Slashdot Mirror

They really had no idea wtf they were playing with back then. It's amazing that Marie Curie even managed to live as long as she did, considering the cavalier attitude towards radiation even among scientists.

Actually, they did know what Radiation could do. Thomas Edison was harmed by Roentgen X-Rays, and one of his workers was killed by it

http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/read/edison/edison_xrays.htm

The Radium Girls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

Coinsidering how long both forms of radiation were used long after it was know that they killed people, it might appear that denialism was in effect even in those long ago days.

Bungie was looking at the Cybermaxx Virtual Reality Helmet for its early Marathon work
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blastfromthepast.html#31
More info at http://home.gwi.net/~pstewart/lcdneeds.html

I get this post from a friend of mine in Maine. Looks like our government is sporting over some recovery funds and one of Maine's more aggresive ISPs is gonna spend it making fiber around the rural areas of Maine.

And he better hurry, or Google will beat him to it! Oh, wait... Google will be looking for density and volume users. Where volume is spelled with dollar signs.

Now, are other states also going to start pulling fiber to add to the existing dark fiber, so we can continue to be ready to serve rural America?

Not that anyone will actually get service out in the woods with any of this fiber, though GWI in Maine deploys long-range DSL and does at least as well as the cable companies. Maybe better.

There's always the "man into skeleton" transformation (which you can google for) or the "girl detector" http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/v20-1.htm from 1964: relies on wardrobe standards from 40 years ago, but it could also be interesting.

type faces of printers used before 1836 are too difficult for optical scanners to read

I'm amazed they still have these archives. One of my favourite people, Nicholson Baker has made a personal crusade, written books on the subject, and put enormous amounts of his own cash, into preserving newspapers that government archives are hellbent on destroying. In particular he attacks two fallacies of document archiving:

Paper does not self-destruct in a short space of time, which was among the flawed rationales for misguided conversion to microfiche:

Microfiche is actually far more vulnerable to destruction than the originals. Decades of archives have been lost because they were microfiched and the originals pulped.

I fully expect digital archives to be even more fragile (as various /. articles over the years, not to mention much research into digital curatorship, attest)

I know nothing about this codec, but the website says the Tolly Group did independent tests on it. I read the pdf, it looks legit. This is the same group that conducted bandwidth tests for my company, GWI. http://www.gwi.net/images/tollyreport.pdf

You're not the only one who's had such thoughts...

--

Free advice from the Iraqi Information Minister -- Click here!

I made several telescopes when I was a teenager, and have recently taken up grinding glass again after a long hiatus. I was also pleased to find the Central Maine Astronomical Society is in my area and joined last night while visiting their new observatory.

Telescope mirrors can be made by hand with suprisingly simple equipment. An eight-inch diameter telescope will run you about $250, maybe less if you're creative, for the mirror kit, eyepiece, aluminizing, and mounting.

There may be a telescope making or astronomy club in your area. A good way to find out is to subscribe to the ATM mailing list. Another way is to follow some of these links:

• Chabot Telescope Maker's Workshop (Oakland, California)
• Sidewalk Astronomers (Los Angeles and San Francisco)
• Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston
• Stellafane - Springfield Vermont, where the hobby was started in the USA

If you don't want to build a telescope, you can buy one. The telescopes made by Meade and Celestron are well known. You can find ads for dealers in the pages of Sky and Telescope Magazine, which you'll find in many bookstores.

A large number of astronomy products may be found through the Astronomy Mall.

Although the price differential for small telescopes like 6 or 8 inches is not that great between making it oneself and purchasing, the cost of purchasing really large instruments is really prohibitive, while large ones are actually affordable to make, comparable to purchasing a computer. If you start off making an 8 inch mirror, your next mirror can be much larger, say 16 inches, and amateurs commonly make mirrors from 20 to 30 inches, and I think there is a 72 inch mirror nearly complete made by some amateurs. My goal is to have a 40 inch observatory in my backyard.

Although I've listed U.S. organizations and companies, telescope making is practiced world-wide. A while back someone from Iraq subscribed to the ATM list and asked for help obtaining a kit. There are lots of subscribers from Europe and a number from Asia and Africa. Follow the links, and maybe you'll find a club in your home town, or at least within a reasonable distance!

I cannot describe the awe that comes from beholding the wonders of the heavens through a telescope made with one's own hands.

I made several telescopes when I was a teenager, and have recently taken up grinding glass again after a long hiatus. I was also pleased to find the Central Maine Astronomical Society is in my area and joined last night while visiting their new observatory.

Telescope mirrors can be made by hand with suprisingly simple equipment. An eight-inch diameter telescope will run you about $250, maybe less if you're creative, for the mirror kit, eyepiece, aluminizing, and mounting.

There may be a telescope making or astronomy club in your area. A good way to find out is to subscribe to the ATM mailing list. Another way is to follow some of these links:

• Chabot Telescope Maker's Workshop (Oakland, California)
• Sidewalk Astronomers (Los Angeles and San Francisco)
• Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston
• Stellafane - Springfield Vermont, where the hobby was started in the USA

If you don't want to build a telescope, you can buy one. The telescopes made by Meade and Celestron are well known. You can find ads for dealers in the pages of Sky and Telescope Magazine, which you'll find in many bookstores.

A large number of astronomy products may be found through the Astronomy Mall.

Although the price differential for small telescopes like 6 or 8 inches is not that great between making it oneself and purchasing, the cost of purchasing really large instruments is really prohibitive, while large ones are actually affordable to make, comparable to purchasing a computer. If you start off making an 8 inch mirror, your next mirror can be much larger, say 16 inches, and amateurs commonly make mirrors from 20 to 30 inches, and I think there is a 72 inch mirror nearly complete made by some amateurs. My goal is to have a 40 inch observatory in my backyard.

Although I've listed U.S. organizations and companies, telescope making is practiced world-wide. A while back someone from Iraq subscribed to the ATM list and asked for help obtaining a kit. There are lots of subscribers from Europe and a number from Asia and Africa. Follow the links, and maybe you'll find a club in your home town, or at least within a reasonable distance!

I cannot describe the awe that comes from beholding the wonders of the heavens through a telescope made with one's own hands.

Some friends and I recently registered the domain "lies.org," not really sure what we were going to do with it.

Slightly thereafter, the FDIC proposed its Know Your Customer policy, an extremely invasive proposal concerning bank records. They requested public comment, and received >250,000 replies, all but 72 of which were opposed. Email provided the medium for most of this response. The FDIC accordingly dropped the whole thing.

I personally was awestruck at how well people came together, and how well the strategy worked. The inspiration came to us at that point to center lies.org around the leverage that internet communicaiton allows in political situations.

We seek input. "lies.org" is too cool a domain name to use for some boring personal site, we'd much rather it be used for the public good in some way.

At present we envision it as a slashdot with a political twist. By "a slashdot" I mean a dynamic, community driven and moderated site, updated as frequently as possible.

We have at our fingertips the greatest communications medium in the whole of recorded history. Collective action (and collaboration) is now possible on a scale never before imagined. IMHO we spend too much time receiving information and not enough time sending it. A website with as many readers as Slashdot that kept up minute-to-minute with relevant political issues and included mailto: (or other) links to make your opinion known to the important parties would be politically unstoppable.

Imagine the /. effect in this context...

So, if you have ideas, suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. please pass them our way. You can email me at adimarco@gwi.net.

Anthony DiMarco
adimarco@gwi.net