Why don't the major space agencies add a module to the ISS designed to capture, repair and release damaged or broken satellites? The cost of this service can be recovered by charging the owners of the satellites.

Hardware that is irreparable can be stored safely so as to not present a hazard to other spacecraft. Or if storage space is a premium, the satellites can be safely disposed of.

There is talk of flying Atlantis out to the ISS after the last official shuttle flight and leaving her parked at the ISS. This would give the astronauts the area to to work on the satellites, in the form of the shuttle's cargo hold, and a potential recovery vehicle.

Now if the risk to human life is too great, the capture spacecraft could use an automated vehicle based around the ESA's ATV which has already proved itself to be a safe and reliable platform. It could even even be flown remotely from a ground station or the ISS itself.

The cost of repairing a rogue satellite in-stiu has to be less than the cost of building a replacement and launching it into space, not to mention the cost of insurance and the loss of revenue when the services the satellite should be providing, isn't doing. This is the next logical step in the commercialisation of space.

Seriously I get these things through almost weekly. They generally are for shows taking the piss out of Geeks which is something I am not willing to be party to.

So if you are a TV show recruiter, please note this blog post before contacting because otherwise I will just refer you here.

I spotted this cool blog the other day and decided to try the app on my laptop. the resulting images is my work, pixel pushing, from about 1000 GMT to 2030 GMT today.

Firstly there are only about a 5th of the amount of books that it used to have, although from looking at the online catalogue it appears endemic across the borough.

Secondly, no free wifi. What sort of library in the 21st century doesn't have wifi? The lack of wifi leads me on to the third problem.

Thirdly, due to the lack of free wifi forced me to have to use the machines provided by the library. Nothing actually wrong with the machines from a technical standpoint. New dells running XP, however the problem lies with the software. They only have office 2000 (the one with the paperclip). I guess I could live with that, M$ licenses for large organisations are expensive, why upgrade if the software hasn't fundamentally changed? My biggest and most serious quibble is their choice of browser. They force you to use IE6!!! Horrendously buggy and no tabs! Have you tried browsing without tabs recently? It is impossible. It is incredibly difficult to keep track of multiple windows, especially when the Trafford library catalogue insists on opening in new windows all the time.

I was so disappointed. I don't trust IE at the best of times but IE6 is obsolete! If they don't want to provide a choice in browsers why can't they at least upgrade to IE8? I had to decamp to Costa Coffee. Which reminds me, why isn't there free wifi all over this new plaza? Maybe I am too entrenched in the "campus" idea. Seems like a wasted opportunity.

Had an interview today. Didn't get the job. Anyway I'll stop my whinge.

I trust you all had a lovely holiday season? It has been unbelievably cold here in the UK, on the news there have been reports of diesel freezing in the tanks of cars. That makes the outside temperature roughly -15°C. More snow is forecast but I think we have seen the last of it in Manchester. This NASA image shows the coverage we are experiencing.

We are living in the future now, officially! The year is Twenty Ten, if anyone says two thousand and ten you are allowed to nail them to the wall.

Techwise 2010 looks like it will be the year of the tablet PC. Apple have one due out soon and Microsoft have been demoing Win7 on some tablets recently.

While I am on the subject of Windows 7, I feel I should mention the seriously crippling bug I have found. Simply: the task manager doesn't work. If a process crashes you cannot kill it at all, apparently the system is waiting for the process to say "I have finished what I was doing. You may now close me." which of course can't happen because the process has crashed. According to various blogs and forums it is a hangover from Vista. The only solution is to reboot. PLEASE FIX IT MICROSOFT!!!

After a disappointing latter half of 2009, I have sadly decided to widen my net with regards to job hunting. I am now applying for call centre and general office jobs instead of just IT jobs. As a result I have an interview for a customer service job next Friday.

Before I forget, how fantastic was the last episodes of Doctor Who? David Tennant gave a fantastic performance along side Timothy Dalton as a TimeLord! I won't say anymore in case you haven't seen it in your territory yet.

In closing I just want to say, are these the best daleks ever?]]> http://www.geekandproud.co.uk/ http://www.geekandproud.co.uk/docs/news_details.php?id=70 http://www.geekandproud.co.uk/docs/news_details.php?id=70 Spent the last few hours productively building a snowman.

Merry Christmas and have great New Year, everyone!

I am starting to get rejection emails. There isn't even any temp work available. It is difficult to remain upbeat when you get so much rejection, it makes you feel totally useless.

I have a meeting with the Job Centre tomorrow, they want to know why I don't yet have a job. Should be an interesting argument.

One of the primary costs of any modern organisation is IT and a huge proportion of the IT budget goes towards licensing fees of software. This would be reduced if a corporation moved over to Ubuntu machines for their desktops. Another consideration is that Ubuntu has been proven to run better on older machines than say XP, this would reduce the need for hardware to be upgraded as often as it currently is.

Of course one of the major downsides to moving to Linux would be the likelihood that any bespoke software written for the organisation would have to be ported from a Windows environment. There may also be additional training provided to the less capable members of staff.

It would be interesting to see how great the saving would be, should there be any.

Firstly I discover a very weird game called AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity by Dejobaan Games. You play a BASE jumper leaping from impossibly high buildings and performing stunts as you plummet towards the ground. To slow your descent you are issued with a one-time use helicopter parachute thing, after deploying it you can't score any more points so delaying deployment until the very last moment is critical. The game does require rather a lot of skill and I found the demo a bit too short.

Next up is Braid by Number None which is a pretty platformer based around time manipulation to complete the levels. The gorgeous levels and a wonderfully relaxing soundtrack coupled with the mind bending of time manipulation make Braid one of those games where you love exploring. I actually downloaded this a couple of weekends back but only managed to get round to playing it today so I missed out on the 50% special offer for the full game. It is also available on the xbox, of course the PC version is better :¬]

Finally is AudioSurf from BestGameEver. This game is a fusion of the old Wipeout games and the more recent swathe of Guitar Hero type games. You fly along as a spaceship type racer thing collecting coloured blocks from the across the track. The snag? Well the tracks are randomly generated from your own music collection! This means that there is an almost limitless number of tracks to fly along. Not all the music has to ultra-fast paced acid house stuff, classical things like Bach work equally well and provide a nice juxtaposition with the environment. Buy this game NOW! The full version is only £2.99 (50% off on Steam), it is highly addictive and awesome fun!

Oh well... fingers crossed!

Until recently society has always deemed computer games as childish, I think the Wii and the rise of "causal gamers" has helped mature the industry and the attitude of gaming with society. The cultural impact of games is only really beginning. I predict that within the next 2 years there will be a dedicated western TV channel devoted to games similar to the South Korean channels.

Anyway back to the point about retro gaming, there is a group in the UK that are attempting a similar thing to the French and they are asking for donations of old games and systems, you can read more about it here.

Price. On Amazon the Ultimate version is on pre-order for £229. The latest version of OSX is £23! Now that OSX is running on Intel cores is there any practical reason for the average home user to spend £200 more buying Windows over OSX, especially when they are so identical in operation now.

After the dismal failure of Vista I would have thought that Microsoft would be trying to win people back. Pricing their software so high isn't the way to go.

Will I buy Windows 7? At the current price, no.

The box they sell is smaller than the current DPB and has a built-in compact flash card reader. It has fewer USB slots but the OS could now be transfered to a CF card meaning that only the Bluetooth adapter needs a USB slot.

The crazy bit is that they already test and run these boxes in the developing world! Absolutely perfect! The company is called Aleutia and the box is their E3 Medium Client and its available for £175 which is quite a bit cheaper than the original DPB. You should also watch the video.

Which one gets me more girls?

I have to speak to the learning support people tomorrow. More details to follow I guess...

Sheffield has greeted my return with a biblically epic thunderstorm. I had to hide in the car for 20 minutes waiting for the worst to pass before running to the flat.

It looks like I will spend the next few weeks living here on my own. My exceptionally rubbish housemates are all leaving before the contract ends. Still, I should be able to get the DPB up to speed.

If it weren't for the document editing I would have said that Google were trying to do a Facebook. In principle I have nothing against social networking sites, my objections have always come from an ethical stand point.

Does the world need another social networking site? A site that integrates all the different social networking sites is the next logical step in the chain.

Anyway I will watch Google Wave with interest. An easy to use free groupware package is overdue in this day and age.

Strong reception for Google Wave - BBC News

Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave - Google Blog

Google Wave

One of the main issues I had was the storage capacity while using a full Linux distro. Ubuntu 8d.10 weighs in at about 3GB and I'm lead to believe that the new 9.04 isn't any smaller. To use a drive similar to what I originally ordered would mean ordering a 4GB version with the cost of around ?109 which is just silly. It pushes the unit cost up to about ?350, which is far too expensive.

The temporary solution I had was to use a USB pendrive. The more I thought about it the more I realised that this solution was, in fact, better all round. The cost of pendrives is so low they are now are virtually throw away commodities.

Another plus side, which is something my Linux geek friend Russell mentioned, is if the system is booting off a pendrive and there is problem or an update is created for the software rather than attempt to execute the required changes remotely it would be better to mail a new pendrive out to the village where the DPB is located with instructions to power down the unit, remove the old drive, replace it with the new drive and to switch device back on. The old drive can then be returned via post for recycling or just binned.

I can get a 4GB pendrive from Aria for under a tenner! Compared to $58 from the manufacturer for the IDE flash module. Bargin!

The downsides are that the USB drives are slower and there is potential for them to be dislodged during operation or for the replacement units to go missing in transit. I do think the cost benefit is a massive incentive for the slight change to future devices.

Artistically the film is faultless. The special effects are great as is the acting. The problem lies with the story.

It can be explained away by being an alternate timeline but no attempt is made to restore the timeline to it's previous state which renders all previous Star Trek (with the exception of Enterprise) franchises invalid...

The cynic in me says this is a ploy by the studio to relaunch a new series of Star Trek based on events portrayed in the film. It'll be crap.

This trip is being funded by my parents, which is nice of them.

I also had my first exam today. It went OK, wish I had done a little more revision. Oh well, here's hoping I did enough.