99luftballon - Slashdot User

Comment: Re:I'm not investigating any distress calls (Score 1) 299

by 99luftballon on Friday March 09, @02:16AM (#39297999) Attached to: NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only

"My sweet, you know how you said you wanted to travel..."

Seriously, my better half would find me in the darkest Arsia Mons caves, and there'd be bloody murder.

Comment: Re:Space Mining (Score 2) 299

by 99luftballon on Friday March 09, @02:10AM (#39297967) Attached to: NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only

Sure, but in 20 years who is going to have more funds to throw at space travel - the US or China?

Comment: Re:China (Score 4, Insightful) 299

by 99luftballon on Friday March 09, @02:01AM (#39297909) Attached to: NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only

We'll never solve population pressure with space travel, it costs too much to get into orbit. But I'd bet the Chinese are considering mining operations off planet.

Comment: I'm not investigating any distress calls (Score 2, Interesting) 299

by 99luftballon on Friday March 09, @01:57AM (#39297889) Attached to: NASA Boss Says Mars Colonization Will Be Corporate Only

Facehugger anyone? Seriously though, how many of us would sign up for a one-way trip? I'd do it in a heartbeat, but the wife would kill me.

NASA boss says Mars colonisation will be corporate only-> 0

Submitted by 99luftballon on Thursday March 08, @09:35PM

99luftballon writes "The head of NASA Ames has said that he expects any colonisation of Mars, the Moon or asteroids to be done by private companies rather than by NASA. There's some interesting parallels with the East India Company, although that was hardly a triumph of capitalism. The article also mentions Google's head of space projects, who has 'Intergalactic Federation King Almighty and Commander of the Universe' on her business cards."
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Eolas fails in patent claims for browser apps and plug-ins-> 0

Submitted by 99luftballon on Thursday February 09, @06:24PM

99luftballon writes "Eolas Technologies has been knocked back by the patent-friendly Texas courts. The company confirmed to The Register that the case was lost — but no comment on appeals."
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Astronomers look for black hole at centre of Milky-> 1

Submitted by 99luftballon on Wednesday January 18, @01:44AM

99luftballon writes "Astronomers are planning the Event Horizon Telescope project in Arizona on Wednesday — and say in three or four years they should be able to image the ring of matter around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The black hole is 26,000 miles away but should be large enough to check if Einstein got his equations right."
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Negroponte plans tablet airdrops - teachers not in-> 0

Submitted by 99luftballon on Wednesday November 02 2011, @08:24PM

99luftballon writes "Nicholas Negroponte is planning to airlift tablets into the remotest corners of the world, and then getting kids to teach themselves to read on them — basically extending hole in the wall computing. It seems teachers aren't being invited to the party. I'm not sure how well this will work on the practical side, but the effort is noble."
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OccupfySF IT admins using pedal power for protest-> 0

Submitted by 99luftballon on Friday October 14 2011, @07:18PM

99luftballon writes "The OccupySF team have been running an ad-hoc computer network on the streets of San Francisco without a steady power source, no Wi-Fi and even the occasional police raid. It turns out the best way to keep the lights on is car batteries and pedal power."
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Text messages to replace stamps in Sweden-> 0

Submitted by

99luftballon

on Wednesday March 09 2011, @03:07PM

99luftballon writes "Sweden and Denmark are running tests on replacing stamps with text messages. The writer sends a text message to a central server, which bills for the stamp and returns a code to be written on the letter. It's an interesting system but it better have very good security. Could this be the end of stamp collections and philately?"
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