Ylliks

Commercial space travel is on the up. You can now use Russian rockets to go to the International Space Station, just recently Richard Branson launched Virgin Galactic and more and more companies join the party. But space travel is a costly business. And scientist are looking at easier and cheaper ways of getting to space. The answer may be here.

A new study by the US Air Force proved that an enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space.

Due to the heavy G-forces it may not be suitable for humans just yet, so before we all can go to the moon they better invent those dampening fields.

Original link by DesignVerb

In this article, Gigaom‘s Liz Gannes talks about one of the efforts that Yahoo takes to keep their most talented people around. Because technology companies like Yahoo, Microsoft or Google have to launch new products and generate new revenue streams continuously (mostly to keep investors happy). And it’s the talent of their employees who make that happen.

So keeping those employees around is key. And that’s not easy. In today’s economy there’s money available by either angel investments or venture capital for start-ups that may have “the next best thing”. And many of today’s successful start-up companies are founded by former employees of those tech giants. Not only that, there’s always the competition who are on the lookout and use headhunters to pry away talented and creative employees. Often it’s dissatisfaction with their employment that plays a big factor in their decision to leave in the first place.

So how do you keep them? Paying well and giving all the usual benefits is a given, but most companies try different things as well. Knowing that creativity is often strangled in a large company, where bureaucracy and tight budgets rule, companies listen to people like Keiko Andrus of Intuit who has given numerous presentations (see the powerpoint slides on one he gave on the FOO camp on High Potential People here) on the subject and how employers can avoid their creative people feeling restricted.

Then there’s the fact that creative people are the ones who are most curious and passionate about what they do, who joggle ideas around, who always want to come up with something cool or truly great. So in order for them to do just that, special projects/departments have been created. Google has Google Labs and their 20% rule, Microsoft has AdLab and Yahoo now has Brickhouse. All to give the talent the necessary tools and freedom to be able to be as creative as they want to be.

So keeping their creative employees happy is a challenge, but a necessity in order for the tech giants to keep their edge and their most valuable employees. But maybe all they really have to do to keep them happy is to keep the supply of sodas high.

Nowadays whenever I watch someone set a new world record I automaticly wonder if doping is involved. And how can I not? Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is now officially being charged by the USADA. Justin Gatlin has been suspended for 8 years. Barry Bonds has admitted his use of steroids. Those are just 3 big stars in 3 different sports.

You get the feeling that doping use is wide spread and that just the ones who don’t use the latest in performance enhancing drugs get caught. So your suspicions about an athletes talent when winning a big event grow rampant (especially if someone wasn’t doing those things before). You start to get a pessimistic look about sports and you stop appreciating the hard work and dedication of someone who’s clean.

But what’s even worse is that the cheating takes the fun out of watching sports. And that’s the real shame.