High Power RocketCam Videos 264
HaveNoMouth writes "What happens when the founder of Xircom and his brother bolt a DV Camcorder to the side of a 200 lb. model rocket and press the red button? The incredible movies (with sound!) at Gates Bros. Rocketry tell the tale. The quality of these movies is by far the best I've seen from the "strap a camera to a flying toy" community. They have a nice gallery of still photos too.
If only everyone named Gates did stuff this cool."
Great movies... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What happens when... (Score:2, Insightful)
They're just asking to be
Cheap shots... again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really really neccessary to have a cheap shot at MS no matter how little the post might be related? Why don't we just have a default sig "Windoze sucks, Linux rulez."?
Just in case the posters read the comments: Please lash out at MS and other scapegoats ONLY when it is justified. (not too optimistic, since not all posters proofread the submissions or even read the articles, it seems... sigh...)
Re:Time to put away childish things... (Score:1, Insightful)
Firstly this has no scientific value at all.
Secondly, I am not proposing an anti-technological anti-progress position here. It is quite simple, these people are *burning* money for no other reason than there own individualistic selfish satisfaction. And yes, the fuel costs money as does the destroyed rockets, ruined camcorders (lets face it how long can they really last) and all to stick look-at-me videos on the internet.
I am merely stating that when you look around at the world (and the Internet has been enormously useful in helping us to do just that) you see repressive states, anti-democractic regimes, torture, poverty, starvation and unhappiness.
When you start to think you as a nation have absolutely no responsibilies to the rest of the globe (ie as America so often does) then there is a very real danger in the growth of terrorist organisations and anti-american sentiment growing. And if this is allowed to grow unchecked *no* amount of American hegemony or military muscle is going to stop it. This is a political problem and requires sensitivity to the problems of the world.
I fear that the Internet as an advert for the sheer unadulturated self-satisified and selfish behaviour of Americans will be the last thing you as a nation need at the moment. But then maybe its true that you *really* don't care and don't want to know...
G-forces on the DV camera (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have at least expected a bit of flicker as the tape strains, or the motor backtracks a little or something...
Very cool.
Re:Time to put away childish things... (Score:3, Insightful)
Congratulations on resorting to the last refuge of a desperate debater. Only took you 50 minutes from your first post.
Re:Time to put away childish things... (Score:3, Insightful)
And I assume you have the credentials to back up this claim? Please tell me which university has granted you a degree in rocket science or aerospace engineering.
It is quite simple, these people are *burning* money for no other reason than there own individualistic selfish satisfaction.
It's their money to burn. Maybe the people who do these kinds of things also tend to be socially-conscious people who donate a sizeable chunk of time and/or money to the Good Cause Du Jour. Besides, hobbies, individualism and fun are bad because...?
I am merely stating that when you look around at the world (and the Internet has been enormously useful in helping us to do just that) you see repressive states, anti-democractic regimes, torture, poverty, starvation and unhappiness.
And what exactly do you suggest we do about this? I mean it - if you have the solutions to these problems, speak up! People have been trying to solve these problems for literally thousands of years - if you know how to solve them, well...the Nobel Peace Prize awaits!
When you start to think you as a nation have absolutely no responsibilies to the rest of the globe (ie as America so often does)...
You're right. We don't. Since when did the US (or any other nation) become the world's police force/janitors/feeders/saviours? Why should we have to clean up the messes made by others? Everybody bitches when the US doesn't get involved, then they bitch when the US does get involved. Make up your fucking minds already!
...Resentment caused by the US getting involved and trying to help someone somewhere (regardless of whether said attempts to help were unsuccessful and/or directed at the wrong people or places - nobody ever said the US was perfect, at least nobody who's sane).
And if this is allowed to grow unchecked *no* amount of American hegemony or military muscle is going to stop it.
Hear hear! Personally I'd like to see the US withdraw from the UN and tell them to find another country to hold their parties in, then withdraw all military forces to US soil, to be used only to totally annihilate any nation that invades the country or blows up parts of it. Then tell the rest of the world to go clean up their own damn mess.
But then maybe its true that you *really* don't care and don't want to know...
<sarcasm>You're right. I don't care and I don't want to know. I just want to watch cool videos of big penis-shaped rockets being fired into the air, and speculate on how big of a payload they could carry to blow up schools and hospitals in some third-world starving hellhole.</sarcasm>
(jlanthripp, posting anonymously because of the bleeding heart socialists with mod points)
Anybody get a mirror? slashdot should offer! (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens when?... it gets slashdotted! Help them out, slashdot!
Anybody get a mirror? Maybe slashdot should think about providing mirrors of small time operators' sites when an article like this is posted. We all *know* the poor little guy is going to get slashdotted. At best, he can't show his girlfriend/ dad/ best friends what he is up to. At worst, he gets a hefty bandwidth bill from his ISP. Linking to IBM etc is another thing, but surely slashdot could show a bit of community spirit and responsibility and offer a mirror before posting up articles with links to little guys?
Re:Cheap shots... again. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:On the subject of 'Gates' (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:On the subject of 'Gates' (Score:1, Insightful)
It would be the end of civilization as we know it.
Typical Gates baiting........ (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah..... sadly, all Bill Gates does is donate hundreds of millions of dollars to finance vaccinations [bbc.co.uk] for children in third-world countries who otherwise wouldn't receive them. But then again, not everybody named Gates can put their fortunes to such practical use......
</sarcasm>
You don't understand Slashdot's business model (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot's 'content', what people come for, is all hosted by other people. It almost always is full of multimedia. They pay the real bandwidth costs.
In this business, at sufficient scales, bandwidth approaches 100% of the costs, the servers nearly factor out. So, Slashdot offers a service to its readers for almost nothing by passing on the content costs to the sites it links to.
Don't get me wrong, the slashdot infrastructure is well-done, it's highly available and you do need good capacity to handle the user base it has, but it couldn't be profitable if it had to pay for all the bandwidth the 'Slashdot-experience' requires.
Now, if they had caches for 'gold-level' subscribers, that might be profitable, say at a hundred bucks a year.
like some pie? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that we all know when [com.com] that happened.
Re:You guys should ask permission before hosing th (Score:3, Insightful)
If you DO make it public, and a lot of people suddenly look at it, and as a result you exceed your bandwidth/transfer-limit/server-specs limitations, this means one of two things:
(1) Your site has become, at least temporarily, far more popular than you anticipated! Hooray!! Now to call the ISP...
(2) You can't afford to be popular, so you probably shouldn't have made it so public. You, the server administrator, made a mistake. Perhaps you should have required a password to access the resources.
If someone runs their own web page, like
If someone makes your server so popular that you can't handle it, that's really not their problem.
-=Ivan