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I once proposed space pyramids in parallel with other projects worthy of the clans of man, but the interest was low. Interest is the key. To learning. To interacting effectively with team members or collegues in a collegial fashion. To generating the initiative to act, and fail, until failure is no more on this task. This must be joyfully celebrated and shared to maintain a high level of interest and energy for the next task on our winding path. Onward then, perhaps with a new buddy or leading a crowd of newbies (please! only one or two .... at a time) or following in a master's tracks or traveling with a mentor or two.

Good tools are important. High volume mail lists are challenging to manage when the deadlines are tight and the pressure is high. Unprepared encounters with societal authorities while hyper focused, zoning, or behaving erratically from sleep deprivation can result in chemical lobotomy. AMA certified quacks and drug pushers abound.

A hacker or two have solved a problem I did not know I had a couple of years ago. Apparently they solved it in 1992. A wiki is an excellent tool for collaborative work by distributed engineering teams. An Advogato associate informed me of this over a year ago but it still a bit alien or perhaps my cerebral function was off a bit. It looked potentially useful but not ironclad demonstrably so on a PE (professional engineer) scale. Now I am convinced. I should have been using one two years ago, it would have saved me some serious grief. I have a wiki book now and the source and know what to search for online and a fairly effective google service available as long as I maintain internet access. Engineering teams can now be set up fairly cost effectively; if engineers can be found who really want to engineer space technologies vs. get paid well for pretending to engineer space technologies.

Still as space technologists frequently point out, there is no copy command for spacesuits. Implicitly neglecting that hackers must pay for hardware, bandwidth, food and shelter just as lesser mortals or mortals with differing interests must. If massive projects are to be designed, integrated, and polished into complex systems such as free hacker paradise (GNU is Not Unix ..... it must be everything else a hacker desires .... Linux, GNU, et. al .....free/open desktops, mainframes, networks, and internetworks have come a long way ) or free engineered space shuttles then there must be either many volunteers to spread the burden of research and development, or resources to compensate the best as well as the rest, and yes even profits to reward passive public investors willing to take some small risk in return for anticipated capital gains.

In an excellent strategy all paths lead to success. Since massive projects require massive resources they must make massive returns to a large enough community to attract the critical masses in talent, in effort, in resources, in cash (liquid resources), in time, in committment, etc.

MIT may soon be helping both the non existent space settler community and hackerdom in getting neophytes educated. They call it OpenCourseWare but it is currently vaporware and they have decided it will be subject to their standard IP policy. If it materializes an orientation and self training guide could easily be built with a wiki by any team wishing to get new volunteers up to speed in the technical issues and critical aspects of their project, task, program, etc. If it does not materialize, something else will. It is time to railroad and there are many smaller/similar/less known projects around the internet . MIT cannot be credited with innovation or originality. When OpenCourseWare exists it will be as if IBM supported linux on mainframes and the USG NSA operates supercomputer farms with distributed linux clusters ..... is anybody looking into suing to have the code released as per source licence agreements?

So if we need more peoplepower (hopefully english speaking) for massive projects where shall we find it? On the internet. What internet? 100 Million people, 50 million in U.S. and 50 million elsewhere last I heard. Perhaps we should set up a foundation to collect obsolete portable, refurbish (Install linux and internet cards and drivers) and ship them to the boundary of the internet where we can find interested neighbors. Long term investment but you never know when 5.9 billion people might be hiding just the volunteer, businessman, craftsperson, engineer, scientist, manager, trucker, or artist you need as a piece of a free or entrepreneurial project.

Perhaps if a hacker or a space settler wannabe could enjoy helping someone else solve a problem we could get a few others interested in helping us solve ours.

Wiki's are cool. Very easy to use. Very productive asynchronous transparent collaboration. Communites form. Good ones might be useful in designing tools to move large rocks.

An OpenBusinessWiki might assist with realizing the stated goals of globalization vs. the reality that corporate megaliths are delivering. Would you rather have a $100 pair of Nikes off the shelf assembled by a Chinese peasant or prisoner for $2/hours in the midst of carcinogens or a $50 pair of custom hand tooled whatevers (boots, berkenstocks, sandals, authentic togs, etc.) with a $50 shipping fee of which Fed Ex contributes 10% directly to the foundation of your choice?

A FreeEngineeringWiki might publish some standard designs, tooling, manufacturing methods, etc. suitable for cottage industries located in Europe, South America, Lunar Outback, Australia, Aldrin Cycler (new design project announced by a college), Phobos, Ceres, L5, or GeosynchCity. What do space colonies have in common with small Terrestrial Entrepreneurs or Businesspeople? They need the ability to manufacture a few on demand for quick delivery. It cuts capital invested in inventory and all the associated expenses.

A FreeEngineeringWiki will probably eventually use an Advogato style trust metric expanded to two dimensions to certify individuals skillsets and data products within some kind of appropriate revision control system until something better comes along. It will take the community a while to precipitate some meaningful understandings and guidelines as to how the social fabric flexes properly for the work to flow.

Of course, good engineering designers and engineers are not like hackers. For some of them the data online is sufficient to engage their interest but not many, and not the best. The best like to see projects implemented in the real world. Productive, useful, profitable (For useful results do all the accounting: A safe sturdy neighborhood playset is profitable .... it makes the kids happy. A buddy's homebuilt house is profitable .... it cuts his mortgage in half, he finances only the materials, not the labor. A portion of the other half is now venture capital ..... ) projects that create joy each time they are remembered. I helped do that, it was profitable for me and my buddies. It was not mismanaged by ill informed buffoons making 3 times my salary or screwed up by IT's ridiculous insistence on using soon to be non available IBMs and contracted temps instead of a solid PLC controller net and an engineering team to design the ladder logic control software.

A RocketRacerWiki to define a good class of alcohol/lox ultra lights. Not exactly a friend of mine but a fellow traveler of my acquaintenance from usenet (sci.space.policy) thinks he can make money creating a rocket racing circuit at air shows. He actually paid a couple of small space startups (rocket from XCOR, air frame or test flight by Rutan ..... I am fuzzy on the details) they are online if you are interested. Many of the sci.space.policy people are wishing he would succeed but thinking he will fail and waiting for results. What if a RocketRacerWiki generated enough interest in an ultralight class (we can always use smaller rockets for thrusters) among working engineers, engineering students and craftsmen or apprentices to get some standard parts designed so an ultralight could be assembled for tens of thousands of dollars instead rocket racing being restricted to the million dollar class? What if it didn't? Well maybe it would at least make my acquaintenance feel a bit appreciated so he would try again. He has had this dream for years and is only now making some progress (and helping pay some engineering staff at XCOR for some critical engineering) after being laughed at for years on sci.space.policy.

Well gotta go.

Need to checkout wikipedia for answer to my question regarding financial planning to assure the free future of wikipedia. I might need it in the future (spacesettlertechwiki will have to get some educational programs, participatory projects, and mentor oversight going so we do not have 14 year olds blowing up garages, exploding rockets are not as forgiving as a crashing kernals) so even if it is a commercial scam (using "free" wikipedia to achieve critical mass for commercial nupedia.com) it might be worth contributing to as long the material remains free. Perhaps even if it does not. Once the concept is proven it can certainly be implemented in a free volunteer style fashion if resources can be found for the server and bandwidth. Personally I do not see any reason a successful encyclopedia could not be organized to eventually be self financing as a non profit with a web store via discrete front page button access. This would allow a paid staff to do the hard boring stuff associated with maintaining the communities platform and activities.

Come to think of it .... if one wished to accelerate the schedule, I know where over 500 user accounts exist for volunteer encyclopediasts and over 5000 accounts for hackers, many of whom would occasionally be available if contractual terms could be successfully negotiated. Education is fundamental to hygiene and health programs.

If we had a TargetAndFixSomeBodiesProblemWiki somewhere with over say 50 interested knowledgeable volunteers we might be able to whip up a grant proposal to present to the Gates Foundation. Say we setup 5 independent wikipedia clone foundations under public domain (we do not want to be viral) license and contract with 10 hacker/admins and 20 encyclediasts/admins and provide the overhead, systems, bandwidth, dogooders, maybe a health professional or two, etc. with a grant to operate for 2 years get to breakeven. Charter will require any annual revenues over and above operating costs to be contributed to the World Health Organization or else cooperating hospitals assisting R&D, knowledge base development etc.

Might get a grant out of Gates Foundation. He is not a totally evil man, only a criminal who succeeded well enough to buy the system.

Might even get a grant out of Tom Ridge's new homeland protection funds. Preemptive strike at future terrorist organization's recruiting drives. Alleviating ignorance should be strong argument if the U.S.G. believes its own propaganda.

DOD has money. Part of their job could be perceived as preemptive defense.

Maybe I will skip wikipedia and install QuickiWiki on my portable, that will setup me up for a few more chapters this weekend. I might get to some useful perl hacking as soon as monday.

I think I figure out an easy way to do Work Breakdown Structures and tie them into a Gantt or PERT chart analogue .... that could be important. DARPA being part of the DOD probably likes to see tailored Mil Std methods in their proposals. Sort of a share the misery kind of concept. Only works if the proposal is presented in person though, otherwise become part of the problem.

I wonder where these hackers hang out? Maybe a HackerConspiracyWiki would be good first step, our first target for world domination might not be the best engineers, we could target the engineering literates who were promoted too quickly to management and never got their hands or brains dirty! A bunch of them out there pissed, leading lives of quiet desperation and paying the bills. Once we get enough done to prove to the best of the best that it can be done (plans and specifications, completed project, ....and accurate as built databases!!!! That will clinch it. Nobody ever gets accurate as builts much less in electronic database form.) then we can send them an engraved invitation and get on with the job with or without them.

Anyway, off to wikipedia. They know how to collaboratively create large specification like documents. Be a good thing to know even if their community collapses from an owner/bus collision and they are not charging me to volunteer my time. Knowledge gained personally will worth my feeble contributions. More useful than some of my mandatory college tuition expenditures.

ramble off