Slashdot Mirror
Automated Office Delivery with Helium Blimps
Blimp Dude writes "Anyone who likes blimps might want to check out this automated blimp delivery service built by some guy at HP Labs. I personally think this is the future... Now I want WebBlimp to deliver groceries directly to my 29th floor apartment window."
now we can go looking in trees for our paycheck
If you, like me, are tired of having to manually deliver documents or other items within your office building, and if your building has high ceilings, good lighting, and minimal air currents, then you will inevitably reach the same conclusion I have: An automatic helium blimp delivery service.
Okay Helium Jim Jones, whatever you say. Just don't send any Kool-Aid my way.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
For God's sake! The disasters this could cause! Remember the Hindenberg!!!!
sig not found
Wake me when they come up with a 'Lawn Dart' delivery system.
Now THAT would be useful.
All kidding aside, though, cute, but how useful would this be?
The opposite of progress is congress
the baloon should be filled with hydrogen and painted with highly flammable red paint. -eek
-- sigs suck --
Unfortunately The Pentagon turned off the GPS as the coffee destined for a buddy across the room passed over the bosses lap...
First victim claimed.
The movie is cool, but if everyone grabs it from the web server, I doubt it will last long, so please grab it from Freenet rather than getting them from the website. I have mirrored it here (install and run Freenet before clicking on the link):
Oh, the humanity! Post it notes are erupting in flames!
while i give kudos for having fun building something neat, this hardly seems that slashdot worthy. it can barely carry a postit note and the guy himself basically says its not usable.
again, i appreciate the try but the article itself wasnt any fun or insightful to read and the accomplishment wasnt too impressive. the most interesting part was using the red and blue to judge orientation and the size to judge distance. i thought that was neat, but not very practical of course.
i expected a somewhat usable system, maybe tweaks needed to the guidance systems. but it cant even carry a piece of paper...........
Its amazing the things we give up over time, and later decide we want.
I don't think I've ever been into a contemporary home with a dumb-waiter in it. And how about vacuum tube devlivery: totally relegated to banks (and Home Depot). Yeah, sure, email is taking everything over. But when you really need a signature on something, vacuum tubes rock. Installing vacuum tubes through my house, now that's the kinda large scale project that I want to wast my time on.
We set up a blimp with a webcam that trolled through the office on a set path (even had a little guide string across the ceiling). Nothing fancy or autonomous.
We scrapped it after the first week because of two major flaws:
1) It was annoying as hell. (*HUMMMMMMMMMM* *Feeling of eyes on the back of neck*)
2) Our customers started hitting our website to see if we were actually working. ("I don't know Bob, that sure looks like he's playing solitare to me...")
The second flaw eventually metamorphosed into a new plan involving a looped tape and 15 minutes of real work, which had to be scrapped as unbelievable.
Ahhhh, the glory days.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
can afford Helium. The big problem is that M$ patented helium blimp technology solutions. Using Hydrogen will avoid the patent disputes of course and therefore is the preferred solution.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Don't these guys watch monster garage? wimps!
Just kidding it's pretty and I liked the music.
No wait, now i'm just kidding :)
Liberty.
...useless innovation of the Dot Com era is dead. This is a REAL sign of a recovery.
We've had a blimp deliver items around the office for years now... His name's Robert, and he likes McDonalds a little bit too much.
If you, like me, are tired of having to manually deliver documents or other items within your office building, and if your building has high ceilings, good lighting, and minimal air currents, then you will inevitably reach the same conclusion I have: An automatic helium blimp delivery service.
;-P
nope. rfc 1149, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers"
same dependability as the blimp though: not very dependable.
so has this guy written the rfc for the intraoffice blimp protocol yet? no!? what kind of nerd does he think he is!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This one is full of helium, helium is a nobal gas and therefore does not burn. The Hindenburng (LZ-129) was full of hydrogen (although most of the burning that actually killed people was the frame and the cabin).
The hindenburg too was intended to be filled with helium, (hence its size increase over the Graf Zepplin, LZ-127). However the only country that had access to large enough quantities of helium was the US who fractionated it from natural gas (yes natural gas does contain helium). The united states forign department blocked the sale of the gas to Germany fearing it would be used in a military project. As a consiquence of the greater boyancy (hydrogen molecules are about half the mass of helium atoms) the zepplin was installed with extra rooms.
Ironically, the zepplin blew up in America as a result of the flammable hydrogen (although a helium blimp can still go up in flames), and as a consiquence all further exports on helium were authorised and the zepplin company put in an order for enough gas to fill the Graf Zepplin 2 (LZ-130) . However this had little affect on aviation because the zepplins wered decomissioned before the order was delivered.
Another more ironic thing is that the export of helium for a civilian aircraft was blocked, but IBM was still able to supply the punch card machines that orchestrated the haulocaust. But history is funny like that... go figure.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Several reasons why this isn't going to be a repeat of the Hindenburg:
1) the covering on the hindenburg was the source of the fire, not the hydrogen. The covering had material similar to ammonium nitrate and gunpowder, a disaster waiting to happen especially with the hydrogen on board.
2) these balloons use helium, not hydrogen. We banned He export to Germany so they used hydrogen to get off the ground.
3) the hindenburg was huge because of the sheer weight it had to compensate for. Kitchens, passengers, crew, cargo, etc. A 50-pound package doesn't need such a large balloon to lift it, so as long as it's within reason this could work out
4) our SchustenStaffel...er, department of homeland security wouldn't allow easily hijacked bags of explosive gas to run freely around. They'd be like a neon sign going "Untraceable Weapon Here! Fire and Forget! All evidence destroyed in the blast!!!"
5) finally, remember that the hindenburg was a target for sabotage, both because of the political ramifications of any positive relations between US and GER. If we'd remained neutral, France would be a German sycophant (ok, so not much changes there), Russia would be a slave country, and UK would be either a US fortress or a German satellite. Smaller helium-filled balloons like giant kiddie-party toys aren't so politically charged or easily destroyed, except my malicious little kids with BB guns and lax parents.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Check out this new electronic mail thing. we've started using around the office, and our blimp use is down like 80%, it's just a superior technology...
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
Massive tube systems, like the ones they use in the drive-thrus at banks, to send materials shooting through the building.
I've seen this implemented in some hospitals to move papers and stuff around, it would be cool to see on a larger office building size scale.
ME: "Leetle Buzzy Robot, give this to Ted in Accounting."
Leetle Buzzy Robot: "BEEE WWHOOP Bee BOOO"
ME: "Koo Koo Katchoo!"
Leetle Buzzy Robot: "ZZZZZzzzzzzzz......"
MOMENTS LATER...
TED, On Phone: "Uh, Dude? Why is there a Radio Shack monster truck banging into my wastebasket with a post-it-note that says 'Impotent' on it?"
ME: "I know nothing."
OK, so delivering a PostIt note is no biggy.
He's really solving a much more important problem - visual tracking and control of dumb vehicles. I like the red and blue idea, it is economical and fits the available technology. The advantage is that the vehicle does not know, or even need to know, where it is. What other contactless 3D positioning system could be built for a hundred bucks? This is great for expendable vehicles, or those with very limited payloads.
Neat, fun, slightly daft, project, in my opinion.
The problem is not actually the actual weight of the paper, its the weight of the paper relative to the power of the vertical motor/prop. The blimp itself might be capable of lifting 20g (thats grams, not gravities) of payload but if you actually balance the ballast with that much payload in mind then as soon as you take the payload off the blimp will immediately stick to the ceiling, unable to pull itself down. The limitation on variable payload is entirely in the capacity of the vertical thrust. You could, in theory, have a variable payload limit almost equal to the vertical thrust and then balance the ballast so that with no payload full down-thrust just barely descends, and with a full payload full up-thrust just barely lifts, but that would be EXTREMELY wasteful of power/fuel (yes, you can build a blimp this small that runs on fuel powered motors). So, in practice, your payload is limited to just under the vertical thrust, so with no payload you have neutral buoyancy and with full payload it takes almost full thrust to maintain a hover.
err, the "theory" part should have said "almost equal to DOUBLE the vertical thrust"
Yup. The airplane dope they used back then (to strengthen and waterproof the fabric) was pretty flamable itself.
And then if you coat it with powdered aluminum... Yikes.
The hubub about hydrogen is all kind of silly, really. Sure, it is explosive if well mixed with oxygen, so you need to be a little more careful. But it's not that dangerous. It is also not that much more efficient than helium, which isn't so expensive anymore. If helium makes you feel safer, so be it.
Explosions are not a danger but beware The Horror of Blimps
I'm afraid I'd have to decline to use any sort of blimp delivery system. Sorry.
You have not mirrored it on 127.0.0.1, I checked the link and nothing... I am so annoyed that I am going to set the slapper worm on the http server on that IP, yes 127.0.0.1 is going to die!
Why the heck is my system going mental? Why is my net slowing down? What's happening, is 127.0.0.1 counter attacking me? That does it I am going to DOS that server and see what it does to me! Right N.........
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
That's just a subset of the hurling things through a window - much better to wrap the letter around a block of ice (it melts you see, causing confusion and merriment) or a frozen lasagne (or dish of your choice) which becomes unfrozen (unless you throw it into a freezer, which would be odd) and thus causes the required hilarity.
Throwing a thawed, frozen lasagne is plain silly and should be avoided. In part because it's quite hard to tie a letter to a soggy lsasgne. Maybe if it's al dente you might get away with it...
I think I am off topic, sorry
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net