Automated Office Delivery with Helium Blimps 165
Blimp Dude writes "Anyone who likes blimps might want to check out this automated blimp delivery service built by some guy at HP Labs. I personally think this is the future... Now I want WebBlimp to deliver groceries directly to my 29th floor apartment window."
yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Now that Alan Kay's at HP... (Score:2)
Yet another victim of Messiah Syndrome (Score:5, Funny)
Okay Helium Jim Jones, whatever you say. Just don't send any Kool-Aid my way.
Don't they remember history??? (Score:3, Funny)
For God's sake! The disasters this could cause! Remember the Hindenberg!!!!
Re:Don't they remember history??? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't they remember history??? (Score:2)
Re:Don't they remember history??? (Score:2)
It's only rarely that I think of the periodic table.
Get it?
Hewlette Packard (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hewlette Packard (Score:1)
At any rate you could have an interesting match between blimp man and tank boy.
Re:Hewlette Packard (Score:2)
caustic soda, aluminium and water was the winner in my dangerous teenage days.
filled a couple of balloons, tied a string to them, sprayed hair spray over the string, let it go up to the end of the string, light the end of the string and a few seconds later "boom" instant UFO!
Re:It looks like it weighs a few ounces... (Score:2)
"Oh no! My coffee cu..NOOOOOO!!! OH THE HUMANITY! OH! THIS IS THE WORST OF THE WORST!"
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[this space to be filled with the usual complaints about the lameness filter in order to circumvent it's wrath, which is itself lame for blocking "too many caps" in my opinion.]
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Don't they remember history??? (Score:2)
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Now THAT would be useful.
All kidding aside, though, cute, but how useful would this be?
"Usefulness" isn't really the point (Score:1)
Anyway, he didn't really build this thing because it's the best way to deliver a document... haven't you ever built anything just for fun, because you could?
I wrote a little text-to-speech converter once entirely in HTML and JavaScript, using the word pronunciations at Merriam-Webster Online [m-w.com]. Naturally it was horribl
Re:"Usefulness" isn't really the point (Score:3, Funny)
Throwing a thawed, frozen lasagne is plain silly and should be avoided. In part because it's quite hard to tie a letter to a soggy lsasgne. Maybe if it's al dente you might get away
to increase efficiency... (Score:2, Funny)
Unfortunately (Score:5, Funny)
First victim claimed.
Save the server! (Score:5, Informative)
Funky link (Score:4, Funny)
You have not mirrored it on 127.0.0.1, I checked the link and nothing... I am so annoyed that I am going to set the slapper worm on the http server on that IP, yes 127.0.0.1 is going to die!
Why the heck is my system going mental? Why is my net slowing down? What's happening, is 127.0.0.1 counter attacking me? That does it I am going to DOS that server and see what it does to me! Right N.........
Re:Funky link (Score:4, Informative)
the link is actually correct, once you've installed freenet on your machine. in fact, all requests to freenet point to 127.0.0.1, there's a daemon that creates a server listening on that port, that goes and downloads the content and feeds it back to your web-browser. it's pretty damn cool actually
im not very impressed (Score:3, Insightful)
again, i appreciate the try but the article itself wasnt any fun or insightful to read and the accomplishment wasnt too impressive. the most interesting part was using the red and blue to judge orientation and the size to judge distance. i thought that was neat, but not very practical of course.
i expected a somewhat usable system, maybe tweaks needed to the guidance systems. but it cant even carry a piece of paper...........
Re:im not very impressed (Score:1)
or even the fucking submitters...
i mean, it cant carry a postit but you want blimps delivering your groceries...interesting
Re:im not very impressed (Score:2)
Hmmm... (Score:1)
blimps for deliveries? Oh the humanity!
Full circle (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think I've ever been into a contemporary home with a dumb-waiter in it. And how about vacuum tube devlivery: totally relegated to banks (and Home Depot). Yeah, sure, email is taking everything over. But when you really need a signature on something, vacuum tubes rock. Installing vacuum tubes through my house, now that's the kinda large scale project that I want to wast my time on.
Re:Full circle (Score:2)
Why did the Hindenburg disaster freak people out so badly? It had nothing to do w/ risk in Airships (as weve learned) it had t
Something similar. (Score:5, Interesting)
We scrapped it after the first week because of two major flaws:
1) It was annoying as hell. (*HUMMMMMMMMMM* *Feeling of eyes on the back of neck*)
2) Our customers started hitting our website to see if we were actually working. ("I don't know Bob, that sure looks like he's playing solitare to me...")
The second flaw eventually metamorphosed into a new plan involving a looped tape and 15 minutes of real work, which had to be scrapped as unbelievable.
Ahhhh, the glory days.
Re:Something similar. (Score:2)
That's soo wimpy!! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't these guys watch monster garage? wimps!
Just kidding it's pretty and I liked the music.
No wait, now i'm just kidding :)
Re:That's soo wimpy!! (Score:2)
More to the point, having a system like those games with a robotic claw to grab stuffed animals can be sold to management quite easily.
Imagine how much real estate you can save by eliminating hallways! Just use the claw to grab employees by the neck and deposit them in their cubicles. Each cubicle can have four walls and no doors, since the workers are dropped into place.
Also, the employees can be kept at their deks for a full eight hours of work! Simply shut down the claw during normal business hour
Go U.S. Research! (Score:1)
- This is supposed to be a poke at U.S. R&D.
Is this a... (Score:1)
Hydrogen? Helium? (Score:1)
I guess now would be the time to mention that helium, unlike hydrogen, is not flammable?
wimpy blimp (Score:1)
Anything usefull that has to be transferred as paper is going to be much larger than a Post-It-Note, so how large must this thing be?
Would filling it with hydrogen instead help? I would love to see a Hindenburg go down at my office...
Re:wimpy blimp (Score:4, Informative)
Re:wimpy blimp (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wimpy blimp (Score:2)
Want to deliver a heavier thing? Just take off some of the ballast. The problem then becomes the return trip, but that's solved easily enough by requiring the recipient of the letter to send a reply.
Or you replace the ballast (Score:2)
Or you add a buoyancy tank (Score:2)
Re:Or you add a buoyancy tank (Score:2)
Re:Or you add a buoyancy tank (Score:2)
I want one with a laser beam attached (nt) (Score:2)
friendly guy (Score:2)
Not after being slashdotted, spam-listed, and trolled with a million "you're a dweeb!" or "could you send me detailed instructions and hold my hand while i try to duplicate this please?" messages he won't be. Slashdot fame chases the friendliness out of the friendliest nerd.
Wish he would Open Source the code (Score:2)
Lots of potential here for intelligent control of the blimp, but no evidence that he tried any of that.
As Father would say, (Score:1)
A couple of problems (Score:1)
Also, people will probably be shooting them out of the sky in order to steal the contents. Much easier than jacking a FedEx truck for example.
Oh, and nitpicking aside, this is way cool!
And they say... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And they say... (Score:1)
An office blimp would have fit in really well, not for the delivery thing but for target practice with the nurf g
We've had this for ages... (Score:2, Funny)
And, like the Hindenburg... (Score:2)
And, like the Hindenburg, he's full of flamible gas.
Blimp Dude writes (Score:2)
Excellent way to earn your moniker.
in 2013... (Score:1)
Useful office tool (Score:1)
Technology that is soon to be replaced (Score:2)
Mark my words...
inevitably reach the same conclusion... rfc 1149? (Score:3, Funny)
nope. rfc 1149 [bbc.co.uk], "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers" [ietf.org]
same dependability [linux.no] as the blimp though: not very dependable.
so has this guy written the rfc for the intraoffice blimp protocol yet? no!? what kind of nerd does he think he is!
Re:inevitably reach the same conclusion... rfc 114 (Score:1)
FYI: The MPEG is an MPEG-2 (Score:2)
There is a free decoder out there for Windows, but I don't remember where it was..
I've been thinking about blimps lately. (Score:2)
Think about it: The old blimps were hydrogen, bad idea. I'm not sure about the lift factor of helium compared, but I do know that we've achieved a hell of a lot in terms of lighter building materials, so it seems like a decent sized blimp could be made.
The problem with cruise liners is that they are, obviously, restricted to the ocean. Enter the blimp, bad ass overland cruise ship. They'd be good for solar power (large surface area) relatively quick if y
Re:I've been thinking about blimps lately. (Score:2)
Re:I've been thinking about blimps lately. (Score:2)
knee-jerk response (Score:1)
Here's a helpful business model:
1. Build a big blimp to serve as an overland cruiseliner
2. Use savvy marketing to avoid "blimp" stigma
3. ???
4. Profit!
Oh man, they come out with these just when. . . (Score:2)
It just doesn't seem fair.
KFG
Not bad.. (Score:2)
.. now if they could find a way to deliver spam with hydrogen blimps, all would be good in the world.
dude. (Score:5, Funny)
What would be cooler: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen this implemented in some hospitals to move papers and stuff around, it would be cool to see on a larger office building size scale.
Re:What would be cooler: (Score:2)
It also seems to differ in that it does not move actual pieces of paper, but instead electronic representations of paper documents.
Can't remember exactly what they call it, but I think it starts with an e.
Re:What would be cooler: (Score:2)
Re:What would be cooler: (Score:2)
2. Find most effective route
3. Wait until the cost is clear, and launch the tennis balls in the tube
4. Bribe security for the tape of your victim getting hit by barrage of tennis balls.
5. Setup TV and stick in tape
Fun for the whole family!
Re: (Score:1)
If this thing could carry beer (Score:2)
On an almost serious note, it might be neet to combine slashdot stories here. What if the "Beer and Bluetooth" [slashdot.org] idea could be combined with the blimp from this story. A bluetooth camera mounted on a blimp that traveled around the bar and took a picture every 10-15 seconds and then posted the picture on a big screen and archived in the gallery.
Can I copyright these ideas? Nah, nevermind. But they're
Weird methods of office delivery (Score:2)
old idea (Score:2)
Is this what the leetle buzzy robots are for? (Score:5, Funny)
ME: "Leetle Buzzy Robot, give this to Ted in Accounting."
Leetle Buzzy Robot: "BEEE WWHOOP Bee BOOO"
ME: "Koo Koo Katchoo!"
Leetle Buzzy Robot: "ZZZZZzzzzzzzz......"
MOMENTS LATER...
TED, On Phone: "Uh, Dude? Why is there a Radio Shack monster truck banging into my wastebasket with a post-it-note that says 'Impotent' on it?"
ME: "I know nothing."
Re:Is this what the leetle buzzy robots are for? (Score:2)
It's just frustrated by it's impotency, try to be sensitive about it.
Re:Is this what the leetle buzzy robots are for? (Score:2)
Anything that could be done electronically at 10,000x the speed and 1/10,000th the resource cost would be pretty rediculous though.
(Reminds me of the unions in LV "Carrying" a tiny 2 lb box from the parking lot to our booth on a single fork of aforklift while a second guy has his hand on top of it to keep it from falling off)
So we create an auto pilot blimp... (Score:2)
The real achievement (Score:2, Insightful)
He's really solving a much more important problem - visual tracking and control of dumb vehicles. I like the red and blue idea, it is economical and fits the available technology. The advantage is that the vehicle does not know, or even need to know, where it is. What other contactless 3D positioning system could be built for a hundred bucks? This is great for expendable vehicles, or those with very limited payloads.
Neat, fun, slightly daft, project, in my opini
Where my money went (Score:1)
Not cool enough yet. (Score:2)
"Things that go blimp in the night" (Score:5, Funny)
Lee-Lo (Score:2)
The Media Lab failed at this in the 1980s. (Score:2)
Pneumatic tubes (Score:2)
Why couldn't you have a viable system of pneumatic tubes providing anywhere-to-anywhere delivery via hub-and-spoke (all tubes are routed from e.g. desks to a single central "hub" location. To send it from point A to point B, you put it in a tube at point A where it gets sent to the hub, where a robot transfers it to
Mad magazine did it first... (Score:2)
That was Cool (Score:2)
Think about it guys, in his spare time this guy managed to use a single camera, some color filters, and an SDK to navigate a childs toy anywhere in a room up to 40m wide. Is it reliable, no. But I would'nt call the Wright flyer A reliable either.
I'm personally working on an entry for the Darpa Grand Challenge, and I really have to respect anyone who can get machine vision to work.
Either that o
Re:That was Cool (Score:2)
The Horror of Blimps (Score:2)
-Mark
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:1)
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:1)
Your post is bsurd
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:2)
D
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:5, Interesting)
This one is full of helium, helium is a nobal gas and therefore does not burn. The Hindenburng (LZ-129) was full of hydrogen (although most of the burning that actually killed people was the frame and the cabin).
The hindenburg too was intended to be filled with helium, (hence its size increase over the Graf Zepplin, LZ-127). However the only country that had access to large enough quantities of helium was the US who fractionated it from natural gas (yes natural gas does contain helium). The united states forign department blocked the sale of the gas to Germany fearing it would be used in a military project. As a consiquence of the greater boyancy (hydrogen molecules are about half the mass of helium atoms) the zepplin was installed with extra rooms.
Ironically, the zepplin blew up in America as a result of the flammable hydrogen (although a helium blimp can still go up in flames), and as a consiquence all further exports on helium were authorised and the zepplin company put in an order for enough gas to fill the Graf Zepplin 2 (LZ-130) . However this had little affect on aviation because the zepplins wered decomissioned before the order was delivered.
Another more ironic thing is that the export of helium for a civilian aircraft was blocked, but IBM was still able to supply the punch card machines that orchestrated the haulocaust. But history is funny like that... go figure.
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:1)
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:3, Informative)
Yup. The airplane dope they used back then (to strengthen and waterproof the fabric) was pretty flamable itself.
And then if you coat it with powdered aluminum... Yikes.
The hubub about hydrogen is all kind of silly, really. Sure, it is explosive if well mixed with oxygen, so you need to be a little more careful. But it's not that dangerous. It is also not that much more efficient than helium, which isn't so expensive anymore. If helium makes you feel safer, so be it.
Re:A repeat of the Hindenburg? (Score:3, Funny)
He (Score:1)
History of helium production [dst.tx.us]
No repeat of the Hindenburg here (Score:4, Interesting)
1) the covering on the hindenburg was the source of the fire, not the hydrogen. The covering had material similar to ammonium nitrate and gunpowder, a disaster waiting to happen especially with the hydrogen on board.
2) these balloons use helium, not hydrogen. We banned He export to Germany so they used hydrogen to get off the ground.
3) the hindenburg was huge because of the sheer weight it had to compensate for. Kitchens, passengers, crew, cargo, etc. A 50-pound package doesn't need such a large balloon to lift it, so as long as it's within reason this could work out
4) our SchustenStaffel...er, department of homeland security wouldn't allow easily hijacked bags of explosive gas to run freely around. They'd be like a neon sign going "Untraceable Weapon Here! Fire and Forget! All evidence destroyed in the blast!!!"
5) finally, remember that the hindenburg was a target for sabotage, both because of the political ramifications of any positive relations between US and GER. If we'd remained neutral, France would be a German sycophant (ok, so not much changes there), Russia would be a slave country, and UK would be either a US fortress or a German satellite. Smaller helium-filled balloons like giant kiddie-party toys aren't so politically charged or easily destroyed, except my malicious little kids with BB guns and lax parents.
Re:No repeat of the Hindenburg here (Score:2)
Duubtfull. They would of lost some terrortary, and wouldn't of been able to push germany back, but Germany was in no postition to take, much less hold, Russia.
Re:how about... (Score:1)