Techdirt. Stories filed under "columbia" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "columbia"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Space Shuttle Stories Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100711/21375810163/dailydirt-space-shuttle-stories.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100711/21375810163/dailydirt-space-shuttle-stories.shtml
  • Wayne Hale, a retired Space Shuttle Flight Director, explains how Columbia was damaged by the loss of insulation foam -- by finding out that Discovery was almost damaged in the same way. It wasn't due to improper foam installation, but instead thermal cycling from filling and re-filling the cryogenic fuel. [url]
  • On its way to a museum, Enterprise sustains damage to its wingtip after hitting a bridge. The NASA prototype spacecraft never flew in space, and it suffered only cosmetic damage while being transported to its final destination at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan. [url]
  • Caenorhabditis elegans worms actually survived the Columbia disaster, and their descendants flew into space in 2011 on the Endeavour. Worms on a m*********ing spaceplane! [url]
  • To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  
    • By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.


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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100711/21375810163     Tue, 7 Dec 2010 21:52:00 PST Columbia University Tells Students Not To Ignore Wikileaks Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101207/01534812161/columbia-university-tells-students-not-to-ignore-wikileaks.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101207/01534812161/columbia-university-tells-students-not-to-ignore-wikileaks.shtml avoid discussing the Wikileaks cable leaks publicly. As we noted, this seemed ridiculous. The folks who are most interested in international diplomacy are the folks who are most likely to be discussing this very issue. Thankfully, the University has apparently realized how bad this looks and has sent out a second letter saying that it supports free speech and open discussion and encourages people to freely discuss whatever it is they want:
    Freedom of information and expression is a core value of our institution. Thus, SIPA's position is that students have a right to discuss and debate any information in the public arena that they deem relevant to their studies or to their roles as global citizens, and to do so without fear of adverse consequences. The WikiLeaks documents are accessible to SIPA students (and everyone else) from a wide variety of respected sources, as are multiple means of discussion and debate both in and outside of the classroom.
    The Wired article linked above also notes that a professor in the program, Gary Sick, who has been a noted critic of Wikileaks, was an even bigger critic of the original email that was sent out:
    "If anyone is a master's student in international relations and they haven't heard of WikiLeaks and gone looking for the documents that relate to their area of study, then they don't deserve to be a graduate student in international relations."
    He apparently also told Wired that asking students to ignore the whole thing was "absurd." If only the actual folks in the federal government viewed things the same way.

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    ]]>     good-for-them http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101207/01534812161     Tue, 4 Sep 2007 10:08:30 PDT How The Record Labels Are Only Ten Years Behind In Their Thinking About Business Models Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070903/173857.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070903/173857.shtml profile of Rick Rubin, the well-known producer who had tremendous success over the past twenty years producing all sorts of successful musical acts -- from the Beastie Boys to Slayer to Johnny Cash -- and who took over as the co-head of Columbia Records back in May. While the story itself is interesting and focused on some of Rubin's peculiarities and his key focus on finding and producing good music -- there are a few other interesting tidbits that come out. The first is how Rubin was completely pissed off at Columbia prior to joining the company because the Sony rootkit debacle hit just as a Neil Diamond album Rubin produced had come out to great fanfare. It was apparently number 4 on the charts -- the highest ever for a Diamond opening. Except, Columbia is a subsidiary of Sony BMG and so the Neil Diamond album was included among those that had the rootkit -- and the furor over that got it pulled from the shelves, and that basically killed its commercial prospects. So, at least we know that Rubin won't be a fan of such things.

    However, the article suggests that Rubin and others in the industry are much more interested in setting up some sort of universal subscription system that would allow any subscribers access to any music on any platform. What's most amusing about this is that this is exactly the proposal the EFF suggested many, many years ago, which recording industry executives insisted would never work. What's even funnier is they might be right now, after managing to screw up all sorts of goodwill from customers. Back when the EFF suggested it, it probably still could have worked. However, Rubin is exactly right on where the industry is headed if it doesn't figure out these new business models quickly: "The future technology companies will either wait for the record companies to smarten up, or they'll let them sink until they can buy them for 10 cents on the dollar and own the whole thing." That's why I've always figured that things would work out in the end. If the RIAA members keep shooting themselves in their collective feet, then the problem will eventually take care of itself. Of course, the labels could avoid a lot of the problems if they learned how to actually embrace certain aspects of file sharing. It's not clear that Rubin (or anyone else in the industry) has gone that far yet. They're just still working through the ancient EFF plan they derided when it first came out. In fact, one of Rubin's other questionable ideas is setting up a fake word-of-mouth marketing organization, where Columbia has hired a bunch of young adults to promote their music online on blogs and in forums and such. Hasn't anyone explained to them that word-of-mouth is about people who legitimately enjoy the music -- not those who are paid to promote it? File sharing was legitimate word-of-mouth marketing. Hiring young adults to spam forums is not.

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