Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Data Storage

Submission + - How much do you remember? (macworld.com) 1

Submitted by ColdWetDog
ColdWetDog writes: It's the end of another calendar year and time for all sorts of retrospective pieces. Instead of going back to last year or even last decade, MacWorld has a quick slide show on the The Evolution of Hard Drives which, more accurately would be described as "A Dozen Pictures of Ancient Magnetic Storage Devices". Still and all, it might be interesting to those young'uns who think that 10 Gigabytes is small.

Submission + - Curious about FreeBSD? Try VirtualBSD 4

Submitted by ReeceTarbert
ReeceTarbert writes: If you are curious about FreeBSD but don't have the time or the resources to install it and customize it, VirtualBSD might be right for you: it's a VMware appliance based on FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE that comes with the Xfce 4.6 Desktop Environment and some of the most common applications so it can be used right out of the box. The best part? This is a genuine FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE, which means you can either stick to the desktop or dig around in the knowledge that you are dealing with The Real Thing. If the screenshots whet your appetite why don't you got to the download page and grab the torrent file right away?
Games

Submission + - PC gamers crush console brethren in teamwork compo (escapistmagazine.com)

Submitted by
l_bratch
l_bratch writes: "Since December 22nd DICE have been running a competition between each target platform of their latest Battlefield expansion — Bad Company 2: Vietnam. Players were required to complete a large number of "team actions" in game, in order to unlock a hidden, remastered version of the Operation Hastings map from the original Battlefield: Vietnam. PC gamers have completed the task, whereas gamers on both console platforms are only about half way there."

Comment Re:Sure.... (Score 1) 4

by IronDragon (#34704644) Attached to: Space needs people.

I have talked about it at length with the director of the National Space Society, and a director from the Space Frontier Foundation. As well as engineers from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, and a lawyer specializing in ITAR. They seem to think it's a good, and feasible idea.
Space

Submission + - Space needs people. (openspacemovement.org) 4

Submitted by IronDragon
IronDragon writes: Hello, I am starting a space program.

First off, this is a non-profit organization that aims to provide a collaborative development environment, and educational resource for aerospace engineering. If you would use the analogy; sourceforge.net for space access. This is a gross oversimplification, but lets run with it for now. Regardless of the specifics of our operation, the Open Space Movement seeks to solve the fundamental problem with the current status of space development, and that is people.

We focus on public involvement, as that is the lynch pin to developing space. 'People' are the difference between "a global market for maybe 5 computers", and the billions of PC's, smartphones, and servers that make up the Internet. We bought the Internet. We are personally responsible for driving the demand for the state of the art, and paying for it simultaneously. We can do the same for space access. If you consider that we are currently spending more on cell phones in one year, than the Apollo program did in a decade, it stands to reason that an organized public-funded space venture could amass more financial backing and creative input than all existing space agencies and private space enterprises combined. As a more recent example of the publics' spending capacity, the three day period between December 17th through December 19th saw retail sales of approximately 18.84 billion dollars. This compares very closely with NASA's 2010 budget of 18.7 billion dollars. Space may be expensive, but we can certainly afford it.

The OSM will operate as a web-based collaborative development environment, educational resource, and social network — aimed at providing the public with direct participation in the planning and execution of a public space venture. On the premise that public support is the keystone of future space development, the OSM seeks to engage, educate, and provide organization to the public, on a scale that has not been duplicated since the call to action by former President John F Kennedy, in his 1962 address to Rice University.

Project development will be a cornerstone of our operations. The OSM does not implicitly support or favor any particular project, as our role is to simply provide the framework and ecosystem to support the development of all submitted projects. Democratic controls available to site users will allow for the OSM community to determine which projects are supported based on merit and cost effectiveness, by prioritizing and approving project funding requests.

The development environment, and other resources offered by the OSM are also available to existing space organizations, large and small, to provide collaborative tools for their member bases, and help to promote and provide visibility for their efforts. These resources are available free of charge to individuals, organizations, schools, and for-profit ventures.

This offers several beneficial side effects, as participation in the development environment will be a strong incentive for people to get involved. By doing so, users will be exposed to a wide variety of concepts in the fields of science and engineering, which not only provides passive education — but gives them a reason to study further, on the grounds that what they learn will have practical applications, and can be immediately applied. Finally, the operation of this project ecosystem is expected to steadily grow a portfolio of open-source style designs, innovations, and research into areas not covered by the scope of current conventional spaceflight. As this portfolio of ideas grows, it also provides the OSM with a steady stream of publishable material that may be useful in attracting an ever-growing audience.

General principles of the OSM:

1. Offer collaborative development environment and educational references to support user-submitted project development. Essentially "sourceforge.net" for aerospace engineering. (Not all projects have to be about rockets. That's like saying that every programmer out there has to build their own operating system. The scope and scale of something like colonization will require input from virtually every field. Even if you're not a "rocket scientist", you probably do have something you can contribute. If you want to become a rocket scientist — this might be a good place to start learning.)

2. Offer support and services to existing space organizations.

3. Leverage project development as an incentive for people to actually learn more about space science and engineering.

4. Community driven funding of project development. Funding requests for project development are prioritized by the OSM community, thus allowing democratic control over how donations are spent. This makes it possible to see exactly how financial support from the community helps build the OSM's portfolio of designs, educational projects, and research experiments. This in turn gives the OSM plenty of publishable material to demonstrate the efficiency of the system. Money goes in, cool stuff comes out.

5. Accessibility and direct participation. This is not for spectators. This is designed to be open to anybody — and easy enough to encourage peoples' creative contributions. This is a key factor in growing and educating a large OSM community. Additionally, we aim to support internationalization and translation of our site's content, and be open to citizens of any nation.

6. By becoming a significantly large community, the OSM itself can become a public market to drive demand in space access. Large enough to influence the direction of existing companies in the space business.

7. There exists an ideal path to the colonization of space that involves the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. The OSM is essentially a human computer to figure out this path, and make it happen.

8. We currently spend more money on cell phones in one year, than the Apollo program spent in a decade. Space may be expensive, but the discretionary spending of the public is overwhelming in comparison. We bought the Internet, we paid for the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle missions, and we can organize together to drive space access in a matter of years, rather than decades.

9. No single government or private corporation has the resources to tackle the scope of space colonization. The only entity capable of this would be the public itself. The OSM is here only to organize and direct that effort. We seek to challenge the preconceived notions of space travel being too expensive and too exclusive. The future of space development depends upon many things, but the foremost factor will not be availability of funding or advancements in technology. It will be our influence, whether we decide to be citizens of space, or spectators and tourists.

According to our developers, the site is pretty close to release-candidate status. As soon as that happens, we will be opening registration for beta testing to track down any last-minute bugs, and help populate our initial site content. This is entirely free to use, and we will be looking at implementing any beneficial changes to our site as suggested and voted upon by our community.

The goals, capabilities, and actions of the OSM are entirely community driven. We simply provide the tools and organization. If you want to do something about space travel, then we are here to help you participate.

Is anyone interested?

Submission + - Congress Funds Cancelled Ares Rocket till March (abcactionnews.com)

Submitted by
wooferhound
wooferhound writes: "KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla — NASA contractors will continue to build the now-defunct Ares I rocket, even though it was canceled by the Obama administration.
Since Congress voted to extend the 2010 budget, the Ares rocket will continue to be funded as planned.
It will now cost an estimated $500 million to fund the project until at least March 2011, according to the Orlando Sentinel."
Open Source

Submission + - Holiday shopping beats NASA's budget (openspacemovement.org)

Submitted by IronDragon
IronDragon writes: According to Huffington Post, retail shopping this year grossed approximately 18.83 billion dollars between the days of December 17th to December 19th. This three-day period compares very closely with NASA's FY2010 budget, at 18.7 billion dollars. The 18 billion dollar retail figures do not take into account an additional 27.5 billion dollars spent on online gift sales between November and December.

This may sound a bit depressing, but Don't Panic! If you consider this, and the fact that we've spent more money on cellular phones in the past year, than the Apollo program spent in a decade, it stands to reason that conditions exist for a public space market that could conceivably outperform any government agency or private company. Space needs markets, rather than just funding.

Coincidentally, if anybody would be interested in a non-profit, open-source style development environment for aerospace applications, that follows a community funding model to drive project development, you may find this to be interesting.

 
Earth

Submission + - End the Ethanol Insanity

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: It's now conceivable, says BusinessWeek's Ed Wallace, that the myth of ethanol as the salvation for America's energy problem is coming to an end. Curiously, the alternative fuel may be done in by an unlikely collection of foes. Fervidly pro-ethanol in the last decade of his political career, former VP Al Gore reversed course in late November and apologized for supporting ethanol, which apparently was more about ingratiating himself to farmers. A week later, Energy Secretary Steven Chu piled on, saying: 'The future of transportation fuels shouldn't involve ethanol.' And in December, a group of small-engine manufacturers, automakers, and boat manufacturers filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals to vacate the EPA's October ruling that using a 15% blend of ethanol in fuel supplies would not harm 2007 and newer vehicles. Despite all of this, the newly-elected Congress has extended the 45 cent-per-gallon ethanol blending tax credit that was due to expire, a move that is expected to reduce revenue by $6.25 billion in 2011. 'The ethanol insanity,' longtime-critic Wallace laments, 'will continue until so many cars and motors are damaged by this fuel additive that the public outcry can no longer be ignored. Adding an expensive, harmful, useless filler to gasoline just to win farmers' gratitude is not remotely the same as having a legitimate national energy policy.'

Comment Open Space Movement helping Copenhagen Suborbitals (Score 2, Informative) 127

by IronDragon (#33340782) Attached to: Non-Profit Space Rocket Launching In a Week

Copenhagen Suborbitals Facebook page

Open Space Movement Facebook page

For anyone wondering, there's another little project in the works, designed to help support existing organizations such as Copenhagen Suborbitals, as well as individuals interested in manned space exploitation. Aka, the Open Space Movement.

The gist of this project is something akin to "sourceforge.net" for aerospace engineering, although that would be a gross oversimplification. The OSM operates on the principle that public involvement is the key to large-scale manned spaceflight in the near future, and operates as a service and organizational platform to help rally public interest, and direct their efforts towards a series of public space ventures.

The site is nearing completion, and should be ready for a beta test in the next week or two. When we begin operations, the first thing we have planned is providing a grant towards Copenhagen Suborbitals. We have raised ~1500 out of 5000$ so far. Having talked with Kristian von Bengstrom, this amount is roughly equivalent to the cost of the propellants used in the HEAT-1X motor. More importantly, providing a 5000$ grant now makes it possible to provide a 50,000$ grant in the future - since the primary incentive behind our donation model is to show exactly what we've spent money on, and what advances have come out of it.

(we intend to spend money on in-house user-submitted projects as well, but a grant is easier to perform at this stage)

OSM and Copenhagen Suborbitals thread here

FUN FACTS:

FY2010 NASA budget: 18 billion dollars
2005-adjusted cost of Apollo Program: 170 billion dollars.

Gross sales of cell phones in 2008: 38 billion dollars
sales of cell phones in a recent 6 month period: 65 billion dollars

We are currently spending more money on cell phones in one year, than the Apollo program spent in a decade.

Very rough estimate of Copenhagen Suborbitals' operating costs over past 2 years: 200,000$ to 300,000$

Sales of ringtones in the US market for 2008: 750,000,000$

Sales of "5 dollar footlongs" in Subway franchises in 2008: 3,200,000,000$

The public has more disposable income than the budgets of all space agencies and for-profit corporations combined. The OSM wants to put that to work.

After all, we already bought the Internet.

Comment Re:Good thread about this over at SA (Score 3, Interesting) 127

by IronDragon (#33339028) Attached to: Non-Profit Space Rocket Launching In a Week

There's another thread of interest in there, involving an organization that aims to become the "sourceforge.net" of aerospace engineering. Their site should be ready within another week or so, as a collaborative development environment, skill-matching social network, and space science/engineering knowledgebase.

It also happens, their first official act will be a grant of approximately 5000$ towards Copenhagen Suborbitals. We have raised about 1500$ so far.

http://osm.chipin.com/osm-jul-2010

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3335167

The "Open Space Movement" supports Copenhagen Suborbitals.

Comment Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score 1) 460

by IronDragon (#32566466) Attached to: NASA Ends Plan To Put Man Back On Moon

While the FY2010 budget for NASA is 18 billion, I find it interesting to note that the amount spent on cell phone handsets in 2008 was around 37 billion.

Or if you look at the past six months of cell phone handset sales from the top manufacturers - closer to 65 billion.

The public's disposable income could practically fund it's own space program.

Slashdot Top Deals

Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. -- Schulz

Close