Slashdot Mirror

jonerik writes "According to this article in Aviation Week and Space Technology, Sweden's Dynamic Flight Simulator (DFS) is believed to be the first flight simulator which actually allows fighter pilots to experience G forces under simulated conditions. Designed and built by California-based Wyle Laboratories, the DFS is essentially a flight simulator capsule (in this case for Sweden's JAS 39 Gripen fighter) located at the end of a 30-foot centrifuge arm. 'We wanted to give pilots the ability to "fly" and interact with the environment rather than just be a passive [centrifuge] rider,' said Will Roberts, program manager for Wyle Laboratories' DFS programs. 'We've come a long way in being able to translate the six degrees-of-freedom you get in an aircraft into the three degrees-of-freedom that we can control in a centrifuge. It's not perfect, but we think it's pretty good. There's room for more research to make it even better.'"

bigmac writes "KTH, Royal Institute of technology is celebrating 175 year anniv by making a very spectacular laser show. A green laser sent from the bottom of an old reactor building 30 meters below ground. The beam is then reflected over the city from the schools clock tower. And yes, you can send your own laser-morse messages through their homepage!" Here's an image to chew on.

Stefan Ottosson wrote in to tell us that the latest Gimp Contest is over and we have a winner, viktor-0 is the new gzilla spinner, and dietmar-3 was the runner up. Voting should start soon for the gnome logo- there are some really sharp ones in there.

Stefan Ottosson sent us this article with only a short note saying only that it was "something every unix user should read". The article is about the Command Line and the GUI world's of Unix and why the veterans need to adapt to the newbies if Unix is to succeed. I agree with Stefan- this is something all you Unix readers should read and think carefully about. Unix is already the domain of the Guru's, we need stuff like Gnome or KDE to reach the masses. It's important that the veteren's support these projects.