Ask most British people about what they know about Manchester, in north-west England, and they will probably name Manchester United Football Club, (“The Reds”), cotton mills, rave music nightclubs, or, if they move in libertarian circles, the city often associated with laissez faire economic thinking in the 19th Century. So it is a proud day for the city to be now put alongside Cape Kennedy as a centre of space flight excellence.
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I came across this neat invention by a company calling itself Moller International which looks rather fun and a great way to beat those traffic snarlups which are getting worse and worse in London. It looks like something out of a Robert Heinlein science fiction novel from the Fifties. Terrific. June 18th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 I am at long last able to post my stories directly so if I have any readers out there who still remember my name… expect to hear from me on a much more regular basis in the coming weeks. Since the end of February when we “upgraded” to BloggerPro I’ve had to send my raw html text to Chief Editor Perry de Havilland for insertion. I understand Perry loves matching html tag pairs with a passion only outdone by his love of reading the London telephone directory in braille. The sales blurbs claimed lack of support for Linux was a “temporary” matter. Unfortunately, I do not have a great deal of time for anything beyond my consulting work and some activities with the National Space Society, so the extra burden was just enough to make me think twice when an article started buzzing about my head…enough trouble that I tended to swat the idea away rather than do anything about it. Then preparations for the ISDC (International Space Development Conference) hotted up as April slipped into May. I am the Chair of the National Space Society committee that oversees the local Conference committee so this kept me rather busy. More so as I was dumb enough to also volunteer to run a track of programming on Novel Propulsion Systems on top of assisting with liaison between NSS and the Moon Society (Artemis Project) on the lunar programming track… Speaking of the Lunar Track… No Glenn, I didn’t see the anti-capitalist, anti-settlement, anti-commercial space, anti-space resources, anti-property rights, anti… [you get the picture] guy who decided he’d like to speak at our conference. I was running my own track next door at the time with speakers talking about fun things like Launch Loops, Gas Guns, Electrodynamic Tethers and the like, so I didn’t have a chance. However I can confirm there were no bloodstains left over in the Lunar Track room by Banquet time, so our lads and lasses were polite enough to let the fellow get out of our midst alive. Darn. I really must give the fellow (Richard Steiner) credit for courage. Walking into a room full of space activists who would shave their grannies into hamburger for a chance to get off the planet and suggesting the entire Moon be made off limits to settlement is not something to be attempted by the faint of heart. It also won’t happen and we wouldn’t obey it even if it did happen. Besides… on the surface of the moon environuts are easily dealt with. If one should chain their self to a rock (no trees!)… No prob. We’ll just sit back in the cab of our lunar rover and take bets on when their Oxygen runs out. June 17th, 2002 | Comments are closed
12 exabytes of unique information… Humanity had created about 12 exabytes of unique information by mid-1999 and would double that vast quantity by mid-2002, researchers from the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted two years ago. There is an interesting article in the Financial Times about the vast heap of information being churned out by the networked world. An exabyte is 10 to the power 18 bytes, or a billion gigabytes, or 50,000 times the contents of the US Library of Congress. June 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It will come as no surprise to anyone who habitually reads British newspapers that the state likes the idea of being able to intercept any and all of your communications on the Internet. Well it just so happens that some people are not going to roll over for the government and play ball. Just as the state comes up with new technological ways to spy on its subjects (i.e you), those same subjects are finding ways to prevent them from doing so. Mathematician Peter Fairbrother simply refuses to just accept the Draconian powers that the state has taken upon itself via the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act and is developing M-O-O-T, an integrated privacy system that you just pop in your PC or Mac at startup. As it uses off-shore key storage, the user can rest safe knowing that the British state cannot get access to your sensitive data at a whim. Bravo!  June 1st, 2002 | Comments are closed
Nice profile of UK scientist Dr Terence Kealey in the latest online edition of U.S. technology and venture capital magazine Red Herring, which draws out Kealey’s claim that it is wrong to suppose science will die without generous funding from the taxpayer. The man knows what he is talking about, having worked as a research scientist at a number of British institutions. The profile is refreshingly fair-minded. In fact, this edition of Red Herring is excellent, with lots of good stuff on biotech, nanotechnology, telecoms and much besides. It is generally pro-free enterprise without being tiresomely ideological and is often a good way to pitch capitalism to the neutral observer. I once met its main editor and founder, Anthony Perkins, in his Californian home about five years ago and am impressed to see how his publication has surged over the years. More power to Red Herring’s elbow. May 23rd, 2002 | Comments are closed
Natalie. This time I’m going to fall into the trap of taking your obviously humorous posting seriously. The point is, it’s for portable computers. Although now still somewhat clunky, the new gismo will soon get very small and then be very easy to carry about in your pocket, probably soon as part of your portable. You try carrying a keyboard around with you on your travels, unless it’s a foldable one like mine. Keyboards compatible with your portable computer are hard to find, but plain flat surfaces are pretty common, all around the world. And as for non-portable computers, we must understand, Natalie, that not all people are like us. For some strange corporate beings, a computer keyboard is clutter, and one that can be switched off would be ultra-cool. Next: VKB must do the same for the screen. Then, answering Natalie’s objection, they may want to supply the clear desk space for the keyboard and the screen for the screen themselves, so that the thing can sit on top of the festering pile of junk that is permanently between Natalie and the top of her desk, just like a regular portable computer or computer keyboard now. The new standard portable computer is: four white (or whatever turns out to be the best colour for receiving projections) bricks, 12 inches by 3 inches by ¾ of an inch, joined at the long edges by three hinges. The outer two hinges enable the white bricks to flatten out and form the keyboard surface and the screen surface, while the central hinge is like the one hinge on a portable computer now. The keyboard is projected towards you from a little hole in the bottom brick of the screen. The screen is projected upwards from a little hole in the far brick of the keyboard surface (or maybe fownwards from a thingy that sticks out from the top of the screen, and doubles up as part of the case). I’m glad that’s clear. Note that different keyboards will be projectable at the press of a key, just as “different screens” are already presented to us all now, ditto, which is not possible with a hardware keyboard. I’m an inventor. Richard Barber: thanks for this link, which is an improvement even on the one I finally got around to supplying. We weren’t inundated with link info, so far as I know, following my failure to include any in the rare first edition of my original posting. It is Sunday. You and I, Richard, are stuck at our old-style mechanical computer keyboards, making our peculiar lifestyle choices. Most people are out doing … what? Things, I suppose. Who knows what normal people get up to? Meanwhile, as Richard says: “Ain’t capitalism grand?” It is indeed. May 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Tomorrow’s World is a BBC TV show that features gadgets that may or may not be about to change all our lives for the better. I watched it last Wednesday (May 8th). The BBC being the BBC there was much talk about impractical and expensive looking electric cars which will probably never catch on unless forced on us by politicians, and there was a machine featured which told you just how much damage you were doing to your respiratory system by smoking, thus motivating you to stop. Be still my heart. (This being what will inevitably happen to you, they kept helpfully reminding us, if you insist on smoking. Cue lying statistics about “smoking related” diseases.) But one gadget they showed did truly impress me, and I meant to pass it on that evening but something else must have got in the way. (Oh yes, my computer modem stopped working.) This impressive gadget was a new kind of very-portable computer keyboard. I already possess a folding (“Targus Stowaway”) keyboard with which I type stuff into my Hewlett Packard Jornada 548, which when folded fits into a space hardly any bigger than that occupied by a Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 (i.e. my jacket pocket), and I had supposed that this was as small as a keyboard big enough to type on properly could get. Not so. On Tomorrow’s World they showed something quite new, at any rate to me. Instead of offering you a physical keyboard, what the new gismo does is shine a keyboard onto your desk, and then watch you while you type on it. The thing itself is no bigger than a cigarette box, and soon all portable computers may contain such a thing inside them. Superb. In an earlier version of this posting I did an hour ago, I did the BBC a semi-injustice. I said they didn’t say who make this midget miracle. They didn’t on the TV. But follow the link above and you get to VBK Ltd. This is an Israeli company, and I don’t remember them saying that on the TV either. Just thought I’d tell you. What with assassinations, European Unions, train crashes (another one here in Blighty on Friday), and all the usual politically administered misery, it’s as well to remember that some things in our flawed but fascinating civilisation are being done extraordinarily well, and ever better as the years go by. May 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I imagine at least a few have noted my near absence from these pages over the last few weeks. This is the difference between those who earn their keep from their words and those who do so by other means. As I live by consultancy, I at times have very few hours left to myself. When there are other projects at hand, time allocation can get very dicey. One very big “free time” project is nearing completion and as it is part of a public event I thought I’d invite you all to come. I’m running a track on Novel Propulsion Systems at the National Space Society‘s 2002 International Space Development Conference in Denver in a few weeks. Here’s what I’ve put together for my little corner of it:
See you there! May 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Hernando de Soto seems to have had an immense impact on all of Spanish America, and most particularly on his homeland of Peru. Unfortunately you hear very little about Peru in the news other than Fujimori escapades or Shining Path villainy. This letter from Dr. Edgar David Villaneuva Nunez, Congressman of the Republica of Peru to Microsoft shows an entirely different side of government in Peru. It is much worth the read whether your interest is in the meta-context shining through it, or of the powerful set of arguments Dr Nunez makes for free software. The story is in the letter so I will let Dr. Nunez provide the rest of the narrative. May 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I was having dinner last night in a Polish restaurant with an old chum of mine and a most delectable young lady, when I noticed something that reaffirmed my conviction that the triumph of global capitalism is completely unstoppable. If there was ever any doubt in your mind about how capitalist innovation makes our lives so much better, it can be dispelled by purchasing a bottle of Polish Zywiec beer and examining the label on the back of the bottle closely.
Science and business join hands to deliver the perfect bottle of beer! God bless capitalism!  May 1st, 2002 | Comments are closed
A Japanese electronics firm has invented a high-tech pint glass that tells bar staff when it needs refilling. The glass is fitted with a radio-frequency coil in its base that emits a signal to a receiver when it is empty. The glass has been invented by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. Strikes me that this is the way for Japan to get out of its current economic mire. Is technology wonderful or what? April 4th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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