DIY Sea Launch! (far better use for subs as well)
on
Solar Sails
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· Score: 1
But get how they plan to launch it: on a Russian submarine ICBM
Seems a damn sensible use of surplus (?;-) ) submarines to me. Kind of a DIY version of SeaLaunch. You could sail a whole fleet of these to the equator to get that optimal launch postion benefit. Surely a cheap way for emerging space nations to get their packages orbital.
(my rant) Seems like a far better use of submarines to me than giving them to the military... mind you reckon that's precisely the reason the big boys will be paranoid about this idea being talked about by the emerging nations...(end rant):-)
i always wonder this. it seems that the majority of people here want everything for free. it's one thing to dislike corporate America, but most of what i see here is childish "gimmie gimmie gimmie!"
Some of us slashdot readers don't adhere to the US corporate model of everything of value having to be paid for in such a direct way. (Hey, isn't there an OS that doesn't cost money....) . Sounds like a great opportunity for corporate websites that can offer a different business model than hitting their users with annoying adverts.
Check the University of Surrey's info on nanosatellites. SNAP-1 has been doing very nicely by all accounts, breaking some records up there. More info at Space Daily.
.. and then it will get ill...
on
Spidergoats
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· Score: 2
Some day we'll just have the single ultimate animal and get rid of the rest. Then another 20 years down the line we'll find it's susceptible to some terrible illness like Ebola or HIV/AIDS. We'll be well stuffed then.
Does somebody want to draw anologies with the current possible problems threatening monoculture farming? Feeding cows on other dead cows seems to have given us BSE for starters.
This situation is probably good news for the debate about access to information and pricing of information generally.
Bunch of computer guys waving their arms about electronic information and data flow doesn't make a media story. The little white haired lady down the road who does under 5's story time, after school homework classes, books for your granny and gets in everybody's favourite scifi novel, if she is getting political and upset about something, that makes news. That's a great story to run.
This issue could get the whole issue of freedom of information out and discussed by a very wide audience (including your local politician). People who really don't give a damn about what makes geeks angry may get get curious and want to find out more when the local neighbourhood librarian is getting upset.
Is this where I get to say something really rude about stupid Americans?
Come on, this topic is very interesting and thought provoking. I am sure you can think of more intelligent things to say. Not suprising you posted anonymously.
Come on moderators, knock some points off this guy's posting
"but can we truely rely on their safety assurance skills? Also, look at
the traffic trouble they caused: I wonder how many people missed their flights from SFO because of the trouble. "
Wooaaahhh. I don't think you like the idea of people of people trying out skills and hacks... . Come on. It didn't fall down. These people knew what they were doing. Maybe we should deny computer students access to telnet/ ftp / internet on the basis that we can't rely on their 'safety assurance skills'.;-)
Yup, they broke the law. But I think they were careful not to endanger anybody. Who did they harm?
The world is a grey enough place as it is. I think we should encourage more of this kind of activity.
Instead of rushing aid to these areas at high cost (and ironically, environmental damage) after an emergency, how about less glamourous, cheaper, long term support for these regions?
Apparently a lot of the problem in India was that buildings were poorly built for an earthquake region so a lot more fell down than should have. After the quake, there wasn't enough capacity in the local hospitals to help.
Now this isn't as glamourous as a bunch of FastShips or AmericanAidTransportSuperPlanes or whatever, but how about Western countries helping developing nations by having a few more paid educators and advisors in these places all the time? Compared to the air fuel or development costs of Fast Ships, how about a few building regulations managers and nursing lecturers to help these countries develop their infrastructures to prepare for crises. It's always cheaper to prepare for crises than to clean up after them. Developing these regions so they have well built buildings, eathquake monitoring, evacuation planning, hospitals with trained staff to cope with emergencies... this must be cheaper in the long term than the clean up. I'm really not sure that throwing another costly high tech solution at the problem will solve it.
I've got an R310s - it's pretty good and solid. I'm outside quite a lot doing pyrotechnics, outside fire shows, hillwalking. It's taken all the weather and battering I've given it.
Interestingly enough they aren't selling very well in the UK as far as I know so you might be able to pick one up cheap. CarPhone Warehouse started selling them at 99 pounds a time but by the time I decided to get them they'd reduced them to 10 pounds.... ok this is subsidised but it shows that they aren't that popular.
Don't know why, the selling point for me was that the first page of the manual has cleaning instructions: it shows a graphic of somebody holding the phone under a running tap. My kind of phone.
"... There is however a free service available to mail consumers which allows you to filter out mailshots which are of no interest to you. This is equally beneficial to direct mail companies as it allows them to target interested users only. To find out more, or to register with the scheme, just write to: Mailing Preference Service, Department 97, FREEPOST 22, London W1E 7EZ (No Stamp Required) "
Not pierced up tattooed crusties, or crazy religious sorts, or extremist politicians, but your honest little quiet respectable (pick your stereotype) community librarians.
Great angle. The media loves contradictions, it's a good punch line. The people who are supposed to be quiet and sweet getting riled up. The point is these people are the holders of knowledge in the country, you may have your own personal opinion about an individual one but I think the general perception is one of respect for a group of people who do their best to share information. I believe librarians are seen as 'respectable pillars of the community' etc and to hold the provision of information freely above their own political views.
I think if the public see that *these* people are getting upset, then something must be really wrong. I reckon Joe SixPack will sit up and listen. With all due respect I reckon he'll listen a lot more to the village librarian getting upset about his kids not being able to do their homework, than people he thinks of as irritating kids or mad scientists getting upset and trying to give him a technical description of why a paricular piece of software doesn't function efficiently...
It's very interesting that drugs are legal or illegal depending greatly on society's impression of these drugs rather than their actual medical effects (long and short term) on the human body.
I for one reckon that tobacco and alcohol are up there in the seriously addictive / dangerous to others when somebody's on them category (just think of drunk driving and cancer through passive smoking).We consider it acceptable for society to deal with the mess created by tobacco, alcohol, caffeine.. mebbes we should do the same for other drugs, or at least take a more rational view of what drugs are 'good' and which are 'bad'.
'No man is an island', you can be as libertarian as you want but we all have to get on with other humans - and that means looking out for each other and agreeing how to deal with chemicals. I think education and societal support is a lot better than throwing people into prison.
You ever disagreed with a hard core coffee drinker first thing in the morning? scaryyyy!!
Starting to change traffic lights over to LEDs in the UK as well, as far as I can tell. (A few round my area in London starting to appear for sure). Very bright.
We've got a wee micro company, in an industrial unit converted into a nice little open plan office. All the furniture is in a big loop and it can be very productive having everybody in the same space to bounce ideas off and go for mad creative and production drives.
I am sure the plural of lego is lego... but best not start that one again;-)
Computer Aid International (UK based)
on
Geek Charities?
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· Score: 2
Computer Aid International (if you're in the UK)
http://www.cit.org.uk/. They recycle computers for other charities, get them out to developing countries as well as the UK, and create jobs to do this work - working wih local job training schemes, as well as volunteers.
Slashdot Mirror
But get how they plan to launch it: on a Russian submarine ICBM
Seems a damn sensible use of surplus (? ;-) ) submarines to me. Kind of a DIY version of SeaLaunch. You could sail a whole fleet of these to the equator to get that optimal launch postion benefit. Surely a cheap way for emerging space nations to get their packages orbital.
(my rant) Seems like a far better use of submarines to me than giving them to the military... mind you reckon that's precisely the reason the big boys will be paranoid about this idea being talked about by the emerging nations...(end rant) :-)
why are most slashdot users so cheap?
i always wonder this. it seems that the majority of people here want everything for free. it's one thing to dislike corporate America, but most of what i see here is childish "gimmie gimmie gimmie!"
Some of us slashdot readers don't adhere to the US corporate model of everything of value having to be paid for in such a direct way. (Hey, isn't there an OS that doesn't cost money ....) . Sounds like a great opportunity for corporate websites that can offer a different business model than hitting their users with annoying adverts.
Was the failure due to a NASA mixup over US football stadium units of measurement vs. Aussie rules football stadium units? ;-)
"just say NO to Marxist propaganda"
Err... explain this one a bit better for me. Disagreeing with child labour is Marxist propaganda? Nope, you missed me there.
Check the University of Surrey's info on nanosatellites. SNAP-1 has been doing very nicely by all accounts, breaking some records up there. More info at Space Daily.
Some day we'll just have the single ultimate animal and get rid of the rest. Then another 20 years down the line we'll find it's susceptible to some terrible illness like Ebola or HIV/AIDS. We'll be well stuffed then.
Does somebody want to draw anologies with the current possible problems threatening monoculture farming? Feeding cows on other dead cows seems to have given us BSE for starters.
Can anybody say 'biodiversity'?
This situation is probably good news for the debate about access to information and pricing of information generally.
Bunch of computer guys waving their arms about electronic information and data flow doesn't make a media story. The little white haired lady down the road who does under 5's story time, after school homework classes, books for your granny and gets in everybody's favourite scifi novel, if she is getting political and upset about something, that makes news. That's a great story to run.
This issue could get the whole issue of freedom of information out and discussed by a very wide audience (including your local politician). People who really don't give a damn about what makes geeks angry may get get curious and want to find out more when the local neighbourhood librarian is getting upset.
Is this where I get to say something really rude about stupid Americans?
Come on, this topic is very interesting and thought provoking. I am sure you can think of more intelligent things to say. Not suprising you posted anonymously.
Come on moderators, knock some points off this guy's posting
"but can we truely rely on their safety assurance skills? Also, look at the traffic trouble they caused: I wonder how many people missed their flights from SFO because of the trouble. "
Wooaaahhh. I don't think you like the idea of people of people trying out skills and hacks... . Come on. It didn't fall down. These people knew what they were doing. Maybe we should deny computer students access to telnet/ ftp / internet on the basis that we can't rely on their 'safety assurance skills'. ;-)
Yup, they broke the law. But I think they were careful not to endanger anybody. Who did they harm?
The world is a grey enough place as it is. I think we should encourage more of this kind of activity.
Instead of rushing aid to these areas at high cost (and ironically, environmental damage) after an emergency, how about less glamourous, cheaper, long term support for these regions?
Apparently a lot of the problem in India was that buildings were poorly built for an earthquake region so a lot more fell down than should have. After the quake, there wasn't enough capacity in the local hospitals to help.
Now this isn't as glamourous as a bunch of FastShips or AmericanAidTransportSuperPlanes or whatever, but how about Western countries helping developing nations by having a few more paid educators and advisors in these places all the time? Compared to the air fuel or development costs of Fast Ships, how about a few building regulations managers and nursing lecturers to help these countries develop their infrastructures to prepare for crises. It's always cheaper to prepare for crises than to clean up after them. Developing these regions so they have well built buildings, eathquake monitoring, evacuation planning, hospitals with trained staff to cope with emergencies... this must be cheaper in the long term than the clean up. I'm really not sure that throwing another costly high tech solution at the problem will solve it.
I've got an R310s - it's pretty good and solid. I'm outside quite a lot doing pyrotechnics, outside fire shows, hillwalking. It's taken all the weather and battering I've given it.
Interestingly enough they aren't selling very well in the UK as far as I know so you might be able to pick one up cheap. CarPhone Warehouse started selling them at 99 pounds a time but by the time I decided to get them they'd reduced them to 10 pounds.... ok this is subsidised but it shows that they aren't that popular.
Don't know why, the selling point for me was that the first page of the manual has cleaning instructions: it shows a graphic of somebody holding the phone under a running tap. My kind of phone.
Check out Stelarc's work ...
Actually it looks like MPS was set up by the Direct Mail industry (Junk mailers themselves)
Check here or read below.
"Mailing Preference Service"
"... There is however a free service available to mail consumers which allows you to filter out mailshots which are of no interest to you. This is equally beneficial to direct mail companies as it allows them to target interested users only. To find out more, or to register with the scheme, just write to: Mailing Preference Service, Department 97, FREEPOST 22, London W1E 7EZ (No Stamp Required) "
In the US, check http://www.the-dma.org/consumers/mps-sht.html
... *librarians* are getting angry
Not pierced up tattooed crusties, or crazy religious sorts, or extremist politicians, but your honest little quiet respectable (pick your stereotype) community librarians.
Great angle. The media loves contradictions, it's a good punch line. The people who are supposed to be quiet and sweet getting riled up. The point is these people are the holders of knowledge in the country, you may have your own personal opinion about an individual one but I think the general perception is one of respect for a group of people who do their best to share information. I believe librarians are seen as 'respectable pillars of the community' etc and to hold the provision of information freely above their own political views.
I think if the public see that *these* people are getting upset, then something must be really wrong. I reckon Joe SixPack will sit up and listen. With all due respect I reckon he'll listen a lot more to the village librarian getting upset about his kids not being able to do their homework, than people he thinks of as irritating kids or mad scientists getting upset and trying to give him a technical description of why a paricular piece of software doesn't function efficiently...
Great, going to have great fun with this as a left handed person :-)
..and potatoes while you're at it..
It's very interesting that drugs are legal or illegal depending greatly on society's impression of these drugs rather than their actual medical effects (long and short term) on the human body.
I for one reckon that tobacco and alcohol are up there in the seriously addictive / dangerous to others when somebody's on them category (just think of drunk driving and cancer through passive smoking).We consider it acceptable for society to deal with the mess created by tobacco, alcohol, caffeine.. mebbes we should do the same for other drugs, or at least take a more rational view of what drugs are 'good' and which are 'bad'.
'No man is an island', you can be as libertarian as you want but we all have to get on with other humans - and that means looking out for each other and agreeing how to deal with chemicals. I think education and societal support is a lot better than throwing people into prison.You ever disagreed with a hard core coffee drinker first thing in the morning? scaryyyy!!
hey, does that mean the rest of us (the vast majority of the world) *should* worry about the CIA ? ;-)
Mind you my backyard is a small carpark so I'd probably notice if an 85 foot radio satellite dish appeared there one morning...
I'm very happy to pay for fun like this out of my taxes
A civilised society should support creative activities. Much rather give my money to fund mad art than pay for the more insane military anyway :-)
Damn, what happens if he finds the secret 'cheat' settings as well....
What about hovercraft?
Starting to change traffic lights over to LEDs in the UK as well, as far as I can tell. (A few round my area in London starting to appear for sure). Very bright.
We've got a wee micro company, in an industrial unit converted into a nice little open plan office. All the furniture is in a big loop and it can be very productive having everybody in the same space to bounce ideas off and go for mad creative and production drives.
But remember kids, headphones save lives!
I am sure the plural of lego is lego... but best not start that one again ;-)
Computer Aid International (if you're in the UK) http://www.cit.org.uk/. They recycle computers for other charities, get them out to developing countries as well as the UK, and create jobs to do this work - working wih local job training schemes, as well as volunteers.
Lot more people appear to get killed by cars...or guns....give me a nation of robot owners in preference any day.
Bit of a mischievous comment by Anne Marie in her article title, I reckon.