trickygibbon - Slashdot User

Chinese Want To Capture an Asteroid 481

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 31, 2011 @01:30PM from the what-could-go-wrong? dept.

geekmansworld writes "The Chinese want to capture an asteroid into earth's orbit and mine it. From the article: 'At first glance, nudging an asteroid closer to Earth seems like one of those "what could possible go wrong" scenarios that we generally try and avoid, and for good reason: large asteroid impacts are bad times. The Chinese, though, seem fairly optimistic that they could tweak the orbit of a near-Earth asteroid by just enough (a change in velocity of only about 1,300 feet-per-second or so) to get it to temporarily enter Earth orbit at about twice the distance as the Moon.'"

Submission + - Motorola's Identity Crisis (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22, 2011 @08:13AM

An anonymous reader writes: An article at the NY Times discusses the awkwardness of Google's recent purchase of Motorola Mobility, an acquisition widely thought to be motivated by Android patent concerns rather than a more straightforward business plan. From the article: 'while industry analysts and insiders say the rationale makes sense, they also say it leaves Motorola in an unusual position. Many acquisitions are aimed at creating some well-articulated synergy between the two companies, but Motorola’s future role in this union — beyond patent warehouse — is unclear. Heightening the uncertainty is that the companies involved, both of which declined to comment, are in some ways as different as two technology companies can be. Google makes Internet services and software, thrives on high profit margins and distributes its product using giant data centers. Motorola makes hardware, has modest margins on a good day and moves its products on trucks and airplanes and through brick-and-mortar stores. ... "It’s like, thanks for everything you did in the 20th century, but you’re being bought by a search engine," said Roger Entner, a telecommunications industry analyst and founder of Recon Analytics, a market research firm. He added, "Nobody ever buys a company and leaves it alone."'

Comment Dell used to be great chaps... (Score 1) 169

by trickygibbon on Monday July 10, 2006 @07:08AM (#15689992) Attached to: Dell Chastized Over Customer Service

.. until they outsourced most of their customer services operation. From my experience, Dell's current customer service team seems to be targeted on the number of customers they piss off per day.
- Ask for a complaint to be escalated? - no problem, you'll speak to the same fella in 2 weeks' time...

- Write in to the MD / Head of operations etcetc - no problem, you'll speak to the same fella in 3 weeks' time...

After an odyssey of to/fro-ing over a computer within warranty that wouldn't turn ON, my only recourse was to go to the https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/small claims court (very handy online service). Funnily enough, Dell settled out of court.

BTW, think Dell have a reputation for astroturfing, so watch out for all those "My Dell has worked fine for the last Millennia" comments...

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