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Slashback: Unenforceability, Conflagration, Cans
a filtration system for your 2.4 goldfish Jay Beale points to this followup to his "Why iptables rocks" article of a few weeks ago: "It fulfills my promise to show how to actually build a home/SOHO firewall with Linux 2.4's iptables aka Netfilter. It contains the full code, explained piece by piece, to build a working firewall with 2.4, including all kinds of cool packet mangling for load balancing, redirecting stuff to transparent proxies, or avoiding nmap stealth scans ..."
Out of embarrassment, perhaps? An unnamed correspondent points out this bit of news regarding Symantec's patent on software updates. The upshot is, without pointing out that updating software incrementally is not a patent likely to win them a lot of favor from the industry they have simply decided not to enforce it. Smart move.
Not yet in the can, or the cube either Casey Ho of San Jose's Leland High wrote with some interesting information for those interested in tiny amateur satellites; Leland is one of the handful of schools whose students are designing experimental payloads for inclusion on an upcoming launch.
[We] are focusing on making a CubeSat. Leland High school officially has one satellite to launch, and there are four teams now competing to make a design that will be approved by CalPoly technicians. My own group will attempt to broadcast a powerful long term signal using only a small satellite. The project is not easy since there are a lot of scientific guidelines we must meet. We are discussing how to create a reliable circuit and transmitter that will function in extreme temperatures, vacuum, radiation, and most importantly, after an extra powerful rocket launch. The requirements are available here.Machinima makes the grade ILL Robinson writes: "Wanted you guys to know that our Quake II-based machinima film, Hardly Workin', received top honors at Showtime Networks' Alternative Media Festival - alt.sho.com. In an awards ceremony on February 8th at MTV Studios, Showtime awarded The ILL Clan with awards in both Best Experimental Short as well as Best of SHO for the festival. Using Machinima (films created with a PC game that can be modified with users' assets), The ILL Clan's film gained notice from the festival's judges - citing Hardly Workin' as a short with a high degree of innovation, design & creativity. We're pretty excited to receive the recognition, all the way from fans of ours who had been following us from the beginning and now, from a top-tier cable TV network. Cruise on over to our site for the official announcement, or to Machinima.com for more machinima works. And thanks also to the Slashdot readers, as they helped spread the word of what Machinima is all about."For some of you posters out there, sorry, no living organisms or explosives are allowed on the satellites. ;)"
Congatulations!
It always bugged me that they licensed such cool technology to Microsoft years ago; (defrag, scandisk, etc.) I'm so glad that it didn't put Norton Utilities out of business.
The patent was applied for before Diablo I was introduced. LiveUpdate has been a part of Symantec products sice early 1996.
Also, one of the patents is for the way it resolves the differences, not for the idea of resolving differences.
The certainly can change their minds at any time.
This is one more in a long list of improperly awarded patents.
If this patent remains unchallenged, it may gain legal weight as time passes. A future argument could be "since no one has disputed it in x years, it must have some validity".
The government is doing such poor administration in the tech fields that it will soon be time for the gov to be bypassed where necessary. I don't mean doing anything illegal, just something as simple as declaring en masse that a specific patent will not be recognized.
You have no chance to survive make your time!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
> your grassblade starship won't have enough power to send a signal back to earth to report its findings.
But if nanotechnology gets beyond being a pipedream, that needn't be a problem. Your grassblade starship lands, builds a few self-replicating exploratory/survey craft, then switches to building transmitter builder builders so when the survey is finished it can transmit the results back.
This also assumes any inhabitants of the planet don't object to self-replicating nanobots reshaping a chunk of it into a huge antenna and power station, and that your spaceship drive scales in such a way that a small spaceship can get anywhere in the first place anyway.
--
rant
If they just wanted to use the patent defensively, they could have just published the technology unpatented. At that point it's prior art which they can use as a defense against claims of infringement, but it doesn't prevent anyone else from using it. That would be the ethical thing to do.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
"My own group will attempt to broadcast a powerful
long term signal using only a small satellite."
Great. Interminable orbital QRM thanks to a buncha adolescents with more money than sense.
My uderstanding of the patent process is that it grants protection from someone using your patented "THINGY" (tm) for profit, but you, in turn must divulge the particulars of the "THINGY." Another condition is that you (or your company) must take it upon themselves to enforce the patent, and challenge any and all violations of that patent. If you don't, you lose patent protection, and can never get it back.
Why this is a good thing, is that if Symantec does not enforce, they cannot, and no one else can patent it to enforce it for their own evil purposes. Once it is patented, it is patented.
"Just another damned fool idealistic crusader..."
Don't you mean 1,000,000 pico satelites? :)
Not to mention diff and patch.
See also Digital's (now Compaq's) AUTOPATCH and SOUP/SOUPR. Quite old.
---
The patent bureau of the United States actually inhibits a free market economy. In a true free market economy, anyone can reverse engineer any process, and use it to whatever ends they wish, but the one who does it most efficiently ends up with the ability to make the most profit.
:)
Unfortunately, government intervention via the patent process interferes with this and favors those with the itchiest trigger finger rather than those with the best and most efficient production solutions.
In other words, rather than fostering capitalism, the patent office is actually a mechanism of socialism, and undermines the American Ideal in a way that the Open Source movement could never hope to touch
--
Um... I think that mechanism is called "selling things." And it works quite well, even without government-created monopolies (patents).
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
"but the one who does it most efficiently ends up with the ability to make the most profit.." That's not necessarily true. In Micro$oft's case, it's whoever markets it the best makes the most profit. Not to mention stifling innovation and buying out then burning the competition.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
So you don't think, for instance, that advances in BSD spur Linux developers to to improve Linux?
Spencer Ogden
Since CVS falls under the patent, there's pretty clearly prior art into the 80s.
You are speaking of enabling bridging, which is neither a firewall nor a router.
:)
Had what you described been true, there would have been no need for Microsoft to create Microsoft Proxy Server (version 1 OR version 2!), nor MS NAT, as implemented in Windows 2000 server.
Clarity helps a discussion, and OpenBSD really does have a kick-ass NAT implementation. It's not touched by any MS product. I've used them all.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
As long as we keep the current taxation methodology technical progress will NOT free us from long hours and hard work - especially since population is still growing. Read the stuff and do the quiz at http://www.henrygeorge.org to understand why.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
Do you think you'd get away with it? I realize that our government doesn't kill their internal enemies anymore (yeah, right), but if your bird bumped into their bird you would be held responsible.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
What does designing payloads have to with sending?
What does students designing have to do with funding? all it costs is pencil and paper.
What does a small payload have to do with with NBC's or anyone else's large satellites? Nothing small payloads go up yearly. Did you think they'd show every payload launch on CNN? Do you truly think this is all that expensive?
C'mon use some sense.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I patented your pancreas, pay up.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The students are writing the plans. That includes, reading, writing, and comprehension skills. Don't give me the learn to read crap when it's obvious that are reading, researching, analysing, synthesizing, and proposing ideas.
In the words of one of my favorite anime characters, "Gather your thoughts and then place them into words."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
err... actually, I was just thinking it might be neat to try to blow something up in orbit...
Sigs are awesome huh?
They'd assign the rights to the patent to the FSF or some other organization as a safegaurd, or anti-patent if you will. I think it's nice that they made this statement, though, and it shows then in a little bit better light than simply letting it go without saying anything, then all of a sudden breaking out the guns.
If you're going to overfund something, by all means it should be schools.
----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
"shareholder lawsuits are settled out of court, and it's a great way to earn a quick buck from a bumbling company"
Unfortunately, by saying that in public you've probably just ruined your chance of becoming true for you. Learn to keep your mouth shut.
----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Hey, were not talking cubic satellites here - well, yes, we are. But, er, its a different meaning of cubic.
If your unit is one satellite (not one cubic satellite, multiplying things by things by things is rather hard), a microsatellite is just a million picosatellites. Er.
"Out Of Cheese Error. Redo from Start" - Hex
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
You people must be RICH! My iptables router is a 486/66 with 8 MB of RAM and very very horrid I/O performance (yes, Timothy, it's the short little box I showed you when you dropped by). Easily saturates a modem line, though, and I can wait the ~1 minute it takes to telnet in, su, and run iptables to open or close a port.
I have inherited a Pentium-120 now (though I had to trade parts of my desktop box for it) so unless I get a cable modem or DSL before I get around to changing it out, that 486 is going to take a very long rest soon. Might resurrect it someday for realtime 3D rendering and video compression.
And if we're lucky, we still have a 50% chance in 2010 of getting a space shuttle into orbit without it being shredded by one of those microsatellites...
--------------------------------------
I'm sure your favorite goldfish would much rather take a nice airline trip to space than get flushed down the toilet.
I am !amused.
Ya know, i'm just thinking that one of those CanSats would make the ultimate overclocking rig. "Yeah well, my Celeron 333A is overclocked to 10Gz, and its core temp is -300 degs C!!"
/* Of course I'm real, but can you prove it? */
I'm trying to figure out how to go beyond Jay Beale's SOHO firewall article and to set up a DMZ for a number of servers - more than just the one he gives in his example. What I can't figure out is how to map a multihomed external interface to multiple IPs on the internal network.
Could anyone help explain the additional steps needed to make this work? Or tell me where to find this on the web/docs/faqs/etc? Even Rusty's guides don't cover this.
Goal:
184.220.142.10:80 --> 10.0.0.11:80
184.220.142.10:8080--> 10.0.0.13:80
184.220.142.10:25 --> 10.0.0.12:25
184.220.142.11:443 --> 10.0.0.11:443
(and once those work I can make anything go...)
Thanks!
UserAdvocate: The voice of the user
I'm not an expert on this or much of anything, who is Drexler?
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
Well, there are a couple of reasons why this needs to be stated.
:)
First of all you are dealing with college students here.
Second there is a need for antenna deployment and if this were NASA an exploding bolt or some such fun could be used to release it.
Third we are dealing with college students here.
When we were discussing the need for a way to shut down a stuck transmitter an autodestruct sounded really cool.
-Nails-
Look at the size of the Apollo landers, and of the Saturn V rockets. Notice a difference in size? If you wanted to put one poxy nanobot into space you'd still need huge rocket, as for most of the time the rocket needs to propel itself with its fuel as well as the nanobot.
Your comment ignores two factors. First, although you are right that every a small device would require a huge rocket, I believe the idea behind micro satalites (and a "nanaobot" by extention) is to put large numbers of them into orbit from a single rocket launch. Hence you are saving money by spreading the cost. If (as an example I have no real idea) it costs 2 million to put a small rocket into space, and 200 different companies put microsatilites on the rocket none of the companies has to bear the full cost of the launch, but all get their craft up. Second, if a sufficcently small device could be deisigned, at some point in the future they could be built and launched from the ISS. Thus eliminating the incredible cost of actually putting the object into space (by far the most epensive part of space flight).
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
For the Luddites of the world who resist computers, consider using computers to resist.
Then how did Unisys get to start enforcing its patent on GIF way after the fact? -x
-x
+1, Funny...
--- Can i borrow your Clue-Stick(tm)? I need to go beat a few people with it...
(anti-troll system engaging)
Lots of code has gone in both directions. Big deal.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
lol @ your comment, I was starting to do the calculations before I read your reply. I swear I had a life, where did I put that thing?
Where's my will to live? I seem to have lost it.
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
It's ok, he wouldn't have to worry about ever violating the patent on thinking anyway.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I think you're missing the whole point of not enforcing the patent.
By claiming the patent they can add to their net worth. Symantec gets to be in the news ( dont believe me? Just look it up on slashdot ). They protect themselves from someone else doing the same thing against them ( remember amazon.com? ).
But, the meat will likely turn rancid if they try to enforce the patent. If they were to challenge someone who was doing something similar ( Insert random networked software here ) then they will likely lose the case and maybe even eventually lose the claim. If that were to happen then they lose face, lose networth, and maybe, just maybe some customers.
In short, they likely win all they can win by claiming the patent but not enforcing. They lose if they give anyone a chance to challenge their claim. IMHO this is simply not a card Symantec can play.
As a share holder I am sure you want Symantec to have all the networth they can muster.
On an OFFTOPIC note: If they were to win in court then I am going to enforce my patent on controlled inbalance as a form of motivation (i.e. walking).
- The moon is smaller but farther away
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
If they started using linux instead of MS products they could afford to send 10 of them a year at least.
Got Code?
Because this way they're protected against another company patenting the same process. If Barnes and Noble had patented one click shopping, but then hadn't enforced it, they'd have avoided the Amazon litigation.
How on earth (no pun intended) did this get to +5?
The "putting things into near earth orbit" is already amost a commodity. The exploration of space is a totally different kettle of fish, and your syllogism just isn't valid.
Secondly, how do you know if I want the price of space launches to be brought down? You have no right to speak for "all".
You obviously have no knowledge of engineering.
Look at the size of the Apollo landers, and of the Saturn V rockets. Notice a difference in size? If you wanted to put one poxy nanobot into space you'd still need huge rocket, as for most of the time the rocket needs to propel itself with its fuel as well as the nanobot. The thing _does not scale linearly_.
Sheesh,
FP.
--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Explosives provide their own O2. For most common explosives this is what the 'nitrates' are for.
XNO3 for X=almost anything (From Potassium to Toluene and beyond) will often part with its oxygen quite easily. (The Potassium version in the saltpetre in traditional gunpowder, and the toluene version wants three 'nitro's round it, and hey presto - nice almond smell and TNT)
FatPhil
--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I really don't understand the concern. It shouldn't be able to explode, no O2, and from what I've read the satelites aren't supposed to crash land. So what's the problem?
This sig intentionally left blank.
$30,000 isn't *that* much. The teams are actually making a pitch to parents and companies in a week to start fundraising.
The author has a point that this one method of doing business that is well loved by certain companies and it helps to be there first even if you don't intend to enforce the patent to stop others from trying the same thing.
However, litigatious shareholders are not a joke - but it would take a significant chunk of the equity to force a response from a US company. Rather less than in a Japanese company which is why they have been subjected to pressure in return for hush-money to prevent embarassments at shareholders meetings.
See my journal, I write things there
With my microsatellite I'm going to write a question for the ages; one that will puzzle future intelligent inhabitants of this planet for generations. I want to enlighten, provoke unimaginable debate and become immortalized for all eternity.
My microsatellite will contain a solitary piece of paper with the words:
"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US."
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
When I heard the news that Symantec had filed for its patent, I was impressed. Here was a company that knew the business inside and out, one that had consistently performed above expectations and held the public eye. So what did I do? I went and bought a couple hundred shares of SYMC at about $47 1/8 per share. That was a bit more than a week ago. (February 9th.)
Since then, it's done well. Last closed at 50 11/16. It's gone consistently up over this period. A really sweet deal.
But now? Now they've squandered the crown jewel in their collection: the patent that distinguishes them from other companies in their field. Anyone can sell virus updates (though few have done as well as Symantec). Not everyone could have done so if Symantec had kept its wits about it and enforced the damn patent.
Who cares if it would've been unpopular?! That's what business is all about. That's what capitalism is all about: getting a limited monopoly from the government (a patent) in order to restrict the trade of your competitors in reward for a brilliant insight or idea. That's what patents are for. They're not something you play with in kindergarten. They're not like shuffleboard or parchesi. They're important stuff.
Now what am I supposed to do? Clearly, the only choice is to file a shareholder lawsuit against Symantec's board to overturn this situation. I'm a part owner now (albeit a small-time one) and thus have a say in deciding what sort of beaten path to bankruptcy the company shall trod.
Are there other like-minded Symantec-share owners in the audience who'd care to join me? Most shareholder lawsuits are settled out of court, and it's a great way to earn a quick buck from a bumbling company. Symantec has to learn that you shouldn't give away all your intellectual property for free like that. It just isn't profitable. They have to hang onto their brand image and they have to maintain their IP portfolios.
So are you with me?
Read the rest of this comment...
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
Can someone plese tell me what these "Someone set up us the bomb" and "all your base are ours" things are Suppose to mean?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master"-Unknowen
I don't know exacts but any school that can send up a sattalite in my mind is getting more funds than they should
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master"-Unknowen
> For all the revolutionary talk about how it will
> free us from the burdens of work, now all we do
> is spend more time working, because computers
> have enabled us to do more!
Blame Walt Disney, not the economists. Increases in productivity are not turned into fewer work hours because of competition. Instead, they are turned into cheaper products (fewer paychecks needed for the same work) and more diversity in specialization of occupations (fewer people to do industry X means some people go find other stuff to do.) Both lift the standard of living.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
What about gyroscopes? ;)
Count+1
I can understand the need to mention 'no living organisms' but it scares me that they need to explicitly say 'no explosives', like there are a bunch of kids who wanted to sent TNT into space.
An unenforced patent is a Great Thing. That the company is not enforcing it now means that they won't be able to do so in the future (once the precedent is set, there's no changing it).
And since it has been patented, no other company will be able to come forward and claim rights to it. In other words, other companies are protected.
Whether this should be patentable at all is another story...
I dunno... What do you wanna do?
Sending data to the satellite is also damn difficult. A grassblade size sat would need super accurate gyroscopes, to send data to earth, and given its tiny size, targeting and controling it would be damn near impossible
Since when do patents lead to state ownership of the means of production?
Anyway, here's one set of Top 10 Recent achievements in Nanoelectronics
And a set of Top 10 Hard Problems.
In recent years the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology has been awarded for experimental work as well as theoretical. Some people have been designing cool devices at the molecular level, other people have been building them, and they work. There's no reason to think progress of this sort will stop any time soon.
We may spend more time at work but I wouldn't say we spend more time working. For instance, consider time spent reading Slashdot!I play Nerd-Folk!
That is incorrect; an unenforced patent doesn't lose any power from the lack of enforcement. You're thinking of trademarks, perhaps?
If the major differences between trademarks, copyrights, and patents aren't already in the /. FAQ, they should be :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I was involved in developing code for a flash EEPROM-programmed device that was reprogrammable over the wire (i.e., downloadable software updates) about 12 years ago. Just like almost all these other software patents, the ideas are neither unique nor new.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
--
If they're not going to enforce the patent, then why get it? Isn't that the point for a commercial entity to get a patent, to protect their idea? Not that I think it's bad that they aren't, it means that people can write code that the patent covers without worrying some other corp will come by and smash them in legal battles, but what's the usefulness to a corporation for having a patent but not doing anything with it? Why not just not patent it in the first place?
Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
Did Norad ever announce an upper limit on what they could track? I realize you were joking, but still, if someone wanted to DDoS the US Military, this is how they would do it, right?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Maybe they just patented it to cover their ass? Make sure some other retarded company didn't come along and patent it then try to charge them for it?
Is Symantec perhaps preparing a defensive software patent warchest? This would allow them to counter-sue anybody launching a suit against them, a situation that could be dubbed MAUL (Mutually Assured Unprofitable Litigation), in other words "You mess with us, we'll mess with you so don't bother." Which I have to admit is certainly less objectionable than some the behaviour of other companies (above all BT's absurd URL patent threats).
Who cares if it would've been unpopular?! That's what business is all about. That's what capitalism is all about: getting a limited monopoly from the government (a patent) in order to restrict the trade of your competitors in reward for a brilliant insight or idea. That's what patents are for. They're not something you play with in kindergarten. They're not like shuffleboard or parchesi. They're important stuff.
Either you are +1 Funny (Sarcastic), or -1 Troll.
Surely your not proposing that 'profit motive' is the only important factor in life? Maybe we should eliminate patents all together just to give Capatalists a little shake up - the system is not working - and what you propose is *MORE* corporate-power-hording.
Suggestion to Symantec: Give your Patent to the FSF. Release the patent GPL.
My advice to you: Re-evaluate your priorities, you'll be dead soon.. and no one likes a greedy, selfish, myopic jackass... you cant *buy* wisdom, peace or contentment - re-adjust your life-goals.. help re-adjust the goals of your country.
*BUT* im thinking you mean that as +1 funny... i hope.
its a troll cos it has no relevance to the story.
Wasn't the story about iptables?
Isn't iptables the new kernel's replacement for the venerable (and fun!) ipchains?
Isn't it therefore relevent to state that there are alternatives to the new firewalling features in Linux, which may have other advantages?
I'm confused. Thrall me with your acumen.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Or you install OpenBSD and have a firewalling router with one line of configuration. ONE. I'm not kidding.
(Score:0, Troll)
Could someone please explain to me how that was a troll?
So, just because the post suggests that there might be something out there that is better for a specific task than Linux, it's a troll?
[sigh] Slashdot is rapidly degenerating into a demonstration of why the masses should not be allowed to vote.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
how is an unenforced patent such a great thing? this yields a great deal of uncertainty to anyone who may be infringing on their patent. there is nothing to keep symentec from changing their mind and enforcing the patent tomorrow.
Hopefully the Borgs didn't patent the Cube in space idea. I'd hate to have them come and claim there rights. Ernest.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
When you can manipulate the atom, there is no point having huge unwieldy craft several metres long - why not just build something the size of a blade of grass?
Because your grassblade starship won't have enough power to send a signal back to earth to report its findings.
This is the main factor that provides a final lower limit on the size/mass of space probes, be they in-system or interstellar. An in-system one that stays inside the orbit of Mars can get away with being big but light, as it can draw power from the sun. For the outer solar system or for deep space, it'll have to carry a radiothermal power source large enough to power a microwave beam that outshines background noise and instrument noise when seen from Earth.
The electronics for the transmitter aren't going to be small or light either.
Failure to enforce a patent does not result in the loss of a patent (take a look at the well discussed Unisys GIF patent of the even more slimy Rambus patents). If a trademark isn't vigorously defended, it can become diluted and therefore lose protection. A trademark exists for a word or form (such as the shape of an iMac, IIRC), while a patent is for an idea or implementation.
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
Note to self, withdraw bid for anthrax from EBAY and cancel the order for the micro-sat,
move to plan 2
MUhhahahah
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
For Example, there is this Story about the war of DirectTV against hackers. Direct TV for the past FOUR YEARS did incremental upgrades to their systems to try to stop hackers from stealing their signal. They finally inmplemented a gradually update program that convertly set up a complete system upgrade, sort of like a digital jigsaw puzzle, with the last piece shuffling and re-compiling the pieces, and locking the pirates out when they pulled the final trigger.
So in any case, just the idea of online upgrades before this little bit of coding is demonstrated prior art by DirectTV
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Or you install OpenBSD and have a firewalling router with one line of configuration. ONE. I'm not kidding.
Or you install a Windows NT and pull the network cable out and have a firewalling router with no lines of configuration. NONE. I'm not kidding.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
There seems to be many small projects going on of note that could use the support of many minds. The people should stop competing against each other (I am against the idea that competition spurs the advancement of technology) and these smaller teams should start working together. Better to have one succeed than all of them fail.
:-)
On that same note....
It would seem to me that NASA should open their arms to the brains of the world. A true international project, would be an opensource project, where all minds of can offer their guidence and help for free. Where getting more for your dollar seems to be something NASA is interested in, it would seem that they should look towards our community.
If the "Space Community (NASA...Smaller Projects)" start working together we might see real results a lot faster.
-Angreal
P.S. I just want to walk on the Moon before I die - a small vacation.
And looks set to remain so for the forseeable future. Despite a lot of hype generated by Drexler and his fellow zealots, nanotechnology is still a purely theoretical psuedo-science, supported solely by a few developments in molecular manipulation that in reality have little to do with Drexler's ideas of nanoassemblers.
Until an actual working model is proposed I have little time for nanotechnology and its grandiose claims. Every two-bit prophet has claimed that their creations will change the world, and yet they rarely do. Just look at the computer. For all the revolutionary talk about how it will free us from the burdens of work, now all we do is spend more time working, because computers have enabled us to do more!
Nanotech is not the answer to all our future problems. Hell for now it's not the answer to anyone's problems, except maybe Drexler's bank balance and a few labs hoping for Government funding. Maybe you should be looking for a more scientific solution?
I would guess that exploration of other star systems in the far off future will be performed by very small nanotechnological space vehicles.
When you can manipulate the atom, there is no point having huge unwieldy craft several metres long - why not just build something the size of a blade of grass?
With nanotech, it would still be enormously powerful.
--
Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
it scares me that they need to explicitly say 'no explosives', like there are a bunch of kids who wanted to sent TNT into space.
Along those lines, I've got a (formerly) solar calculator that has been running for over ten years continuously. Unless it breaks, I fully expect that it will continue to work long after I'm dead.
I painted its solar cell with the radium-based luminous paint that was used on clock and watch faces before it was discovered to be dangerous. It seems that the beta particles and low-energy gamma rays very well "illuminate" the solar cell.
You could easily power a D-I-Y microsatellite in this way, without having to have to engineer systems to deploy solar cells once in orbit.
Is that worse than the explosives?
Instead of using mechanical systems, motors or even explosives (ie. NASA loves exploding bolts - seriously) to deploy fragile solar cells by remote control, in orbit, all you'd need to do is make a nice little bundle of solar cells, coated in this paint, and packaged tightly to prevent damage. All of a sudden, for low-power satellites, you've got a viable power source.
I'm sure Cassini's controversial nuclear power source was a lot more refined, but it doesn't need to be complicated to work well.
As for the radium paint, look around antique shops, volunteer in the workshop of an aviation museum, etc. Old bottles of the paint occasionally turn up - just don't put them in your pockets, and make sure you've washed your hands after using them, and don't scrape the dried-on paint, because the dust is bad. Treat it like a lead-based paint, and you'll be quite safe.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Then I sit back and laugh while NORAD tries to track them boogers.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency