I don't know if anyone here reads Computerworld's Shark Tank, but I just can't get enough of it -- lots of tales of clueless IT users, often management with pointless decisions.

Oh Lordy.

"You should have known that users don't follow established procedures, and taken that into account in your maintenance plan."

From Space.com:

September 12

Space Elevator Gets FAA Lift

The LiftPort Group, the space elevator companies, announced September 9 that it has received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use airspace to conduct preliminary tests of its high altitude robotic “lifters.”

The lifters are early prototypes of the technology that the company is developing for use in its commercial space elevator to ferry cargo back and forth into space.

The tests, which are planned for early fall, will simulate a working space elevator by launching a model elevator “ribbon” attached to moored balloon initially up to a mile high. The robotic lifters will then be tested in their ability to climb up and down the free-hanging ribbon, marking the first-ever test of this technology in the development of the space elevator concept.

According to Michael Laine, president of the LiftPort Group in Bremerton, Washington, the FAA go-ahead is a “critical step” in the ultimate developing of the group’s LiftPort Space Elevator concept.

I love the idea of space elevators, I they they're a bad idea for use on earth. The catastrophic failure of a space elevator brings new definition to the word "catastrophic."

In my mind, space elevators fall under the category of "cool stuff that won't happen until after I die." Of course I could be wrong....

(Another of that category is "humans landing on Mars." Latest word is that will happen by 2025 or in the 2030s, but who knows if the proper level of funding can be maintained for that long.)

I'm still rooting for Bob Zubrin and the Mars First movement, but why goes to Mars cheap and easy when you can hand out bloated government contracts instead.

At least humans on the moon in the twenty-teens sounds likely. I was too young to remember any of the moon landings except the last one. And the new "heavy lift" booster they're gonna use will be about as big as a Saturn V.

NASA is supposed to release info on the Moon timetable to the public tomorrow. They've already briefed the President and Congress.

And the new "heavy lift" booster they're gonna use will be about as big as a Saturn V.

Really? If I were to keel over tomorrow, one of my regrets would be having never seen a Saturn V go up. Something about its size would be an acceptable substitute.

A two-month old article on NASA's new rockets (with a picture): [link]

The heavy lifter will be unmanned, and probably have a first stage of four shuttle-derived main engines plus two shuttle solid rocket boosters (except larger, with five segments instead of four). A smaller rocket with a shuttle SRB first state will be used to ferry astronauts into space.

eta: Details of NASA's plan to put astronauts on the moon by 2018: [link]

Huh. How about that?

What does the 4 Meg flash drive in the Nano portend for the future of Apple's low-end computers (Mini and iBook)?

Flash Based Laptops, Sooner Than You Think

Back to the harddrive vs flash debate. I fully expect the low end of Apple’s products to become flash based in the near future. I also expect Intel’s new, low power mobile chips (code named Yonah I believe) to arrive in the same time frame. And in two years I have a feeling that Jobs will announce an Intel-flash iBook that will be the thinest laptop ever made boasting the best battery life of any current machine. And when that happens expect the industry to scramble just like it is doing now after the release of the nano.

Ooh, let's hope so. Can the flash iBook be black, like my Nano?

eta: re: the Nano - Apple has yet to reveal sales numbers, but

“Customers are basically doing back flips over this thing,” Gene Munster, senior research analyst with Piper Jaffray, told MacCentral. “People see the ads and they see it on the Web, but until they actually have one in there hand they just don’t get it.”

Munster contacted 20 Apple retail locations and found that all stores were sold out of the 4GB black iPod nano, some stores were sold out of the 4GB white models and none of the stores were sold out of the 2GB models.

FTR - I "got it" before I held a Nano. In fact, I didn't even see a Nano up close until I opened up my Nano box. OTOH, I have yet to do a backflip.

[link]