Being in low orbit, it will definitely drift downwards quite quickly due to atmospheric drag (you need lots of fuel and manoeuvres to maintain low earth orbiting sats [LEO], contrary to the geostationary ones that OTOH "never fall"). The issue here is rather that it'll piss off other users, that sometimes will be obliged to perform collision avoidance manoeuvres based on the (well-known) orbital parameters permanently updated by NORAD et al.* On each modern LEO sat there has been a fuel provision for this, for years, so even this isn't a great deal. It's just another burden for the ground control centres**... The only critical thing I see is what'll happen if the NK sat contains heavy and compact elements that may reach the ground while all the rest just burns.
(*) When a dead russian sat killed a Globalstar two years ago, it was the accounting for this warning info that had misfunctioned
(**) and even, I already see the guys coming back home: 'you know what? last night I had to perform a special manoeuvre to avoid the Mad Norrrrth Korrrean Satellite! Aren't you proud of your mate!'
... FDN here is an ISP for more than 10 years now, non-profit, and I believe the only one that does not restrict you from re-providing your access, via wifi for instance, to other people "in the street".
All others ISPs in the country have definitive restrictions, which oblige for instance all hotels and campings to apply for specific different contracts (which, guess what, are much more costly)
FDN has the curious intent to demultiplicate themselves into smaller, regional ISPs rather than "getting more customers nationwide". Clearly they believe this to be more robust, but I'm not really convinced. I for one am still a customer of the earliest, Paris-based instance, while living 500 Km southwards...
ISPs like FDN are IMHO the only way to plug an open wifi network and stash the antenna on your balcony, legally, at the time being here.
"Where you might run into problems is if you were unwise enough to build a few cities in desert areas and then attempt to irrigate them from faraway sources."
Everyone knows that by using polarized light (with polarizers that must cost, say, €/$20 including all-weather ruggedization) and ordinary (cross-) polarized sunglasses, you can almost clearly see in the thickest of fogs.
This, is patented. A dozen times at least, in almost every country.
So, nobody develops it.
You still can build one device for yourself, by hand, if you wish. Nothing more.
"Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart like 'an electronic pericardium' to correct irregularities such as arrhythmia."
Ok, once in place, I agree this is less intrusive than nowaday's pacemakers. And potentially more precise than their single electrode pair.
But if in order to get there you have to actually reach the heart to wrap them around, this, is catastrophically intrusive. This alone would be a no-go compared to the current pacemaker installation (through veins, basically a benign operation)
Like in many articles today, the idea and design are great, but authors feel compelled to add in the end a dreamy and ridiculous future application that basically spoils the paper. I still think the affair is good. But now I also think the author is not really serious.
Your last sentence really hit me. Too bad you're AC.
Indeed, left and right alike, US and Europe alike, nowadays I find our governments have a terrible trend to consider any job equivalent to any other one.
Just hours ago here in Europe the French gov.t considers renouncing taxing Amazon.com, because OK they overtly cheat on offshored benefits, but in compensation they promiss "creating hundreds of jobs" by... relocating here a dispatch centre.
France destiny is now in parcel dispatching, and certainly the disemployment will disappear very soon due to this. Due to this, our country capability to get helpful for you will certainly increase.
We never should allow people talk outside their area of competence. This guy Mohanty indeed seems wise and an inventor at microcell manipulations, but from there to say it will "rotate the mirror motors in Sun reflectors for deep space travel"...
First, in "deep space" you don't have Sun, sir. We already hadn't when going to Saturn, for instance. So you'd better call it *close* interplanetary travel, rather. Second, using solar pressure to actuate, and even rotate things, has already been demoed in all science fairs for 50 years, and as concerns space applications, well there may be 250 patents pendings on this. I think I even applied for one myself, years ago, with a specific mirror dispatcher.
So, well, I think we have to presume the end sentence was just added to flash in the/. summary. At the cost of seriousness.
I don't see why the parent is modded troll. In my company, there is a patent committee where you submit your ideas, and the result is,
- either they take it (it is then patented by you and the company, with the law imposing "a just remuneration" of it, related to what money will be raised)
- or they judge it useless to the company, and you are then free to patent it on your own (and at your own expenses).
I for one did both, and many times (ehh yes, I'm not young). As concern the "just remuneration", most people prefer negotiating a fix and standard amount, whatever the later use is. Here it's a couple of thousands € when the patent is applied for, and a second, lower amount when it is accepted in the end.
Just seems to be normal work, seen from here in Europe...
Spending three years, and from a real anthropologist, means she actually knows *more* about the hackers than any individual one in the group. Anyone insulting here only shows ignorance of what her profession is*. She may be a poor writer after that (I didn't read her work), she may be stupid, she may not vote my side, she may believe hideous things -but definitely: part of her job, after three years of full-time work, she just knows more than you and me. And than any single individual here not having devoted *years* professionally to the topic.
H. (*) Sorry Cowboy, you can foe me now -- you also can check you're part of my friends, for years...
indeed, in space technology, you definitely use cleanrooms everyday, class 10,000 or more for 'ordinary' telecom satellites, but as low as class 100 for everything optics (military or civilian). And I can tell you, class 100, it's something. In my factory we have a variable-class optics integration room, hundred metres sized, where a constant laminar airflow going from left to right actually separates one class-100 end, on one side, from the other end which stays 10,000 -a nice trick that allows you designer to enter the room without turning into a cosmonaut, and quietly discuss the instrument integration details with the actual cosmonaut, almost face to face, just separated by 15m of (clean) air...
I agree with 99% of the above post, and also with the fact it's novelty alone that makes it standout (and that universal healthcare is better than spending the same amount on a single person however pathetic his story).
Still, outside becoming famous Iaconesi got something he would never have reached without his initiative : he raised the attention of various, famous physicians.
Basically, he's about to obtain a cure "à la Steve Jobs" without the money.
In my early years I did a bit of basic motorcar repairing. Nothing ambitious. One obvious issue for all, was that whenever a watercooled motor got a leak between oil and water, the result was *mayonnaise*, a compound of oil and water which DEFINITELY won't separate "on their own" --just try it: get a mayonnaise cup, and watch it separating;-) At that time basically the motor was dead. Now, I understand there may be ways to try separating. Maybe.
Long, long ago when I was young, I used to read adventure tales. All those that happened at sea had the mandatory storm scene of course -- and each time, classically, the pirate captain (or whatever novel hero) suddenly decided to drop oil on the terrible sea, which by this way turned way cooler.
Mind you, I even tried this myself!
Now, of course, you need, and will waste, oil. I understand it's not fashion nowadays...
There has been an app named "What'sUp" on the Blackberry Playbook tablets for more than one year that shows this and far more, allowing you for instance to point the tablet to the sky and show exactly which stars are in that direction at this time.
It's a classical example of using all the sensors (GPS, gravity and magnetic).
As far as I remember, nobody kneeled at the time.
Ah yes, it was not GOOGLE-branded. Sorry, mod me flamebait, quick, before thinking.
Sure, nuclear power plants (and their future dislocation) are and will be zero-carbon, compared to the part of my roof that's covered with cells. How is parent modded interesting, that's 'funny' you should have clicked!
and still does it btw, they managed to survive all this time;-) iCab, the most unknown browser in the whole universe -but they invented ad-filtering, 10 years before Mozilla was even born.
I think what's important indeed now is the behavior of tablet browsers. I've seen an interesting discussion on SimpleBrowser, again a very minor one (on Blackberry Playbook, mind you!) that definitely turned around this thematics...
epy-T-R I fully, absolutely agree with your analysis. My concern anyhow is that people are definitely migrating to this system, both end-users and developers altogether. I fear, but definitely expect, we'll see very soon a world with unattended fossil apps on PCs Macs and linux boxes, and then walled-garden-tablets for the 90%.
Which brings my next question: how to react, now? What to do?
On my side, a couple of years ago I bought a tiny linux-driven laptop; I wasted quite a time to reach a workable state, and then when it was stolen and I looked for replacement, I discovered Microsoft had lowered its windows rate enought that absolutely nothing was left with Linux by default on it. That was also the time of the tablets. Fearful of walled gardens, I waited one more year, expecting THE linux tablet. Nothing, nowhere. Three months ago, I bought a Blackberry Playbook: at least, not surrending the duopoly. Playbook is reasonable, basically I rebuilt all of my processes (save spam-filter in mail, but for instance there indeed is an ad-filtering browser, I indeed can work M$-documents on it, including external slideshows...) The craziest issue remains lack of root access: things as simple as a backup become nightmares.
I still wait for the future linux tablet, if one comes. I'll be first in the line. But what else?
Also it's not like that it was the sudden first quake in 100 years: the scientists were there precisely to comment upon a sudden series of "preparatory" quakes that just had happened in the previous weeks... So basically they said, "no, those quakes are not announcing a bigger one, just follow the quake-resisting buildings construction rules in the coming years." Not that they *could* have predicted really, but clearly that's the kind of sentence that shocks both victims and opinion...
FWIW, this very evening an italian court condemned six scientists that had concluded 'no risk' in a meeting in the italian town l'Aquila just the day before an earthquake there killed 300 and wounded 1000's.
Bad luck maybe, but jailed for six years.
This M. Jean-Philippe Avouac is a good whistleblower...
Indeed, this is the kind of fact that that is at the same time disclosed and unknown, or maybe we don't want to know, or then it's buried in the many and silly non-informations in the Ecology area.
Emptying regional aquifers to raise cherries one month before the other European countries has been a national sport in Spain for dozens of years. And this clearly results in documented papers which show all the other cultures (orchards...) had to be progressively abandoned, in favor of less and less demanding crops.
I remember one guy listing the successive crops his region switched to, by order of increasing robustness vs drought. It seems the only next step now is desert-resistant varieties. One can imagine how food capacity follows the track.
Why this kind of paper albeit true doesn't make news headlines is a mystery for me. Maybe there are too many others. Maybe nobody is interested in knowing which crops are raised in this remote area. Maybe there are more flashy e-co-lo-gi-cal news, that leave you think one can solve it all by taking quick a decision now. Spain depleted aquifers for 50 years is an issue nobody can quickly solve now, we only can decide to change during the next 50 years. And 50 years is no interesting horizon to politicians, and maybe to many of us...
Slashdot Mirror
Being in low orbit, it will definitely drift downwards quite quickly due to atmospheric drag (you need lots of fuel and manoeuvres to maintain low earth orbiting sats [LEO], contrary to the geostationary ones that OTOH "never fall").
The issue here is rather that it'll piss off other users, that sometimes will be obliged to perform collision avoidance manoeuvres based on the (well-known) orbital parameters permanently updated by NORAD et al.*
On each modern LEO sat there has been a fuel provision for this, for years, so even this isn't a great deal. It's just another burden for the ground control centres**...
The only critical thing I see is what'll happen if the NK sat contains heavy and compact elements that may reach the ground while all the rest just burns.
(*) When a dead russian sat killed a Globalstar two years ago, it was the accounting for this warning info that had misfunctioned
(**) and even, I already see the guys coming back home: 'you know what? last night I had to perform a special manoeuvre to avoid the Mad Norrrrth Korrrean Satellite! Aren't you proud of your mate!'
... FDN here is an ISP for more than 10 years now, non-profit, and I believe the only one that does not restrict you from re-providing your access, via wifi for instance, to other people "in the street".
All others ISPs in the country have definitive restrictions, which oblige for instance all hotels and campings to apply for specific different contracts (which, guess what, are much more costly)
FDN has the curious intent to demultiplicate themselves into smaller, regional ISPs rather than "getting more customers nationwide". Clearly they believe this to be more robust, but I'm not really convinced. I for one am still a customer of the earliest, Paris-based instance, while living 500 Km southwards ...
ISPs like FDN are IMHO the only way to plug an open wifi network and stash the antenna on your balcony, legally, at the time being here.
"Where you might run into problems is if you were unwise enough to build a few cities in desert areas and then attempt to irrigate them from faraway sources."
Like, say, Los Angeles?
Everyone knows that by using polarized light (with polarizers that must cost, say, €/$20 including all-weather ruggedization) and ordinary (cross-) polarized sunglasses, you can almost clearly see in the thickest of fogs.
This, is patented. A dozen times at least, in almost every country.
So, nobody develops it.
You still can build one device for yourself, by hand, if you wish. Nothing more.
Meanwhile, people die, daily, in the fog.
"Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart like 'an electronic pericardium' to correct irregularities such as arrhythmia."
Ok, once in place, I agree this is less intrusive than nowaday's pacemakers. And potentially more precise than their single electrode pair.
But if in order to get there you have to actually reach the heart to wrap them around, this, is catastrophically intrusive. This alone would be a no-go compared to the current pacemaker installation (through veins, basically a benign operation)
Like in many articles today, the idea and design are great, but authors feel compelled to add in the end a dreamy and ridiculous future application that basically spoils the paper.
I still think the affair is good. But now I also think the author is not really serious.
Your last sentence really hit me. Too bad you're AC.
Indeed, left and right alike, US and Europe alike, nowadays I find our governments have a terrible trend to consider any job equivalent to any other one.
Just hours ago here in Europe the French gov.t considers renouncing taxing Amazon.com, because OK they overtly cheat on offshored benefits, but in compensation they promiss "creating hundreds of jobs" by... relocating here a dispatch centre.
France destiny is now in parcel dispatching, and certainly the disemployment will disappear very soon due to this. Due to this, our country capability to get helpful for you will certainly increase.
To borrow your expression: Yeah, yeah yeah...
We never should allow people talk outside their area of competence. This guy Mohanty indeed seems wise and an inventor at microcell manipulations, but from there to say it will "rotate the mirror motors in Sun reflectors for deep space travel"...
First, in "deep space" you don't have Sun, sir. We already hadn't when going to Saturn, for instance. So you'd better call it *close* interplanetary travel, rather.
Second, using solar pressure to actuate, and even rotate things, has already been demoed in all science fairs for 50 years, and as concerns space applications, well there may be 250 patents pendings on this. I think I even applied for one myself, years ago, with a specific mirror dispatcher.
So, well, I think we have to presume the end sentence was just added to flash in the /. summary. At the cost of seriousness.
I don't see why the parent is modded troll. In my company, there is a patent committee where you submit your ideas, and the result is,
- either they take it (it is then patented by you and the company, with the law imposing "a just remuneration" of it, related to what money will be raised)
- or they judge it useless to the company, and you are then free to patent it on your own (and at your own expenses).
I for one did both, and many times (ehh yes, I'm not young). As concern the "just remuneration", most people prefer negotiating a fix and standard amount, whatever the later use is. Here it's a couple of thousands € when the patent is applied for, and a second, lower amount when it is accepted in the end.
Just seems to be normal work, seen from here in Europe...
Spending three years, and from a real anthropologist, means she actually knows *more* about the hackers than any individual one in the group.
Anyone insulting here only shows ignorance of what her profession is*.
She may be a poor writer after that (I didn't read her work), she may be stupid, she may not vote my side, she may believe hideous things -but definitely: part of her job, after three years of full-time work, she just knows more than you and me. And than any single individual here not having devoted *years* professionally to the topic.
H.
(*) Sorry Cowboy, you can foe me now -- you also can check you're part of my friends, for years...
indeed, in space technology, you definitely use cleanrooms everyday, class 10,000 or more for 'ordinary' telecom satellites, but as low as class 100 for everything optics (military or civilian).
And I can tell you, class 100, it's something.
In my factory we have a variable-class optics integration room, hundred metres sized, where a constant laminar airflow going from left to right actually separates one class-100 end, on one side, from the other end which stays 10,000 -a nice trick that allows you designer to enter the room without turning into a cosmonaut, and quietly discuss the instrument integration details with the actual cosmonaut, almost face to face, just separated by 15m of (clean) air...
I agree with 99% of the above post, and also with the fact it's novelty alone that makes it standout (and that universal healthcare is better than spending the same amount on a single person however pathetic his story).
Still, outside becoming famous Iaconesi got something he would never have reached without his initiative : he raised the attention of various, famous physicians.
Basically, he's about to obtain a cure "à la Steve Jobs" without the money.
Which is wise.
For a single person.
In my early years I did a bit of basic motorcar repairing. Nothing ambitious. ;-)
One obvious issue for all, was that whenever a watercooled motor got a leak between oil and water, the result was *mayonnaise*, a compound of oil and water which DEFINITELY won't separate "on their own" --just try it: get a mayonnaise cup, and watch it separating
At that time basically the motor was dead.
Now, I understand there may be ways to try separating. Maybe.
Long, long ago when I was young, I used to read adventure tales.
All those that happened at sea had the mandatory storm scene of course -- and each time, classically, the pirate captain (or whatever novel hero) suddenly decided to drop oil on the terrible sea, which by this way turned way cooler.
Mind you, I even tried this myself!
Now, of course, you need, and will waste, oil. I understand it's not fashion nowadays...
Indeed I didn't understand what else than Privoxy is this 'adtrap' we're discussing. What else than a Privoxy within a hardware enclosure?
There has been an app named "What'sUp" on the Blackberry Playbook tablets for more than one year that shows this and far more, allowing you for instance to point the tablet to the sky and show exactly which stars are in that direction at this time.
It's a classical example of using all the sensors (GPS, gravity and magnetic).
As far as I remember, nobody kneeled at the time.
Ah yes, it was not GOOGLE-branded. Sorry, mod me flamebait, quick, before thinking.
Link to the Blackberry App world: https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/48561/?model=PlayBook&lang=en
Sure, nuclear power plants (and their future dislocation) are and will be zero-carbon, compared to the part of my roof that's covered with cells.
How is parent modded interesting, that's 'funny' you should have clicked!
Exactly. I didn't read Scientific American since I was youg, but visibly it has aged even worse than myself :-D
and still does it btw, they managed to survive all this time ;-)
iCab, the most unknown browser in the whole universe -but they invented ad-filtering, 10 years before Mozilla was even born.
I think what's important indeed now is the behavior of tablet browsers.
I've seen an interesting discussion on SimpleBrowser, again a very minor one (on Blackberry Playbook, mind you!) that definitely turned around this thematics...
Too bad, I had five points yesterday, and now I know I *spoiled* them :-D
Interesting. As I don't have a Nexus 7, is there a page with some snapshots of the running system?
TIA!
epy-T-R I fully, absolutely agree with your analysis.
My concern anyhow is that people are definitely migrating to this system, both end-users and developers altogether.
I fear, but definitely expect, we'll see very soon a world with unattended fossil apps on PCs Macs and linux boxes, and then walled-garden-tablets for the 90%.
Which brings my next question: how to react, now? What to do?
On my side, a couple of years ago I bought a tiny linux-driven laptop; I wasted quite a time to reach a workable state, and then when it was stolen and I looked for replacement, I discovered Microsoft had lowered its windows rate enought that absolutely nothing was left with Linux by default on it.
That was also the time of the tablets. Fearful of walled gardens, I waited one more year, expecting THE linux tablet. Nothing, nowhere.
Three months ago, I bought a Blackberry Playbook: at least, not surrending the duopoly. Playbook is reasonable, basically I rebuilt all of my processes (save spam-filter in mail, but for instance there indeed is an ad-filtering browser, I indeed can work M$-documents on it, including external slideshows...)
The craziest issue remains lack of root access: things as simple as a backup become nightmares.
I still wait for the future linux tablet, if one comes. I'll be first in the line. But what else?
Also it's not like that it was the sudden first quake in 100 years: the scientists were there precisely to comment upon a sudden series of "preparatory" quakes that just had happened in the previous weeks...
So basically they said, "no, those quakes are not announcing a bigger one, just follow the quake-resisting buildings construction rules in the coming years."
Not that they *could* have predicted really, but clearly that's the kind of sentence that shocks both victims and opinion...
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/22/1634219/scientists-who-failed-to-warn-of-quake-found-guilty-of-manslaughter
FWIW, this very evening an italian court condemned six scientists that had concluded 'no risk' in a meeting in the italian town l'Aquila just the day before an earthquake there killed 300 and wounded 1000's.
Bad luck maybe, but jailed for six years.
This M. Jean-Philippe Avouac is a good whistleblower...
Indeed, this is the kind of fact that that is at the same time disclosed and unknown, or maybe we don't want to know, or then it's buried in the many and silly non-informations in the Ecology area.
Emptying regional aquifers to raise cherries one month before the other European countries has been a national sport in Spain for dozens of years.
And this clearly results in documented papers which show all the other cultures (orchards...) had to be progressively abandoned, in favor of less and less demanding crops.
I remember one guy listing the successive crops his region switched to, by order of increasing robustness vs drought. It seems the only next step now is desert-resistant varieties. One can imagine how food capacity follows the track.
Why this kind of paper albeit true doesn't make news headlines is a mystery for me. Maybe there are too many others. Maybe nobody is interested in knowing which crops are raised in this remote area. Maybe there are more flashy e-co-lo-gi-cal news, that leave you think one can solve it all by taking quick a decision now.
Spain depleted aquifers for 50 years is an issue nobody can quickly solve now, we only can decide to change during the next 50 years.
And 50 years is no interesting horizon to politicians, and maybe to many of us...