixed-wing UAV called a Falcon that uses GPS and cameras to autonomously generate among other things highly accurate maps of the ground. The UAV is hand-launched, with an endurance of about an hour, and generally operates between 300 and 1,500 feet above the ground. It has public safety flight approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration FAA to fly in some parts of Colorado. Basically, the point here is that we’re not talking about some random dude with a quadrotor flying around taking pictures: the Falcons are designed for and governmentally approved for mapping missions in public airspace.
via UAV Provides Colorado Flooding Assistance Until FEMA Freaks Out – IEEE Spectrum.
Preventing Cheating at Hackathons
The idea of cheating at hackathons isn’t new, and a few people have written about suspected cheating at hackathons. Rob Spectre even (humorously) suggested that cheating is the easiest way to win first place at a hackathon.
Why Your City Should Compete With Google’s Super-Speed Internet
One of the biggest obstacles organizers are likely to face are laws discouraging or preventing governments from competing with private broadband providers. So far 19 states have passed such laws.
“It strikes me as crazy that some states are banning communities from building or expanding existing networks, even as we’re subsidizing private companies,” Mitchell said.
He says these laws actually end up preventing incumbent providers from expanding higher speed internet services in many areas, because they know their existing legacy services won’t face competition.
via Why Your City Should Compete With Google’s Super-Speed Internet | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.
The Post-Lecture Classroom: How Will Students Fare?
A three-year study examining student performance in a “flipped classroom” — a class in which students watch short lecture videos at home and work on activities during class time — has found statistically significant gains in student performance in “flipped” settings and significant student preference for “flipped” methods.
via The Post-Lecture Classroom: How Will Students Fare? – Robinson Meyer – The Atlantic.
“And with this,” she said, “you actually have to do reading or watch the [lecture modules], you actually have to prepare for the class.”
Raspberry Pi as an Ad Blocking Access Point
This tutorial will show you how to use your Raspberry Pi as a WiFi access point that blocks ads by default for any devices using it. This is really neat in that it would work for your Android or iOS device, your Xbox 360, TiVo, laptop, and more without needing to customize any of those devices other than to use your Raspberry Pi as the access point for WiFi. Using an ad-blocker can be useful for conserving bandwidth, helping out low-power devices, or for keeping your sanity while browsing the web!
via Overview | Raspberry Pi as an Ad Blocking Access Point | Adafruit Learning System.
Japan’s Laptop-Controlled Space Rocket Launch
Japan has sent a rocket into space with a launch co-ordinated from two laptops in a control centre manned by a crew of just eight people.
via Japan’s Laptop-Controlled Space Rocket Launch.
A much smaller crew was involved, compared with the about 150 people needed when Japan has previously launched its mainstream H2-A rocket.
Installing Reddit Clone
These instructions will guide you through the process of setting up a reddit clone for the first time. We also have an automated install script for Ubuntu Linux 12.04.
Reddit has a very intuitive comment system. They release their source code so anyone can build upon what they have already built.