Me, The Mayo Clinic, and The Archives of Ophthalmology say that Laser Pointers are _absolutely_completely_safe to stare at for several minutes. Trust them!
See: "Laser Pointers and the Human Eye: A Clinicopathologic Study" Abstact: "Continuous exposure was directed to the fovea for 1 minute, to the retina 5 below fixation for 5 minutes, and to the retina 5 above fixation for 15 minutes." Research conclusion: "The risk to the human eye from transient exposure to light from commercially available class 3A laser pointers having powers of 1, 2, and 5 mW seems negligible. "
My guess is either the pilot is a psycho-somatic sissy, or it was a multiple WATT Laser (that somehow got aimed well enough) that they saw: I.e. not an e-z to aim "pointer". Read MY fine article then consider those two probabilities...
Funny they wont mention what freaking color it was...heh...
IMNSHO The best selling computer ever, the Commodore64 will live forever. It taught more people to how to write programs than any other too. It rewarded learning hexadecimal. It rewarded the user learning how to program hardware registers, which now seems a lost art, alas... Then was born the Amiga series. Amiga sported a futuristic OS with hardware to match. Amiga did all that is kewl in home computing first.
These Commodore sold computers did it all: Better, faster, cheaper, AND for much much _longer_ than its competition -- even now.
64's and Amigas run all night and day and have rocked the world for decades now. Thats a long lllloooonnnnnggggg time, and I get off on it!
These classics are backed a next generation: AmigaOS4, The AmigaOne, The C-One Omnilator: these should prove just as durable. I say "You can never kill everything of Commodore."
"...with a led indicating seek or read," Too Bad: I've allready designed prior art and have produced even more. Its called 'The MoJoMeter' and its (shamelessly) here: http://www.retrosystem.com/hdmeter.shtml:-]
Everyone knows a timelord selected the 2.4GHz frequency to save us from x10.com. (Like duh man!)
The timelord went back in time and changed the oven frequency in order to save us!
He knew after 2001, radiation leaks from microwave ovens would interfere with x10 videocameras!
x10 Camera Frequency.
Even though 2.4GHz would also interfere with
802.11b, etc., stopping x10 was more important!
Future proliferation of x10 videocameras had to be stopped since the easy to use cameras only encouraged viewing nudity and thus would harm more of "the children".
Politicaly correcting history required any spectrum be sacrificed!
Besides, it really was the only way to stop the x10 pop-under ads!
(I'm a HW engineer at ZapMedia)
"Can anyone cite an IC that has this kind of performance at 16-bit resolution?"
To have superior audio specs we use a custom audio board, not just a SB16.
The ZapStation uses a 24 bit resolution DAC. The Texas Instruments / Burr-Brown PCM1748 chip.
(Which are EXCELLENT I must add!)
It uses a 32 to 96 Khz clock depending on the data stream, and reproducing 16 bit 44/48 Khz CD audio is quite trivial for it. Remember that WMA _adds_ noise, and MP3's are compressed, so the ZapStation plays them about as truly as they possibly can.
FeeCee's sound & video cards are far noisier than a ZapStation in _every_ way including the fan(s)!!!
Last weekend, I went poking around at the Spring Commodore Expo 2001 in Louisville, Kentucky USA.
I got a peek at many C-64 and 128's running GEOS, and even better: "Wheels"
That GUI ran another program, a browser called "The Wave" See: http://www.luckyreport.com/expo.html
"Now you can enjoy graphical web browsing on your Commodore 64 or Commodore 128."
http://www.ia4u.net/~maurice/gbrowse/wave.html
http://videocam.net.au/~colinjt/wave.html
Naturally the above code is tight and efficient assembly language.
Most C-64 programs are smaller than the icons above.
The Wave browser is smaller than the banner ad!!!
Alas, few on Slashdot will ever run this kind of code, let alone generate it.:^)
But such code would easily fit in thier Cache!
"...the four-stroke, two-wheeled, er, vehicle weighs just 20kg (44lb) and produces 2.5bhp."
If it had a vanilla 2-stroke I'd have double the power, weigh and cost half as much, and sound like a science minded racing machine.
But I still want one: to hack!!!!
(The NSH Opinion of the 1983-5 USA WERA 80cc roadracing champion.)
I was stunned that VR guru made the SAME LAME MISTAKE picking RealAudio.
RealAudio is privacy insulting, upgrade nagging, sluggish, proprietary, and forever corporate flavored: Blah!
Please PLEASE advise the use of superior formats like MP3 or VOXwhateverItsspelled.
I want my MP3!
I'm sure they would love to ENFORCE a "one swipe" patent on us all. Unconstitutional laws let them fine or jail readers who dared use un-conventional methods of research in thier quest.
Back down Jimmy-B, It's not too late to make right a wrong. I suggest you fire the sue-lawyers, hire the clue-lawyers, and spearhead a positive future for AMZN by following the www.OpenPatents.org initiave-->NOW!!!!
-- compared to a modern ATX MB, let alone one of those tiny'st onechip webservers!
They have lots of room inside for adding a couple of FeeCee motherboards - for Amiga's, Ataris, MAME, or other emulators.
Most had giant powersupplys and PCBs by todays standards.
Those wood-ish chassis gave good sound, control, and airflow, and are easy to work with.
Lots of great memories will be for sale! SO REMEMBER: ~"Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it---";^)
If you want to score a machine, bring lots of $$:
Cash TALKS - Credit balks!
Thank god "you people" will now be finally spared! (good luck running >two copies "nice" with unix!) I've been running this program on 3 Amigas and you'd be surprised the vector tactics employed: I can see different incomming techniques on the 1084 monitors I've faced toward the centroid (me). I suspect possible vertical holes and need to get another Amiga running it in the attic... Fortunately an A1200 can multitask several MindGuards evenly. Once I feel safe running the half a dozen programs on them I usually leave the monitors off since the Amiga never crashs (even running for months and months.). Between attacks they crack RC5 for Team Amiga! (Make sure you get the latest protection modules from www.aminet.org )
There is more personal data stored in MP3 format than any other. (I conceede that perhaps Porno-Jpegs are a close second place.);-) Millions of people have Gigabytes of MP3 music. None of it need be "secured" to please its users more!!!! None of it need be ripped|compressed "better"|replaced. The flaw in any "better" music format is it's incompatible with most HW (Rio, eGo, etc.). Or it requires new "better" SW. The players/playlists in peoples music systems work perfectly well worldwide. Why change perfection?
Would you rather buy a CD full music in CDDA, MP3, SDMI, or "Yet Another Music Format" ? ...or perhaps one with two of the above?
Amiga 1000: The OH-MY-GOD COMPUTER of game machines... Here's a cool Hard-wired-gate idea that uses very little real estate to detect Sprite collisions (used in the C-64 and C-128?)Patent # 4572506 Commodore GOT to buy what the genius inventors of the 3 origional custom chips from Hi-Toro(Amiga) Patent # 5103499 and The Amiga 1000 Patent # 4874164 (Sorry if the IBM links are kinda quirky)
Heh, now its fashionable to be "only a game machine", to have stereo sound, NTSC/TV out, 3D shutter glasses, boot fast'er, and have NO user interface slop or latentcy, as long as you dont pose a threat to the man...
Slashdot Mirror
The car being "Un-Blown" would be worse: Think what a BB-gun or hypodermic needles would do, let alone one poke by a Laser beam!
And the Amiga1000 detected diskchange in 1985 - a decade earlier!
Me, The Mayo Clinic, and The Archives of Ophthalmology say that Laser Pointers are _absolutely_completely_safe to stare at for several minutes. Trust them!
See: "Laser Pointers and the Human Eye: A Clinicopathologic Study"
Abstact: "Continuous exposure was directed to the fovea for 1 minute, to the retina 5 below fixation for 5 minutes, and to the retina 5 above fixation for 15 minutes."
Research conclusion: "The risk to the human eye from transient exposure to light from commercially available class 3A laser pointers having powers of 1, 2, and 5 mW seems negligible. "
http://archopht.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstra
My guess is either the pilot is a psycho-somatic sissy, or it was a multiple WATT Laser (that somehow got aimed well enough) that they saw: I.e. not an e-z to aim "pointer".
Read MY fine article then consider those two probabilities...
Funny they wont mention what freaking color it was...heh...
IMNSHO
The best selling computer ever, the Commodore64 will live forever.
It taught more people to how to write programs than any other too. It rewarded learning hexadecimal. It rewarded the user learning how to program hardware registers, which now seems a lost art, alas...
Then was born the Amiga series. Amiga sported a futuristic OS with hardware to match. Amiga did all that is kewl in home computing first.
These Commodore sold computers did it all: Better, faster, cheaper, AND for much much _longer_ than its competition -- even now.
64's and Amigas run all night and day and have rocked the world for decades now. Thats a long lllloooonnnnnggggg time, and I get off on it!
These classics are backed a next generation: AmigaOS4, The AmigaOne, The C-One Omnilator: these should prove just as durable.
I say "You can never kill everything of Commodore."
*(And hopefully Bernies mighty Umithlon too!)
Yes, I do. :-p
Please mod parent up.
(Nice grafitti ya coined there!)
"...with a led indicating seek or read," :-]
Too Bad: I've allready designed prior art and have produced even more. Its called 'The MoJoMeter' and its (shamelessly) here: http://www.retrosystem.com/hdmeter.shtml
Thanx for playing!
Everyone knows a timelord selected the 2.4GHz frequency to save us from x10.com. (Like duh man!)
The timelord went back in time and changed the oven frequency in order to save us!
He knew after 2001, radiation leaks from microwave ovens would interfere with x10 videocameras! x10 Camera Frequency.
Even though 2.4GHz would also interfere with 802.11b, etc., stopping x10 was more important!
Future proliferation of x10 videocameras had to be stopped since the easy to use cameras only encouraged viewing nudity and thus would harm more of "the children".
Politicaly correcting history required any spectrum be sacrificed!
Besides, it really was the only way to stop the x10 pop-under ads!
Would cleaning a DVD with Vodka be a violation of the DMCA? :*)
Absolutely!
Look at the webpage(s): no mention of MP3, period.
Just because is's mentioned on MP3 newswire doesn't mean its not a SDMI earwig music player!
I'd love to be wrong about this, but look for yourself. Alas no mention of VogOrbis either...
Just in time use with implantable RFID tags!!!
Might make having too many of those nu-euro notes all-in-one place even more dangerous...
(I'm a HW engineer at ZapMedia)
"Can anyone cite an IC that has this kind of performance at 16-bit resolution?"
To have superior audio specs we use a custom audio board, not just a SB16.
The ZapStation uses a 24 bit resolution DAC. The Texas Instruments / Burr-Brown PCM1748 chip.
(Which are EXCELLENT I must add!)
It uses a 32 to 96 Khz clock depending on the data stream, and reproducing 16 bit 44/48 Khz CD audio is quite trivial for it. Remember that WMA _adds_ noise, and MP3's are compressed, so the ZapStation plays them about as truly as they possibly can.
FeeCee's sound & video cards are far noisier than a ZapStation in _every_ way including the fan(s)!!!
Joe Torre
The server's what's on fire!
...or is it the Microsoft Worm (tm)?
Last weekend, I went poking around at the Spring Commodore Expo 2001 in Louisville, Kentucky USA.
:^)
I got a peek at many C-64 and 128's running GEOS, and even better: "Wheels"
That GUI ran another program, a browser called "The Wave" See: http://www.luckyreport.com/expo.html
"Now you can enjoy graphical web browsing on your Commodore 64 or Commodore 128."
http://www.ia4u.net/~maurice/gbrowse/wave.html
http://videocam.net.au/~colinjt/wave.html
Naturally the above code is tight and efficient assembly language.
Most C-64 programs are smaller than the icons above.
The Wave browser is smaller than the banner ad!!!
Alas, few on Slashdot will ever run this kind of code, let alone generate it.
But such code would easily fit in thier Cache!
"Nice hack which thanks to this post I found out has a 100-year history!!! :-)"
...and NewTek did that for the Amiga 15 years ago!
"...the four-stroke, two-wheeled, er, vehicle weighs just 20kg (44lb) and produces 2.5bhp."
If it had a vanilla 2-stroke I'd have double the power, weigh and cost half as much, and sound like a science minded racing machine.
But I still want one: to hack!!!!
(The NSH Opinion of the 1983-5 USA WERA 80cc roadracing champion.)
No code.
No source.
No schematic.
Nothing else to know...
I was stunned that VR guru made the SAME LAME MISTAKE picking RealAudio.
RealAudio is privacy insulting, upgrade nagging, sluggish, proprietary, and forever corporate flavored: Blah!
Please PLEASE advise the use of superior formats like MP3 or VOXwhateverItsspelled.
I want my MP3!
I'm sure they would love to ENFORCE a "one swipe" patent on us all. Unconstitutional laws let them fine or jail readers who dared use un-conventional methods of research in thier quest.
Back down Jimmy-B, It's not too late to make right a wrong. I suggest you fire the sue-lawyers, hire the clue-lawyers, and spearhead a positive future for AMZN by following the www.OpenPatents.org initiave-->NOW!!!!
-- compared to a modern ATX MB, let alone one of those tiny'st onechip webservers!
;^)
They have lots of room inside for adding a couple of FeeCee motherboards - for Amiga's, Ataris, MAME, or other emulators.
Most had giant powersupplys and PCBs by todays standards.
Those wood-ish chassis gave good sound, control, and airflow, and are easy to work with.
Lots of great memories will be for sale! SO REMEMBER: ~"Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it---"
If you want to score a machine, bring lots of $$:
Cash TALKS - Credit balks!
Very good site about grocery "loyalty cards".
http://www.nocards.com
http://www.nocards.com
Thank god "you people" will now be finally spared! (good luck running >two copies "nice" with unix!)
I've been running this program on 3 Amigas and you'd be surprised the vector tactics employed:
I can see different incomming techniques on the 1084 monitors I've faced toward the centroid (me).
I suspect possible vertical holes and need to get another Amiga running it in the attic...
Fortunately an A1200 can multitask several MindGuards evenly.
Once I feel safe running the half a dozen programs on them I usually leave the monitors off
since the Amiga never crashs (even running for months and months.). Between attacks they crack RC5 for Team Amiga!
(Make sure you get the latest protection modules from www.aminet.org )
There is more personal data stored in MP3 format than any other. (I conceede that perhaps Porno-Jpegs are a close second place.) ;-)
Millions of people have Gigabytes of MP3 music.
None of it need be "secured" to please its users more!!!!
None of it need be ripped|compressed "better"|replaced.
The flaw in any "better" music format is it's incompatible with most HW (Rio, eGo, etc.).
Or it requires new "better" SW.
The players/playlists in peoples music systems work perfectly well worldwide. Why change perfection?
Would you rather buy a CD full music in CDDA, MP3, SDMI, or "Yet Another Music Format" ?
...or perhaps one with two of the above?
The contest is LONG OVER: MP3 won!
Amiga 1000: The OH-MY-GOD COMPUTER of game machines...
Here's a cool Hard-wired-gate idea that uses very little real estate to detect Sprite collisions (used in the C-64 and C-128?)Patent # 4572506
Commodore GOT to buy what the genius inventors of the 3 origional custom chips from Hi-Toro(Amiga) Patent # 5103499
and The Amiga 1000 Patent # 4874164 (Sorry if the IBM links are kinda quirky)
Heh, now its fashionable to be "only a game machine", to have stereo sound, NTSC/TV out, 3D shutter glasses, boot fast'er, and have NO user interface slop or latentcy,
as long as you dont pose a threat to the man...