Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Pliancy, Antennae, Gobe
Go be something! Simon Gauvin writes "As a follow up to your article on Gobe Productive, beunited.org is setting up a donation site to allow people to donate for the purchase of the source to make it open. You can check out the comments here. And our announcement on our main page."
Thinner is better. Factomatic writes "The The New York Times reports that a new polymer by Xerox can be used to make organic transistors on a plastic substrate, which can then be used to inexpensively make light, flexible flat-panel displays for computers, laptops and mobile phones. The material, polythiophene, has achieved performance on electronics benchmarks that is an order of magnitude greater than current polymer materials. It would be used in a new manufacturing process that Xerox is experimenting with to imprint circuits using inkjets." You may remember this story about a company called Rolltronics' research into printable circuitry.
What about reviving The A-Team? Julio Ojeda-Zapata points to his Update: 12/10 01:25 GMT by T : [Errr, not "her" -- sorry about that.] "in-depth article on the Save Farscape movement. Though I have an obvious bias, I believe this is the most comprehensive article on the subject you'll find anywhere. Predictably, I've been deluged by mail from Scapers. I can't say I wasn't warned about that :-)"
Soon, every Thomas Aquinas, Dickinson and Harvard will have one of their own ... Amadaeus writes with news of another all-campus wireless blanketing. "The new University of Ontario Institute of Technology is offering new students an IBM laptop, included with tuition, that is wired with 802.11b access. The reason behind that is the entire campus (read: cafeterias, stairwells, washrooms, "special areas") is covered with the university wireless network hubs. In fact, the university campus itself is designed with charging outlets for every seat in the classroom and ergonomic seating for computer usage for all students.
Either they're trying to improve wireless education or promote in-class LAN parties and all-night wireless hack-o-thons, UOIT is on the right track to some sort of wireless educational future."
Wireless Weapons: A mini-Howitzer or a Liberator. We've run several stories on 802.11 antenna projects that require more time, more esoteric parts, or a bigger budget, and some that don't take much at all. Daniel Marsh writes with another one in this last category: "If you thought Pringles were fun, check out the Cookie Cantenna. Several have been built and tested by Seattle Wireless members and they blow Pringles cans out of the water, as well as taste better."
On the other hand, if convenience is more importance than raw power, you might find this commercialized alternative attractive. The Cantenna is inexpensive (19.95 by itself, plus the cost of a pigtail) and means you don't have to touch a soldering iron, glue, or anything besides a shipping container.
SIGFEH
Julio Ojeda-Zapata points to her
Um, are you guys sure Julio isn't a guy?
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
We are talking about Xerox. You know, the company that could come up with a pill that cured cancer,improved your sex life, and made you perfect looking then sell it for 5 dollars yet get no one to buy it because they can not market anything well.
"which can then be used to inexpensively make light, flexible flat-panel displays for computers, laptops and mobile phones. The material, polythiophene, has achieved performance on electronics benchmarks that is an order of magnitude greater than current polymer materials."
The new new cult! Shave your head, say "frell" three times, and send $5 to...
:)
Seriously, we will only be taken seriously if we come up with a better handle than "Scapers" -- which sounds like something halfway between scapies and scalpers. Seriously.
Even Trekkies or, for those with savoir-faire, Trekkers, was better.
I am very impressed by the Farscape insurgency. You didn't see this when they took "Three's Company" off the air. Stand up for what you believe in, even if it is only frelling television.
Starting the fall of '95 my college Rose-Hulman started requiring everyone to buy their laptop freshman year. It sounds like a great idea until you get to be a junior or senior...
The A-team is still aired on TV-Land. Or at least it was as of around 6 months ago - I haven't watched much TV since then.
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
The LA Unified School district can't afford books for all its kids, but they just spent a million dollars to roll out fiber optic drops to one of the Junior High schools. As far as I know, they are wiring all the schools.
network != education
Really.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
My pick for renewable energy is plastic solar cells. Preferrably, cheap ones rolled out like those tarps that cover baseball fields.
The U.S. currently uses about 100 exajoules of energy per year (combined total of oil, gas, nuclear, coal, hydro, etc); that's approximately a continuous 10KW for each person. The good news is that the sun provides 1KW per square meter energy, but the bad news is you'd be doing good to get a 1% overall efficiency delivered to the end user (due to cell efficency, solar system geometry, weather, storage and conversion losses.) Assuming 1%, you'd need 1000 square meters of cheap plastic seimiconductors for each person to provide for 100% of our energy needs.
To get to 1% overall efficiency, plastic solar collector efficiency will have to be significantly improved to be near the 20% raw efficiency currently achieved by good silicon solar cells. To me, that's a lot more intersting goal than a cheap display.