Packet switching works well for moving data -- why not use it for moving humans? In a nutshell, the French Aramis transit project proposed packet switching as a solution to human transport problems (though, so far as I can tell, neither the author nor any reviews I have yet read have made this connection).

Apropos to PRT.

Aramis, or the Love of Technology

In 2003, Ford Research proposed a dual-mode system called PRISM. It would use public guideways with privately-purchased but certified dual-mode vehicles. The vehicles would weigh less than 600 kg (1200 lb), allowing small elevated guideways that could use centralized computer controls and power.

(from Wikipedia PRT article)

Too bad noone has the vision to build something like this out.

PRISMGPCPaper.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Northrop Grumman Corp. agreed July 5 to increase its stake in Scaled Composites - the builder of the Ansari X-Prize Cup-winning SpaceShipOne and a host of record-breaking aircraft - from 40 percent to 100 percent, Northrop Grumman spokesman Dan McClain confirmed July 20.

SPACE.com -- Northrop Grumman Buys Builder of SpaceShipOne

There were a few things swimmers needed to know before slipping into the Charles River for the big race on Saturday.

A Boston River Now (Mostly) Fit for Swimming - New York Times

David C. Monson seems an improbable soul to find at the leading edge of a national movement to legalize growing hemp, a plant that shares a species name, a genus type and, in many circles, a reputation, with marijuana.

Sober North Dakotans Hope to Legalize Hemp - New York Times

With the 50th anniversary of spaceflight coming on Oct. 4 – the day the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into orbit – Space News has been taking a look back at major milestones over the past five decades. Here, Clinton Parks highlights NASA's historic Apollo 11 lunar mission, which landed the first humans on the moon on 38 years ago today:

SPACE.com -- July 20, 1969: 'One Small Step for Man...'

[WWW] Hadoop is a framework for running applications on large clusters built of commodity hardware. The Hadoop framework transparently provides applications both reliability and data motion. Hadoop implements a computational paradigm named Map/Reduce, where the application is divided into many small fragments of work, each of which may be executed or reexecuted on any node in the cluster. In addition, it provides a distributed file system (HDFS) that stores data on the compute nodes, providing very high aggregate bandwidth across the cluster. Both Map/Reduce and the distributed file system are designed so that node failures are automatically handled by the framework.

FrontPage - Lucene-hadoop Wiki

Jonathan Schaeffer's quest for the perfect game of checkers has ended. The 50-year-old computer scientist from the University of Alberta in Edmonton left human players in the dust more than a decade ago after a trial by fire against the greatest checkers champion in history.

Computers Solve Checkers—It's a Draw: Scientific American

It started with a simple question by Samuel W. Bodman, the energy secretary: “What does the future hold for oil and natural gas supply?”

The query was made in October 2005 in a one-page letter sent to Lee Raymond, the former chairman of Exxon Mobil and head of the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory group representing the oil industry.

After nearly two years, Mr. Raymond has finally delivered his answer.

The result is a colossal 476-page study entitled “Facing the Hard Truths About Energy” that involved 350 participants, suggestions from over 1,000 people, submissions by 19 foreign governments from Australia to Saudi Arabia, and dozens of subcommittees.

Oil Industry Offers Sobering Outlook on Supply - New York Times

Senate Democrats said Monday they would keep the Senate in session through the night on Tuesday in an effort to highlight Republican resistance to allowing a simple majority vote on a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Democrats Plan to Keep Senate in Session All Night for Iraq Vote - New York Times