It seems to me that more games are geared on secrecy and stealth nowadays. I love games in the style of System Shock, Half-Life and Metal Gear Solid, so I can only applaud this tendency.
With the Tomb Raider epoch fading to a less shooting, more thinking age, I can only feel that perhaps we are making progress in the "game ideology" scenery.
Actually, that sounded quite naive and it's more of what I hope will happen. Games like Starcraft and Command & Conquer are classified as strategy but actually have very little thinking connected to their gameplay.
Now Kojima tells us about anti-warfare messages, which is also very good. How could someone transmit an intelligent message while condoning pseudo-logical ideology driven irrational violence?
MGS2 seems to indicate the beginning of very sophisticated games based on thought and feeling, now that technology permits it.
Now if we only had William Gibson's neural interfaces and be able to smell in another world...
Physical mutation, that is, because the ideology seems to remain the same. You may be initially led to think otherwise, thought. Check out what Fandom.com wants you to think:
The initial premise of Fandom.com was straightforward: to protect individual fan site owners from studio censorship
When Sony made Fandom.com its official site for Godzilla (back in 1997!) you could start thinking otherwise.
I've bought a thing or two from AnotherUniverse.com, now owned by Fandom.com. I get the catalog mailed to me, and some months ago I received along this letter telling me about the deal. I didn't take it as a big deal until I actually saw the site. Fandom.com is the perfect source for propaganda.
From the corporative POV Fandom.com is excellent. Yet we still have to read things like this:
"We are far from a big corporation," insists Meyers.
I now return to where I started. Fandom.com mutated from a small site that really harbored other smaller pages to this huge corporate-backed conglomerate.
The ideology has always been that of "incorporate, assimilate" and this outcome was predictable. [Failure was a secondary outcome, but clearly Mr. Meyers knows what he's doing]
Mrs. Burrell shouldn't have much to worry about, I believe. Of course there are the legal headaches of going through this and the discomfort of going agaist Fandom.com, but there is plenty of evidence that she's right.
Domain squatting is a problem, of course, but fortunately it's fast to clear out in an individual basis. Also fortunately, as the eToys issue has already shown us, cases like Burrell/Fandom.com's are doomed to get old and dismissed with adequate amount of proof.
Anne Marie has been repeatedly moderated down for no reason at all as I've been able to see in the last 3 weeks.
Her comments are truly insightful and it disturbs me deeply to see this happening. Metamoderation fails when so many people give her an "overrated" moderation at the exact moment it comes online.
Anne Marie isn't afraid to attack common but WRONG beliefs. She frequently points out that a majority can't make a wrong right and that pisses a lot of people off. Her confidence in her actions also trigger this enmity, for all the self-rightenous 3 year olds that read slashdot can't take an opinion that's different.
Perhaps some ethical moderator will read this. I don't expect my comment to make any difference, specially because the article's getting old fast.
My worry is not the moderation/karma per se, but what she feels when this happens. This attitude discourages very good posters from participating in Slashdot. The moderation system was designed to elevate levels of discussions but somehow this is an example of how it does exactly the opposite.
CmdrTaco believes Slashdot should be self-sufficient in moderation. He's right, generally speaking, for this seems to be an isolated case. But isolated or not, I feel there's the need to denounce it.
Since when did the propagation of EM fields along a conductor (such as the earth) become such a huge mystery that only the disciples of Tesla can know the secrets?
Since the day people like you proclaimed there's nothing else to learn about them.
Your contempt for Tesla and for everyone who doesn't shoot down his radical thinking is quite clear as well.
> And STOP bullshitting (driving a transformer from the ambient field? get real.)
Oh, really? What do you think the loopstick antenna in a portable AM receiver is?
You're jumping to conclusions again. What makes you believe I don't know that?
I again don't think you've read the Ask Slashdot question or any of my comments. The poster that started this discussion claimed that Tesla's system would invariably have large losses.
You'd have huge losses no matter how large your coil is and no matter how close to Tesla's transmitter it stands. Of course you know that, and it's precisely why you shot down my first reply in the first place.
Now what I want you to consider is that I'm not thinking of Tesla's system in the conventional "textbook solved exercise" most people do. I don't want to get the simplest, dumbest idea that comes to mind like a huge flyback transformer with an air core and try to apply it.
I believe that [in general] Slashdot geeks must have respect and not blast the ones with different ideas by making assumptions which lead to incriminating facts. People in Slashdot are usually more smarter than average but that still doesn't make them smart.
Any jackass can imagine Tesla's theoretical system as something incredibly stupid because I don't believe any of us have seen it at work.
To finish things: the purpose of Ask Slashdot is to give light to some topic, not to break the topic. If you can't think of a way to achieve high efficiency and long range wireless energy transmission, don't claim that's impossible. Making a failed example of that and shooting it down doesn't make wireless energy transmission "a la Tesla" inviable.
Have you noticed that we still use Newtonian physics for most of our useful work (because relativistic/quantum calculations yield indistinguishable results under normal conditions, and they are vastly more involved)? Most of what Ampere did is still good science; for the most part it has only been refined, not replaced.
So? If Tesla's system exists you won't be able to explain it using classic physics. Don't digress.
> You disconsider that Tesla was one of the first people to think about subatomic particles and quantum physics as part of a realm where "normal things don't happen very often".
Tesla's work follows from well-understood principles such as Maxwell's equations. These are purely classical physics. On what grounds do you claim that Tesla understood, let alone used, any quantum phenomena?
Tesla's work DOES follow from Maxwell's data, but again you digress. Tesla did NOT understand nor use quantum phenomena but based on his observations he conjectured that there must exist subatomic particles with specific laws to dictate their behavior.
And DAMN IT, READ what I wrote: Tesla was one of the first people to think about subatomic particles. I did not write he "claim that Tesla understood, let alone used, any quantum phenomena".
By working at high voltage and low current you do reduce resistive losses, but you do nothing to reduce resistance.
You obviously weren't paying attention because you want to flame me so badly.
The whole point of specific work cycles, frequencies and high voltages is to make a quantum mechanics phenomenon more likely to happen than in normal conditions.
The higher your frequency the less current can penetrate into the bulk of a conductor, leading to increased losses. This is well-understood and is known as "skin effect". It's also why you can get burns on your skin from RF, but your heart is largely immune (it's deep inside and sees little current due to skin effect).
I'm obviously discussing this with someone with more than grade school knowledge this time, but you don't pay attention to what I write anyway.
You're throwing around words that sound good to the ignorant ("subatomic particles", "quantum physics", "specific frequencies", "work cycles") and trying to use them to baffle people into taking you seriously. I take you as an idiot or a troll (same difference).
As my slashdot history proves, every childish narrow-minded conclusion jumper that disagrees with me calls me an idiot and/or troll. Join the club.
Ironically, you call me someone who practices physics as if it were theology. You must learn some methodology yourself and yet know when to have faith.
Anyone with an RF voltmeter and a little bit of gear (more or less equivalent to a crystal radio) could measure the transmission efficiency from an AM radio tower to a receiving antenna of a particular size and design.
You again miss the point. We're not dealing with normal RF propagation through vacuum here, but with electricity transmission using the atmosphere and the ground. You don't even remember what the Ask Slashdot question was about because (again) you want to flame me so badly.
I won't waste any more of my time answering this. If there's any troll here, that's you. And STOP bullshitting (driving a transformer from the ambient field? get real.)
In any case, all you people out there don't think that you'd be able to receive electricity from anywhere in the world by using Tesla's system, right? It's not as magical as "tapping the ether" as Tau Zero wants to do with his transformer.
> Fantastic transmission losses. Some enormously large percentage of the power pumped in would be lost (as in 'not serve a useful purpose'.)
And based on what do you claim that?
You're thinking of physics in the conventional way, as did Ampere 200 years ago.
You disconsider that Tesla was one of the first people to think about subatomic particles and quantum physics as part of a realm where "normal things don't happen very often".
By working at specific frequencies, work cycles and high voltages it might be possible to reduce resistance.
I believe that Tesla, as the brilliant man he was, knew exactly what he was doing with his Wardenclyffe coil. He didn't have the theoretical quantum physics explanation for what he designed, but he had the practical knowledge to make it work.
There's a story about Tesla lighting up lightbulbs 100 miles away using such a system. I prefer not to give much credit to this, but I believe Tesla wouldn't fail.
> Wildly variable service. In the clear power would theoretically follow the inverse-square law
Inverse-square-law rule? Once again, Tesla's system doesn't deal with classic physics. And even if it did, this system doesn't have much to do with this law.
> but almost anything would mess with this & cause it to vary: trees, streams, underground streams, wet/dry soil, weather (do not operate in a shower!) and that's well before we get to things like buildings, walls, metal-objects, etc.
I believe you may a point when mentioning large metallic structures, because there may be a potential difference from both ends due do improper grounding.
Trees, streams and the like wouldn't be a problem since all of them are at the same potential.
> Hazardous local environment. At the energies Tesla was talking every metallic object nearby would be carrying a hefty charge.
Ground large structures like the Eiffel tower (or better yet, make one of the tesla coils there). You shouldn't have a problem with small metallic structures like satellite dishes.
> Disrupt the very devices it was intended to supply. For simple object like a fluorescent tube Tesla coils are great but the minute you try to run something with sophisticated requirements you're hosed.
No you're not because you can rectify and filter the AC signal, thus making it high-voltage DC. Now run it through a switched power supply and generate AC in any possible voltage and any possible frequency. Rectify again to get DC at that new voltage.
> the supply would vary wildly.
No it wouldn't. You'd regulate the supply the same way you regulate it nowadays.
> Furthermore parts of motors & other devices would be receiving charge almost randomly.
Based on WHAT do you say that?
My God, don't comment on what you don't know!
Flavio
Re:Christmas isn't about presents, nor Christ
on
Gifts For Geeks
·
· Score: 1
Christmas was originally a pagen holiday. So it isn't really about Christ either.
Oh, *RIGHT*, I wonder why it's called Christmas, then.
As to the pagan holiday, it's just one more of them. Pagans have one large holiday for each season and one month for each goddess.
Christmas is about Christ and not about some forgotten goddess.
If things carry on, though, perhaps Christmas will be just about happiness and presents, despite it's name.
Anyway, it's not like you're doing it unknowingly.
Considering quantum effects like tunelling, how exactly would you power such a 3-atom transistor processor?
It would apparently consume only very little amounts of electricity, but considering how thin the paths would be, perhaps internal resistance would rise, making temperature rise and demanding higher voltages. Higher voltages make quantum tunneling and sheer molecular structure reconfiguration much more likely.
The result would be either generalized short circuits or destruction of paths (with formation of others), I suppose.
Of course this is the first thing Intel thinks of, but it be very interesting to know how they'd manage to pull such a feat off using real world materials and at room temperature.
While the end result of this project is "cool" I fail to see the "value" that the end user will get from it.
Screw "value"... Open source developers don't have to do _every_ project with an altruistic mind. If things were like that, coding would be just like work without pay. You've just gotta have the fun factor.
Folks, call me crazy, but as long as Linux and the Open Source community keep there focus ENTIRELY on "cool" and technical-only-oriented projects, we will never be able to convince the Windows user to switch nor are we going to win new users.
Linux is hardly about being entirely on "cool". Only a small share actually ends up with "useless but cool" products.
Just because these projects end up getting a lot of publicity on Slashdot it doesn't mean they take up development manpower. Consider this port was done in 1.5 weeks by ONE PERSON.
And even then, I don't really care about convincing Windows users to switch anymore. It's already obvious that Linux is better and probably every person that I know that uses a computer, no matter how uninitiated at it, has heard of Linux.
Normal users will change to Linux when it's time to change, not when you want them to.
This may be successful with people who are interested in WMs like Litestep, Darkstep and other less known ones.
Having tried most of them, I'd say that they're usually buggy and quite beta. Usability is limited, mostly because you lose most of Windows' native functions (which are dependent on explorer.exe, the WM) and only implement a limited number of new ones.
This feature implementation is usually done by using plugins and modules, which are in theory a good thing. In practice it means that you usually get a slow manager that can crash or behave badly just because of one buggy plugin.
I've managed to use Litestep for a few days, but eventually went back to explorer.exe because features like file managing and printing were still tied to the latter, making the whole idea somewhat flawed.
I hope Gnome works as one would expect. If it does, I'll probably change for good.
I had been using Netscape 6 since it was released and I honestly don't see any difference between it and the.6 build.
My complaint is that Mozilla is SLOW. And every time I complain about this, people ask me "have you ever check out the latest night builds? They're a lot better!". Well, I don't think so! I've been testing night builds for a long time now and they're dog slow.
I just hate it when the "New Message" window takes 3 seconds to appear, among other things.
I have replaced Netscape 4.76 for Mozilla mainly because it doesn't crash as much, but I certainly haven't deleted 4.76.
As would I. I don't run KDE to run Konqueror. I know it's good, but I won't be leaving Window Maker or worse, running WM and KDE at the same time.
I've slandered Mozilla too much already and won't be doing it this time. I can just hope it gets better, because Linux needs an UI independent, modern browser.
Flavio
My personal experience with HP and a suggestion
on
HP And Bruce Perens
·
· Score: 4
Not that I think my suggestion is worth anything to a company like HP, but there are some things I'd like to state.
First, I have a lot of HP products. From calculators to printers, everything I've ever bought from them was excellent.
Now they'll have to either take the first step embracing Linux drivers or face the competition that does.
Speaking realistically, not many companies are a threat to HP's desktop market. There's Epson, Canon, Lexmark and others, but HP is large enough to dictate tendencies.
However, consider that Linux users tend to be influential in the computer world. Let's suppose, for example, that I, as a network admin, have got to install a print server and a box for digitizing images in a small office. Linux would be the perfect choice *if* I had printer support for it.
With cheap printers getting 8+ ppm in black, one deskjet can be more than enough for a small office. I'd use this computer as a mail gateway as well, and maybe for NFS and other things.
I'm NOT willing to get a new box just to run Windows on it and use it as a print server, but as things are today, I have no choice. I refuse to buy a 2880x1400 dpi printer and use it in 300x300 mode under Linux.
Now if some company starts shipping a printer with decent Linux drivers, I'd buy it. I don't care if it only prints with half the deskjet-in-quetion's resolution and at half the speed. I'll get it!
Ditto for other devices with flaky Linux support.
So what I'm saying is that in some situations Linux support can be crucial. Perhaps not for the normal joe that runs office on his desktop at home, but that's going to change as well.
I, as a desktop user, find it irrational to reboot into Windows just to print a document that has a color photo in it.
As Linux takes over other shares of the corporate (and gasp! home user) market, HP will be forced to change.
Corporations don't care much about ideologies per se, but they will care when money's the issue. I'd do it early while I can if I were HP.
People have looked at me differently because I'm a geek, but most of the times it's been out of respect!
I can just say it's scary to see what these kids must go through every day and even scarier to imagine what the world around them must be like to even _tolerate_ such behavior.
1) Gaming is not entirely viewed as bad.. Myst was never accused of being violent!
Neither was Tetris. Myst played by society's rules.
You are trying *WAYYY* to hard to tie this to hellmouth.
It's the same thing. People may not say it all the time because they're a ashamed of themselves. It feels and looks stupid to criticize a game. After all, it's not REAL, is it?
The idea's out there, though.
I'm really starting to get sick and tired of "Waaah.. I'm a misunderstood genius, Waaaah.. they pick on me cuz I'm a geek, WAaaaah.. they are mean to me at school so I'm gonna blow it up" crap.. GET OVER IT!
True. Geekdom is becoming mainstream, anyway. Technology is suddenly cool and the misunderstanding is fading away. In any case, we've had enough on the subject.
Sure there are a few oddballs who are covinced that Doom et. al. are a tool of Satan, but most reasonable people recognize that games are just games.
I demur. While not many people think of Doom as a tool of Satan, MOST people think of it as an inciter of violence.
The classic example of the child that watches cartoons and believes he's Superman is frequently used. Only a small share of the population remember that we're not children, though. As if that weren't enough, consider that children _know_ in their hearts that they're not Superman, in ana analogy to the youngster that wants to believe in Santa because it feels good.
But a society that questions itself is the only healthy kind of society.
One thing is to criticize. Another is to attack without basis...
That's a very good article, Katz. You've summarized our society's latest fears quite well.
Society has this craving to find scapegoats. There's always got to be someone to blame for its problems and usually the different group gets the title.
This is nothing new, of course. What I'd like to add is that society is arrogant and lives in a constant state of denial.
Where is it written that men are bound to become "better" as time goes on? Where do people find proof of that?
What Katz calls the "new culture" has been attacked vehemently by everyone that belongs to the "old culture", as if the world underwent some bizarre overnight change.
Nothing changed!, and that's what must be stated. Some games may have the in-your-face attitude regarding death and violence, but what exactly does that prove? It tells us about a new way of seeing things. A new way that opens an ideological gap between different kinds of people. To top it all, a new way that won't last forever, for it WILL be superseded.
The "wide segment of society" attacks the "group" looking for the scapegoat and refuses to see the demons that lie within us all.
We're talking senseless propaganda here! (not that senseless, actually.) Who cares about the latest version when you can reach 100 million people?
If it worked for AOL it's gotta work for free, good software.
You can distribute, say, OpenBSD or a tight version of any free OS and leave the end user to update things at will. Even 6 months later the CD will still be useful.
The bottom line is that "normal" people usually don't download whole OS's even if they have infinite bandwidth. The CD itself should be fundamental.
Um no. If anything of a nonzero radius were spun at infinte speeds, it would be thrown outward with infinite force.
True. Since I was talking about an ideal disc, we _could_ suppose it would resist to the infinite speeds (that depends on your benevolence, actually =). But in any case, what I said fortunately stands because the disc won't bend, it'll just desintegrate symmetrically in two dimensions, leaving the third dimension intact.
And if these discs can withstand infinite force in one idrection (or nearly so), then there are far more important things to make with it than floppy cds:)
=) that would kick ass.
the interesting part is that we're talking about tensile versus shearing stress.
Materials that have very good tensile stress characteristics (i.e., they can compress/stretch along its main axis without rupturing) not necessarily have good shearing stress. Materials with near ideal tensile stress tend to perform badly with shearing stress _unless_ we're talking about some substance with an isomorphic or amorphic structure.
On a more off-topic note, there are peculiarities regarding tensile and shearing stress themselves, even when considered isolated. For example, concrete supports a lot of weight without cracking, thus having a good compressional tensile stress coefficient, but concrete breaks very easily if stretched.
This is kind of offtopic, but I suppose someone might find it interesting and I don't think there will ever be a story to post this on.
I don't see much in the way of an advantage here. What do they possibly offer?
SAVINGS! that's the brilliant part. You save on material and manufacture dirt cheap CDs.
I believe there's not much of a deformation problem at high speeds, since the CD is supposedly uniformly dense and as flat as possible. You could theoretically rotate this at infinite angular speed in vacuum without deformation. I suppose it could bend abnormally if you consider the drive's inner air circulation at extremely high speeds, but we're not there yet.
You've got a valid point about scratches, but there are two points to cover that:
1. error correction.
2. this media isn't designed for very reliable storage. it's for AOL cd's and, as I suggested in another post, dirt cheap linux propaganda. if the target's interested in the data he acquires the normal CD version if needed.
I think the idea's great, but it kind of depends on how easily these things can be pressed.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that more games are geared on secrecy and stealth nowadays. I love games in the style of System Shock, Half-Life and Metal Gear Solid, so I can only applaud this tendency.
With the Tomb Raider epoch fading to a less shooting, more thinking age, I can only feel that perhaps we are making progress in the "game ideology" scenery.
Actually, that sounded quite naive and it's more of what I hope will happen. Games like Starcraft and Command & Conquer are classified as strategy but actually have very little thinking connected to their gameplay.
Now Kojima tells us about anti-warfare messages, which is also very good. How could someone transmit an intelligent message while condoning pseudo-logical ideology driven irrational violence?
MGS2 seems to indicate the beginning of very sophisticated games based on thought and feeling, now that technology permits it.
Now if we only had William Gibson's neural interfaces and be able to smell in another world...
Flavio
The site seems to be slashdotted.
Here's a mirror
Flavio
Unfortunately I haven't found anything mentioning hardware on RedHat' Embedded page or on the press release.
Considering all the excellent networking capabilities that Linux has, I'd be disappointed if I had to use outdated hardware.
And considering Linux needs at least 512kB of memory to run, I suppose we're considering a modern architecture.
I believe that if Linux is the correct choice for this application, then the hardware specs as well as the final product itself must be memorable.
Flavio
Physical mutation, that is, because the ideology seems to remain the same. You may be initially led to think otherwise, thought. Check out what Fandom.com wants you to think:
The initial premise of Fandom.com was straightforward: to protect individual fan site owners from studio censorship
When Sony made Fandom.com its official site for Godzilla (back in 1997!) you could start thinking otherwise.
I've bought a thing or two from AnotherUniverse.com, now owned by Fandom.com. I get the catalog mailed to me, and some months ago I received along this letter telling me about the deal. I didn't take it as a big deal until I actually saw the site. Fandom.com is the perfect source for propaganda.
From the corporative POV Fandom.com is excellent. Yet we still have to read things like this:
"We are far from a big corporation," insists Meyers.
I now return to where I started. Fandom.com mutated from a small site that really harbored other smaller pages to this huge corporate-backed conglomerate.
The ideology has always been that of "incorporate, assimilate" and this outcome was predictable. [Failure was a secondary outcome, but clearly Mr. Meyers knows what he's doing]
Mrs. Burrell shouldn't have much to worry about, I believe. Of course there are the legal headaches of going through this and the discomfort of going agaist Fandom.com, but there is plenty of evidence that she's right.
Domain squatting is a problem, of course, but fortunately it's fast to clear out in an individual basis. Also fortunately, as the eToys issue has already shown us, cases like Burrell/Fandom.com's are doomed to get old and dismissed with adequate amount of proof.
Flavio
Anne Marie has been repeatedly moderated down for no reason at all as I've been able to see in the last 3 weeks.
Her comments are truly insightful and it disturbs me deeply to see this happening. Metamoderation fails when so many people give her an "overrated" moderation at the exact moment it comes online.
Anne Marie isn't afraid to attack common but WRONG beliefs. She frequently points out that a majority can't make a wrong right and that pisses a lot of people off. Her confidence in her actions also trigger this enmity, for all the self-rightenous 3 year olds that read slashdot can't take an opinion that's different.
Perhaps some ethical moderator will read this. I don't expect my comment to make any difference, specially because the article's getting old fast.
My worry is not the moderation/karma per se, but what she feels when this happens. This attitude discourages very good posters from participating in Slashdot. The moderation system was designed to elevate levels of discussions but somehow this is an example of how it does exactly the opposite.
CmdrTaco believes Slashdot should be self-sufficient in moderation. He's right, generally speaking, for this seems to be an isolated case. But isolated or not, I feel there's the need to denounce it.
Flavio
Since when did the propagation of EM fields along a conductor (such as the earth) become such a huge mystery that only the disciples of Tesla can know the secrets?
Since the day people like you proclaimed there's nothing else to learn about them.
Your contempt for Tesla and for everyone who doesn't shoot down his radical thinking is quite clear as well.
> And STOP bullshitting (driving a transformer from the ambient field? get real.)
Oh, really? What do you think the loopstick antenna in a portable AM receiver is?
You're jumping to conclusions again. What makes you believe I don't know that?
I again don't think you've read the Ask Slashdot question or any of my comments. The poster that started this discussion claimed that Tesla's system would invariably have large losses.
You'd have huge losses no matter how large your coil is and no matter how close to Tesla's transmitter it stands. Of course you know that, and it's precisely why you shot down my first reply in the first place.
Now what I want you to consider is that I'm not thinking of Tesla's system in the conventional "textbook solved exercise" most people do. I don't want to get the simplest, dumbest idea that comes to mind like a huge flyback transformer with an air core and try to apply it.
I believe that [in general] Slashdot geeks must have respect and not blast the ones with different ideas by making assumptions which lead to incriminating facts. People in Slashdot are usually more smarter than average but that still doesn't make them smart.
Any jackass can imagine Tesla's theoretical system as something incredibly stupid because I don't believe any of us have seen it at work.
To finish things: the purpose of Ask Slashdot is to give light to some topic, not to break the topic. If you can't think of a way to achieve high efficiency and long range wireless energy transmission, don't claim that's impossible. Making a failed example of that and shooting it down doesn't make wireless energy transmission "a la Tesla" inviable.
Flavio
So? If Tesla's system exists you won't be able to explain it using classic physics. Don't digress.
Tesla's work DOES follow from Maxwell's data, but again you digress. Tesla did NOT understand nor use quantum phenomena but based on his observations he conjectured that there must exist subatomic particles with specific laws to dictate their behavior.
And DAMN IT, READ what I wrote: Tesla was one of the first people to think about subatomic particles. I did not write he "claim that Tesla understood, let alone used, any quantum phenomena".
You obviously weren't paying attention because you want to flame me so badly. The whole point of specific work cycles, frequencies and high voltages is to make a quantum mechanics phenomenon more likely to happen than in normal conditions.I'm obviously discussing this with someone with more than grade school knowledge this time, but you don't pay attention to what I write anyway.
As my slashdot history proves, every childish narrow-minded conclusion jumper that disagrees with me calls me an idiot and/or troll. Join the club.
Ironically, you call me someone who practices physics as if it were theology. You must learn some methodology yourself and yet know when to have faith.
You again miss the point. We're not dealing with normal RF propagation through vacuum here, but with electricity transmission using the atmosphere and the ground. You don't even remember what the Ask Slashdot question was about because (again) you want to flame me so badly.
I won't waste any more of my time answering this. If there's any troll here, that's you. And STOP bullshitting (driving a transformer from the ambient field? get real.)
In any case, all you people out there don't think that you'd be able to receive electricity from anywhere in the world by using Tesla's system, right? It's not as magical as "tapping the ether" as Tau Zero wants to do with his transformer.
Flavio
> Fantastic transmission losses. Some enormously large percentage of the power pumped in would be lost (as in 'not serve a useful purpose'.)
And based on what do you claim that?
You're thinking of physics in the conventional way, as did Ampere 200 years ago.
You disconsider that Tesla was one of the first people to think about subatomic particles and quantum physics as part of a realm where "normal things don't happen very often".
By working at specific frequencies, work cycles and high voltages it might be possible to reduce resistance.
I believe that Tesla, as the brilliant man he was, knew exactly what he was doing with his Wardenclyffe coil. He didn't have the theoretical quantum physics explanation for what he designed, but he had the practical knowledge to make it work.
There's a story about Tesla lighting up lightbulbs 100 miles away using such a system. I prefer not to give much credit to this, but I believe Tesla wouldn't fail.
> Wildly variable service. In the clear power would theoretically follow the inverse-square law
Inverse-square-law rule? Once again, Tesla's system doesn't deal with classic physics. And even if it did, this system doesn't have much to do with this law.
> but almost anything would mess with this & cause it to vary: trees, streams, underground streams, wet/dry soil, weather (do not operate in a shower!) and that's well before we get to things like buildings, walls, metal-objects, etc.
I believe you may a point when mentioning large metallic structures, because there may be a potential difference from both ends due do improper grounding.
Trees, streams and the like wouldn't be a problem since all of them are at the same potential.
> Hazardous local environment. At the energies Tesla was talking every metallic object nearby would be carrying a hefty charge.
Ground large structures like the Eiffel tower (or better yet, make one of the tesla coils there). You shouldn't have a problem with small metallic structures like satellite dishes.
> Disrupt the very devices it was intended to supply. For simple object like a fluorescent tube Tesla coils are great but the minute you try to run something with sophisticated requirements you're hosed.
No you're not because you can rectify and filter the AC signal, thus making it high-voltage DC. Now run it through a switched power supply and generate AC in any possible voltage and any possible frequency. Rectify again to get DC at that new voltage.
> the supply would vary wildly.
No it wouldn't. You'd regulate the supply the same way you regulate it nowadays.
> Furthermore parts of motors & other devices would be receiving charge almost randomly.
Based on WHAT do you say that?
My God, don't comment on what you don't know!
Flavio
Christmas was originally a pagen holiday. So it isn't really about Christ either.
Oh, *RIGHT*, I wonder why it's called Christmas, then.
As to the pagan holiday, it's just one more of them. Pagans have one large holiday for each season and one month for each goddess.
Christmas is about Christ and not about some forgotten goddess.
If things carry on, though, perhaps Christmas will be just about happiness and presents, despite it's name.
Anyway, it's not like you're doing it unknowingly.
Flavio
Considering quantum effects like tunelling, how exactly would you power such a 3-atom transistor processor?
It would apparently consume only very little amounts of electricity, but considering how thin the paths would be, perhaps internal resistance would rise, making temperature rise and demanding higher voltages. Higher voltages make quantum tunneling and sheer molecular structure reconfiguration much more likely.
The result would be either generalized short circuits or destruction of paths (with formation of others), I suppose.
Of course this is the first thing Intel thinks of, but it be very interesting to know how they'd manage to pull such a feat off using real world materials and at room temperature.
Flavio
While the end result of this project is "cool" I fail to see the "value" that the end user will get from it.
Screw "value"... Open source developers don't have to do _every_ project with an altruistic mind. If things were like that, coding would be just like work without pay. You've just gotta have the fun factor.
Folks, call me crazy, but as long as Linux and the Open Source community keep there focus ENTIRELY on "cool" and technical-only-oriented projects, we will never be able to convince the Windows user to switch nor are we going to win new users.
Linux is hardly about being entirely on "cool". Only a small share actually ends up with "useless but cool" products.
Just because these projects end up getting a lot of publicity on Slashdot it doesn't mean they take up development manpower. Consider this port was done in 1.5 weeks by ONE PERSON.
And even then, I don't really care about convincing Windows users to switch anymore. It's already obvious that Linux is better and probably every person that I know that uses a computer, no matter how uninitiated at it, has heard of Linux.
Normal users will change to Linux when it's time to change, not when you want them to.
Flavio
This may be successful with people who are interested in WMs like Litestep, Darkstep and other less known ones.
Having tried most of them, I'd say that they're usually buggy and quite beta. Usability is limited, mostly because you lose most of Windows' native functions (which are dependent on explorer.exe, the WM) and only implement a limited number of new ones.
This feature implementation is usually done by using plugins and modules, which are in theory a good thing. In practice it means that you usually get a slow manager that can crash or behave badly just because of one buggy plugin.
I've managed to use Litestep for a few days, but eventually went back to explorer.exe because features like file managing and printing were still tied to the latter, making the whole idea somewhat flawed.
I hope Gnome works as one would expect. If it does, I'll probably change for good.
Flavio
Just tell these people to breathe into paper bags and bring down the satellites!
Flavio
I had been using Netscape 6 since it was released and I honestly don't see any difference between it and the .6 build.
My complaint is that Mozilla is SLOW. And every time I complain about this, people ask me "have you ever check out the latest night builds? They're a lot better!". Well, I don't think so! I've been testing night builds for a long time now and they're dog slow.
I just hate it when the "New Message" window takes 3 seconds to appear, among other things.
I have replaced Netscape 4.76 for Mozilla mainly because it doesn't crash as much, but I certainly haven't deleted 4.76.
Flavio
This topic is about Opera.
Yeah, and what's there to say about it? "It's a tiny 2mb commercial browser that now is free if you choose to display ads."
The topic is so limited that even CmdrTaco himself mentioned Mozilla.
Flavio
Personally, I'd stick to Mozilla
As would I. I don't run KDE to run Konqueror. I know it's good, but I won't be leaving Window Maker or worse, running WM and KDE at the same time.
I've slandered Mozilla too much already and won't be doing it this time. I can just hope it gets better, because Linux needs an UI independent, modern browser.
Flavio
Not that I think my suggestion is worth anything to a company like HP, but there are some things I'd like to state.
First, I have a lot of HP products. From calculators to printers, everything I've ever bought from them was excellent.
Now they'll have to either take the first step embracing Linux drivers or face the competition that does.
Speaking realistically, not many companies are a threat to HP's desktop market. There's Epson, Canon, Lexmark and others, but HP is large enough to dictate tendencies.
However, consider that Linux users tend to be influential in the computer world. Let's suppose, for example, that I, as a network admin, have got to install a print server and a box for digitizing images in a small office. Linux would be the perfect choice *if* I had printer support for it.
With cheap printers getting 8+ ppm in black, one deskjet can be more than enough for a small office. I'd use this computer as a mail gateway as well, and maybe for NFS and other things.
I'm NOT willing to get a new box just to run Windows on it and use it as a print server, but as things are today, I have no choice. I refuse to buy a 2880x1400 dpi printer and use it in 300x300 mode under Linux.
Now if some company starts shipping a printer with decent Linux drivers, I'd buy it. I don't care if it only prints with half the deskjet-in-quetion's resolution and at half the speed. I'll get it!
Ditto for other devices with flaky Linux support.
So what I'm saying is that in some situations Linux support can be crucial. Perhaps not for the normal joe that runs office on his desktop at home, but that's going to change as well.
I, as a desktop user, find it irrational to reboot into Windows just to print a document that has a color photo in it.
As Linux takes over other shares of the corporate (and gasp! home user) market, HP will be forced to change.
Corporations don't care much about ideologies per se, but they will care when money's the issue. I'd do it early while I can if I were HP.
Flavio
Dear God, where do these people live?
People have looked at me differently because I'm a geek, but most of the times it's been out of respect!
I can just say it's scary to see what these kids must go through every day and even scarier to imagine what the world around them must be like to even _tolerate_ such behavior.
Flavio
1) Gaming is not entirely viewed as bad.. Myst was never accused of being violent!
Neither was Tetris. Myst played by society's rules.
You are trying *WAYYY* to hard to tie this to hellmouth.
It's the same thing. People may not say it all the time because they're a ashamed of themselves. It feels and looks stupid to criticize a game. After all, it's not REAL, is it?
The idea's out there, though.
I'm really starting to get sick and tired of "Waaah.. I'm a misunderstood genius, Waaaah.. they pick on me cuz I'm a geek, WAaaaah.. they are mean to me at school so I'm gonna blow it up" crap.. GET OVER IT!
True. Geekdom is becoming mainstream, anyway. Technology is suddenly cool and the misunderstanding is fading away. In any case, we've had enough on the subject.
Flavio
Sure there are a few oddballs who are covinced that Doom et. al. are a tool of Satan, but most reasonable people recognize that games are just games.
I demur. While not many people think of Doom as a tool of Satan, MOST people think of it as an inciter of violence.
The classic example of the child that watches cartoons and believes he's Superman is frequently used. Only a small share of the population remember that we're not children, though. As if that weren't enough, consider that children _know_ in their hearts that they're not Superman, in ana analogy to the youngster that wants to believe in Santa because it feels good.
But a society that questions itself is the only healthy kind of society.
One thing is to criticize. Another is to attack without basis...
Flavio
That's a very good article, Katz. You've summarized our society's latest fears quite well.
Society has this craving to find scapegoats. There's always got to be someone to blame for its problems and usually the different group gets the title.
This is nothing new, of course. What I'd like to add is that society is arrogant and lives in a constant state of denial.
Where is it written that men are bound to become "better" as time goes on? Where do people find proof of that?
What Katz calls the "new culture" has been attacked vehemently by everyone that belongs to the "old culture", as if the world underwent some bizarre overnight change.
Nothing changed!, and that's what must be stated. Some games may have the in-your-face attitude regarding death and violence, but what exactly does that prove? It tells us about a new way of seeing things. A new way that opens an ideological gap between different kinds of people. To top it all, a new way that won't last forever, for it WILL be superseded.
The "wide segment of society" attacks the "group" looking for the scapegoat and refuses to see the demons that lie within us all.
Flavio
We're talking senseless propaganda here! (not that senseless, actually.) Who cares about the latest version when you can reach 100 million people?
If it worked for AOL it's gotta work for free, good software.
You can distribute, say, OpenBSD or a tight version of any free OS and leave the end user to update things at will. Even 6 months later the CD will still be useful.
The bottom line is that "normal" people usually don't download whole OS's even if they have infinite bandwidth. The CD itself should be fundamental.
Flavio
Um no. If anything of a nonzero radius were spun at infinte speeds, it would be thrown outward with infinite force.
True. Since I was talking about an ideal disc, we _could_ suppose it would resist to the infinite speeds (that depends on your benevolence, actually =). But in any case, what I said fortunately stands because the disc won't bend, it'll just desintegrate symmetrically in two dimensions, leaving the third dimension intact.
And if these discs can withstand infinite force in one idrection (or nearly so), then there are far more important things to make with it than floppy cds:)
=) that would kick ass.
the interesting part is that we're talking about tensile versus shearing stress.
Materials that have very good tensile stress characteristics (i.e., they can compress/stretch along its main axis without rupturing) not necessarily have good shearing stress. Materials with near ideal tensile stress tend to perform badly with shearing stress _unless_ we're talking about some substance with an isomorphic or amorphic structure.
On a more off-topic note, there are peculiarities regarding tensile and shearing stress themselves, even when considered isolated. For example, concrete supports a lot of weight without cracking, thus having a good compressional tensile stress coefficient, but concrete breaks very easily if stretched.
This is kind of offtopic, but I suppose someone might find it interesting and I don't think there will ever be a story to post this on.
So, uh... flexible media kicks ass! =)
Flavio
As far as I've understood it, it's a fairly normal CD if you disconsider the "adapter" (necessary for it to be read by normal drives).
Since CD's are read from the middle to the periphery, I believe they hold exactly the same amount of information.
Flavio
I don't see much in the way of an advantage here. What do they possibly offer?
SAVINGS! that's the brilliant part. You save on material and manufacture dirt cheap CDs.
I believe there's not much of a deformation problem at high speeds, since the CD is supposedly uniformly dense and as flat as possible. You could theoretically rotate this at infinite angular speed in vacuum without deformation. I suppose it could bend abnormally if you consider the drive's inner air circulation at extremely high speeds, but we're not there yet.
You've got a valid point about scratches, but there are two points to cover that:
1. error correction.
2. this media isn't designed for very reliable storage. it's for AOL cd's and, as I suggested in another post, dirt cheap linux propaganda. if the target's interested in the data he acquires the normal CD version if needed.
I think the idea's great, but it kind of depends on how easily these things can be pressed.
Flavio