Above: All fake people.
ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is a website that’s exactly what it sounds like provided it doesn’t sound like anything but a site that uses artificial intelligence to create realistic human faces of people who don’t exist. "Ghost people!" Not really, no. Who let this person in here?
Thispersondoesnotexist.com generates a new lifelike image each time the page is refreshed, using technology developed by chipmaker Nvidia.
Some visitors to the website say they have been amazed by the convincing nature of some of the fakes, although others are more clearly artificial.
Nvidia developed a pair of adversarial AI programs to create and then critique the images, in 2017.
The company later made these programs open source, meaning they are publicly accessible.
No word how many of the people I was matched with and messaged on the dating site I use are actually fake people, but I suspect from my perfect 0% response rate, all of them. I want my money back and then some. Enough for a fancy dinner to cry into.
Thanks to atheistgirl, who agrees fake people are the worst people. That’s why I insist on honesty and am the smartest, most handsome man in all the kingdom.
via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome https://geekologie.com/
Companies are pulling their advertising campaigns from YouTube amid reports that a network of pedophiles is openly operating in the comments sections of videos of young children, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Disney and Nestlé are among those who have reportedly yanked spending after a YouTube video surfaced the…
An artist’s concept of the Space IL lunar spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.
SpaceIL
SpaceX is set to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday night, and while it may not be the primary payload, a small Israeli lunar lander is by far the mission’s most intriguing payload.
The 180kg Beresheet spacecraft, privately developed by SpaceIL in Israel and funded largely through philanthropy, will spend more than six weeks raising its orbit, and becoming captured into lunar orbit, before finally making the first private attempt to land on the Moon. Until now, only the U.S, Russian, and Chinese space agencies have ever successfully landed on the Moon.
This means there is a lot of pressure on the small Israeli team leading the mission, both in their native country and among the commercial lunar community, which wants to prove that private ventures can do what only nations have done before. “What it means to me is that the responsibility is very high,” said Yoav Landsman, a senior systems engineer for the project, in an interview.
The first step into space may come Thursday night, with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The primary launch window for the mission opens at 8:45pm ET (01:45am UTC Friday) for a flight from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The main payload is a geostationary communications satellite, PSN-VI. The weather forecast is optimistic.
A long road
An Israeli corporation, SpaceIL was formed a day before the deadline in 2011 to enter Google’s Lunar XPrize competition to land a rover on the Moon. At first, the project was led mostly by volunteers, but by 2013 the team realized that if they were going to make a serious run at actually reaching the Moon, they needed professional help.
So SpaceIL began raising tens of millions of dollars from philanthropists such as Morris Kahn, and it staffed up. Landsman was among the hires who joined—he couldn’t resist the opportunity to be part of a small team to land on the Moon.
The challenges were immense. They could not afford to buy their own rocket launch, so SpaceIL had to tag along as a ride-share on a mission (they settled on SpaceX in 2016). Because of this, and funding limitations, their spacecraft had to be small, with a limited amount of fuel. The Falcon 9 rocket would drop the Beresheet spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of about 60,000km. From there, they would have to get to the Moon on their own.
This gallery shows how Space IL plans to reach the Moon with a small spacecraft and a limited amount of fuel.
The spacecraft will separate from the Falcon 9’s upper stage 34 minutes after launch.
Space IL/YouTube
After separation, the spacecraft will coast to a higher altitude.
Space IL/YouTube
From here, the spacecraft will go into an elliptical orbit,
Space IL/YouTube
This is the first in a series of phasing loops.
Space IL/YouTube
Its velocity will peak as Beresheet accelerates into Earth’s gravity well.
Space IL/YouTube
It will do this several times to set up a series of engine burns.
Space IL/YouTube
It will make these burns near peak velocity to increase the apogee of its elliptical orbit.
Space IL/YouTube
The first burn should take it to about 140,000km.
Space IL/YouTube
The second burn to about 270,000km.
Space IL/YouTube
A third and final burn is anticipated the raise the spacecraft to 400,000 km, the distance the Moon lies from Earth.
Space IL/YouTube
The spacecraft will then follow this orbit until its path nearly intersects with the Moon as it orbits Earth.
Space IL/YouTube
It will then burn its engine to slow down, be captured by the Moon’s gravity, and enter lunar orbit.
Space IL/YouTube
Let’s hope the Moon captures it.
Space IL/YouTube
If so, it will enter a highly elliptical orbit around the Moon.
Space IL/YouTube
Then the spacecraft will perform a few burns to circularize its orbit at a lower apogee.
Space IL/YouTube
It should get down to 250km above the lunar surface.
Space IL/YouTube
Now, after more than six weeks in space, it is almost time to land on the Moon.
Space IL/YouTube
Mission managers have identified a small target landing area in the Sea of Serenity.
Space IL/YouTube
With one final engine burn, the spacecraft will cancel out all of its remaining velocity.
Space IL/YouTube
It should free fall to the Moon’s surface.
Space IL/YouTube
If successful, Israel will become just the fourth country to soft-land on the lunar surface.
Space IL/YouTube
SpaceIL has released a video, screen-capped above with notes from Landsman, that explains their journey to the lunar surface from launch on Feb. 22 through a projected landing on April 11 in the Sea of Serenity.
On the Moon
Engineers designed the spacecraft to satisfy the demands of the Lunar XPrize, which ended last March without a winner. That competition required a privately funded robot to land on the Moon, travel more than 500 meters, and return high-definition images and video to Earth.
The Beresheet vehicle will attempt this feat, within a limited lifespan on the Moon. After about three days, Landsman said the vehicle’s solar panel are expected to reach a temperature of 200°C and overheat. This was one of the compromises of developing a smaller lander on a tight budget.
So Beresheet will land with urgency, take images and video, transmit them back, and then attempt to hop 500 meters to another site. When Beresheet is not taking video or moving, it will be attempting to transmit data back to Earth via NASA’s Deep Space Network. “We have to hurry, and start to download data immediately after landing, to get everything back to Earth,” Landsman said. If the solar panels last longer, the team will be able to return higher-definition images.
This landing attempt comes as NASA has asked several US companies—some of which also were competing in the Lunar XPrize—to develop the capacity for small landers to deliver science experiments to the Moon. Earlier this month, NASA’s science chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, said he would like at least one of those missions to fly by the end of the year, but it is not yet clear whether any of the American companies can deliver.
Certainly, they’ll all be watching SpaceIL’s attempt to make the first private landing. “The people that were competing with us until not long ago have come to me and told me they are rooting for us,” Landsman said. “If we succeed in our mission, and show the world we can soft land on the Moon with a privately funded spacecraft, it means the technology is already here.”
