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Artificial Clouds To Cool Qatar World Cup Stadiums
An anonymous reader writes "In anticipation of extreme heat during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, scientists and engineers at Qatar University have developed a solar-powered gas-filled cloud that will shade spectators and athletes from the intense sun. The $500,000 artificial clouds can be positioned over any of the stadiums in Qatar and can be maneuvered with a remote control from the ground to keep the passing sun off the field."
Congratulations, Qatar, you have reinvented blimps!
Graf Zeppelin would be so proud.
It is nice that the world is so wealthy we can spend billions of dollars of extra money watching grown men kicking balls into nets. We truly have entered the Golden Age.
Wouldn't some drones/balloons carrying something opaque be easier to handle?
...the Emir will keep up his payments to the Spacing Guild for weather control.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9435035.stm
http://froyonation.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/qatar-invents-artificial-flying-clouds-to-block-sun-over-stadiums/
Isn't this something out of modern SciFi? Ringworld maybe?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
USA has had blimps flying over their stadiums for years.
I know it would be a question of retrofitting a stadium if not already equipped, but wouldn't a dome be much more flexible in its use? What if there is a strong wind, or rain? wouldn't that make the balloons unstable, whereas a dome would still work perfectly? With a dome, you could even have a massive HVAC unit to cool it down somewhat.
Dismissing the message because of the messenger is akin to racism, in which you dismiss the person because of the race. I don't like the Daily Mail any more than you do, but this particular article had no ZOMG FOREIGNERS content, so I didn't mind. Yeah, it squeezed two sentences of information into 10 paragraphs of text, but everything does that nowadays. Also, did you really need to tell all of Slashdot about your super Firefox extension? Don't want to read the Daily Mail? OK, don't read it in private. Bragging about it makes you look like a wanker, not an intellectual. (Man, who peed in my Cheerios this morning? I don't normally post bile like that...)
I don't like the Daily Mail any more than you do, but this particular article had no ZOMG FOREIGNERS content, so I didn't mind.
They can only cry wolf so many times before they well and truly deserve to be ignored.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
did China start a new trend of coming up with complicated schemes to avoid building roofs on buildings?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
I for one welcome our solar powered robotic cloud overlords ..........
da da da dum indeed.
I am Canadian, so maybe I just haven't been exposed enough to the Daily Mail to start properly hating it...
Quite the cloud computing infrastructure
What could possibly go wrong?
From mainframe to client-server to "cloud". From hat to roof to cloud too, it seems.
I am Canadian...
Is it terminal?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Would the Cloud be controlled from a cloud computer?
it fails and crashes like part of what happen it black Sunday.
any ways nice way to copy mr burns sun blocker idea.
What is the effect of such a cloud should something go wrong? I cannot help but wonder if perhaps it would be safer and more cost effective if they were to just put a roof over the stadium (could they not do it for half a million dollars)?
"Oh the humanit... Oh wait... There is actually nobody on the thing. Never mind. Back to you, James."
I just hope that by they we agree on how to pronounce it. Key-Tar? Kay-Tar? Ki-tar? Cutter?
It's getting close to what a SF.writer would call a weather machine.
better yet hand it over to Belgium, so they don't feel left out, when's the last time they had a colony of their own?
Well, there was the Belgian Congo. Lovely little place. The king of Belgium persuaded Europe that he should have personal control over it, and ran it as his own personal plantation for his own enrichment. If you couldnt fill your quota of rubber, you could bring in severed hands instead. Eventually people stopped trying to harvest rubber and just focused on hands. Best estimates are that roughly 20-50% of the population died during the king's control. Eventually Belgium had to force the king to cede control to the government of Belgium. So, yeah, I think that was one of the last times Belgium had a colony.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
.... is going to sue for an IP violation.
Have gnu, will travel.
When they spend the money, it often trickles down to others that actually need it quite a bit.
On the contrary, football creates a trickle up economy. Where do the million$ spent in all those contracts come from?
But that's not the worse part of it. Most of the best players today come from poor countries in Africa or Latin America. When kids see those stars on TV and hear about the millions they make it looks like a great career choice.
After wasting their childhood playing hooky in the backyard soccer field, they learn that only a player in a million gets millionaire contracts, and the others are left semi-illiterate with no marketable skills.
Too bad Discovery and NatGeo aren't available in free-to-air TV, while football games are. The kids who would profit most from those channels don't have cable at home.
I wonder what kind of perks/bribes FIFA got to place the Cup in a dessert. How about Death Valley next time?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
the 'clouds' are made from a lightweight carbon structure carrying a giant envelope of material containing helium gas
Looking into my crystal ball I can see this. I can also see an opportunity for them to use rows of lights on it for advertising... Wait, wait, I see, automotive, yes, tire companies doing this... (or there it'd probably be tyre companies...)
Artificial clouds, and next, the machines take over the plant... I see a pattern.
..in related news: giant remote control, artificial gas-filled cloud explodes - destroys stadium in Qatar...
I am open source, and Linux baby!
$500,000 ? Well then in 2022 they should be about $1.99 and available from the vendors along with the game program on the way in.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
You say tomatoe, I say tomato... you say cloud, I say dirigible. It's a bag full o' floaty gas with some props attached; I think the dictionary already has a good enough word for that, but you go ahead and spin "cloud" for all it's worth.
I'd argue that this is money... a simple pull over shade, with a gap and a bit of though to making it work like a chimney, would have been far cheaper...
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Why don't they just play in winter? We have such nice winter weather in this region!
The stadium's not going to exist in 2022, that whole part of the world's blowing itself of the face of the earth right now. Qatar is right in the Persian gulf, my family's in gold trading which is big in that area and it's only gotten worse and worse, Gaddafi is crazy but he's not rolling over like Saddam. He's sitting on the biggest oil reserve in Africa and he knows it, I'd be interested to know where he's still getting weapon's and money from since he's been cut off from a lot of his funds and the UN refuses to even supply the rebels fighting Gaddafi. Yemen isn't far and and their president who's been in power for 17 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has repeatedly backed Iran and is letting rebels and freedom fighters run wild, he's also done nothing to stem the flow of arm's trades through and around the area and is facing an uprising of his own. Iraq has never been the same since the US starting in but the US has spread themselves thin with another sustained war in Afghanistan against a religiously driven foreign enemy using their homeland advantage. Obama's administration promised an end to things in Iraq but is now involved in 3 wars, spreading things a little thin much? Abdurahman Mohammed Farole, President of Puntland, an autonomous state inside of Somalia is right in the horn of Africa is worried about the uprising in Yemen affecting the Somalian people as they have already seen 100 refugees come from there in the last week. Dubai has used this technology in the summer months to create fake rainstorms in summer of 2010, but as a bankrupt international hub for big business could it become a ghost town as the more no fly zones are implemented and a recent ban on blackberrys, perhaps smartphones in general. F1 has looked at creating fake rain for when they race in Abu Dhabi, UAE, being the trend in the area this could be implemented fairly easily but with the area affected by No fly zones already. May 1st marks 8 years since George Bush's invasion, taking that as a vague reference point 2022 is 11 years ahead, will this kind of extravagant sporting event even be possible or even heard of in this part of the world by then?
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
Am I the only one who's first thought was: could you actually make some kind of solar power generating device using a huge inflatable structure, maybe taking advantage of internal convection or something? That way you are creating shade at the same time you are generating power..
I think inflatable technology is the future..
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* Telecommunications (http://www.space.com/8973-1st-communication-satellite-giant-space-balloon-50-years.html)
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Another reason why Qatar should not have been selected for the 2022 World Cup host, the US already has the proper accommodations and the weather is much more temperate.
...in case they decide to keep the crowds cool with a little rain.
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Just don't have the World Cup in Qatar.
FIFA has no rules against playing World Cup matches in covered stadia. They just insist it be played on grass. In 1994 World Cup matches were played indoors inside the Pontiac Silverdome. They installed a natural grass surface for the duration of the 1994 World Cup - grew it outside on pallets and moved it inside for the games. The 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea and 2006 World Cup in Germany had games played in covered stadia, where the natural turf is mobile and is wheeled outside to grow in the sun and wheeled inside to play soccer indoors. Similar in concept to the new NFL stadium in Arizona. As long as it is played on natural grass FIFA does not mind. Frankly I don't know why Qatar just doesn't build covered stadia and grow the grass outside and move it inside during the tournament; it is a much simpler solution, already proven and unlikely to fail, and would allow everyone to enjoy air conditioning during the heat of the Qatar summer.
hiding the sun?
Live Electronic Music
They should invent something to discover who was bribed to vote for Qatar in first place.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
I do not know if you need to start learning geography or to stop trolling... probably both.
Why can't
If there's rain, you don't exactly need an artificial cloud...
Start learning geography? I'm a little fuzzy but i bet this event is moved by 2022.
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
Anyone who believes this is likely to also expect Qatar to win the Cup. Michael http://plumbersstlouis.us/
Somehow having a big solar powered flying bag seems less insane as growing grass palleting in a shitload of grass all the time. What does it cost for these places to bring live grass into a dome?
The Chinese are seeding the skies with rain, and in Qatar, we create and maneuver artificial clouds.. there's no weather modification technologies, nothing to see here - everyone move along.
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See http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/03/27/geek-news-the-simpsons-already-did-it-of-the-day/ for the original idea by Mr. Burns. :)
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