RobertKozak - Slashdot User

Submission + - Average Joe to Pay for Trip in Space with Website

Submitted by

Ben Riecken

on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:40PM

Ben Riecken writes: "Ben Riecken, a flight instructor from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, aims to pay his way into space by selling 200,000 pixel ads for $1 a piece on MyTripInSpace.com. Daytona Beach, Florida, February 19, 2007 — Ben Riecken, a flight instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, hopes to finance his trip into space onboard SpaceShipTwo with Virgin Galactic using the power of the internet. Ben Riecken designed MyTripInSpace.com after being invited by SpaceShipOne astronaut, Brian Binnie, to the Mojave Desert to see the spacecraft and a take a ride in the simulator. "This spacecraft is a beast. What a thrill! And I was just in the simulator! I have to be part of this venture", says Ben. Virgin Galactic is set to become the world's first spaceline taking private individuals to space and back onboard SpaceShipTwo, a new generation of commercial spacecraft, based on the X Prize winning prototype SpaceShipOne. Tickets are now on sale for $200,000 for one trip to space. With money being the main obstacle to not being able to go into space, Ben is not about to give up. "Space has been a playground for the government and the extremely rich. It's time for a change. I want to show that a regular guy who has a passion for aviation and space can achieve this goal despite a $30,000 a year salary", explains Ben. Companies and individuals can advertise on Ben's homepage by buying a 10x10 pixels block for $100. The $100 allows you to display a logo along with a message and a weblink. "When it comes to advertising on the internet, buying pixels is very cost effective", says Ben. Alex Tew, an entrepreneur from England brought this concept to the forefront with his million dollar homepage (www.milliondollarhomepage.com). "I am not trying to be a millionaire like Alex Tew. I just want to have a ticket in space and share my experience with everyone who dream to go in space and believe it is impossible for them to achieve this goal", says Ben. Ben Riecken is no stranger to challenges. He already holds an aviation record by flying into all 105 airports in the state of Florida in less then 48 hours. In July of 2006, he also took one of his students on the ultimate flying lesson by crossing the North Atlantic onboard a twin engine aircraft (www.northatlanticchallenge.com). Find out more about Ben Riecken's homepage at www.mytripinspace.com."

Submission + - "Pre-AJAX" Pioneers Discuss AJAX's 2nd Bir

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18, 2007 @02:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: AJAXWorld Magazine marks the second birthday of the coining of 'AJAX' today by asking the early pioneers of rich applications delivered into web browsers how it was for them when suddenly on February 18th two years ago a single, easy-to-comprehend term arrived to help them propagate their new-web goals. Those canvassed include David Temkin of OpenLaszlo, Coach Wei of Nexaweb, and Burton Group analyst Richard Monson-Haefel, whose contribution is to temper the undiluted optimism of Temkin, Wei, et al. by saying: "Given a choice I would much rather work with Adobe Flex 2 than AJAX simply because the tooling is much better."

Submission + - End times and computer programming

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18, 2007 @11:22AM

An anonymous reader writes: End times beliefs are a type of ideas currently being communicated among mankind, on a wide scale. This kind of ideologies have been popular for centuries, in many cultures, and I personally think that it has been around for many thousands of years.

In the context of such ideologies, science plays a most important role because it is our best technique to establish truth and filter out falsehood, and based on the truth about our world, to develop technologies to save lives and protect our world. This has the important side effect of alleviating fear and helping to make mankind more rational, more civilized.

These results of science are supported by all major religions. Very few marginal scientific movements oppose science.

So far, based on our scientific knowledge, we have some evidence of the possibilities of end times. For example, a comet or large asteroid hitting our planet. We also have the possibility of some members of our species using their most powerful bombs and military microbes to destroy the entire species, as well as many others. Science was most involved in the development of these WMD's.

Science is currently involved in developing technologies to protect us from comets or large asteroids. Science has a long way to go in developing ways to protect us from ourselves.

I am sure that marine biology with computer programming have an important role to play in this regard. For example, it may just be that if we could develop a computer system to show that whales and dolphins are sentient and that a few cetacean species may participate in some level of communication with us then this may change the way that we see ourselves as a species and would greatly contribute to the dampening of our dangerous, narcissistic, belief that we are the king of the hill, in this case the Earth.

There is a prototype of such a tool, it is open source, and all in Java, the most common programming language today: http://c2h.sourceforge.net/

The user guide is at http://leafyseadragon.blogspot.com/ and sample whistles in xml are at http://seadragon-whistles.blogspot.com/

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