Hackers for Charity & the strategic importance of third world equatorial presence for hackers

[weev]

Comments

Not only the equator

[anonymous]

The poles of the planet could also work for a space elevator.

RE: Not only the equator

[weev]

You can't build a space elevator anywhere other than the equator. The elevator is held up by centrifugal force from the rotation of the Earth. It is only at the equator that that centrifugal force is upwards. At the poles, the centrifugal force is entirely horizontal.

why strategic?

[anonymous]

Why would there be demand for more than one or two space elevators and why would they lead to geopolitical power? It's just a cheap way to get stuff up into space. It's analagous to currently having one of the few rare earth metals mines or one of the few large titanium forges used for making warplane chassis. Profitable but not too big a deal.

RE: why strategic?

[weev]

the majority of warfare in the future will not occur on the surface of the earth, but in space. as the majority of battles are in space, the military budgets of all world powers will bid up the cost of space elevator time. there will be several elevators, and there will be no end to the demand for their use, particular because corpseless space warfare between automatons has very little backlash from public opinions. drones right now make corpses and almost nobody cares. people will care even less when space drones are killing space drones

this is a good one

[anonymous]

Can you tell me why the hacker community should step up to support a 100% faith-based charity that, to date, has done little else than support the residence in Uganda of a burnt-out hacker and his family?
It's actually quite funny to see you, of all people, support a 100% faith-based charity :)

RE: this is a good one

[weev]

The aid work that Johnny is doing is saving lives amongst the local populace. Now an independent member of the hacking community has travelled to Uganda and directly witnessed the benefit Johnny's work there does. Disputing the humanitarian acts that Johnny is engaged in is a sign of your intellectual dishonesty

unrelated

[anonymous]

If I have to sign up for a somewhat permanent email service to setup a site that will definitely cause "disruption", what email service(s) would you suggest, security/free speech wise?

sorry for the bother.

RE: unrelated

[weev]

buy a domain in bitcoin, a vps in bitcoin, use tor and someone else's wifi the whole time, set up your own MTA on your own domain, have it keep everything in ramdisk and not log

[anonymous]

Just an FYI. My understanding of space elevators is that they do not have to be anchored (in fact anchoring them would lead to nasty potential problems). The best candidate would be out in international waters. This would also allow anyone constructing the space elevator an enormous amount of potential legal freedom compared to anchoring it on land. You should read the Millennial Project by Marshal Savage. He's an early proponent of seasteading and how it relates to Space Colonization.