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Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

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Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#121

Post by motorest »

noduerme wrote: post #118
motorest wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine you're having an in-person conversation with someone in a crowded restaurant. You're not in a crowded restaurant chatting with someone. You're in an online forum broadcasting messages to the vast nothingness.

This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved. Even if you weren't, you should still act as if you were in a crowded restaurant. Without agreeing to conventions for how a conversation should be conducted, you can't have any productive conversation at all. So what would b…

> This isn't twitter. You're in a highly moderated forum in which both moderator and participants are bound by rule and custom to maintain civil behavior, in the best interest of everyone involved.

You're trying to make a storm in a teacup. OP literally edited his post to clearly state its fine if anyone interprete something differently. This is hardly outrage bait.

Try to direct your energy to something worth your time. Loudly complaining about vague subjective notions of netiquette in a moderated forum is certainly not it.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#122

Post by mrtksn »

scrappyjoe wrote: post #104

So many strong opinions here from commenters who aren’t actually from Botswana. Let me tell you how we actually feel about it here. We think it’s awesome! The establishment of a university of science and technology in Botswana has been a long hard road, and many mistakes have been made along the way. But the fact that Botswana now has the local skill to deploy a satellite and make use of the data it provides to infor…

Don't worry too much about negative opinions, there is usually a strong bias against non-US projects in the English speaking web.

A common trick is to have an office in USA and make it hard to figure out where's your project actually based. There's usually some sympathy for the British and Israeli, then you get some envy for the Russian and Japanese based stuff if they are doing something authentic or feeds into the stereotypes. Lastly you can get sympathy based on current culture war or political talking points(EU lately gets some sympathy and heat for being not-Trump for example). They will deny it but it is true, if you read the English-only web you will get the impression that no one outside the US does anything innovative and the rest of the world just lives lives of a caricature.

The last few years many people were involved in fintech assuming that outside the US consumer banking must be horrible or non-existent if its that bad the USA. Many got investment in blockchain BS that will bring banking and online payments to Africa or Asia or something, only to fail once they realized that in many of those places that tech was much more developed and widely used than the US!

No wonder the negativity when you mention Botswana :) You should pair it with something to create a story. Maybe start a Bitcoin national reserves or make Firefox the default browser on government computers, anything that a group of people have opinions(if Botswana is taking on tech giants and launching a satellite, some people will be rooting for Botswana and will write how the company they hate is finished thanks to the Botswana's satellite). Even better if you can incorporate something hot like AI, from an underdog like Anthropic ideally.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#124

Post by throwaway2037 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #49
zvorygin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Botswana is actually reasonably well developed and stable. It seems fine, and I applaud them.

Politically stable, relatively low corruption and economical acceptable. They are doing many things well relative to the rest of Africa. On the other hand, 30% of their women have HIV.

With the current generation of HIV drugs, most of those women should live into their 60s (at least). Also, the latest generation can get HIV virus counts to below testable densities. I expect their HIV issues to be resolved over the next 30-50 years, where the number of new cases will fall dramatically, and almost no one will die from AIDS-related causes.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#125

Post by redox99 »

sheunl wrote: post #96

Why so much negativity under this post? This is a positive in terms of global scientific and technological progress.

Probably because people are annoyed that "launching satellites" is portrayed as a major feat (as it once was), when nowadays launching a CubeSat is not that impressive.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#126

Post by zamalek »

technothrasher wrote: post #70
zvorygin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Botswana is actually reasonably well developed and stable. It seems fine, and I applaud them.

It's amazing to see the stark difference when crossing the border from Zimbabwe into Botswana.

Botswana is one of the few countries that focused little on revenge politics, and they are a shining example of forgiveness and tolerance (relatively speaking, they do have problems - as does every place on Earth). South Africa was doing well, but sadly Mandela couldn't stay in power forever. Africa isn't the only place where you see it, why we've just witnessed a cousin of that political style come into power in a country that has significantly further to fall. They even started with spending money and bureaucracy on renaming places, which is my personal canary.

Source: Zimbabwean-South African-American

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#127

Post by panick21_ »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #72
martinky24 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? I'm curious how you think these resources should be better allocated. Make sure the same argument doesn't apply to any of the other countries with space assets!

24% of the country is malnourished and 4% of children die before their 5th birthday. This feels like misaligned priorities... https://www.globalhungerindex.org/botswana.html

How does a country move out of poverty without engineering and education? If Botswana had a moon program or its own rocket program, I could see the argument, but launching a small sat. Doesn't seem that wrong.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#128

Post by leokennis »

mrtksn wrote: post #122
scrappyjoe wrote: post #104

So many strong opinions here from commenters who aren’t actually from Botswana. Let me tell you how we actually feel about it here. We think it’s awesome! The establishment of a university of science and technology in Botswana has been a long hard road, and many mistakes have been made along the way. But the fact that Botswana now has the local skill to deploy a satellite and make use of the data it provides to infor…

Don't worry too much about negative opinions, there is usually a strong bias against non-US projects in the English speaking web. A common trick is to have an office in USA and make it hard to figure out where's your project actually based. There's usually some sympathy for the British and Israeli, then you get some envy for the Russian and Japanese based stuff if they are doing something authentic or feeds into the…

> outside the US consumer banking must be horrible or non-existent if its that bad the USA

When I read about US consumer banking ("cashing" cheques like its 1975, all kinds of ATM fees, credit scores and having to use weird "you are not really sending money real time but because the app you are sending the payment instruction through is legit you can sort of be assured the money will be paid eventually") and then look at the European payments landscape...I feel happy.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#129

Post by esskay »

leokennis wrote: post #128
mrtksn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry too much about negative opinions, there is usually a strong bias against non-US projects in the English speaking web. A common trick is to have an office in USA and make it hard to figure out where's your project actually based. There's usually some sympathy for the British and Israeli, then you get some envy for the Russian and Japanese based stuff if they are doing something authentic or feeds into the…

> outside the US consumer banking must be horrible or non-existent if its that bad the USA When I read about US consumer banking ("cashing" cheques like its 1975, all kinds of ATM fees, credit scores and having to use weird "you are not really sending money real time but because the app you are sending the payment instruction through is legit you can sort of be assured the money will be paid eventually") and then loo…

It is a bit baffling how the US is so far behind on basically everything when it comes to money, banking and payments. I'm not sure many American's even realise how god awful their setup is.

Re: Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

#130

Post by InDubioProRubio »

mrtksn wrote: post #122
scrappyjoe wrote: post #104

So many strong opinions here from commenters who aren’t actually from Botswana. Let me tell you how we actually feel about it here. We think it’s awesome! The establishment of a university of science and technology in Botswana has been a long hard road, and many mistakes have been made along the way. But the fact that Botswana now has the local skill to deploy a satellite and make use of the data it provides to infor…

Don't worry too much about negative opinions, there is usually a strong bias against non-US projects in the English speaking web. A common trick is to have an office in USA and make it hard to figure out where's your project actually based. There's usually some sympathy for the British and Israeli, then you get some envy for the Russian and Japanese based stuff if they are doing something authentic or feeds into the…

The world - good and bad, becomes invisible though behind the culture war cliches. They tell you alot about the participants- very little about the world as it is.
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