Virgin Galactic launches world's first commercial spaceport with performance by gravity-defying Project Bandaloop

By Xeni Jardin at 4:44 pm Monday, Oct 17

[Video Link]

Man, if there's one thing Richard Branson knows better than anyone, it's how to put on an amazing launch event. Above, video from the Virgin Galactic kickoff for the world's first commercial spaceport, Spaceport America (alternate link), today in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Project Bandaloop did an aerial choreography performance from the side of the structure. Looked kind of like a really classy strip club in the sky. Branson himself joined the fun, and rappelled off the building during the ceremonies. The man knows how to have a good time.

Press release and photos from the event are here. From the sound of this Associated Press item, must have been a blast. (images: Mark Greenberg).

Previously on BB: "Virgin Galactic to unveil world's first commercial spaceport."

Tags: richard branson, Space, spaceflight, virgin galactic

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Apple iPhone 4S: 4 million sold in first 3 days

By Xeni Jardin at 6:53 am Monday, Oct 17

Apple Inc says today that 4 million iPhone 4S have been sold since it went on sale October 14. In-store sales began Friday in Japan, Australia, France, the UK, Germany, Canada and the US. Over 1 million orders were received online in the first 24 hours, up from 600,000 for the iPhone 4.

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Virgin Galactic opens world's first commercial spaceport

By Xeni Jardin at 6:36 am Monday, Oct 17

Richard Branson blogs: "A historic day today in New Mexico as we will be opening the first commercial spaceport in the world - Spaceport America."

More at the Virgin Galactic website.

We'll have photos from the unveiling event on Boing Boing soon. Tags: richard branson, Space, virgin galactic

Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.

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New York State Senators want "refined First Amendment," laws to prevent trolling, flaming and excluding people from online groups

New York State Senators Jeff Klein, Diane Savino, David Carlucci and David Valesky apparently missed civics class, because they think the First Amendment grants the "privilege" of free speech, not the right, and that this "refined" view of free speech should be implemented in order to stop people from saying stupid things on the Internet.

Their report suggests that a "refined" First Amendment could be used to stop "happy slapping" (a short-lived violent craze from 2005), trolling, "flaming," and "INTENTIONALLY AND CRUELLY EXCLUDING SOMEONE FROM AN ONLINE GROUP" (the caps are theirs).

Seriously? If we don't let you into the club, it's now a form of cyberbullying? It makes you wonder what happened to these particular Senators when they were kids.

The paper also attacks "anonymity," again ignoring how anonymity can often be extremely helpful to kids who wish to discuss things and ask questions without revealing who they are.

As for where they're going with this? Well, you guessed it: they're planning to introduce new laws to deal with cyberbullying (even though NY already has such a law). The plan is to extend two existing areas of law: "stalking in the third degree" will now include cyberbullying, and "manslaughter in the second degree" will be expanded to "include the emerging problem of bullycide."

(via /.)

(Image: The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from brentdpayne's photostream) Tweet This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 5:55 am and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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