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Domain: hokudai.ac.jp

Stories and comments across the archive that link to hokudai.ac.jp.

Comments · 11

  1. More info... by slew · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Pinholes and Plastic Wrap Make Solid Walls "Transparent" To Sound

    Some complementary work done at UT-austin

    Instead of a membrane matching the impedence of a "meta-material" made by punching regularly spaces in a wall (kind of like a meta-material drum), the UT-austin work describe holes made with a "meta-material" approach. Basically a hole with some transverse tubes cut a regular intervals to create resonances that change the effective impedance parameters allowing pretty much lossless transmission through the hole (kind of like a meta-material horn).

  2. Re:Dark Side of The Moon by M1FCJ · · Score: 1 · on Should We Land on the Moon's Poles or Equator?

    Interestingly enough, Luna has a clumpy gravitational field lots of anomalies. If I remember correctly, this creates a problem in low-moon-orbits and makes the orbits of the satellites somewhat chaotic in the long run. Unfortunately I don't have time to research this right now. :(

  3. pictures ... by weighn · · Score: 5, Informative · on Wanna Buy a Reusable Rocket for 19k USD?

    there's some pics here. and a cnn story here.

  4. Re:Start by banning plastics for consumables by caffeineboy · · Score: 1 · on Out of Gas

    I'd call the draining of the aral sea a catastrophe. It could be argued that this was not due to individuals but mostly due to public works and aqueducts draining the sea...

    The landslides in the Philippienes, however, were directly caused by deforestation done by individuals who used the wood for fuel.

    I would also call the elimination of a food source a disaster, and there have been several species of fish and game that were eliminated by overfishing and overhunting.

    I don't know how you can think that the actions of a large base of individuals doesn't result in widespread negative consequences...

  5. Re:Hmmmm... by srmalloy · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Avalanches Simulated With 500,000 Ping-Pong Balls
    Were these supposed to be the avalanche victims?
    Actually, yes, but not deliberately.

    I remember running across references to this research before; apparently, the research staff, as part of a press conference, decided to stand on the slope when they dumped the ping-pong balls to give the photographers some dramatic photographs. After all, they were just ping-pong balls, right? Too light to do anything, right? Well, if you look at the image sequence one,two, and three, you'll see that the researchers discovered that while one ping-pong ball has a trivial impact, half a million of them is another thing entirely, knocking people off their feet.
  6. Re:Hmmmm... by srmalloy · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Avalanches Simulated With 500,000 Ping-Pong Balls
    Were these supposed to be the avalanche victims?
    Actually, yes, but not deliberately.

    I remember running across references to this research before; apparently, the research staff, as part of a press conference, decided to stand on the slope when they dumped the ping-pong balls to give the photographers some dramatic photographs. After all, they were just ping-pong balls, right? Too light to do anything, right? Well, if you look at the image sequence one,two, and three, you'll see that the researchers discovered that while one ping-pong ball has a trivial impact, half a million of them is another thing entirely, knocking people off their feet.
  7. Re:Hmmmm... by srmalloy · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Avalanches Simulated With 500,000 Ping-Pong Balls
    Were these supposed to be the avalanche victims?
    Actually, yes, but not deliberately.

    I remember running across references to this research before; apparently, the research staff, as part of a press conference, decided to stand on the slope when they dumped the ping-pong balls to give the photographers some dramatic photographs. After all, they were just ping-pong balls, right? Too light to do anything, right? Well, if you look at the image sequence one,two, and three, you'll see that the researchers discovered that while one ping-pong ball has a trivial impact, half a million of them is another thing entirely, knocking people off their feet.
  8. looks like... by RalfM · · Score: 1 · on Avalanches Simulated With 500,000 Ping-Pong Balls

    That picture totally looks like this animal. Illustrating other evolutionary principles somehow?

    R

  9. Hmmmm... by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 1 · on Avalanches Simulated With 500,000 Ping-Pong Balls

    Were these supposed to be the avalanche victims?

  10. Re:And so we mourn by cioxx · · Score: 4, Informative · on Three Gorges Dam Begins Storing Water
    it's not the historical sites, as much as it hurts the ecology as a whole. People don't realize that diverting massive streams of water to create artificial dums in places not intended by nature could have catastrophic results.

    I direct you to study the history of Aral sea, which was the biggest man-made clusterfuck in USSR history aside from the obvious.

    more than thirteen thousand hectares of fertile soils were flooded by the Toktogul Reservoir. In addition to constricting the downstream water supply to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and eventually to the Aral, the dam destroyed the fragile ecological balance within the region and the once beautiful area surrounding the reservoir was transformed into a desert
    ...
    There is much more

    And to put this into perspective, it was such a small sea but had so much impact on surrounding areas as a result of artificially invoked desiccation.
  11. Re:They still make good games... by jandrese · · Score: 2 · on Software In The Land That Time Forgot

    Ah yes, that addicive like heroin game was ported to Free Unixes not once but twice (at least):

    xpuyo, although the author is ashamed of the quality of this version.
    and
    xpuyopuyo, which is quite nice. This one even has some AIs that will occasionally give beginners some challenge. Actually some of the AIs in here are annoyingly hard. The internet play on this one is quite good to boot.

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.