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New Android App Encourages Users To Throw Device As High As Possible
kdryer39 writes "Like to tempt fate? Then you might want to check out Send Me To Heaven, the Android app that uses your phone's accelerometers to track how high it travels when thrown upward. Assuming you don't fumble your handset on its return trip, its distance will join that of other daredevils on the game's leaderboards. That's all there is to it. Really."
I can't wait for the desktop version.
We need a version that runs on a VAX 11/780.
"HOLY SHIT DUDE FIVE INCHES! That's awesome!! ...why is the floor cracking?"
*CRASH*
The people at Codepoke had an app which did exactly the same thing. They removed it from the app store a while ago.
Click
...that it's the first app collaboratively designed by AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon? ;)
They should add this to a diaper so that I can see how high I can throw babies!
The G
AngryDroids.
You don't even need an accelerometer for that. Just have the app send heartbeats to a server, and when the server stops receiving them, it knows you've won!
This is not exactly a new idea. http://maemo.org/packages/view/n900fly/
Back when I had an iPhone, several features encouraged me to throw device as hard as possible against a very solid surface. I never took them up on the offer, but it sure was tempting.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
When you throw something it experiences momentary very high gs followed by zero gs (except from air resistance). I doubt you can simulate that with a string.
Step 1:)
Purchase a waterproof smartphone enclosure from a sporting goods store. Like say, these generic ones. insert the phone inside the protector, and seal it.
Step 2:)
At the local post office, purchase a normal cardboard shipping box. I understand walmart also carries these. Then, buy a can of expanding foam insulation. Squirt the expanding foam insulation into the cardboard box, then, while the foam is still expanding and workable, embed the enclosure inside the foam. (You want to be able to get the phone out of the enclosure later. Keep that in mind.)
Step 3:)
Load the cardboard "shock box" into a "pumpkin chucker" trebuchet. You may need to troll newspapers or craigs list to find someone who has one. (they tend to advertise having them, so all you need to do is look.) Set the angle nigh, then let it rip.
Enoy your ballistic smartphone score.
Why not just use your root access and write a program that puts a different value on the accelerometers?
Let's see if someone can hit the Apollo 11 landing site.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Yoyo, yes.
huh?
Extrapolate the same movements to a phone on a string - since it's not spinning on a free axis (like the yoyo), the force at the end of string travel is effectively 0g.
The phone at the end of the string is subjected to much more than 1G as you spin it around. It is that force that is keeping the phone from simply dangling at the end of the string. Why do you think you need to pull back on the string so hard if there is "0g" on the phone at the other end? That pull you exert is the "equal and opposite" part of the laws of motion. It is the same principle that makes centrifuges work; the rotation of the centrifuge creates HIGHER forces (more g's) on the thing being spun, not because it creates a 0g environment.
The rotation of the yoyo is not why there is 1g during "walk the dog". There is 1g experienced by the yoyo because it is subject to the earth's gravitational field and is being prevented from accelerating downward by the carpet/floor it is in contact with. If you simply hang a phone from a piece of string, it will experience 1g because the string will be pulling upwards to keep it from falling to the floor.
THIS story and its comments is why I keep returning to /. despite having the many flaws we all know about.
Take any random idea and code it. Post it on /. and two things happen:
- People find prior art of it, to different degrees of precedence.
- People start finding ways to improve/cheat the system, to different degrees of sophistication, complexity and plausibility.
I mean, seriously. You can argue all you want about this community and its (our?) shortcomings, but you can't deny at some point just having a bunch of geeks or whatever you want to call us, discussing things like this story definitely gets interesting and fun.
Cheers fellow /.ers!
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
Electronic device IQ tests...
I wrote a program on a similar principle in 1983. It ran on a mainframe, and was called "He-man, Dangerous-man". Here's how it worked:
1) Draw an ASCII art carnival hammer strength meter
2) Put up text on the terminal telling the user that it is a strength meter
3) Tell the user "When I say 'go!', hit the return key as hard as you can!"
4) Count down from 10, and then print "go!"
5) When the return key is hit, make the little ASCII art "weight" go a random amount 2/3-3/4s way up the screen toward the "bell"
6) If the key to the left of the return key is hit, make it go all the way up and print ^G so you can demonstrate superior strength
Obviously, I was forced to remove it, the first time some idiot actually fell for it and broke the keyboard on a Televideo 912 terminal.
The app should snap a pic at apogee and post that with submission.
--- Mercutio was right.