Slashback: Failure, Errors, Misery

Slashback tonight with bits on those things that go up coming down; those things meant to go up but which save the trip and just stay down; a nitpicking dissenter (kidding!) on the spelling and goodness of automated supervisory privileges for Canadian televisions; and a nostalgic look back at the ring-mice of yesteryear.

One day it will happen, just not yet. The launch of India's first GSLV anticipated on Slashdot a few days ago appears to have flopped. As Jon Erikson writes: "The launch of the GSLV-D1 has failed. The takeoff was successful, but shortly after its launch flames could be seen coming from the side of the rocket and the launch was aborted. As of yet there is no explaination. The story is here at BBC News." And fiscally-minded defence budget points to Rediff's story on same.

Correction, correction! The name of the country is not "Kanada," either. Jeremy Burman of Toronto's Myubi Search Technologies wrote in response to the recent post about Canadian broadcasters' V-Chip readiness, saying: "You posted a Canadian V-Chip piece to Slashdot earlier today but, unfortunately, the source both misspelled and got the CBC's name wrong. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is one of our country's greatest treasures; the institution of the V-Chip will allow parents more freedom in allowing their children to watch shows, giving the kids control of their TV time and helping them learn independence that much sooner."

The real Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are the ones to blame or praise for all this child liberation, not the devious Candadian Broadcast Company.

Why we used these back in the boiler room, a hundred years ago, and they were old-hat then, too! Isaac Grover of the SJSU College of Engineering writes of the head-tracking pointer system which made a recent appearance on these pages:

"This is *not* new technology. In my Win3.1 days I used a similar device by Spectrum (now Kantek/Spectrum at www.kantek-spectrum.com) called the RingMouse. It has since gone unsupported by Spectrum, but they are still out there and in use (google:RingMouse).

And surprisingly it is still superior to the capabilities of the Naturalpoint device in that it was three-dimensional in applications that supported it."

Wei muss Alles Be Immer About Mir?! Unlike Iridium, which has been pretending to have human owners ever since it gained sentience a few months back, Mir has bit the bullet, bought the farm, shuffled off this mortal coil (or rather back onto it), and is no more. Except possibly for some big titanium balls. (Every space collector's dream?)

Cryptacool writes: "http://www.mirreentry.com posted videos (finally) but it doesn't seem to be the footage from the planes rather captured from a video camera on the ground." Knave trickery, but just as well, since none are available in a Linux-friendly format right now :(

And slathering writes: "CNN.com reports that there are decent odds of bits of charred Mir washing up on the shores of pacific islands. The guy they interviewed thinks that the pieces would be worthless but I imagine they'd fetch a reasonable amount of money on eBay."

Now how much would you pay?

Comments

Re:how can control increase freedom and independen

[Surt]

Even better is thinking carefully about the connection between more tv watching and independence.

Correction on GSLV - Not flopped, not launched

[Chairboy]

The tidbit about the Indian GSLV is incorrect. The rocket did not actually launch. The GSLV launch vehicle has four strap on booster stages (liquid fueled) and a solid first stage. Typical launch profile is to ignite the liquid boosters 4.5 seconds before launch and run engines up to operating thrust. If they have met thrust levels within that time period, the solid propellent center stage (which cannot be extinguished) is ignited and the launch hold bolts released.

What happened w/ the GSLV is that their launch computer ignited the booster stages but one of them failed to reach operating thrust when it was supposed to, so it aborted the launch by shutting down those engines before the solid core was ignited.

The rocket did NOT take off, despite the overenthusiastic announcer who initially yelled 'Takeoff!'. The launch was properly aborted and safed by their computers (which operated exactly as designed) and the rocket (with payload) is intact and ready for future launch (once the engines on the booster stages are replaced or certified for use and the problem is fixed).

There was no flop, no crash, no nuthin.

Why stop at the V chip?

[Robber Baron]

Why doesn't somebody come up with something really useful like a chip that blocks those disgusting "feminine hygine" commercials from being shown on TV's belonging to single guys? Call it the "Y" chip. You'd have single guys buying them up like crazy!