Slashdot Mirror

This is rather like the random-dot stereograms, but inverted left/right from that arrangement. In the RDS, you RELAX your eyes, the opposite of crossing them. I personally find this difficult, so I swap the images so crossed eyes produce the correct left/right arrangement instead.

Incidentally, I used to fly Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 1988 this way - yes, version 1.0. I discovered that I could set two different forward views from the Chase Plane mode, with one plane offset slightly to the right and the other slightly to the left. By properly arranging the windows and crossing my eyes, I could fly around looking at the simulated world in true 3D. I believe you can still do this with the different window options available in Flight Sim, and you could probably do this in any game that allows you to set up multiple windows from different viewpoints.

Now, granted, it is tough on your eyes, and it's kind of hard to see any non-stereo items (like the control panel), but it IS 3D and requires NO hardware. From time to time I do this for other purposes - like the picture above.

You can also do this with any camera if you have a still (or mostly still) subject - take a photo, move sideways about four inches and take another. Then load both photos into your image editor of choice, position them side-by-side with the proper left/right orientation, and you're set.

I for one believe that. Are you implying that I'm therefore foolish?

What I find foolish is the man who believes he understands a religion merely from observing its imperfect adherents. I'm sure you feel justified in your view of Christianity, based on how some Christians have behaved. How about Islam - I would bet you also think that the average Muslim is not a bad person - it's a few bad eggs who give it a bad name. If so, I submit that your view is hypocritical. If you want to understand Christianity, you ought to find out what its users' manual says before you make broad sweeping statements to a few million readers.

Here's the way the Bible presents the situation - which is NOT how you've presented it. First, the creator did NOT choose one single person. He chose HIMSELF. The Bible plainly states that God became man, and gave up his own human life on earth, to make a simple and easy way for man to be restored to a relationship with Himself. "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:17). Read the surrounding few verses for some more context.

Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created man expressly so that He could have a relationship with us - not to rule us, but to have us become His friends. See Genesis 1:26 and John 15:13. In the working of His creation, we are free to turn away from God, as you plainly have done. That is your choice - God loved you enough to be willing to let you walk away from Him. But the consequence of your choice is eternal separation from Him. He didn't condemn anyone to eternal pain - each person who walks away from Him chooses his own suffering. If your preference is to live without God, he grants you that wish, despite His strong interest in a loving relationship with you.

I'd invite anyone who wants to know more about this to visit a simple presentation of the Gospel, at http://www.simusic.com/john316/. You may also find this letter about God's love enlightening: http://www.simusic.com/lenora.html.

I for one believe that. Are you implying that I'm therefore foolish?

What I find foolish is the man who believes he understands a religion merely from observing its imperfect adherents. I'm sure you feel justified in your view of Christianity, based on how some Christians have behaved. How about Islam - I would bet you also think that the average Muslim is not a bad person - it's a few bad eggs who give it a bad name. If so, I submit that your view is hypocritical. If you want to understand Christianity, you ought to find out what its users' manual says before you make broad sweeping statements to a few million readers.

Here's the way the Bible presents the situation - which is NOT how you've presented it. First, the creator did NOT choose one single person. He chose HIMSELF. The Bible plainly states that God became man, and gave up his own human life on earth, to make a simple and easy way for man to be restored to a relationship with Himself. "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:17). Read the surrounding few verses for some more context.

Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created man expressly so that He could have a relationship with us - not to rule us, but to have us become His friends. See Genesis 1:26 and John 15:13. In the working of His creation, we are free to turn away from God, as you plainly have done. That is your choice - God loved you enough to be willing to let you walk away from Him. But the consequence of your choice is eternal separation from Him. He didn't condemn anyone to eternal pain - each person who walks away from Him chooses his own suffering. If your preference is to live without God, he grants you that wish, despite His strong interest in a loving relationship with you.

I'd invite anyone who wants to know more about this to visit a simple presentation of the Gospel, at http://www.simusic.com/john316/. You may also find this letter about God's love enlightening: http://www.simusic.com/lenora.html.

By all means, if you initiate a cable plant in a new home, wire the thing in a star configuration. I've done two houses now, and I made many improvements the second time. But the best by far was not daisy-chaining anything. The cable (coax), telephone, 10baseT, audio, and alarm systems are ALL routed from each room to a single hub location in the garage. Included is a patch panel with discrete jacks for each wire (except the alarm system which terminates into the alarm control unit). The patch panel allows rapid reconfiguration, and the star topology almost eliminates running around the house troubleshooting a wiring fault.

One lesson learned from the most recent install: Run a couple of everything to every room, even if you don't need it now. My main regret was not having a couple coax and ethernet cables to the room that became the home office. One was not enough to send BACK the audio and video signals from my PC to the living room entertainment system.

Another thing - consider buying a spool of 10baseT wire double the length you need for the network, and using it to run the telephone as well. It's actually as cheap, and you then have four-line phone capability for later, as well as better-shielded phone lines for better modem speeds.

If possible, convince the local telco and cable company to each run TWO wires from the street. It costs them almost nothing if it gets done all at once, and even if you don't convince the home office, you can usually persuade the installer. I can't remember how many times my lines have been cut or damaged, and that second phone line really helps if you later need to upgrade.

For audio, I highly recommend 12-4 cable - four 12-gauge conductors, bundled (and twisted) in a single wire smaller than a RG6 coax. It's infinitely easier to pull a single round cable than to pull two squarish lamp cord style wires, and the twisting helps reject noise.

For video, spend a few more bucks and get quad-shield RG6. The extra shielding will make for a much clearer picture.

For the install boxes, you can get six-outlet faceplates with interchangable modules. You can fit the entire cable plant for a single room in one wall box. But it does make for some tight fit during installation.

One consideration I noted (after the fact, unfortunately) was not being able to power on/off a secondary amplifier. Your old amp probably will wimp out trying to drive eight or ten speakers spread around the house, so remote amps are useful. But I hate to leave them on all the time. There's probably a good way to power all the amps on when you power up the master system, but I didn't think about that ahead of time. The best solution is probably X10 equipment; the X10-enthusiasts love boasting about those master controllers that can be scripted to turn on the system, set the channels, open the DVD tray, and dim the lights. Might work well.

Another audio thought. With the advent of MP3 and other PC-based audio, having 10baseT terminals in each room is becoming more and more essential. There are many "appliances" that stream MP3s from a central server, or provide a appliance-style server capability, etc. Think ahead.

As a price point, about two years ago I spent well under a thousand dollars to wire about 10 room locations with all the services I mentioned above, including some built-in speakers and volume controls, the reconfigurable wall plates, the patch panel, the cables, etc. I believe the total bill came to around $600. I ran close to 2000 ft of cable. And except for some niggling details, I'm extremely pleased with the results.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

IANAEE, but it seems to me that this won't really help. Reading the Nature article reveals that creating these SLEDs (new acronym? Silicon LED?) requires doping the silicon with boron, then heating it to 1000 deg C.

The stated purpose of this invention is to ease the integration of optics and silicon-based electronics - ostensibly to allow chip designers to fabricate an LED directly on the same chip, without having to "scab" on a separate LED to talk to the optics.

Is this boron doping and superheating process really going to be compatible with general chip fabrication procedures? Maybe a real EE can answer that.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

As I recall, from just a couple days ago, there is a drive to make forwarding email without explicit permission illegal.

So can the government prosecute all those new Jedi converts for breaking the OTHER law?!

*grin*

* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

The one advantage the "big boys" have, that no home studio run by an amateur will EVER duplicate (on the first, second, third, or even tenth album), is experience at mixing. You can't just balance all the levels and call it done - getting the tonal characteristics, the details, the effects, etc. all in there only comes with lots of time.

BTW, if you want to hear our band's attempts, I've got an MP3 sampler here (about 4 mb). Great tunes, but average mix - all in all a good example of what an amateur will usually produce, even in a decent studio.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

The one advantage the "big boys" have, that no home studio run by an amateur will EVER duplicate (on the first, second, third, or even tenth album), is experience at mixing. You can't just balance all the levels and call it done - getting the tonal characteristics, the details, the effects, etc. all in there only comes with lots of time.

BTW, if you want to hear our band's attempts, I've got an MP3 sampler here (about 4 mb). Great tunes, but average mix - all in all a good example of what an amateur will usually produce, even in a decent studio.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

The one advantage the "big boys" have, that no home studio run by an amateur will EVER duplicate (on the first, second, third, or even tenth album), is experience at mixing. You can't just balance all the levels and call it done - getting the tonal characteristics, the details, the effects, etc. all in there only comes with lots of time.

BTW, if you want to hear our band's attempts, I've got an MP3 sampler here (about 4 mb). Great tunes, but average mix - all in all a good example of what an amateur will usually produce, even in a decent studio.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Okay, this is great...

First of all, not to complain or anything, but we still don't know enough about the natural universe to have any clue whether a billionth-of-a-second-long pulse of coherent light is natural or not.

After all, "laser" light is a natural phenomenon we have learned how to produce and control at will. It stands to reason it may be naturally produced without any intelligence. If you apply the same "intelligence has just gotta happen sometime" standard used by Carl Sagan, so coherent light oughta happen spontaneously at least somewhere, sometime.

The only reasonable way to PROVE it isn't natural is to detect an intelligent pattern embedded in it.

So here's my question: If you only pick up a signal a few billionths of a second in duration, just how much data can be fit there to prove intelligence?

If you look at the electromagnetic spectrum, and presume they'll be looking for light somewhere near the visible spectrum (which is a bad idea for transmission efficiency anyway), and assume that you have to modulate the "carrier" frequency to transmit some data, I calculate that you could fit at most several tens of thousand of bits in a pulse that short. That sounds like a lot but it may be hard to fit (or in our case FIND) a lot of meaning in that kind of pulse.

A good light primer can be found here:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor /e lectromagnetic.html

What's wrong with this picture?
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

I've constructed my own heads-up display. Transparent displays would do nothing for you - and in fact would be counterproductive.

I built a HUD system using an LED display and TTL electronics, for my car dashboard. It was functional, but too dim and took up WAY too much dashboard space. But it was a cool project, and got lots of comments (made me look very geek), and I learned a LOT about HUD systems.

I found that you need a few things for a halfway decent HUD.

- You need to focus the display at infinity, so that your eyes don't have to refocus from far to near. With the display mounted right in front of you, it's no better than looking down at the dashboard.

- You need a good and LARGE lens system so that the display is focused far away. Basically, the display will be visible in an area the same size as the lens. Think of it this way: because it's focused at infinity, when you move your head sideways the display won't move (it's fixed in space, way out ahead of you). The light rays will be coming off the lens parallel (that's the definition of focused at infinity). To be able to SEE the display in any range of head positions, you need a fairly large lens. Otherwise, if you move your head out of the "beam" of focused light, you cannot see it. A minimum size of about 2-3 inches is required ON EITHER SIDE of the outermost display elements - and more is better. I used a commonly-available 8x10-inch Fresnel lens (cut to size), but that was poor optical quality and there was a lot of blurring and scattering due to the concentric lines in the lens. But I couldn't find a large enough glass lens that would FIT on the dashboard.

- You need a large, semi-transparent mirror. You've got to see all of the display, yet without blocking the background image. Coated glass surfaces that reflect strongly at your display color wavelength are best, because they do not color the light passing through the glass, and ONLY reflect the one color of your display. (Note that the only good option is a a single-color display, or maybe two or three distinct colors if you have multi-layer coated optics. Coated optics are EXPENSIVE, too.) In my case, I just wimped out and used the inside surface of the windshield as the final mirror. I considered a patch of silver window tinting, but that conflicted with state laws regarding tinting on the forward windshield.

- You need a fairly long optical path. Unless it's a really thick lens, you can assume a 2 or 3 to one ratio between diameter and focal length - so a five inch lens mandates at least a 10 inch long optical path between the display and the lens. THEN you need the transparent mirror... Military displays are usually "folded" with extra mirrors, and still are fairly large units. I got away with an extra mirror, but that introduces more light loss.

- You need a REALLY REALLY bright display. You've got to pump out enough light to see the partial reflection, and also you've got to overcome your background brightness (even military HUDs are hard to see under certain lighting conditions, such as bright sunlit clouds). For this reason, military displays almost exclusively use single-color (usually green to match the coated optics) vector-driven (non-shadow masked) cathode ray tubes. They are so bright that looking directly into them can hurt your vision.

- Most importantly for THIS discussion, you want the display solid black where it's not illuminated. You don't want to introduce extraneous light into your field of view.

- You need a cooling system. The CRT display is so bright that it gets HOT.

- You need MONEY. Coated optics, large lenses, cooling systems, and bright displays are each very expensive to obtain or build.

Based on these requirements, a transparent display doesn't help you at ALL. Instead, you want a really really bright opaque display, and lots of expensive and large optical components. That's why your car does not have a built-in HUD yet.

* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

There's a little problem nobody here seems to have mentioned yet.

Experiments with Dolly (baaaaaaa) indicate that while she is a genetic copy of her "parent" donor sheep, so is the "genetic age" of her DNA.

As it turns out, DNA ages just like the rest of the body. Over time, it deteriorates and genetic errors build up. At some point (known to be around 120 years in humans) the decay begins to trigger the cell self-destruction mechanisms, even if those cells are otherwise healthy. The body begins to die one way or the other.

So the "fear" is that even perfectly cloned bodies (or body parts) are not immortal.

Who knows what dying in that fashion would be like - perfectly healthy organs, and then things begin to fail rapidly and suddenly - with little chance of repair.

Don't count on playing God - He's a lot sneakier than we suspected just a couple years ago.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Here are what I see as the requirements.

Accessability - must be compatible with low-vision individuals.
Flexibility - must be customizable for localities with voter initiatives, local elections, etc.
Efficiency - must provide quick and accurate tallies at the end of the voting day
Fraud prevention - must attempt to limit one person to one vote
Error prevention - must prevent mutually-exclusive choices, yet allow no choice to be made
Confirmation - must provide adequate feedback to the voter that the desired choice was actually made
Recording - should provide a paper trail of each vote cast - but not susceptible to "chad" problems

Along those lines, here are some ideas I have.

The system should be based on two separate units - one to make the vote, and another to count the votes. This allows all votes from a given district to be tallied by one machine, and permits redundancy to avoid problems with broken equipment.

The vote-counting unit should be paper-based. It should employ scanning technology, to read printed cards produced by the vote-taking unit. All the cards are collected in one unit for each precinct, to provide a permanent record of that tally. Results are tabulated and ready to be read instantly after all cards have been scanned.

The vote-taking unit should be computer-based. It should have a touch-screen for making selections. Each race (president, Congress, Senate, local judge, etc.) can be presented on a separate screen - one choice at a time. Once the selections have been finalized, a paper card should be printed, with two important features - a written list of the selected candidates, so the voter can confirm the selections are proper - AND a machine-readable printed area to be tallied by the vote-counting unit. If each voter is handed ONE numbered card, he/she can only vote once, but (as already occurs in many districts) that card will be retained by the vote-counting unit for the permanent record.

Electronic-only voting is VERY risky - there is no proof to each voter that the proper vote was recorded. Too susceptible to fraud.

Any system that communicated electronically with a remote counting unit is susceptible to fraud. Having a printed card for each vote is hard to tamper with.

A printer-based, ink or toner system of printing the cards would provide a reliable, permanent, indisputable record of each vote should a recount be required, without the problem of punch-cards losing the "chad" on repeated handling.

A system that prints both the machine-readable section AND the human-readable section would permit a voter to do a final check that the right selection was made. Having the candidate's name in English on the printed card would give indisputable proof that the intended selection was made.

A touch-screen "terminal" would allow extra features - like a "Help" button for first-time users, audio cues, multiple-language capability, low-vision assistance via large fonts, etc. "Back" and "Forward" buttons could allow review of results - most voters are already familiar with a web-like interface. In fact any such system could be based on the ubiquitous HTML, readily-available browser software, free (Linux) operating systems, etc.

Such voting systems could be produced at very low cost - maybe $500 per system, readily affordable by any local goverment.

* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Besides, our watches or PalmPilots will help us remember soon anyway, right?
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Turn your "way back" dial to when there was no assurance the technology would take hold, when the first mobile phones were coming online... There is NO WAY that the FCC would have authorized an overlay area code back in the 80s (when the technology for overlays didn't even EXIST yet) for some piddling little startup company offering a few thousand-dollar wireless phone systems. No sane government group is going to risk its neck like that.

The bottom line is that nobody (except maybe some venture capitalists) expected the mobile phone market to explode like it did.

So once again, the government got caught with its pants down. No surprise there. It's just how our bureaucracy works.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Two is not enough. What about companies, like Microsoft, that own a couple thousand lines? Add up all the corporate phone lines and you'll need a half dozen per person, before you even get to pagers, cells, faxes, modems, etc.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

Seems to me, thinking back to Phone Phreaker days on the Commodore64, I once read some military phones include the A/B/C/D keys, for "secure" phone numbers that could not be dialed without those keys. Anyone know any details?
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

The only people who are fussing about this are the folks who don't want to dial three more digits for LOCAL calls.

And for those of you wondering, we switched about a year ago, and it's been painless. Took me less than a month to get used to it.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music

For one thing, a wave coming ashore doesn't simply END, it reflects some of its energy back into the ocean. When I was younger, I used to help my father with LandSat and SeaSat data (1970s satellites) and specifically plotting wave patterns in the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean around the mouth of the Bay. The view-from-space wave patterns miles around the Bay mouth, and in fact any land feature, clearly show that the wave doesn't just dissipate upon hitting the shore. This system would tend to absorb some sizable fraction of that otherwise reflected energy. That WOULD affect wave patterns for miles around.

Here's a ;sa mple image of ocean wave patterns in the Galapagos Islands - the reflection is clearly visible.

Secondly, waves carry sediment. When you slow down a wave, or absorb its energy, you cause the suspended sediment to drop out ("sedimentation"). Particles drop out near where you absorb the energy, starting with the larger particles. Also, changes induced in the underwater current flow near the shore would change the erosion patterns. The practical effect of this is that the shoreline and the underwater topography around the generators would begin to change.

Many beachfront communities already deal with this phenomenon - putting up jettys and breakwaters tend to cause sand buildup or erosion in strange locations - sometimes miles away along the shore, sometimes at the breakwater. It's not completely understood yet, but what IS understood is that wave-absorbing devices cause sedimentation and erosion problems that must be addressed.

In summary, placing this system would certainly not be free of erosion, sedimentation or other environmental effects. Naturally there is also a corresponding effect on the long-term efficiency of the generator. If you build this system, you commit to large-scale dredging - or moving the generators periodically. And who knows whether that nearby beachfront condo will survive the next ten years? Not quite as "renewable" as it first sounds.

The overriding principle: Nature tends to mold itself around obstacles. If we create obstacles, we end up having to fight natural processes that want to remove them. This system would be no different.
* ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
* Split Infinity Music