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Outsourcing IT to Mars; Your own Mars Rover
This edition: top 11 reasons for Outsourcing IT to Mars; Your own Mars Rover; SuperNewton Utility Computer.
February 27, 2004
7 Min Read
YOUR OWN MARS CONTROLED ROVER
Our inventive technology editors are at it again. This time, they've hacked a working connection to both Mars Exploration Rovers. Instead of toying around with remote Lego bots in someone's backyard, you can now pilot Spirit and Opportunity. So grab your joystick and get Roving!
Click here to Load Control Center
Important note: we hope you enjoy our rover control for what it is...a tongue-in-cheek jest at our daring young programmers at the JPL, who have been able to bring us to another world through their efforts -- save for the occasional out of memory error.
RED ROVER, RED ROVER, SEND A NEW CPU OVER
NASA has been known to pay $4,000 for a hammer, so it's easy to understand why it chose the hardware gracing the insides of its Mars Rover: a 1990s PowerPC chip with 128 MB of RAM. In the spirit of human exploration, the top minds at NETWORK COMPUTING have come up with a way to give the next Rover better stability while letting NASA stay on budget. We present the SuperNewton Utility Computer--SUC, for short.
Hey, any PDA good enough for Steven Seagal should be tough enough to handle Mars.
Find more Last Mile items and submit your entries for upcoming issues at www.nwc.com/top11/.We asked our readers to submit their Top 11 Reasons to outsource IT to Mars. Unfortunately, not all of them could fit in the magazine. Therefore, we present to you the complete submissions. Enjoy!
Give the company stockholders a false sense of cost savings and sell all stock on the 1/4 point rise when the news is released. -- Scott Herrick
How else could NASA and the Europeans have an on-site team available to fix the their Mars vehicles for outrageous prices? -- Bob Vandenberg
Rebuplican polls indicate that Mars has mostly Conservative voters. -- Erik Dauplaise
A day on Mars is 39.5 minutes longer than a day on Earth. Therefore, more programming will get done each day. See "Living on Mars Time" -- Thomas Turba
A really remote undisclosed location for the vice president. -- Chuck Young
Reliable US government run transit system in place. -- Robert Babb
The president thinks that Saddam moved his WMD program to Mars so he wants NASA to go there and find it. -- John Lubken
With 2,400,000 ms of network latency, it will take forever for the next worm to spread to there. -- Greg Eytcheson
Astronomically diverse Disaster Recovery Location! -- Daniel Butkiewicz
No more blue screen of death now it's red.
We can send all our old 10 pound laptops there since they'll only weigh 3.8 pounds.
Yearly salaries contain an extra 322 Earth days.
The "checks in the mail" excuse would buy you an extra 6 months. -- wayne maurer
Don't know that $1 a day isn't premium wages. -- Jim Ruble
The people on Earth will never know that a Windows sytems on Mars was rebooted because of the time lag. The end result will be that Windows systems will all appear to run better from Mars. Bill will get richer. -- Ron Angel
On the plus side, it IS show biz and you do know how low your carreer is going to get. -- Ken Graham
Martians and techies speak the same language -- Nancy Dreyfuss
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction reportedly located on Gusev Crater on Mars. Government refuses to comment on the report that the Mars rover Spirit was attached by Iraqi Republican Guards units assigned to provide security for on-going operations at the site. -- Marlin Borsick
Little green men will be good for the environment. -- don winans
No brainer to justify the cost of implementing a new wireless network -- James Braja
No atmosphere, no going outside for smoke breaks. -- Harald Mondy
No water means less time for idle gossip around the water cooler -- James Braja
We're not outsourcing... we're just staffing our new disaster recovery hotsite. -- Henry Rohlfs
Wait, we can't outsource IT to Mars - it's the only place where there isn't a Starbucks! -- Tim Lewis
If illegal aliens are willing to work cheap, it only makes sense that legal aliens will probably work for free... -- Chuck Church
Martian years are 687 earth days, which means you get 22.6 months to complete your one-year IT integration project!
Mars' lower gravity means that super-sized humans can wander the planet relatively easily. -- T. Downing
If the Martian workers try to go on strike, there is no law to prevent Nuking them.
Look at the place, compared to Mars, Silicon Valley has serious shortage of sand.... -- jeff meadows
The lower gravity will keep us at our ideal body weight! -- Bruce Campbell
George W said: "Who cares if there was ever any life on Mars? Lets go drill for OIL!" -- Dan Wagner
Move to Mars - no lawyers and no software patent infringements to worry about! -- Greg Carter
Cooling the data center would be easy.
Fast commutes times - only 2 vehicles on the whole planet.
Wireless security is not a problem.
1/3 the gravity of earth makes installing that heavy network equipment a breeze.-- Ron Bunal
the Oops factor - you have an extra 9 to 50 minutes delay to cover your ass.
Haliburton does not have a fraud management division on Mars yet.
newly created bacteria can be tried on consultants before exposing it to government workers.
Already brain damaged government employees will get worse with limited oxygen on Mars.
Government vacations will have to be expanded to two months (one to get home, one to get back to Mars)
Bush will make it possible for illegal aliens to get job exempt status on Mars.
Mars will likely become a County of Texas so EDS will have an insider chance to get the contract.
government employees cannot work on Mars without adequate bathrooms, stress relief centers, work complaint centers, and "I should be working, but I am not" lounges.
99% of government employees would not meet the weight and health requirements for shuttle flights.
Unpredictable gamma ray and other radiation hazards may limit the number of next generation bureaucrats.
France and Germany will likely be awarded the telecommunications contract on Mars after supporting the use of force to remove out of control strain of the Blob (origin likely to be from Afganastan or Wyoming).
It is proven that consultants can eat just about anything. Government workers require bagels and creme cheese.
consultants don't get paid overtime. With government contract delays, German and French infrastructure development, 16 hour days, IT will have nothing to do until 2050. -- Les Imada
Space monkeys
Monica's blue dress
They assume workers will work 24x7 since the sun is always up.
No internet for goofing off
No bullshit from workers, else they cut off the oxygen. -- Gregory Mamayek
Less turnover due to more failed suicide jump attempts because oflighter atmosphere. -- jaime villarreal
Responses like this to a request for a faster database server: "I don't grok your problem. The server is fast enough. You will get your report when waiting is filled. Let us share the water of life while you wait for it." (apologies to Robert Heinlein) -- David G. Miller
because they'll work for lower rates then Venusians.
Martians are born BlueTooth enabled. Much faster typing!
They can handle those pesky calls from our users on Jupiter, especially when earth is on wrong side of sun. -- Lou Solomon
Alien work visas are easier to get.
The 687 days in a Martian year allow enough time for beta testing. -- Mark Jass
Martian Day (Sol) is 36 minutes longer than Earth day = lower Martian hourly wage rate -- David Penney
Outsourcing in India costs too much.
The Mars rovers transform into cubicles - complete with laptop and a wireless network.
Most are still looking for work since the Intel commercials.
Martians will work for water. -- Steven Barger
With a 57-day man-month, projects are pre-padded. -- Doug White
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