…with solar energy? I wonder how the economics work out.
[Update a few minutes later]
Sorry, bad link is fixed now.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Hillary’s Spam Filterers
Would have had complete access to all the traffic.
Dear Tesla
An open letter from retail auto dealers.
Somehow, I suspect they won’t make the sale.
Climate Activists
You people lost the scientific argument. Get over it:
Essex said that there seems to be a cultural shift and that scientific arguments have deteriorated. Individuals in society have moved away from “civilized dialogues in which people have a collegial attitude and work together to try to find the truth.” Essex characterized the pro-climate change philosophy as a form of sophistry, catering to popular opinion rather than being concerned with the truth.
You don’t say.
Hypersonics
Japan and Europe are cooperating on a pre-cooled turbojet.
Unfortunately, they seem to be ignoring the real issue, which is drag and fuel consumption. I think that Mach 5 is above the sweet spot for a practical system.
Senators Inhofe And Nelson
…are upset because the Pentagon isn’t wasting taxpayer money as fast as they want it to. I’m sure this topic will come up in this afternoon’s cage match between Gwynne and Tory in front of the House Armed Services Committee.
3-D Printing
Finally goes true 3-D.
It’s finally starting to feel like the 21st century.
[Update a while later]
Aaaaaannnd, self-flying cars by 2017?
Seems a little optimistic, but if we’re going to have flying cars, they’ll have to be self flying.
[Mid-morning update]
Aaaaand, molecular 3-D printers. The future is looking very interesting. Both in the conventional and the Chinese sense.
[Late-morning update]
Aaaaannnd, lab-grown chicken meat?
That would be huge breakthrough for both earth and space. I’d really like to see it for pork, though. Technically, would lab-grown pork be kosher? Or halal?
Is There A Samba Doctor In The House?
As is often the case, Samba has me pulling hair, of which I have little to spare.
First of all, yes, I’ve read this.
Mars Or Bust, Or Mars One, Busted?
Thoughts from Laura Seward Forczyk. As she notes, media hype about SLS/Orion getting anyone to Mars is greatly exaggerated, with the connivance of NASA PAO.
Windows Question
I have an old Windows 7 installation on an old drive, that I can no longer boot because I changed the motherboard (it’s an HP OEM). While I haven’t tried, I assume that if I take a new licensed installation disk of 8.1, I could recover and upgrade to the new hardware.
Question, if that is the case, is it possible to copy it to an SSD, but without the data, just the Windows installation and the software (I’ve already got data backed up elsewhere). If so, how?
Harder question: If I can do that, can I do it to a virtual machine? I know I can do a clean install on a VM, but I’d like to recover the existing software on the old OS.
[Update a while later]
Well, from what I’m seeing here, looks like it’s not really feasible. The only way to recover the old Windows (as opposed to install a new one) is to dual boot. But I’ll probably recover the machine anyway, just to see what’s on it, and if some of the licensed software (like Malwarebytes) can be migrated to the new one.
[Late-evening update]
Look, here is my conceptual idea.
1) I copy the old Windows drive, then delete data, to eliminate everything that isn’t software.
2) I create a virtual machine with a sized partition.
3) I somehow copy the Windows drive sans data to the virtual partition.
4) I then try to update from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 using my Windows install disk (full license, not OEM).
5) I then hook up the old data as a network drive, so I’m not putting data on the SSD.
That’s the top-level plan. I’m just not sure how possible it is. I think that Step (3) is where the miracle occurs. Step (5) is a problem if I can’t get Samba working, and if I can’t get it working between a virtual and physical machine.