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Perhaps more interesting? by Dachannien · 2005-05-21 08:44 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Cockroach-Controlled Robot

These folks have constructed a fly flight simulator, where they tether a fly in front of a set of lights that form a low-resolution view of a simulated environment. They then measure the torques produced by the fly and use that data to manipulate the environment simulation, so that the fly sees its environment moving about it even though it's tethered in place. They can use this to study the behavioral responses of flies to various stimuli (like a rapidly-approaching light or dark spot simulating a fly-swatter, to examine escape response).

I guess I would be more impressed if instead of having the cockroach walk on a trackball, they used cockroach EMG to control the robot.

The Future of Gate's Predictions by buckhead_buddy · 2005-05-12 08:25 · Score: 1 · on Bill Gates: Cellphone will Beat iPod

BadAssCat wrote:

Gates has predicted a lot of things that have not come true. Some things (like the tablet PC) he insists still will come true, even if it's not happening the way he planned. Other things (like MSN and WebTV) he's basically given up on. But people often forget about these things when they read a new prediction, simply based on the fact that he has made a lot of money with Windows and Office.

These are ominous warning signs. Maybe we should expect something like the following from Didio, Scoble, and Thurott on the horizon:

Sign up for the new Microsoft Profet Sharing Plan

Nostradamus may have predicted the Intel Pentium bug but now even hotter air is available from the man whose legal agreements have kept billions of people enthralled around the world: Sir William Gates!

When interviewed specifically for this article, Gate's press release had these amazing words formulated, "Microsoft's new Profet plan isn't just another random quatrain generator, this is Microsoft we're talking about. I personally inspired the greedy algorithms behind this product's code to be the most realistic possible today. Now with the extra polish from Microsoft's engineers my predictions will be even better than reality."

Indeed, results of paid tests by independent research shills have shown that Microsoft Profet is always 100% right, but shockingly, reality can sometimes fail in the most surprising ways.

Requirements: $640K per year. Non disclosure agreement signed in blood. Half a brain (or less). Incompatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and certain reality distortion fields.

WHAT!!! she is NOT, i repeat NOT, *hot* by keepper · 2005-05-10 03:37 · Score: 0, Offtopic · on More on Last Year's Cisco Source Code Theft

Damn dude.. get out more.. seriously, I hate to be an asshole, and wren, if you are reading this, well, dismiss me as an asshole.. but she is NOT hot by any definition of *hot*.

lim wren{hot} --> 0

take a look... http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~wren/

Re:Detected how? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-09 09:31 · Score: 4, Informative · on Black Hole Birth Detected this Morning

Real image: (Note it is a negative - black means lots of light. The big thing in the middle is a galaxy, and the error box is pointing to somewhere on its outer edge.)
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/~cenko/grb050509b/05050 9.jpg

Did LIGO detect it? (sorry, a serious comment) by antispam_ben · 2005-05-09 09:10 · Score: 1 · on Black Hole Birth Detected this Morning

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/
This is exactly the type of thing they're looking for a gravitational 'signature' from - it should give a 'chirp' or a signal with increasing frequency as the neurton stars orbit around each other closer and closer.

Here's a relevant quote:

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12367 .html

"In Einstein's theory, alterations in the shape of concentrations of mass (or energy) have the effect of warping space-time, thereby causing distortions that propagate through the universe at the speed of light. A new generation of detectors, led by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), is coming into operation and promises sensitivities that will be capable of detecting a variety of catastrophic events, such as the gravitational collapse of stars or the coalescence of compact binary systems."

Did LIGO detect it? (sorry, a serious comment) by antispam_ben · 2005-05-09 09:10 · Score: 1 · on Black Hole Birth Detected this Morning

http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/
This is exactly the type of thing they're looking for a gravitational 'signature' from - it should give a 'chirp' or a signal with increasing frequency as the neurton stars orbit around each other closer and closer.

Here's a relevant quote:

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12367 .html

"In Einstein's theory, alterations in the shape of concentrations of mass (or energy) have the effect of warping space-time, thereby causing distortions that propagate through the universe at the speed of light. A new generation of detectors, led by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), is coming into operation and promises sensitivities that will be capable of detecting a variety of catastrophic events, such as the gravitational collapse of stars or the coalescence of compact binary systems."

Review of a BUNCH of the available options by Noksagt · 2005-05-04 11:50 · Score: 3, Informative · on Unix Graphing Programs?

DANSE has a great review of a lot of different options. Most are cross-platform and scriptable and many are open source. They are interested in building python-based tools for neutron scattering experiments, so there is that bias to the wiki. But they have good screenshots & good pros/cons that many other projects can relate to.

As others have suggested, Grace is fantastic for 2D. Hippodraw is the most under-rated/unheard of that is also quite amazing. I use them both. I also use Matplotlib with my python work.

If you do LaTeX & script your plots, Gri is a good bet.

I have sometimes used gnuplot & Scigraphica, but they are less useful to me. A lot of other people still use gnuplot, so it is always good to have in the toolkit. It also has decent 3D that is not present in my preferred 2D programs. But it is uglier and clumsier than alternatives. Scigraphica wants to be Microcal Origin, but it isn't there yet. It also dropped out of development for quite a while.

I like open source. But if you are agnostic (and have deep pockets), I always thought tecplot looked cool.

Evolution doesn't only apply to life. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-02 05:46 · Score: 0 · on The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design

Evolution doesn't explain how life started. It doesn't even address that. It explains how more life changes over time. It explains how more complex life may arise from simler life. [...] Evolution represents our best understanding of the development of life.

Evolution doesn't apply exclusively to life, you can see it occur in computer simulations (http://dllab.caltech.edu/avida/), or the marketplace.

VR still here, users are different by Homo+Stannous · 2005-05-01 12:16 · Score: 1 · on What Ever Happened to Virtual Reality?

These researchers at Caltech have built a fully immersive flight simulation chamber with displays updating at 200Hz. The entire chamber is mounted on a 3 axis gimbal to provide pitch, roll, and yaw. This gimbal can rotate at over 300rpm with angular accelerations of 20000deg/sec. Despite the impressive hardware, it fits in the corner of a small room. Unfortunately, in order to train on this equipment you must be a fly.