Hat tip to ‘Star Trek’? US Space Force names new unit ‘SpOC’

The United States’ new Space Force military wing revealed Tuesday that one of its units would be named “Space Operations Command”—or “SpOC” for short, in an echo of pointy-eared “Star Trek” character Spock. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-hat-star-trek-space-spoc.html…

Remembering Star Trek Writer DC Fontana, 1939-2019

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger brings the news that D. C. Fontana, an influential story editor and writer on the original 1960s TV series Star Trek, has died this week. People reports: The writer is credited with developing the Spock character’s backstory and “expanding Vulcan culture,” SyFy reported of her massive contribution to the beloved sci-fi series. Fontana was the one who…

Algorithms Help Turbines Share the Wind

carbonnation writes: As Spock so elegantly opined, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Today Stanford U researchers presented the clearest proof to date that self-sacrifice can also benefit wind farms. In their demonstration at an Alberta wind farm, one turbine sacrifices a fifth of its generating potential to enable better performance by…