YR VERY OWN SATELLITE OF LOVE

ITEM [via Slashdot]: Hey kids! Put yr own satellites in orbit with the Interorbital TubeSat Personal Satellite (PS) Kit.

A TubeSat is designed to function as a Basic Satellite Bus or as a simple stand-alone satellite. Each TubeSat kit includes the satellite’s structural components, safety hardware, solar panels, batteries, power management hardware and software,  transceiver, antennas, microcomputer, and the required programming tools. With these components alone, the builder can construct a satellite that puts out enough power to be picked up on the ground by a hand-held HAM radio receiver ...

The TubeSat also allows the builder to add his or her own experiment or function to the basic TubeSat kit. Examples of add-on experiments or functions include the following:

• Earth-from-space video imaging
• Earth magnetic field measurement
  
• Satellite orientation detection (horizon sensor, gyros, accelerometers, etc.)
  
• Orbital environment measurements (temperature, pressure, radiation, etc.)
  
• On-orbit hardware and software component testing (microprocessors, etc.)
  
• Tracking migratory animals from orbit
  
• Testing satellite stabilization methods
  
• Biological experiments
  
• On-orbit advertising
  
• Private e-mail.
  

On-orbit advertising?

The TubeSats are placed into self-decaying orbits 310 kilometers (192 miles) above the Earth’s surface. After a few weeks of operation, they re-enter the atmosphere and burn-up.

Yrs for $8,000. The cost of the launch is included. Launches are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Looking for satellites,

This is dF

LONELY IS AN EYESORE

ITEM [via BoingBoing]: Here’s the Oasis Tower One in Fort Myers, FLA. It’s a 32-floor condo high-rise ... with only one tenant.



The development company has offered to move the family to another tower at no cost while they figure out a solution, but the family declined because they’d still be paying their mortgage on the original condo. They want someone to buy them out – only who’s going to make an offer?

I confess, my first thought was: “Cool, where do I sign up for that deal?”

Then I started thinking about that scene in 28 Days Later where Brendan Gleeson and his daughter are living in that high-rise by themselves.

It wouldn’t be that extreme, of course. But it does get me thinking about the nature of voluntary isolation. Plenty of people want to get away from it all. But they move to environments conducive to isolation: farms, mountain cabins, desert shacks, etc. In other words, places where there aren’t supposed to be other people.

Unlike condo high-rises, which are supposed to be well-populated.

There’s something about unoccupied buildings, isn’t there? When I was a lad traipsing through the Tennessee woodlands, I’d occasionally come across some old house built anywhere from 50 to a hundred years ago and long since abandoned. There was something sad yet fascinatingly eerie about seeing a place intended for human residence left to decay, as if traces of past lives were haunting yr peripheral vision just out of sight. I used to get the same feeling prowling around auto graveyards looking at rusting beat-up cars. I imagine shipwreck sites must evoke a similar experience.

To say nothing of abandoned amusement parks, schools and swimming pools.

So, upon reflection, I wouldn’t want to live there. I may play a misanthrope on the web, but I know from personal experience that solipsism only gets me so far through the day.

There is a light that never goes out,

This is dF

HEAVY WEATHER 2009: GONI!

And yr new favorite typhoon is named Goni. And it’s already here.



Or will be in the next hour or so. The observatory went to Signal 8 about an hour ago while we were out to dinner.

Technically, Goni is not quite running at typhoon strength, but neither was Molave. Also, while it’s going to hit Macau directly instead of Hong Kong, those of us in the west side of town are going to get us some seriously wet wind.

We’ve already plugged up the windows, but it’s looking like another noisy overnighter. Figures.

Any way the wind blows,

This is dF