Spaced Out :: 05 2012

Posted from here, a spell binding view of Saturn…..

The title about says it all….none the less exciting stuff!

Dan Ariely has a really good Saturday Essay in the Wall Street Journal on Why We lie. This pulls together (in layman’s terms) a lot of his research on the topic (and it’s well worth watching him speak on the topic at TED) and, in summary, most people lie/cheat a little bit. There are very very few of us that are at the extremities (compulsive liers/cheats or those morally at the extreme). Yet that little bit of lying can have profound effects on us all - just think of the 300M people in the US cheating an extra $100 out of the IRS. He suggests some ways that we can manipulate this in the favour of morality that are wonderfully simple - sign a form at the beginning (of a test, tax return, insurance quote) to state that what you say is true or repeat a moral code (frat code, ten commandments etc) before you start an activity. Has big implications for schools amongst others. Essential reading/viewing.

Well the success of the SpaceX mission continues with the Dragon capsule successful grabbed by the ISS (more details). It’s a remarkable achievement by any standards, particularly for a first mission. It would be fascinating to see a comparison of costs with a similar NASA mission! Let’s see if the full docking completes successfully this weekend.

ESRI continue their cycle of releasing Essays on Geography and GIS (v4), as I noted before. Again an accumulation of articles from ArcNews which are worth a look at.