Posts Tagged ‘low’

Cloud Computing… For Real!

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Watch out for more drones in the sky! Only this time, instead of bombing innocents and invading privacy, new unmanned aircraft are being designed to host Internet web sites.

The Pirate Bay – the world’s largest free information enabler – announced plans to develop and release so-called Low Orbit Server Stations, which will fly above international waters to serve the world’s file-sharing community.

So, once launched, even if some corporate lobbyists manage to convince governments to execute a take-down on The Pirate Bay’s servers, their raids will prove futile, since the information they seek will be, literally, up in the air.

For now, the idea is just that, an idea. There are several technical issues to overcome, including building solar powered aircraft that can hold computing equipment and networking devices while staying airborne 24 hours a day.

Still, once completed, the implications will be awesome!

ACTA, PIPA, SOPA, C-11, and whatever other censorship nonsense the government tries to impose on us will be no match for human ingenuity. If they want to crack down on our free Internet, we will build a new one.

Picture thousands of wireless hotspots forming a meshed network, mounted on rooftops, street poles, cars, and robotic drones hovering above, to provide everyone with free access to an unrestricted Internet.

With 3D printers churning out more amazing stuff every day, and solar getting so effective and accessible, a decade or two is all it will take to deploy an indomitable mesh Internet across all of earth’s major hubs.

Hooray! One more blow to the encroaching totalitarian regime.

 

Sweet Upcycled Bottle Garden

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Treehugger has a nice piece detailing an innovative and cost-effective way to maximize growing space: build a vertical bottle garden. All you need is a pile of plastic PET bottles, a roll of twine, cutting implements, and some time.

If you were so inclined, you could modify the design to include a drip irrigation system using rubber tubes or some other kind of pipe. This way you would be maximizing both the use of space and the use of water.

Amazing, right? Another fine example of how great solutions to pressing problems are already here, it’s more a matter a spreading the know-how.

I find these stories of low-cost innovation so inspiring. And lucky for me, more uplifting tales of human ingenuity will continue to arrive faster than ever before.

What a great time to be alive!