Coming soon to a planet near you...

In doing some research on an EVA translation I've finally gotten around to doing, I ran across the following description:

С борта МКС в самостоятельный полет космонавты отправят отработавший свое старый скафандр "Орлан-М", к которому прикрепят веб-камеру, приемник GPS, и радиолюбительский передатчик. Проект получил название "РадиоСкаф". В отличие от КА "Бауманец", его малобюджетный собрат будет неуправляем и даже вообще не будет иметь обратной связи. С орбиты в день юбилея скафандр сыграет гимн МГТУ и, по крайней мере, 2 месяца будет каждые 2 минуты голосом передавать позывные на нескольких языках радиолюбителям всего мира. По тому же каналу будет передавать картинку ТВ-камера, в поле зрения которой время от времени попадает Земля.

The cosmonauts will launch an Orlan-M spacesuit that has exhausted its service life into free flight from the ISS. The spacesuit will be equipped with a webcam, a GPS receiver, and an amateur radio transmitter. The project was named "RadioSkaf". In distinction from the "Baumanetz" satellite, this low-budget sibling will not be controllable and also will have no uplink. The spacesuit will play the anthem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University on the anniversary of the school's founding and, for at least 2 months, will transmit a call sign every 2 minutes in several languages to radio amateurs around the world. The same channel will be used to downlink images from the camera that will, from time to time, have the Earth within its field of view.

The Bauman university will be 175 years old this year, and plans to celebrate with the launch of two student-designed satellites.

The article goes on to note that RadioSkaf will be launched by pushing it away from the ISS. Hi tech, eh?

Cheers...

Bushwhacked!

Somebody apparently embedded some April's tomfoolery at the end of the presentation I've been translating.

At least, I think it's a joke.

It has to be.

Golf? Off the egress facility on the Docking Compartment?

Complete with photos of spacesuited personnel working with mockups?

And VR diagrams?

It's gotta be a gag...

I need some coffee.

Cheers...

Assume the position!

From Personal Democracy Forum (via Slashdot):

[The] San Francisco Board of Supervisors [...] announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate. [...] Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.

This sounds like an echo of something that whiffed from the Federal Election Commission a little while ago.

Five hundred hits? Over what period of time? I bet you could set up a website with a completely blank home page and rack up that many hits in just a few days from script kiddies looking for unprotected Windows systems. Hits from script kiddies aside, would comments and trackbacks from Mexican sites offering gambling, porn, and meds count?

Look for this approach to get real popular, especially as local politicos increasingly come to the jarring realization that they do not generally enjoy the same incumbent-favoring protections that their less local colleagues-in-crime enjoy, and hence, they are more vulnerable to becoming suddenly unemployed (by dint of losing an election) in direct proportion to the extent that the public seeks information and engages in debate.

There are interesting times ahead.

Cheers...