From the standpoint of news broadcasting, this could be really big, though. Set up a/. type site with a moderation system, and let people submit their own footage of local news stories.
It's obvious that in order to truly make this work, a new client is needed. Doing things through bittorrent seems a little half-assed, and would leave out many of the important features crucial to success.
Here's how I envision it:
Start up a portal website where people can chat in forums, download needed software, read about the system, get help, receive RSS feeds of content, etc. Then write a client for the transfer of the actual video/audio clips. It could be based on the BitTorrent Network, or something else (encrypted, perhaps?). But it should include the following capabilities: - audio/video playback in a standardized format (obviously) - p2p connection and hosting capabilities - connection to portal site for RSS feed distribution (two-way communication) - moderation built in - perhaps an ad banner for portal site revenue
The way it would work is this: people visit the portal site to download the client (which in this case is also a server) and read the information about how they will be uploading as well as downloading, so please keep the client open, or run it as a daemon, or whatever. Once they have their client configured and their account set up, they can download the standard encoding tools for converting their content into whatever standard format the site requires. Then they tell their client software what content they would like to distribute-- the client would ask them lots of metadata information for archival/searching purposes on the portal site. The author is the first seed of the content, BitTorrent style. Each new piece of content would be moderated by lots of people after they view it, and this moderation information would be kept in a database on the portal site along with the clip's metadata. There should be several versions of the RSS feed, based on moderation threshholds.
I think the key here is the moderation. In order to filter out the noise (imagine the video spam possibilities!), reliable systems must be put in place to let the good stuff float to the top. I can see moderation points like: Informative, Accurate, Timely, Funny, Editorial, Spam, Inflammatory, Inconsequential, Redundant, and Biased. Since everyone is moderating every clip, at least at first until the user base grows large enough, weighting algorithms must be used to determine what score a clip gets (each clip will have hundreds of moderation points applied).
Also given all the junk that government sponsored space flight puts off, how are we to regulate these novelty flights in regards to jettisoning various bits of detrius? Or am I just being paranoid?
The major difference here is that the X-Prize designs were indended to be truly reusable vehicles. Big governmental rockets (shuttle included) are not really reusable: they're continually shedding all kinds of debris in their multiple stages. Rutan's design, and most of the others, focused on airplane-like operations: take off, land, refuel, go again. None of this nonsense about jettisoning booster rockets and strapping on disposable fuel tanks. Extending this into the future a bit, these types of airplane-like spacecraft will eventually achieve orbital velocities. Once that happens, the cost per pound to put something in orbit will suddenly be within the grasp of corporations who expect a return on their investment.
I read today on CNN that the X-Prize has all of a sudden evolved into an annual "grand prix" event with the next competition in the '05-'06 timeframe. There will be cash prizes for accomplishing various tasks including making the fastest trip,carrying the most passengers, etc.
It didn't evolve "all of a sudden." The X-Prize Cup (as the new competition is being called) has been in the planning stages for many years. Peter Diamandis & Co. have been accepting bids from cities all over the US to host the "Rocket Races." I believe the city that won is Las Cruces, New Mexico. The event was designed for all the current contenders for the X-Prize, as a way to prevent them from stopping work once the prize money has been awarded. Prizes will be given each year in many categories, most of which are designed to keep evolving the technologies and furthering private space ventures.
Being an aerospace propulsion research and design engineer myself, I was wondering if there were in any start-up projects envisioned to compete that could use some volunteer help, as I would see this as a neat sort of hobby to pass away my free time. Anyone here involved in an X-Prize project, or know of any that I might be able to seek out?
I'm an aerospace engineer as well, and have spent time talking with both Peter Diamandis and Gregg Maryniak, the two co-founders of the X-Prize. I'm not sure of the details, but if entering the X-Prize Cup is anything like entering the X-Prize, then all you need is a team name, a design concept, and a few grand as an entry fee. I think a good place to start looking to see if people need volunteers is the list of teams who were competing for the X-Prize.
Attending the September 29th launch in Mojave was one of the best aerospace engineering related events of my life. I, for one, plan on attending the XPC in Las Cruces as often as possible.
Their accounts do not come from the Weekly World News. They are not wearing tinfoil hats. They are very serious about it.
I have no doubt that these people are not nutcases. But most people, on hearing the term "UFO," automatically assume it means "Extraterrestrial Space Craft." I'm sure these people saw some thing they could not identify (hence the term "Unidentified Flying Object"). But just because they could not identify it and no one came forward with a full disclosure and blueprints does not mean that there is anything extraordinary, or even dangerous going on. I'm sure every single "craft" seen by these people was something highly ordinary and terrestrial, albeit classified. Yes, there are programs in existence from the 1950s that are still classified. But just because no one came forward and said, "Yes, that's our X-536 flying saucer program, developed to scare the bejeezus out of Russia," it doesn't mean these craft are automatically from another star.
Some of the junk could be thrown 'out the back' of the ISS to try and help maintain the station's orbit, but the effects would be minimal. Unless it's a really large amount of poo at very high speed.
Or I suppose the next Progress resupply could bring up a giant poo cannon...
I asked if the particular RCS thrusters used on the SS1 vehicle were developed for the Mercury capsules?
Of course not. Rutan and his team designed them, or he bought them off the shelf. (We don't know, since Rutan hasn't released that much information about his vehicles.) But Rutan's team didn't use the airfoil the Wright brothers designed, either. And they didn't use the rockets the Chinese designed hundreds of years ago, or the jet engines Whittle designed, or... I think you see where this is going.
NASA developed the concept of using rockets to maneuver a spacecraft in 3 dimensions in microgravity. There are other methods, but rockets are (currently) the best.
I'm all for the future you describe. But of the three major technologies you describe that changed our lives in the 20th c. -- the computer, the automobile, and the airliner -- two (the first and last) became as prominent as they did largely because of significant government investment.
Not true. The internet took off not because of DARPA, but because of large TelCom companies creating and maintaining the backbone, mostly as contracts to large corporations wanting their mainframes to communicate with each other. DARPA may have invented the technology, but it was the private investors who took the internet to prominence. Similarly, World Wars One and Two may have advanced some of the technology for airplanes, but all that advancement was done by private aerospace companies with government contracts -- and this was not done out of a sense of exploring the skies, it was done out of necessity. If we didn't, the enemy would. Additionally, it wasn't until Lindbergh's flight to Paris in 1927 that the public truly started flying in planes. His flight broke a psychological barrier and paved the way for commercial aviation. (Much like the X-Prize will for space.)
Private enterprise provides innovation, competition, and efficiency. Government provides money -- money which industry could supply, but won't until profits are closely in sight -- infrastructure, and long-term planning.
Private enterprise is simply looking for a return on their investment. With the current governmental space programs, they do not have that opportunity. Since the government controls the flights of these vehicles, it is prohibitively expensive for a private company to have space operations, and I don't forsee that changing in the next few decades. However, once private industries start designing their own space vehicles, other corporations can simply buy one and fly it, instead of having to design, build and test their own. Once again, it is not the government that is bringing about the move to prominence and economic viability. (They will, however, regulate it -- just as the FAA does for private aviation today. Regulation is just as necessary for space is it is for cars and planes.)
Neither is inherently superior to the other, and both work better in an environment of cooperation than in one of mutual ignorance.
I never mentioned that one is better than the other; I simply said that the government does not have the resources available to privatize space. Because of the constraints of being government-run (budgets depend on the current administration, a risk-averse public, constant threat of cancellation, public apathy), NASA will never be a commercial space venture. They will stick with exploring for exploring's sake, which is fantastic. But don't pretend that they brought about the space age. They blazed a few trails and won the Space Race, but they will not be the ones who get the human race into space.
Anti-government ideologues never seem to realize how much they sound like Marxists...
And why is it that anyone with an economic agenda is automatically anti-government? I never said anything of the sort. I have the utmost respect for what NASA accomplishes, in both manned and unmanned missions. I think they would be free to accomplish much, much more if the public wasn't afraid to kill an astronaut or two (we can discuss my feelings on the risk-averse American public later, if you like). But automatically dismissing this event as something "the government did first" (to quote the great-grandparent) is silly. If Burt Rutan had been trying to do this since the 60s and just now made it space, maybe. But he's only been working on this since the announcement of the X-Prize in 1996, he's been doing it for a fraction of what NASA did it for, he does not have access to any intercontinental ballistic missles like NASA did, and at the end of it he has a viable, sustainable business model for space tourism. Don't dismiss private industry so quickly. They must start small before they grow big.
Oh, and the RCS thrusters were developed by NASA for use in the Mercury capsules.
Do you have a reference for that? Note that the Russian manned spaceflight predated NASA, and had RCS as well. It's not like NASA invented RCS.
But they did. And Russia did, too. Independently of each other. Whoever did it first doesn't really matter in this case, since they BOTH did all the work required to develop the systems. They weren't exactly sharing information.
The time is right for cheap space travel, but it is only possible today because of the trail blazing efforts of NASA and the USSR.
Not to mention that what SpaceShipOne did pales in comparison to what NASA accomplishes (current shuttle troubles aside).
The Space Shuttle typically orbits at an altitude of anywhere between 200 and 350 miles, depending on its mission and payload. In order to maintain a constant distance from the earth in freefall (and therefore be considered to be in orbit) the shuttle must be traveling in excess of 17,000 mph horizontally. Contrast this with SpaceShipOne, which reached Mach 2.7 vertically on the way up (about 2000 mph), slowed to a stop at the top of its parabolic path, and then plunged back to earth, hitting a top speed of about Mach 3.3 (about 2500 mph). In terms of kinetic energy, achieving orbit is at least 50 times more difficult than achieving 368,000 feet (70 miles) at the top of a parabolic flight. Burt Rutan & Co. basically did the same thing Alan Shepard did on the first manned Mercury Flight in May of 1961 (although Shephard reached an altitude of 615,000 feet (about 116 miles), because he was strapped to the top of an intercontinental ballistic missle).
What NASA accomplishes is nothing short of remarkable, considering their timelines, budgets, and waning public support. Hopefully, the onset of these private commercial ventures will spur both the public and NASA to even greater accomplishments. Just like the competition from FedEx and UPS spurred the US Post Office into becoming the most efficient, best run government department in the country, so, too, will commercial space ventures force change within NASA. Now that the psycological barrier has been broken, it's only a matter of time.
[sigh] Everything private parties have so far done in space, the government did first. Look, I'm as enthusiastic about the prospect of being able to buy a ticket to the Moon for my 50th birthday as the next geek, but to say that the government is "keeping us from doing it right" when, in fact, the Rutan team built on decades of NASA experience is just absurd. As with most major enterprises, a combination of public and private efforts will get us much farther than either could on its own.
Walk before you crawl, padawan.
The difference is, this is a bottom-up approach to space travel, with much larger socio-economic implications. What's the incentive for the government to go to space? Exploration, a little research, mostly the "because it's there" argument. That doesn't generate much initiative. What's the incentive for a private company to ferry tourists to sub-orbit? $200,000. Each. As more people make the trip, the companies will get better at their craft, building more efficient, higher-performace vehicles. Pretty soon, people will be going to orbit for the same price they went to sub-orbit, and the price will be going down all the time. Cargo capacities will increase, and the cost-per-pound to high Earth orbit will decrease dramatically. At that point, it's economically viable for a large corporation to purchase vehicles that would allow them to grow near-perfect crystals in microgravity, for instance, to be used in optics or timepieces or jewelry. Hotels WILL be built in space. Industries will be born that we can't even imagine right now. Think about what the internet/home computing did as far as creating industries. No one in the 1960s would have even dreamed of the industries we have now. And most of it was due to a small company mass-producing a computer that fit on a table. Everything this private company did had already been done, by the government, and many other small companies followed suit. There were no computing advantages to making a computer fit on a table, since it was slower than the best room-sized computers of the day. There were only economic advantages.
The bottom line is that this is a window to getting thousands of people into space, and many more thousands working on ways to do it cheaply, efficiently, and safely. Once those pieces are in place, we will finally see the *real* space age. For a parallel, please research the rise of the desktop computer, the history of the automobile, and the entire airline industry.
In fact, I can't think of any technology on SS1 or WhiteKnight where the fundamental research was by NASA. Anyone?
I'll bet Melville's and Binnie's flight suits had some velcro on them, if only on the pockets.
Oh, and the RCS thrusters were developed by NASA for use in the Mercury capsules. In that case, the fundamental research was 3-dimensional dynamic control of a spacecraft in microgravity.
An I overly cynical, or have I just been spending too much time around stupid people?
Neither. Since most of the public gets their science news from non-science sources, such as CNN, and those sources are frequently wrong (mostly because the people doing the reporting have no idea what they're talking about: they're just reading copy), it's a wonder that anyone knows anything correct about science news. Remember when Columbia blew up and CNN was scrolling "Space Shuttle traveling 25 times the speed of light on reentry" across the bottom of the screen? Then, of course, when they changed it, it read, "Space Shuttle travelling at Mock 25 during reentry." Let's get someone with an engineering/science degree in the newsroom, shall we?
For some people it would be easier to explain that "a hacker [they wouldn't understand the 'cracker' distinction] put that headline on CNN's website" rather than a major news organization being wrong.
News organizations don't use the word "cracker" for good reason: it's a racial epithet for Caucasians, when referring to a person. If they were taking about buttery Nabisco products, or those wacky cardboard tubes used by the British at Christmas, people would know the difference. We geeks can say that "hackers" are benevolent until we're blue in the face, but all those Norton commercials talk about "hackers" breaking into a laptop sitting on a kitchen counter to nab credit card numbers. It's a lost cause. We may as well admit that "hackers" are criminals and come up with a *new* word for benevolent packet-sniffers. Like "software security consultant."
I think it went a little outside what the competition was trying to accomplish. I do admit that it is a great achievement, but what I'm referring to is that the prize was for $10 million. In such, I think they were hoping that someone would spend less than that to pull it off with a reusable craft. They obviously spent much more than that.
The point of the prize wasn't the money, and anyone competing will tell you that. There are much easier ways to make $10 million.
The point of the contest was to jumpstart an industry that was waiting in the wings, but just needed something like this to *ahem* get it off the ground. There is obviously a market for private space tourism: people are willing to pay large amounts of money for a short trip to sub-orbital space. An event like this is just the incentive aerosapce designers need to create working prototypes. Once the psychological barrier of "we can't build a rocket and go to space; only big governments have the funding to do that" is overcome, the rest will flow quite easily. Now that it has been done, inventment capital will start to materialize out of nowhere (like Space Adventures and Virgin) and the industry will start its long spiral upward to viability. The same thing happened to commercial flight: the event that changed the public's perception was Lindbergh's flight to Paris, where airplanes went from daredevils' toys to viable transportation. (By the way, Lindbergh was competing for the $25,000 Orteig Prize, which the X-Prize is modelled after. The general public doesn't remember the money after all these years: they remember the flight and its social implications.)
...I REALLY hate to point out that the place that had the most coverage, and the timeliest, was Fox News.
Fox News actually had quite a bit of coverage. They only cut away during the (fairly) boring hour when the White Knight was still ferrying SpaceShipOne to 50,000 feet. Once it got close to separation, Fox stayed with it until well after landing, interviewing Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7 astronaut), Peter Diamandis (X-Prize founder), Eric Anderson (President of Space Adventures), and George Whitesides (National Space Society Executive Director). Their footage of the flight was not first-hand (it had another logo in the corner, so it was being rebroadcast), but it was quite good.
Remember, MSNBC (and Newsweek, owned by them) were the ones who saw China become only the world's third spacefaring nation and say, "so what?" Even if we end up with "The World's Craziest Rocket Explosion Videos", at least Fox is looking spaceward, while the rest of the (national) media has their heads in the proverbial sand.
On a related note, local coverage was really good. I was at the first launch last Wednesday morning, volunteering in the parking lot. Approximately 3 hours after the local Tuesday evening news coverage in L.A., traffic got really heavy. Seems the news coverage was compelling enough to make people drive through the night to get to Mojave. Even if the talking heads don't care, America apparently does.
Imagine if when you bought a music CD you had to sign a contract saying you wouldn't allow anyone but yourself to hear any time you played it.
The Hypothetical:
Me: Hi. I'd like to purchase this CD. Clerk: Ok. That will be $14.50.
**money changes hands**
Clerk: Now, before you can take this home, the policy of this CD's publisher is that you sign a contract agreeing to their terms. Me: Ok, let me read the contract. Clerk: It's included with the liner notes.
**I open the CD and pull out the contract**
Contract: CDMusic Publishing, Inc. (hereafter referred to as the "licenser") licenses this music to be listened to by the buyer (hereafter referred to as the "licensee"). The licensee may not alter, copy, resell, give away, or otherwise do anything with this recording. The music belongs solely to the copyright holder, and the licensee waives all rights to listen to this music, except on a player manufactured by CDMusic Publishing, Inc., using headphones manufactured by CDMusic Publishing, Inc. at a volume that would not allow non-licensees to hear the music. All other use is prohibited by this contract. Sign: ____________________________ Initial: ________ Date: ___________
Me: I don't like this contract. It doesn't give me any Fair Use rights. I want my money back. Clerk: I'm sorry, sir. Store policy does not allow me to give refunds on opened CDs.
The uselessness of the EULA, seen with a different product, comes into sharp focus.
I don't think your local store has hundreds of thousands CDs. Usually, they stock only novelties and popular artists.
Of course, you can back order through them but then you will have to go twice to the store. Why not buy online then.
I do buy online: I purchase CDs at Amazon and BMG. I get physical media, the selection is HUGE, and if I time my purchases right, I can get discounted music and sometimes free shipping. I haven't set foot in a brick-and-mortar music store in ages. Once I have the CDs in hand, they get ripped to OGG format for listening while I'm working at my computer, or burning to mix albums. The physical CDs sit on a shelf and get rotated into the collection in my car.
I would MUCH prefer to have a physical copy of the music I purchased, without needing to purchase a "license" to create one, and being locked into proprietary software.
Has anyone had sex in space yet? The Russians and US have both been sending up women for awhile. I'm sure someone must have joined the 100 mile(or however high it is) club by now.
Actually, it would be the 200 Mile High Club (station orbits at about 350 km).
I highly doubt that the astronauts have. The only time it would be likely is during a long-term Space Station stay, since shuttle missions are too short. And considering the psychology of three people crammed into a tiny space for months at a time, I seriously doubt that anybody would be feeling particularly excited. Astronauts by nature are not very impulsive people (at least the ones we have now; not true for the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo crews) and would understand the impact of such an encounter on their ability to work together professionally.
Although, I think I feel a reality series coming on...
Coming this Fall to Fox: We took 8 people and stranded them 200 hundred miles above the ground. Watch as they struggle with life, love and the vaccuum of outer space on... SPACE STATION SURVIVOR. The losers get the airlock...
I have downloaded all four discs (the fourth is the Special Features disc that came with the laserdisc release) and they work beautifully. The creator included a couple of easter eggs which I found humorous, but unnecessary, and any moderately knowledgable DVD author can remove them before burning the DVDs.
In my zeal for a DVD version of the original films, I also found/designed case covers and DVD labels for the films. The DVD cases come in two flavors: one matching the "faces" scheme of the VHS release, and one matching the scheme of the prequel DVDs. I found the full Prequel scheme online. I found three (out of four) of the Faces scheme: I created a fourth to match, for the Special Features disc, and I added some images to the spines which would make the entire set look snappy sitting on a shelf. I also created four circular DVD labels with images from the films. If anyone is interested in these materials, email me for URLs. They are very large JPEG files (300dpi), and I hesitate to obliterate servers by posting them here.
I have previously purchased the collection on VHS, so I will lose no sleep over fears of piracy. And when (if) George finally comes to his senses and releases the originals on DVD, I will be first in line to buy them.
Furthermore, I seriously belive that Microsoft doesn't give a shit about power users pirating windows.
I think you're right. When a piece of software becomes so popular as to be ubiquitous, things like piracy and illegitimate use have to be taken into consideration as part of the whole. Consider Adobe PhotoShop: how difficult is it to pirate PhotoShop? It's insanely easy. They impliment a single product key, and never block out known pirated keys. Any shmoe could probably download and install an illegal copy of PhotoShop in a matter of minutes (download times aside). What does this mean for Adobe? It means every kid on a computer who wants to paste a picture of himself into an X-Wing cockpit is going to do it in PhotoShop. And when that kid leaves college and gets a job in a company manipulating graphics of some kind, he's going to list PhotoShop on his resume as a program he has experience in. So are thousands of his closest buddies, who also pirated PhotoShop as kids or in college to learn it. When your incoming workforce all knows one program, what program do you buy for the whole company? Right: PhotoShop. At $200 a workstation. Suddenly, viola!, Adobe has saturated the market with people knowledgable with their product, and perpetuated the sales of hundreds of thousands of licenses to graphics companies everywhere.
Is it any surprise that Microsoft hasn't really cracked down that hard on illegal copies of their office or development suites? The only place to run those suites is on Windows; Microsoft has to enforce purchases somewhere along the chain, and the OS seems as good a place as any, since everything else depends on it. Force people to purchase the OS in order to allow them access to the applications you are saturating the market with (via poor purchase enforcement), and you suddenly have a very profitable, Microsoft-centric world in which to sell your products to corporations.
Revenue lost to software piracy can be found in the Microsoft budget as a marketing expense.
Actually, I heard that the original masters of Star Wars (circa 1977) were used up due to the unprecedented demand. So it would actually be a huge job to clean up a second or even third generation, overused copy to transferit to DVD.
Even if this were true (and the other two masters would be circa 1981 and 1984), it still would not be hard. Consider this: the SE editions are already cleaned up and digitized. The original footage from the scenes that have been changed must also be digitized, since they needed to integrate the new SFX into those scenes, and thus they are already cleaned up.
So George takes the scenes that were unchanged from the originals to the SE and throws them on a DVD, along with the remastered original footage that archived at ILM somewhere from when they added more CGI. Then he takes the THXified SE soundtrack, modifies it slightly to take out the new music, and viola! the originals are ready for transfer to DVD. The whole process might take ILM a week.
Recipe for Star Wars Box Set Brilliance: - Take original and SE versions of Episodes IV, V and VI, and bake together on three discs (switchable through the menu). - Fold in the prequel discs once Episode III: Revenge of the Bad Title is available on DVD and stir. - Sprinkle 20 Clone Wars shorts on a disc. - Add four or five discs of special features (to taste). - Wrap each disc in a matching, sleekly designed plastic case. - Pour entire mixture into an elegant wood box. - Charge $200 for the whole set.
This is whats been lost... Mythological motifs? 30s and 40s feel? Tell me where that was in the new films, if you can. The grand tale of adventure is somehow lost in the inane squeals of Jar-jar and the rampant abuse of CGI. I'm sure I'll be burned at the stake for this, but Im getting sick of star wars.
You're not the only one who's sick of Star Wars. George himself is obviously sick of it; he has lost all respect for the SW universe and is merely using them as whiz-bang money-generating vehicles now.
Case in point: the first two movies (by which I mean A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) were good. Really, really good. They had elements of adventure, emotion, and a simple but elegant storyline. When he made these, George still had respect for the characters and stories. However, by the time Return of the Jedi came about, he was starting down the slippery slope toward silliness: the characters became much more one-dimensional, and the story became a way to move the audience from one action sequence to the next.
And, of course, once the prequels hit theaters, it became increasingly obvious that the movies were nothing more than ILM showreels. The addition of mitichlorians and the conspicuous absence of the fall of the Jedi order, among other things, proved that George is no longer in it for the movies. He is now in it for the money.
"Although your comment is sarcastic, I beleive you do have a point -- a tech savy criminal probably wouldn't bother with a 'pay' site. However, many criminals _aren't_ tech savy, at least as far as the internet goes. In addition, the P2P networks are all full of crappy corrupted copies; collecting full albums is problematic; and performance is questionable usually. Its much easier to just bulk-download from a reliable provider."
But my question is, "why would someone with a stolen credit card purchase digital music anyway?" It's not in the least bit profitable or even resellable. No, someone who steals a credit card would go buy something physical that s/he could then resell on eBay -- effectively laundering the money.
Slashdot Mirror
From the standpoint of news broadcasting, this could be really big, though. Set up a /. type site with a moderation system, and let people submit their own footage of local news stories.
It's obvious that in order to truly make this work, a new client is needed. Doing things through bittorrent seems a little half-assed, and would leave out many of the important features crucial to success.
Here's how I envision it:
Start up a portal website where people can chat in forums, download needed software, read about the system, get help, receive RSS feeds of content, etc. Then write a client for the transfer of the actual video/audio clips. It could be based on the BitTorrent Network, or something else (encrypted, perhaps?). But it should include the following capabilities:
- audio/video playback in a standardized format (obviously)
- p2p connection and hosting capabilities
- connection to portal site for RSS feed distribution (two-way communication)
- moderation built in
- perhaps an ad banner for portal site revenue
The way it would work is this: people visit the portal site to download the client (which in this case is also a server) and read the information about how they will be uploading as well as downloading, so please keep the client open, or run it as a daemon, or whatever. Once they have their client configured and their account set up, they can download the standard encoding tools for converting their content into whatever standard format the site requires. Then they tell their client software what content they would like to distribute-- the client would ask them lots of metadata information for archival/searching purposes on the portal site. The author is the first seed of the content, BitTorrent style. Each new piece of content would be moderated by lots of people after they view it, and this moderation information would be kept in a database on the portal site along with the clip's metadata. There should be several versions of the RSS feed, based on moderation threshholds.
I think the key here is the moderation. In order to filter out the noise (imagine the video spam possibilities!), reliable systems must be put in place to let the good stuff float to the top. I can see moderation points like: Informative, Accurate, Timely, Funny, Editorial, Spam, Inflammatory, Inconsequential, Redundant, and Biased. Since everyone is moderating every clip, at least at first until the user base grows large enough, weighting algorithms must be used to determine what score a clip gets (each clip will have hundreds of moderation points applied).
Thoughts?
Anyway, I presume that would be the next space prize.
It is the next space prize.
Also given all the junk that government sponsored space flight puts off, how are we to regulate these novelty flights in regards to jettisoning various bits of detrius? Or am I just being paranoid?
The major difference here is that the X-Prize designs were indended to be truly reusable vehicles. Big governmental rockets (shuttle included) are not really reusable: they're continually shedding all kinds of debris in their multiple stages. Rutan's design, and most of the others, focused on airplane-like operations: take off, land, refuel, go again. None of this nonsense about jettisoning booster rockets and strapping on disposable fuel tanks. Extending this into the future a bit, these types of airplane-like spacecraft will eventually achieve orbital velocities. Once that happens, the cost per pound to put something in orbit will suddenly be within the grasp of corporations who expect a return on their investment.
I read today on CNN that the X-Prize has all of a sudden evolved into an annual "grand prix" event with the next competition in the '05-'06 timeframe. There will be cash prizes for accomplishing various tasks including making the fastest trip,carrying the most passengers, etc.
It didn't evolve "all of a sudden." The X-Prize Cup (as the new competition is being called) has been in the planning stages for many years. Peter Diamandis & Co. have been accepting bids from cities all over the US to host the "Rocket Races." I believe the city that won is Las Cruces, New Mexico. The event was designed for all the current contenders for the X-Prize, as a way to prevent them from stopping work once the prize money has been awarded. Prizes will be given each year in many categories, most of which are designed to keep evolving the technologies and furthering private space ventures.
Being an aerospace propulsion research and design engineer myself, I was wondering if there were in any start-up projects envisioned to compete that could use some volunteer help, as I would see this as a neat sort of hobby to pass away my free time. Anyone here involved in an X-Prize project, or know of any that I might be able to seek out?
I'm an aerospace engineer as well, and have spent time talking with both Peter Diamandis and Gregg Maryniak, the two co-founders of the X-Prize. I'm not sure of the details, but if entering the X-Prize Cup is anything like entering the X-Prize, then all you need is a team name, a design concept, and a few grand as an entry fee. I think a good place to start looking to see if people need volunteers is the list of teams who were competing for the X-Prize.
Attending the September 29th launch in Mojave was one of the best aerospace engineering related events of my life. I, for one, plan on attending the XPC in Las Cruces as often as possible.
Their accounts do not come from the Weekly World News. They are not wearing tinfoil hats. They are very serious about it.
I have no doubt that these people are not nutcases. But most people, on hearing the term "UFO," automatically assume it means "Extraterrestrial Space Craft." I'm sure these people saw some thing they could not identify (hence the term "Unidentified Flying Object"). But just because they could not identify it and no one came forward with a full disclosure and blueprints does not mean that there is anything extraordinary, or even dangerous going on. I'm sure every single "craft" seen by these people was something highly ordinary and terrestrial, albeit classified. Yes, there are programs in existence from the 1950s that are still classified. But just because no one came forward and said, "Yes, that's our X-536 flying saucer program, developed to scare the bejeezus out of Russia," it doesn't mean these craft are automatically from another star.
Some of the junk could be thrown 'out the back' of the ISS to try and help maintain the station's orbit, but the effects would be minimal. Unless it's a really large amount of poo at very high speed.
Or I suppose the next Progress resupply could bring up a giant poo cannon...
Furthermore, the only way they can dispose of trash and human waste is by loading these items in Russian cargo ships that burn up in the atmosphere.
...come to think of it, that Taco Bell target was the same thing, wasn't it?
Let the flaming poo jokes commence.
Maybe RotoRooter could set up a target in the South Pacific...
**rimshot**
**crowd boos, throws things on stage**
A Weapon of Matter Destruction?
I asked if the particular RCS thrusters used on the SS1 vehicle were developed for the Mercury capsules?
... I think you see where this is going.
Of course not. Rutan and his team designed them, or he bought them off the shelf. (We don't know, since Rutan hasn't released that much information about his vehicles.) But Rutan's team didn't use the airfoil the Wright brothers designed, either. And they didn't use the rockets the Chinese designed hundreds of years ago, or the jet engines Whittle designed, or
NASA developed the concept of using rockets to maneuver a spacecraft in 3 dimensions in microgravity. There are other methods, but rockets are (currently) the best.
I'm all for the future you describe. But of the three major technologies you describe that changed our lives in the 20th c. -- the computer, the automobile, and the airliner -- two (the first and last) became as prominent as they did largely because of significant government investment.
...
Not true. The internet took off not because of DARPA, but because of large TelCom companies creating and maintaining the backbone, mostly as contracts to large corporations wanting their mainframes to communicate with each other. DARPA may have invented the technology, but it was the private investors who took the internet to prominence. Similarly, World Wars One and Two may have advanced some of the technology for airplanes, but all that advancement was done by private aerospace companies with government contracts -- and this was not done out of a sense of exploring the skies, it was done out of necessity. If we didn't, the enemy would. Additionally, it wasn't until Lindbergh's flight to Paris in 1927 that the public truly started flying in planes. His flight broke a psychological barrier and paved the way for commercial aviation. (Much like the X-Prize will for space.)
Private enterprise provides innovation, competition, and efficiency. Government provides money -- money which industry could supply, but won't until profits are closely in sight -- infrastructure, and long-term planning.
Private enterprise is simply looking for a return on their investment. With the current governmental space programs, they do not have that opportunity. Since the government controls the flights of these vehicles, it is prohibitively expensive for a private company to have space operations, and I don't forsee that changing in the next few decades. However, once private industries start designing their own space vehicles, other corporations can simply buy one and fly it, instead of having to design, build and test their own. Once again, it is not the government that is bringing about the move to prominence and economic viability. (They will, however, regulate it -- just as the FAA does for private aviation today. Regulation is just as necessary for space is it is for cars and planes.)
Neither is inherently superior to the other, and both work better in an environment of cooperation than in one of mutual ignorance.
I never mentioned that one is better than the other; I simply said that the government does not have the resources available to privatize space. Because of the constraints of being government-run (budgets depend on the current administration, a risk-averse public, constant threat of cancellation, public apathy), NASA will never be a commercial space venture. They will stick with exploring for exploring's sake, which is fantastic. But don't pretend that they brought about the space age. They blazed a few trails and won the Space Race, but they will not be the ones who get the human race into space.
Anti-government ideologues never seem to realize how much they sound like Marxists
And why is it that anyone with an economic agenda is automatically anti-government? I never said anything of the sort. I have the utmost respect for what NASA accomplishes, in both manned and unmanned missions. I think they would be free to accomplish much, much more if the public wasn't afraid to kill an astronaut or two (we can discuss my feelings on the risk-averse American public later, if you like). But automatically dismissing this event as something "the government did first" (to quote the great-grandparent) is silly. If Burt Rutan had been trying to do this since the 60s and just now made it space, maybe. But he's only been working on this since the announcement of the X-Prize in 1996, he's been doing it for a fraction of what NASA did it for, he does not have access to any intercontinental ballistic missles like NASA did, and at the end of it he has a viable, sustainable business model for space tourism. Don't dismiss private industry so quickly. They must start small before they grow big.
Oh, and the RCS thrusters were developed by NASA for use in the Mercury capsules.
Do you have a reference for that? Note that the Russian manned spaceflight predated NASA, and had RCS as well. It's not like NASA invented RCS.
But they did. And Russia did, too. Independently of each other. Whoever did it first doesn't really matter in this case, since they BOTH did all the work required to develop the systems. They weren't exactly sharing information.
My reference is here.
The time is right for cheap space travel, but it is only possible today because of the trail blazing efforts of NASA and the USSR.
Not to mention that what SpaceShipOne did pales in comparison to what NASA accomplishes (current shuttle troubles aside).
The Space Shuttle typically orbits at an altitude of anywhere between 200 and 350 miles, depending on its mission and payload. In order to maintain a constant distance from the earth in freefall (and therefore be considered to be in orbit) the shuttle must be traveling in excess of 17,000 mph horizontally. Contrast this with SpaceShipOne, which reached Mach 2.7 vertically on the way up (about 2000 mph), slowed to a stop at the top of its parabolic path, and then plunged back to earth, hitting a top speed of about Mach 3.3 (about 2500 mph). In terms of kinetic energy, achieving orbit is at least 50 times more difficult than achieving 368,000 feet (70 miles) at the top of a parabolic flight. Burt Rutan & Co. basically did the same thing Alan Shepard did on the first manned Mercury Flight in May of 1961 (although Shephard reached an altitude of 615,000 feet (about 116 miles), because he was strapped to the top of an intercontinental ballistic missle).
What NASA accomplishes is nothing short of remarkable, considering their timelines, budgets, and waning public support. Hopefully, the onset of these private commercial ventures will spur both the public and NASA to even greater accomplishments. Just like the competition from FedEx and UPS spurred the US Post Office into becoming the most efficient, best run government department in the country, so, too, will commercial space ventures force change within NASA. Now that the psycological barrier has been broken, it's only a matter of time.
[sigh] Everything private parties have so far done in space, the government did first. Look, I'm as enthusiastic about the prospect of being able to buy a ticket to the Moon for my 50th birthday as the next geek, but to say that the government is "keeping us from doing it right" when, in fact, the Rutan team built on decades of NASA experience is just absurd. As with most major enterprises, a combination of public and private efforts will get us much farther than either could on its own.
Walk before you crawl, padawan.
The difference is, this is a bottom-up approach to space travel, with much larger socio-economic implications. What's the incentive for the government to go to space? Exploration, a little research, mostly the "because it's there" argument. That doesn't generate much initiative. What's the incentive for a private company to ferry tourists to sub-orbit? $200,000. Each. As more people make the trip, the companies will get better at their craft, building more efficient, higher-performace vehicles. Pretty soon, people will be going to orbit for the same price they went to sub-orbit, and the price will be going down all the time. Cargo capacities will increase, and the cost-per-pound to high Earth orbit will decrease dramatically. At that point, it's economically viable for a large corporation to purchase vehicles that would allow them to grow near-perfect crystals in microgravity, for instance, to be used in optics or timepieces or jewelry. Hotels WILL be built in space. Industries will be born that we can't even imagine right now. Think about what the internet/home computing did as far as creating industries. No one in the 1960s would have even dreamed of the industries we have now. And most of it was due to a small company mass-producing a computer that fit on a table. Everything this private company did had already been done, by the government, and many other small companies followed suit. There were no computing advantages to making a computer fit on a table, since it was slower than the best room-sized computers of the day. There were only economic advantages.
The bottom line is that this is a window to getting thousands of people into space, and many more thousands working on ways to do it cheaply, efficiently, and safely. Once those pieces are in place, we will finally see the *real* space age. For a parallel, please research the rise of the desktop computer, the history of the automobile, and the entire airline industry.
In fact, I can't think of any technology on SS1 or WhiteKnight where the fundamental research was by NASA. Anyone?
I'll bet Melville's and Binnie's flight suits had some velcro on them, if only on the pockets.
Oh, and the RCS thrusters were developed by NASA for use in the Mercury capsules. In that case, the fundamental research was 3-dimensional dynamic control of a spacecraft in microgravity.
An I overly cynical, or have I just been spending too much time around stupid people?
Neither. Since most of the public gets their science news from non-science sources, such as CNN, and those sources are frequently wrong (mostly because the people doing the reporting have no idea what they're talking about: they're just reading copy), it's a wonder that anyone knows anything correct about science news. Remember when Columbia blew up and CNN was scrolling "Space Shuttle traveling 25 times the speed of light on reentry" across the bottom of the screen? Then, of course, when they changed it, it read, "Space Shuttle travelling at Mock 25 during reentry." Let's get someone with an engineering/science degree in the newsroom, shall we?
For some people it would be easier to explain that "a hacker [they wouldn't understand the 'cracker' distinction] put that headline on CNN's website" rather than a major news organization being wrong.
News organizations don't use the word "cracker" for good reason: it's a racial epithet for Caucasians, when referring to a person. If they were taking about buttery Nabisco products, or those wacky cardboard tubes used by the British at Christmas, people would know the difference. We geeks can say that "hackers" are benevolent until we're blue in the face, but all those Norton commercials talk about "hackers" breaking into a laptop sitting on a kitchen counter to nab credit card numbers. It's a lost cause. We may as well admit that "hackers" are criminals and come up with a *new* word for benevolent packet-sniffers. Like "software security consultant."
I think it went a little outside what the competition was trying to accomplish. I do admit that it is a great achievement, but what I'm referring to is that the prize was for $10 million. In such, I think they were hoping that someone would spend less than that to pull it off with a reusable craft. They obviously spent much more than that.
The point of the prize wasn't the money, and anyone competing will tell you that. There are much easier ways to make $10 million.
The point of the contest was to jumpstart an industry that was waiting in the wings, but just needed something like this to *ahem* get it off the ground. There is obviously a market for private space tourism: people are willing to pay large amounts of money for a short trip to sub-orbital space. An event like this is just the incentive aerosapce designers need to create working prototypes. Once the psychological barrier of "we can't build a rocket and go to space; only big governments have the funding to do that" is overcome, the rest will flow quite easily. Now that it has been done, inventment capital will start to materialize out of nowhere (like Space Adventures and Virgin) and the industry will start its long spiral upward to viability. The same thing happened to commercial flight: the event that changed the public's perception was Lindbergh's flight to Paris, where airplanes went from daredevils' toys to viable transportation. (By the way, Lindbergh was competing for the $25,000 Orteig Prize, which the X-Prize is modelled after. The general public doesn't remember the money after all these years: they remember the flight and its social implications.)
...I REALLY hate to point out that the place that had the most coverage, and the timeliest, was Fox News.
Fox News actually had quite a bit of coverage. They only cut away during the (fairly) boring hour when the White Knight was still ferrying SpaceShipOne to 50,000 feet. Once it got close to separation, Fox stayed with it until well after landing, interviewing Walter Cunningham (Apollo 7 astronaut), Peter Diamandis (X-Prize founder), Eric Anderson (President of Space Adventures), and George Whitesides (National Space Society Executive Director). Their footage of the flight was not first-hand (it had another logo in the corner, so it was being rebroadcast), but it was quite good.
Remember, MSNBC (and Newsweek, owned by them) were the ones who saw China become only the world's third spacefaring nation and say, "so what?" Even if we end up with "The World's Craziest Rocket Explosion Videos", at least Fox is looking spaceward, while the rest of the (national) media has their heads in the proverbial sand.
On a related note, local coverage was really good. I was at the first launch last Wednesday morning, volunteering in the parking lot. Approximately 3 hours after the local Tuesday evening news coverage in L.A., traffic got really heavy. Seems the news coverage was compelling enough to make people drive through the night to get to Mojave. Even if the talking heads don't care, America apparently does.
Imagine if when you bought a music CD you had to sign a contract saying you wouldn't allow anyone but yourself to hear any time you played it.
The Hypothetical:
Me: Hi. I'd like to purchase this CD.
Clerk: Ok. That will be $14.50.
**money changes hands**
Clerk: Now, before you can take this home, the policy of this CD's publisher is that you sign a contract agreeing to their terms.
Me: Ok, let me read the contract.
Clerk: It's included with the liner notes.
**I open the CD and pull out the contract**
Contract: CDMusic Publishing, Inc. (hereafter referred to as the "licenser") licenses this music to be listened to by the buyer (hereafter referred to as the "licensee"). The licensee may not alter, copy, resell, give away, or otherwise do anything with this recording. The music belongs solely to the copyright holder, and the licensee waives all rights to listen to this music, except on a player manufactured by CDMusic Publishing, Inc., using headphones manufactured by CDMusic Publishing, Inc. at a volume that would not allow non-licensees to hear the music. All other use is prohibited by this contract.
Sign: ____________________________
Initial: ________
Date: ___________
Me: I don't like this contract. It doesn't give me any Fair Use rights. I want my money back.
Clerk: I'm sorry, sir. Store policy does not allow me to give refunds on opened CDs.
The uselessness of the EULA, seen with a different product, comes into sharp focus.
I don't think your local store has hundreds of thousands CDs. Usually, they stock only novelties and popular artists.
Of course, you can back order through them but then you will have to go twice to the store. Why not buy online then.
I do buy online: I purchase CDs at Amazon and BMG. I get physical media, the selection is HUGE, and if I time my purchases right, I can get discounted music and sometimes free shipping. I haven't set foot in a brick-and-mortar music store in ages. Once I have the CDs in hand, they get ripped to OGG format for listening while I'm working at my computer, or burning to mix albums. The physical CDs sit on a shelf and get rotated into the collection in my car.
I would MUCH prefer to have a physical copy of the music I purchased, without needing to purchase a "license" to create one, and being locked into proprietary software.
Has anyone had sex in space yet? The Russians and US have both been sending up women for awhile. I'm sure someone must have joined the 100 mile(or however high it is) club by now.
Actually, it would be the 200 Mile High Club (station orbits at about 350 km).
I highly doubt that the astronauts have. The only time it would be likely is during a long-term Space Station stay, since shuttle missions are too short. And considering the psychology of three people crammed into a tiny space for months at a time, I seriously doubt that anybody would be feeling particularly excited. Astronauts by nature are not very impulsive people (at least the ones we have now; not true for the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo crews) and would understand the impact of such an encounter on their ability to work together professionally.
Although, I think I feel a reality series coming on...
Coming this Fall to Fox:
We took 8 people and stranded them 200 hundred miles above the ground. Watch as they struggle with life, love and the vaccuum of outer space on...
SPACE STATION SURVIVOR.
The losers get the airlock...
I have downloaded all four discs (the fourth is the Special Features disc that came with the laserdisc release) and they work beautifully. The creator included a couple of easter eggs which I found humorous, but unnecessary, and any moderately knowledgable DVD author can remove them before burning the DVDs.
In my zeal for a DVD version of the original films, I also found/designed case covers and DVD labels for the films. The DVD cases come in two flavors: one matching the "faces" scheme of the VHS release, and one matching the scheme of the prequel DVDs. I found the full Prequel scheme online. I found three (out of four) of the Faces scheme: I created a fourth to match, for the Special Features disc, and I added some images to the spines which would make the entire set look snappy sitting on a shelf. I also created four circular DVD labels with images from the films. If anyone is interested in these materials, email me for URLs. They are very large JPEG files (300dpi), and I hesitate to obliterate servers by posting them here.
I have previously purchased the collection on VHS, so I will lose no sleep over fears of piracy. And when (if) George finally comes to his senses and releases the originals on DVD, I will be first in line to buy them.
Furthermore, I seriously belive that Microsoft doesn't give a shit about power users pirating windows.
I think you're right. When a piece of software becomes so popular as to be ubiquitous, things like piracy and illegitimate use have to be taken into consideration as part of the whole. Consider Adobe PhotoShop: how difficult is it to pirate PhotoShop? It's insanely easy. They impliment a single product key, and never block out known pirated keys. Any shmoe could probably download and install an illegal copy of PhotoShop in a matter of minutes (download times aside). What does this mean for Adobe? It means every kid on a computer who wants to paste a picture of himself into an X-Wing cockpit is going to do it in PhotoShop. And when that kid leaves college and gets a job in a company manipulating graphics of some kind, he's going to list PhotoShop on his resume as a program he has experience in. So are thousands of his closest buddies, who also pirated PhotoShop as kids or in college to learn it. When your incoming workforce all knows one program, what program do you buy for the whole company? Right: PhotoShop. At $200 a workstation. Suddenly, viola!, Adobe has saturated the market with people knowledgable with their product, and perpetuated the sales of hundreds of thousands of licenses to graphics companies everywhere.
Is it any surprise that Microsoft hasn't really cracked down that hard on illegal copies of their office or development suites? The only place to run those suites is on Windows; Microsoft has to enforce purchases somewhere along the chain, and the OS seems as good a place as any, since everything else depends on it. Force people to purchase the OS in order to allow them access to the applications you are saturating the market with (via poor purchase enforcement), and you suddenly have a very profitable, Microsoft-centric world in which to sell your products to corporations.
Revenue lost to software piracy can be found in the Microsoft budget as a marketing expense.
Actually, I heard that the original masters of Star Wars (circa 1977) were used up due to the unprecedented demand. So it would actually be a huge job to clean up a second or even third generation, overused copy to transferit to DVD.
Even if this were true (and the other two masters would be circa 1981 and 1984), it still would not be hard. Consider this: the SE editions are already cleaned up and digitized. The original footage from the scenes that have been changed must also be digitized, since they needed to integrate the new SFX into those scenes, and thus they are already cleaned up.
So George takes the scenes that were unchanged from the originals to the SE and throws them on a DVD, along with the remastered original footage that archived at ILM somewhere from when they added more CGI. Then he takes the THXified SE soundtrack, modifies it slightly to take out the new music, and viola! the originals are ready for transfer to DVD. The whole process might take ILM a week.
Recipe for Star Wars Box Set Brilliance:
- Take original and SE versions of Episodes IV, V and VI, and bake together on three discs (switchable through the menu).
- Fold in the prequel discs once Episode III: Revenge of the Bad Title is available on DVD and stir.
- Sprinkle 20 Clone Wars shorts on a disc.
- Add four or five discs of special features (to taste).
- Wrap each disc in a matching, sleekly designed plastic case.
- Pour entire mixture into an elegant wood box.
- Charge $200 for the whole set.
This is whats been lost... Mythological motifs? 30s and 40s feel? Tell me where that was in the new films, if you can. The grand tale of adventure is somehow lost in the inane squeals of Jar-jar and the rampant abuse of CGI. I'm sure I'll be burned at the stake for this, but Im getting sick of star wars.
You're not the only one who's sick of Star Wars. George himself is obviously sick of it; he has lost all respect for the SW universe and is merely using them as whiz-bang money-generating vehicles now.
Case in point: the first two movies (by which I mean A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) were good. Really, really good. They had elements of adventure, emotion, and a simple but elegant storyline. When he made these, George still had respect for the characters and stories. However, by the time Return of the Jedi came about, he was starting down the slippery slope toward silliness: the characters became much more one-dimensional, and the story became a way to move the audience from one action sequence to the next.
And, of course, once the prequels hit theaters, it became increasingly obvious that the movies were nothing more than ILM showreels. The addition of mitichlorians and the conspicuous absence of the fall of the Jedi order, among other things, proved that George is no longer in it for the movies. He is now in it for the money.
"Although your comment is sarcastic, I beleive you do have a point -- a tech savy criminal probably wouldn't bother with a 'pay' site. However, many criminals _aren't_ tech savy, at least as far as the internet goes. In addition, the P2P networks are all full of crappy corrupted copies; collecting full albums is problematic; and performance is questionable usually. Its much easier to just bulk-download from a reliable provider."
But my question is, "why would someone with a stolen credit card purchase digital music anyway?" It's not in the least bit profitable or even resellable. No, someone who steals a credit card would go buy something physical that s/he could then resell on eBay -- effectively laundering the money.