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http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-animation6.htm

Shockwave can support Flash, but Flash can't do everything Shockwave can...and Flash is cheaper. Flash probably started life as a shockwave lite. Course, doesn't help that Flash's file suffix is 'swf' which is 'shockwave flash.'

Well said! It seems that the anti-tobacco lobby has managed to get people REALLY upset of the issue. Reading the comments on here, it seems that people simply haven't bothered to do any research into the matter at all. Even the article claims that Nicotine is "deadly" which is just total nonsense. (Addictive, yes. Deadly, no.) The propaganda, however, just seems to be getting worse every year as the anti-smoking groups start using less science and more nonsense. Even Michael Siegal, a top public health advocate, thinks things are a bit out of hand.

Nicotine has been known to have positive benefits for some time now. It's no wonder at all that we're starting to see new applications for it. An excellent overview

I wonder how the responses would be different if the article was caffeine...

Better quality sound than lossy formats like MP3

Okay - I've seen this comment enough times that I just have to set the record straight. There's nothing in compressed music that makes it inherently inferior to lossless. A CD is usually 720 megabytes. If I want to load it with the highest quality audio possible, I will always choose to compress. A 50 meg MP3 file has vastly superior audio quality to a 50 megabyte PCM file. PCM is usually around 1536 kbps. Can you imagine what an AAC file could do with the same kind of bitrate? I'm guessing at least 192 KHz, 32-bit audio with no perceptual artifacts.

This whole "uncompressed is superior" business is a myth. If we insisted that DVDs have uncompressed video, we'd be stuck with short, pixelated movies because uncompressed DVD-size video takes 40 times as much space.

MP3 has its bitrate capped at 320 kbps. Don't go tarnishing the good name of other audio codecs.

What protocols do automated teller machines use to communicate with banks? And does anybody have their own schematics for building ATMs? HowStuffWorks has a video that goes inside ATMs and Wikipedia is informative re: the software aspects, but maybe there is more information out there?

There is no easy way to apply corrections to pen and paper.

I, for one, welcome the coming robot economy. However, we need to be aware of the potential benefits as well as the potential economic dislocation.

Marshall Brain, the founder of http://howstuffworks.com/, has written a fictional account of what a future of advanced robots might look like.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

He also maintains a blog to keep track of developments related to a future robotic society.

http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/

"It could be good and it could be bad, but I don't know for sure" - Husker Du

Emphasis mine.

Splitting up AT&T meant renaming buildings to the 7 or 8 new regional companies. The payroll of the parent organization was cut by like 80%, but the amount of people working in the industry couldn't have changed that greatly from 1983 to 1985.

By today's comparison, the industry has been reduced to employ ~650,000 people (see AT&T competition profile). The reduced workforce of the industry is possible because many things in the industry are done automatically by computers these days. Thus, I think you are off-base saying that "adding regulation" to an industry reduces jobs. If anything, it creates them.

The point about air actually does make sense. Obviously nobody is employed at "Standard Air Corp", and that's because air isn't (nor can it be) regulated.

But your whole analogy is misguided. Comparing piracy of movies to regulation in the telecommunications and air industries is silly. The initial statement...

...you compare things that are different.

• One that is necessary for survival and cannot be regulated.
  
• One that is non necessary for survival which can be regulated (phone companies control their physical infrastructure).
  
• One that is non necessary for survival which cannot be regulated (can't control the digital flow of movies, even with DRM).
  

If you could shift your argument for deregulation away from AT&T (or make different arguments about AT&T), I think you would be able to convince more people. In other words, find a way to argue for deregulation of the entertainment industry without comparing apples to oranges.

Very good information;
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell7.htm

The entire article;
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm

Very good information;
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell7.htm

The entire article;
http://www.howstuffworks.com/solar-cell.htm

You are the fool. There is no combustion in a hydrogen fuel cell and there is no CO2 byproduct either (pretty sure that's true for ALL types fuel cells). See here.

The car uses the same algorithm to determine the next number which is how the car knows the next 256 numbers the key fob will send. When it receives a valid number it calculates the next 256 numbers from the most recently sent key.

So in theory you could cause your key fob to stop working if you press the button 256 times without being near the car since the number it would send would not be in the valid list of 256 numbers known by the car.

BTW, I do not know if all cars match up to 256 numbers from the key fob, I got the number from HowStuffWorks.

Or maybe it is as simple as the key itself starts transmitting when it hears the noise.

My understanding is that key fobs are not programmed with a single number, but rather a number and an algorithm. The car is then programmed with the number and the same algorithm. The key fob sends the current number when a button is pushed and generates the next number with the algorithm. The car itself listens for either the current number or one of the next 256 numbers, if one of the numbers is transmitted it will respond to the request. HowStuffWorks explains it pretty well.

My Harley's security system will not allow the motorcycle to be started unless the key fob is within a about three feet of it or the security code has been entered. The Harley itself transmits a very weak signal. When the key is in range of the signal, it transmits back to the motorcycle the 'Ok' signal. The downside of this system is that placing the motorcycle keys within a few inches of a cell phone or running computer will result in the key draining its battery trying to "talk" to the motorcycle.

The article does not mention that the cell phones reprogram the keys, but rather changes the number in the keys. It could be possible that when placed next to cell phones the keys start transmitting the auth number continuously thus generating a number that is past the 256th number allowed by the car.

I know you're just being humorous but our eyes don't have "trichromatic vision;" We (most people anyway) have three main types of photosensitive cones in our eyes. These cones are most sensitive to different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that correspond with red, green, and blue. However, each cone responds to a range of wavelengths (see http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/vision6.gif), so we view different colors because of the differential reaction to "visible light." Anyway and again, I know you weren't serious but I just had to clear up your whole "trichromatic vision" statement.

Great, I like exciting announcements!

And it will tie in perfectly with this, my next car!

I'm Italian, I Mokona. High pressure, 7grams of ground coffee to make a creamy espresso, add milk and a steam wand for a good capuccino.

Its not that hard to believe that large equipment uses electric motors. Almost all diesel railroad engines end up powering generators that run huge electric motors.

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/diesel-locomotive. htm

Basically, the larger the work that needs to be done , the better it is to have the most torque at zero RPMs. Electric motors excel at such behavior.

It is a common misconception that octane ratings are somehow connected to increased mileage and/or increased performance. The octane rating actually refers to how far the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder can be compressed before spontaneous (knocking) combustion occurs. Many performance-oriented engines operate a higher compression ratios, and with lower octane fuels, the compressed fuel-air mixture in the cylinder may ignite early, before the spark plug fires.

In other words, putting a higher octane fuel in your car than the compression ratio of your engine requires is a complete and utter waste of money.

Reference http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm.

"That many musicians would rather NOT go that route, and would rather have the record companies pay for the recording and production, and artwork, and sales and marketing and distribution and all that, doesn't mean that the artists are getting ripped off."

The record companies don't pay for the recording, production, or any of the other things you list -- these and other costs are paid by the artist(s), usually from an advance much like the ones book publishers give to authors, and said advance must be paid back in full from the artist's portion of the royalties from sales before they actually see any money from those royalties themselves. If there aren't enough royalties from CD sales to pay the advance back, they'll have to find some other way of doing it, e.g. touring, waiting on tables, flipping burghers, etc. Record companies will only pay for the following things:

1) Promotional expenses such as travelling to TV and radio interviews.
2) Pressing, printing, and transporting the packaged product.
3) Bribes (sorry, _incentives_) to radio stations and the like (although these are reserved for a very small number of artists).
4) Shelf space fees (where such are incurred) in certain large retail chains.

"Oh, and also offloading all of the risk that they are unable to recoup any of these costs."

You're either a troll who is deliberately spreading lies, or have never actually seen a standard contract from any of the five major labels, and are therefore simply spouting tripe from ignorance rather than deliberate malice.

"The musicians made the deals with the record companies willingly"

They did indeed, although most (and I do mean most, i.e. just about anybody that isn't mega-famous) seem to repent the fact after discovering that the deal they _thought_ they were getting (which was a lot like your fictitious account of generous record companies who pay for everything) resulted in them having no net earnings despite selling significant numbers of CDs, or (more usually) large amounts of debt that must be paid back.

Read the following links. If you are merely misguided, then you will be less so afterwards, and will not therefore post balderdash like this in the future. A troll who is trying to present the record companies as a cuddly brotherhood of artist defenders will obviously not bother to read them, and continue to disseminate total crap in the vain hope that somebody with the IQ of a cardboard box will believe them without bothering to verify anything for themselves.

http://www.futureofmusic.org/contractcrit.cfm
http://www.iaje.org/article.asp?ArticleID=122
http://negativland.com/albini.html
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/recording-c ontract.htm

In practice, the engine runs at a variety of speeds, but it seems to prefer running the engine at the most efficient speed and torque when it can.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question238.htm

In the article, they are not talking about IR cameras. They are talking about simple IR motion sensors. They are not imaging sensors. And, by the way, IR camera scan reveal identifiable facial detail. Particularly NIR and SWIR cameras.

You're absolutely right

What happens at .6?

Well, aside from going really, really, really fast, according to Einstein's theory of special relativity, as speeds approach the speed of light, time is "dilated" between the points. That is, discrete events (such as the ticking of a clock, and theoretically, the decay of a cell -- I don't know if that has been especially verified), will appear to occur more slowly when they are observed at speeds near the speed of light (relative to you -- if I fly by you at the speed of light while you remain still, discrete events at your point will appear slower to me, while events at my point will appear slower to you. Confused yet? I've never quite gotten my head around it).

The theory was supported by an experiment in which a highly precise clock was flown quickly around the world in a jet, and "When the plane returned, the clock that took the plane ride was slower by exactly the amount Einstein's equations predicted" Quoted from

The estimates of the technically-recoverable oil (i.e. ignoring the market price) in the 1002 area are as follows: There is a 95% probability of being able to technically recover 4.254 billion barrels of oil, and a 5% probability of recovering 11.8 billion barrels of oil. The mean expected estimate is of being able to technically recover 7.7 billion barrels of oil. Using the graph on the right we see that at an oil price of below $13/barrel no oil is commercially recoverable, while at an oil price of $30/barrel the 95% probability estimate is 3.2 billion barrels of oil, the 5% probability is 10.4 billion barrels of oil, and the mean expected estimate is 6.4 billion barrels of oil. At an oil price of $24/barrel the mean expected estimate comes in at 5.2 billion barrels of oil.

One thing that's been in the news lately is the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It currently stores about 570 million barrels of oil in underground salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico. Given that the U.S. imports about half of its oil, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds about a 60 day supply of oil if all imports were suddenly cut off.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it untrue. Fruits these days are produced by taking a piece of plant and causing it to grow roots. How else do you think they get things like seedless grapes? The cloning is desirable as it gives a more uniform result, and people are fans of consistency in their products.

It may not involve test tubes, but that doesn't mean it's not cloning. We've been screwing with plant and animal genetics for years through processes like selective breeding. The processes are just becoming more precise these days.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question349.htm

Do you think you'd feel any different at all if you or someone you care about had been sitting next to the guy that was caught actually trying to set off real shoe bombs on an actual airplane? Are you of the "well, we lucked out on that one, caught him, and since they know we know that trick now, they would never try it again, and we can stop looking for it now" camp? How does your brain work on topics like that?

You mean Richard Reid, the guy who tried to set off plastic explosives with a match (hint: you don't ignite plastic explosives with a match; if you set C4 on fire it will just burn, not explode) and who was beaten unconscious by the other passengers before he could even fail to set off his nonfunctional bomb?

No, I don't think I'd feel that different.

In fact, it's a good demonstration of, as you say, how my brain works: I try to think through the subject based on what actually happened. Observable history, one might call it.

The only reason two of the three 9/11 hijackings succeeded was because the passengers, having never heard of a passenger jet being used as a weapon before, assumed they would be flown to Cuba or somesuch, just like all the other passengers on hijacked jets in living memory. That is no longer the case, as evidenced by the fact that the third hijacked plane failed to reach its target. The simple fact that everyone knows there are people out there who want to blow up passenger jets will, without an extra dime spent on security or any extra disrobing at the gate, make it a lot harder to pull off any stunt that requires a terrorist passenger to initiate.

And those plans that don't require a passenger to initiate, e.g. smuggling a bomb into the cargo hold, hitting a plane with a surface-to-air missile after takeoff, etc., won't be affected at all by the senseless security theater everyone is subjected to.

They're not scales. It's an induction loop[1]. A car has enough ferrous metal to alter the induction thus triggering the light. I run into this "no change" red light problem with my motorcycle and less sensitive loops. Mostly late at night. If there's other traffic I can pull ahead to let the car behind be get close enough to active the loop. If not I run it.

[1]http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question234.htm

It's an awesome engine, just need to get it finished up and built en masse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiturbine
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/quasiturbine.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/how-clean-diesel-fue l-works1.htm

Did you minor in bad science-ology? There are about ten links above you who show how the same shapes can be made in liquid water with a spinning plate...this suggests that the spinning of Saturn's core could very well be creating the same effect in the dense atmosphere.

But let's not waste any opportunity in jumping to conclusions, because, as everyone knows, there are no straight lines in nature.

Why is it all the UFO freaks have no grasp of science? Why does that follow?

I'm not familiar with the system over there, but it sounds like it's different from over here in the US. Talk about disillusionment, when one discovers that here in the US, airtime and thus chart position are basically rigged by (illegally) paying stations for airplay. (Someone jump in here if I go off base)

This is why this couldn't work in the US, ClearChannel owns a vast majority of the stations. This gives them the unique position of being gatekeeper and judge of which songs and artists are the best.

Here's a couple links I just grabbed from google. I haven't read through them all, so if they contradict what I just said then I'm probably the one who's wrong.
Royalty Politics
Blurb on Airplay

How uneducated do you have to be to write an article about alternative power storage technologies in which you write the following?

Like other fuel cells, the sugar battery contains enzymes that convert fuel -- in this case, sugar -- into electricity, leaving behind water as a main byproduct.

Like, uh, what other fuel cells are these that use enzymes again?

Sorry for late response :) No, deceleration would stay exactly the same. Think about it: 2 smarts colliding head-on at the same speed is symmetric situation, mass center of the system is stationary and always stays at the same point throughout entire process (conservation of momentum). Hence in the collision neither of the smarts would push another. If you want an explanation in layman's terms, perform the following thought experiment: #1 we have 2 smarts colliding head-on at the same speed. They crumple at the collision point. #2 place a thin sheet of paper at the collision point; rerun the collision experiment. A sheet of paper is not moved in the process of collision. #3 now replace thin sheet of paper with a thick concrete wall; rerun collision experiment. It does not change anything. Concrete wall will remain stationary just as in the case of paper sheet. #4 Now we can split the above experiment into the to identical separate collisions SMART->stationary wall. (note - now the concrete wall must be fixed appropriately or have sufficient mass so that it does not move in the process of collision) The deceleration, felt by the smart, will be the same as in the previous layout. The only change would be forces, acting on the concrete wall. Previously it was a simultaneous push from both sides, now it is 2 pushes, separated in time - first from one side, then from the other. But since concrete wall does not move (as I've noted - it must be fixed well - in the video you see that the SMART has actually pushed that massive lump of concrete slightly), effect on the colliding smart would be the same. there is also a reference in how stuff works: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/crash-test2.htm 35-mph frontal impact - At 35 mph (56 kph), the car runs straight into a solid concrete barrier. This is equivalent to a car moving at 35 mph hitting another car of comparable weight moving at 35 mph.

According to the NHTSA, it IS the same as 2 cars going 60mph hitting head on. See http://auto.howstuffworks.com/crash-test2.htm, I can't find where it says that on NHTSA's site directly, but I know I've heard that before.

Are you aware the the process of fermentation, as in making beer, produces just as much ethonal as it does CO2?
http://home.howstuffworks.com/beer4.htm

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/cooling-system8.htm I strongly suspect that the cardboard factor has to do with raw airflow over the engine since the opening on large trucks is so big. I'm strongly considering cardboarding mine next year as well, since it suffers a similar problem of taking a very long time to warm in winter (almost the whole facia, axle to hood between the headlights is exposed for ventilation).

I think a pack of ramen has more than 300 calories. Closer to 400. Remember, that small package is actually TWO servings. Not to mention there is also saturated fat in there.

But still, I find it odd that someone didn't lose weight over a 6 month period. 300 calories is like a single game of tennis. For me it is jogging for 10-15 minutes or swimming for 30. I understand that people burn calories differently, but even if you were just doing the very bare minimum to maintain this diet (breathing, feeding, digestion), I would think you would still burn atleast 200-300 calories a day.

According to this page: http://health.howstuffworks.com/calorie.htm/printa ble

You have 3500 calories stored for every pound of fat. The situation tells me that the person gained over 680 calories a DAY (assuming (3500 calories/pound of fat * 35 pounds of fat) / (30 days/month * 6 months)). Even if you were to assume that half the gain was from water/bone density/other and this person stores far less calories per pound; that still says 300 calories a DAY.

Facts maybe facts, but numbers are far more reliable. I am not trying to sound mean or anything, but the numbers just don't add up. 300 go in and 300 gain? Even in an theoritically ideal situtation, transaction costs alone eat something up.

-------
On a side note, people shouldn't care about their weight as long as they are happy about it. If you are not for one reason or another (what others think, health,...) then try to set realistic goals and stick with them till you are happy. Also, people should be more happy with who they are and not who they want to be like.

In Reusing old PC's, we need to know what secure operating system will be used.

I have several older PC's that came with Windows 98 on them, but I'm not using that, I run my livecd linux.
I don't really run it off the CDROM drive except one time to set it up, I use these files to use loadlin to run it off the hard drive.
  I can use MSDOS here, to provide a menu at bootup, that in turn runs the loadlin batch files to start linux. So, I am not wearing out an expensive CDROM drive, just to run the OS on a daily basis. One can keep Windows 98, and use that, it has DOS in it, and the Windows 98 splash screen appears briefly before the menu comes up.

I am posting this using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2, and the box has 256 MB of 72-pin RAM, and two 200 MHZ Pentium Pro processors.

I use a 40 GB HDD, partitioned to provide a "persistent home", and with this setup, the drive activity is very low, compared to what it was when Windows 98 was being run as the primary OS.

Only problem I have is the monitor, an ADI Microscan 4V, probably using more power than a LCD, but I am reusing an old piece of hardware, rather than throw it away. I usually run 800x600, since the monitor is about 13 inches diagonal.

As with most upgrades to the latest power-saving technology, money is always a problem. I got the ADI monitor at a thrift store for $20.00, upgrading would be expensive, in comparison to the cost of the rest of the system.

Actually, "black boxes" are mostly orange. :-)

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/black-box5.htm

Where I live (Austin, TX) the rate for residential is 3.55 per kWh, first 500 kWh and 6.02 per kWh, for all kWh over 500 kWh. According to this page we can use a rate of 1 calorie per 1 watt hour. According to the elliptical machine at the gym, I burn through about 1000 calories in the first hour of cardio. It's probably pretty safe to assume that we're going to use at least 500kWh, so we can figure at the premium scale.

That means that in an hour I could produce about 1kWh or energy for a grand total of $0.0602 worth of electricity. That's not very encouraging. That wouldn't even pay for the air conditioning to cool me down (I am like a furnace of passion and desire).

I suspect that if I really wanted to (and was less concerned about my health), I could probably burn through 2000 calories in 2.5-3 hours. If I did that every day for a month, that would still only be about $3.61 worth of electricity. I have a feeling that this will never be profitable from an electricity generation point of view.

They don't need patents.. they have trade secret and contract law.

Trade secrets aren't useful for protecting an invention, all they are for is to protect what is to be kept secret. A trade secret is any information that allows you to make money because it is not generally known. Which is the opposite of what patents are for, which is to publish or make available to the public how something is made. Contract laws can't prevent someone from dimantling something to see how it is made so they can then turn around and make one themself. Contract law may prevent the buyer of said object from doing so, or at least can be sued for breach of contract, but it can't stop someone else from copying it.

The purpose of patents is to make information on technique public instead of confidential.. a purpose that it largely fails because the patent office doesn't accept complaints on the quality of patent descriptions.

Ah but because an item patented is published it is public. The patent provides a description of how something is made so someone using the info in the patent can make one themself, provided they have the skills. Not accepting complaints doesn't affect the ability to make the patent public, it only prevents said complaints. Having said that, I believe a workign prototype should be available like it used to be, instead iof just papers. The problem with prototypes though is where are all of them going to be stored?

How does WebSense work then? Does it work well?

• http://www.identix.com/
• http://www.guardia.com/
• http://www.cybula.com/Facenforce.htm
• http://www.a4vision.com/

Oh and here is an article about how How Facial Recognition Systems Works. From the article:

A ticket to Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa Bay, Florida, didn't just get you a seat at the biggest professional football game of the year. Those who attended the January 2000 event were also part of the largest police lineup ever conducted, although they may not have been aware of it at the time. The Tampa Police Department was testing out a new technology, called FaceIt, that allows snapshots of faces from the crowd to be compared to a database of criminal mugshots.

So yeah your future scenario is not that far fetched at all.

No, it was probably green.

its a combination of multiple SGI workstations and PCs being feed input from a spotter and yaw/pitch/zoom sensors in the cameras that is then keyed back into the feed.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/first-down- line.htm

That is so *cuuuuute*!!!

http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=cre dit.htm%25sdtaesf%25asd45fghaht%25arhar45gdfhst%25 jsyjshs537hgshtagfases457hadfvdavtahgds754ag8asgea 547gse452agseag534575eagase34534ghtsjyjkuhrad43345 gasathhathsj%25yugkgud%25shgshs%25hbbggfhajjtjytsw g%25fhgsjhgsjyssgfhghtafdgsgfhjsgadgragadgfdgfahgn bvnghdjyafagada%20fwf&url=http://www.anti-slash.or g

The anti-Slashdot Jihad, I mean. What will you twinks think of next??

And I was expecting the goatse "hello" JPeG, or at least the Hands Of God lookalike.

How do credit cards work?

Did they use a Blue screen?

It even has a vector unit.