Qinetiq is the commercial r+d arm of the UK military. They don't just build stuff for the fun of it.
A) their funding requires them to be hunting down sales and profit and B) they are the commercial spin off of the military (one of their biggest clients) so they sure as heck didn't spend years putting PhD level researchers on developing a solar flying wing just because they thought it would be a cool thing to do. They'll be expecting to make a profit out of this and for starters they'll be offering the US military a preferential deal (once they've got their patents also nicely sorted to cover any competitors and given the UK military first shout on the best stuff).
Back to business as usual then. US government will make noises about it clearly being a British conspiracy to destroy America, demand BP gets sued for quadratrillions, gets banned from US trading, say it wouldn't have happened if it was a good ole US oil company from Texas. Local lawyers sue on behalf of local residents for quintillions, combined wealth of ten planet Earths etc. BP puts lawyers on to the case, forms holding company to take over US operations, carries on drilling, settles for a few million ten years from now. Local fishermen out of jobs, local environment messed up for the next 50 years, local lawyers get rich, politicians get promoted and oil companies carry on drilling and make substantial profits every year, held up by US government as fine examples of free market pioneers who are great examples for the world's entrepreneurs. Rinse and repeat.
History is not as simple as that. Humans have a very complex history of migration and evolution over the last 200,000 years or so.
The world does not neatly divide into "forest people" "mountain people" "ocean people" "desert people" "plains people" that are "evolved to live in that environment" etc. outside of neatly divided computer games.
Agreed that our ancestors lived outdoors more than us but they moved around a more complex set of environments than just forests. And 2000 years ago, you could find a fair number of urban Europeans who never lived outside of a town or city for their whole lives. Julius Caesar might be upset to hear you describing Rome as a forest....
Shocking! you mean countries spy on each other in this day and age? Expect Russia to expel a few US "aides to diplomats", US to make lots of unhappy noises, and the whole thing to die down again. Heads of respective intelligence agencies nod at each other at the next major summit and agree to go back to business as normal.
I can imagine a phone has gone off in Moscow: "hi Ivan, it's Bob here from Washington. Sorry about that, the new president needed to see a bit of action. You expel a few of our small guys, our newspapers will make some noise, and all will be back to normal. See you down the club next time you're in town."
The Niger Delta wetlands have been suffering oil damage for the last 50 years from BP and other US oil companies, perhaps the US government could ask the Nigerian government on how to deal with it.
My point was that it is not dumb because it is a reasonably safe yet challenging task for university students to undertake. If things go wrong, they are not in dangerous territories. I'd suggest university students attempting solar blimp navigation across the Atlantic or the Antarctic might be dumb. But 20 miles seems like a nice challenge.
And interestingly my comment got it in the neck for somebody with the opposite point of view, who makes the fair point that just because it's easy for NASA or a large corporate doesn't make it easy for a group of 20 year university students. So for these guys, it probably is a big challenge. In that sense, I think it's great. It's brilliant students are attempting real world challenges, this is what university should be about.
Next up: you laughing at ten year olds for being slow at the 100 metres compared to Usain Bolt?
Lighter than air craft have crossed the Channel a lot (first crossing recorded by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries, Dover to Calais in 1785) - my comment meant that it was not "dumb" as in not impossible, and clearly well thought out. Perhaps I should have clarified that. As my second paragraph noted I am all for it, great to see university students taking on what will be a significant challenge for them.
I'm definitely in the doing stuff category where I can, all for folk doing things. Got the scars and had the tropical diseases to prove it. Probably most scary experience was driving across the USA though. Texas cops were more frightening than the Cambodian military in my experiences...
Why is it so dumb? With the wind in the right direction you can float over the Channel / La Manche with no power in a few hours anyway, it's only 20 miles or so at its narrowest point. They'll have a support boat so even if the blimp crash lands they'll be able to fish the pilot out.
I'd say it's great university students are encouraged to take on technical challenges. I'd say the risks are pretty low (and I am sure they would have been thoroughly checked out by the universities, nobody wants their students dying).
"What Elon Musk is doing is similar to the assembly line process Henry Ford brought to the automotive industry."
What about the Russians and the Soyuz ships? They've built over 1700 launchers so far, from the 60s to present... surely that's got to count as "assembly line process"?
A video call means you've got to stop whatever else you're doing and give your whole attention to the call, look at the person calling etc. I can see my dad loving this for chats to his distant and much loved granddaughters, I can see lovers enjoying being able to look into their loved ones eyes. Hey, just analyse when people video skype each other rather than audio skype and ask what the affordances are there.
For most of the time voice calls are about communicating a message, or negotiating a communication, rather than enjoying the other person's presence. If the call is about communicating a message then sometimes its more efficient to do it on a voice only call which can be made while I am walking to the shops, at my desk sorting out some paperwork, carrying out other such small jobs where I don't want to be occupied with holding a camera so it points at my face.
I am not sure these are specifically British concerns? interested to hear what other folks might think from other countries....
"This has got to be the point where sane people around the world finally say "What? That's a joke, right? Please say that's a joke." Trust me buddy, lots of us round the world have been having a good laugh at what the crazy Americans do for years. We'll just add it to the long list of why we think your nation is mad.
Nothing personal, we know most of you are lovely fine folk. But you've sure got your share of idiots that we're happy are an ocean away from us.
It just gets scary when our leaders import daft ideas they hear from your idiots, so please keep them quiet. Our politicians keep on copying them and try to better them. Please don't give our politicians any more ideas.
For American non-football fans, the "World" in "World Cup" means that lots of different countries from around the world participate. Different kind of "World" from "World Series Baseball" which I believe has a different interpretation of what the word means;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist it;-) Hey, you're in the football world cup too, and you're not too bad at the game either!
(yes I know it might just mean the name of a newspaper rather than a particularly limited view of how many countries there are out there...)
Reference in this article is to "The Sun" newspaper. This is a tabloid paper famous for its poor journalism, topless girls on Page 3, and front page headlines such as "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster".
Not really considered a real news source in the UK.
well you can sell the Americans anything if you give it macho BS military stylee language. They get all excited if you use words like "kill". Throw in a cowboy metaphor and you're away. Expect the next solution to be something like "predator total destruction high plains stealth option" or something similar;-)
... because your BP shares are going to be worth a lot less;-)
Seriously though this accident has thrown up a lot of interesting information - such as how the US imports vastly more oil than it produces on its own territories, and I can only imagine regulation around oil drilling will become more strict rather than less after this has all been sorted out. Given that the USA does love to consume energy I would have thought that the silver lining might be increased investment in alternative energy sources; you've got a huge country with a lot of space for generating wind/solar/wave power. Now might be a time to explore more than pilot projects? Possibly an increased nuclear power plant program as well though I am not too sure about whether this is in political favour at the moment?
One thing amazes me about the present fiasco is that we don't hear of more accidents like this, how many offshore oilrigs are there round the world? I guess the oil industry is either pretty careful or pretty lucky when it comes to oil extraction (or good on PR cover-ups...)
Well here in the UK petrol/gasoline is 1.20 GBP / litre, there are 3.79 litres to 1 US gallon = 4.55 GBP / gallon, x 1.45 (pounds to dollars) and we're at $6.60/US gallon in my local gas station, so I don't see $8 / gallon so far off, that's only about another 18% rise.
What do you mean by fashion being the only art that can become obsolete? Do you mean all other art forms live forever? in a physical sense, or in an influential sense? and you're saying some (all?) of fashion will cease to exist after a certain time? in a physical sense? or in an influential sense?
I think you mean you read English literature *from* the last 400 years, rather than having read *for* the last 400 years. The latter would make you rather old. While a fair number of people like reading literature from 400 years or more ago and there's some good stuff out there. Bloke called Shakespeare for example. Push it back a couple of hundred years more and Chaucer's a good read. Some fine bits in "The Wife of Bath" for starters. Tends to be read under compulsion by most 17 year olds studying English Lit. in UK schools.
Me, I just go down the British Library on the occasional days off. Can't afford the books myself but you can flip through some right nice old books with just a loaned pair of white gloves.
Easy to come out on top when you've been to Eton and Oxford, been a member of the same exclusive private drinking club as the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequor, and have nobility as your ancestors.
If social networking is as useful as it is supposed to be for getting you £250K jobs, this man is well connected...
Slashdot Mirror
Qinetiq is the commercial r+d arm of the UK military. They don't just build stuff for the fun of it.
A) their funding requires them to be hunting down sales and profit and B) they are the commercial spin off of the military (one of their biggest clients) so they sure as heck didn't spend years putting PhD level researchers on developing a solar flying wing just because they thought it would be a cool thing to do. They'll be expecting to make a profit out of this and for starters they'll be offering the US military a preferential deal (once they've got their patents also nicely sorted to cover any competitors and given the UK military first shout on the best stuff).
err... "N in their name"? bit clever for me this time in the morning.... Nepalese? Nigerians? people called Nigel? caNadiaNs?
nope, you'll have to tell me, I can't work it out....
Back to business as usual then. US government will make noises about it clearly being a British conspiracy to destroy America, demand BP gets sued for quadratrillions, gets banned from US trading, say it wouldn't have happened if it was a good ole US oil company from Texas. Local lawyers sue on behalf of local residents for quintillions, combined wealth of ten planet Earths etc. BP puts lawyers on to the case, forms holding company to take over US operations, carries on drilling, settles for a few million ten years from now. Local fishermen out of jobs, local environment messed up for the next 50 years, local lawyers get rich, politicians get promoted and oil companies carry on drilling and make substantial profits every year, held up by US government as fine examples of free market pioneers who are great examples for the world's entrepreneurs. Rinse and repeat.
History is not as simple as that. Humans have a very complex history of migration and evolution over the last 200,000 years or so.
The world does not neatly divide into "forest people" "mountain people" "ocean people" "desert people" "plains people" that are "evolved to live in that environment" etc. outside of neatly divided computer games.
Agreed that our ancestors lived outdoors more than us but they moved around a more complex set of environments than just forests. And 2000 years ago, you could find a fair number of urban Europeans who never lived outside of a town or city for their whole lives. Julius Caesar might be upset to hear you describing Rome as a forest....
Sorry, never heard of that one before. Do tell, what is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy?
The day time photo of the country boy with reversed baseball cap and ill fitting jeans is slightly less impressive....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Custom-Built-Motorcycles-Pro-Street-LightCycle-Tron-Lightcycle-Light-Cycle-Bike-Full-Size-Running-/220627957724?cmd=ViewItem&pt=US_motorcycles&hash=item335e7377dc#v4-39
I'm quite impressed by the fact that it's a "Tron Lightcycle Honda Yamaha Kawasaki Suzuki Harley" though!
Shocking! you mean countries spy on each other in this day and age? Expect Russia to expel a few US "aides to diplomats", US to make lots of unhappy noises, and the whole thing to die down again. Heads of respective intelligence agencies nod at each other at the next major summit and agree to go back to business as normal.
I can imagine a phone has gone off in Moscow: "hi Ivan, it's Bob here from Washington. Sorry about that, the new president needed to see a bit of action. You expel a few of our small guys, our newspapers will make some noise, and all will be back to normal. See you down the club next time you're in town."
All very John Le Carre I am sure.
The Niger Delta wetlands have been suffering oil damage for the last 50 years from BP and other US oil companies, perhaps the US government could ask the Nigerian government on how to deal with it.
My point was that it is not dumb because it is a reasonably safe yet challenging task for university students to undertake. If things go wrong, they are not in dangerous territories. I'd suggest university students attempting solar blimp navigation across the Atlantic or the Antarctic might be dumb. But 20 miles seems like a nice challenge.
And interestingly my comment got it in the neck for somebody with the opposite point of view, who makes the fair point that just because it's easy for NASA or a large corporate doesn't make it easy for a group of 20 year university students. So for these guys, it probably is a big challenge. In that sense, I think it's great. It's brilliant students are attempting real world challenges, this is what university should be about.
Next up: you laughing at ten year olds for being slow at the 100 metres compared to Usain Bolt?
Lighter than air craft have crossed the Channel a lot (first crossing recorded by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries, Dover to Calais in 1785) - my comment meant that it was not "dumb" as in not impossible, and clearly well thought out. Perhaps I should have clarified that. As my second paragraph noted I am all for it, great to see university students taking on what will be a significant challenge for them.
I'm definitely in the doing stuff category where I can, all for folk doing things. Got the scars and had the tropical diseases to prove it. Probably most scary experience was driving across the USA though. Texas cops were more frightening than the Cambodian military in my experiences...
Why is it so dumb? With the wind in the right direction you can float over the Channel / La Manche with no power in a few hours anyway, it's only 20 miles or so at its narrowest point. They'll have a support boat so even if the blimp crash lands they'll be able to fish the pilot out.
I'd say it's great university students are encouraged to take on technical challenges. I'd say the risks are pretty low (and I am sure they would have been thoroughly checked out by the universities, nobody wants their students dying).
"What Elon Musk is doing is similar to the assembly line process Henry Ford brought to the automotive industry."
What about the Russians and the Soyuz ships? They've built over 1700 launchers so far, from the 60s to present... surely that's got to count as "assembly line process"?
Stick to oil, nothing could possibly go wrong if we just drill for more oil!
Or at least do it in developing countries where nobody cares if it goes wrong.
A video call means you've got to stop whatever else you're doing and give your whole attention to the call, look at the person calling etc. I can see my dad loving this for chats to his distant and much loved granddaughters, I can see lovers enjoying being able to look into their loved ones eyes. Hey, just analyse when people video skype each other rather than audio skype and ask what the affordances are there.
For most of the time voice calls are about communicating a message, or negotiating a communication, rather than enjoying the other person's presence. If the call is about communicating a message then sometimes its more efficient to do it on a voice only call which can be made while I am walking to the shops, at my desk sorting out some paperwork, carrying out other such small jobs where I don't want to be occupied with holding a camera so it points at my face.
I am not sure these are specifically British concerns? interested to hear what other folks might think from other countries....
"This has got to be the point where sane people around the world finally say "What? That's a joke, right? Please say that's a joke."
Trust me buddy, lots of us round the world have been having a good laugh at what the crazy Americans do for years. We'll just add it to the long list of why we think your nation is mad.
Nothing personal, we know most of you are lovely fine folk. But you've sure got your share of idiots that we're happy are an ocean away from us.
It just gets scary when our leaders import daft ideas they hear from your idiots, so please keep them quiet. Our politicians keep on copying them and try to better them. Please don't give our politicians any more ideas.
For American non-football fans, the "World" in "World Cup" means that lots of different countries from around the world participate. Different kind of "World" from "World Series Baseball" which I believe has a different interpretation of what the word means ;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist it ;-) Hey, you're in the football world cup too, and you're not too bad at the game either!
(yes I know it might just mean the name of a newspaper rather than a particularly limited view of how many countries there are out there...)
Reference in this article is to "The Sun" newspaper. This is a tabloid paper famous for its poor journalism, topless girls on Page 3, and front page headlines such as "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster".
Not really considered a real news source in the UK.
I can believe it - though as I noted in my original post the rig was in US territorial waters.
well you can sell the Americans anything if you give it macho BS military stylee language. They get all excited if you use words like "kill". Throw in a cowboy metaphor and you're away. Expect the next solution to be something like "predator total destruction high plains stealth option" or something similar ;-)
... because your BP shares are going to be worth a lot less ;-)
Seriously though this accident has thrown up a lot of interesting information - such as how the US imports vastly more oil than it produces on its own territories, and I can only imagine regulation around oil drilling will become more strict rather than less after this has all been sorted out. Given that the USA does love to consume energy I would have thought that the silver lining might be increased investment in alternative energy sources; you've got a huge country with a lot of space for generating wind/solar/wave power. Now might be a time to explore more than pilot projects? Possibly an increased nuclear power plant program as well though I am not too sure about whether this is in political favour at the moment?
One thing amazes me about the present fiasco is that we don't hear of more accidents like this, how many offshore oilrigs are there round the world? I guess the oil industry is either pretty careful or pretty lucky when it comes to oil extraction (or good on PR cover-ups...)
Well here in the UK petrol/gasoline is 1.20 GBP / litre, there are 3.79 litres to 1 US gallon = 4.55 GBP / gallon, x 1.45 (pounds to dollars) and we're at $6.60 /US gallon in my local gas station, so I don't see $8 / gallon so far off, that's only about another 18% rise.
haha nice one! :-)
What do you mean by fashion being the only art that can become obsolete? Do you mean all other art forms live forever? in a physical sense, or in an influential sense? and you're saying some (all?) of fashion will cease to exist after a certain time? in a physical sense? or in an influential sense?
cheers
I think you mean you read English literature *from* the last 400 years, rather than having read *for* the last 400 years. The latter would make you rather old. While a fair number of people like reading literature from 400 years or more ago and there's some good stuff out there. Bloke called Shakespeare for example. Push it back a couple of hundred years more and Chaucer's a good read. Some fine bits in "The Wife of Bath" for starters. Tends to be read under compulsion by most 17 year olds studying English Lit. in UK schools.
Me, I just go down the British Library on the occasional days off. Can't afford the books myself but you can flip through some right nice old books with just a loaned pair of white gloves.
Easy to come out on top when you've been to Eton and Oxford, been a member of the same exclusive private drinking club as the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequor, and have nobility as your ancestors.
If social networking is as useful as it is supposed to be for getting you £250K jobs, this man is well connected...