Simple Excel error Tanks the European Economy

Marketplace and the BBC both have good writeups on how the economic austerity plans, written by Harvard economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, which have tanked the EU economy, and which the US Republicans have been basing their plans on, are faulty.

"This week, economists have been astonished to find that a famous academic paper often used to make the case for austerity cuts contains major errors. Another surprise is that the mistakes, by two eminent Harvard professors, were spotted by a student doing his homework." -[BBC]

 "Better double-check your Excel spreadsheets. This week, two Harvard economists, Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, admitted they had made a mistake in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet they used in their report on GDP and growth." - [marketplace]

Big MamaJama

Arstechnica has a really interesting read on "How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 moon rocket engine back to life".  Great write up on how massive these engines were, and what it took to take one off of the shelf from a museum, digitize it, model it, and then use that data to come up with the next-gen heavy lifter.  Choice quote:

The power output of the Saturn first stage was 60 gigawatts. This happens to be very similar to the peak electricity demand of the United Kingdom.

New DARPA X-Challange: VTOL

BBC notes the new DARPA funded X-challenge, of creating a better design for a VTOL aircraft.  (aka, something that takes off like a helicopter, and then flies like a plane.)  There is also a reference to the "wheel of misfortune" which is a cool diagram cataloging all the different kinds of VTOL aircraft already created.