Back in the 70's, when I took Computer Science in college, they taught us about interpreters, emulators, and even virtulization.
We had one class where we had to write an assembler and bytecode interpreter, anther where we wrote a compiler, another where we wrote a virtual machine.
Seems this would give one a pretty good background for writing a game console emulator.
In many cases, business cards are given out for the specific use of the individual they are given to.
Sure, salespeople give out business cards in hopes that you will pass them on to others - and will give you extras. An executive assistant probably hopes you keep it to yourself.
I find the site really, really creepy.
But, then, I find "networking" creepy. And I suppose that's what this is all about.
There are two kinds of calls I just automatically hang-up on:
1. (dead air - predictive dialer failed to predict) CLICK!
2. "I was given your name by..." CLICK!
I suppose people will now have to start printing shrink-wrap contracts on the back of their business cards. "By accepting this card, you agree..."
I agree - mod this up - IMO it is exactly what is going on. Unfortunately, the Brazilian authorities don't want to highlight the extent of the drug and gang problem, and have bungled their press releases by focusing on P.C. issues.
Sorry, but the "better" bulbs on that page tout dimming to 20% of full brightness, while the "best" tout dimming to 10% of full brightness.
Neither of these is acceptable for "architectural" applications, where 2% is the accepted minimum standard.
While 20% or 10% certainly will save electricity, it's not dim enough to be perceived by humans as "dim". Ok, certainly not "seductively dim".:)
Full dimming is possible, but only with expensive ballasts and special wiring. Such systems are commonly used today in TV studio lighting.
The problem with retrofit CF dimmable bulbs is they basically have to put a complete dimmer in a throw-away bulb. There's only so much they can do at a throw-away price.
I did a search for "vintage posters". What I got was listing after listing of REPRODUCTION vintage posters. Nobody searching for a vintage poster wants a reproduction of a vintage poster. The listings all say "vintage poster" in the heading, though they typically disclose the fact that they are reproductions somewhere in the text. If you're looking for vintage posters, there's no point in searching eBay - it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
I haven't tried these yet, but was planning on using them in my kitchen - a recent remodel leaves me with WAY too many switches to diddle with. Actually, I'd planned to install Lightolier Compose PLC dimmers. The Insteon products looked attractive, though, because of the interchangable colors for both the switch itself and the lights. (I can get the Lightoliers in grey, but they have to be special-ordered...)
But they currently don't have a trailing-edge ("electronic") dimmer. This is needed for some older electronic-ballast track lights (most newer ones now work with leading-edge dimmers). It's also needed for electronic transformers commonly used for under-cabinet lighting. I talked to their tech support, and they didn't seem to have a clue.
At least they do communicate with X-10 devices, so I could install a different brand dimmer for my under-cabinet lights. (Which use an electronic transformer that can only be dimmed with a trailing-edge dimmer.)
The technology looks promising. But they need to expand the line out to handle a full compliment of load types.
BTW, Lightolier went the other way - the Compose line now has ONLY trailing-edge dimmers. These will work fine on all three types of loads - incandescent, inductive, and, electronic.
Google can't find out anything about you if they can't track you with a cookie.
You don't NEED cookies to do most things with Google. (Unlike some other web sites which either fail to function or give you a page saying that you need to turn on cookies.)
You can use Firefox's "allow for session" option if you need to set language, turn off safe filtering, etc.
Of course, you need to avoid using any Google services (such as Gmail) that require a login.
Well, I implemented 5-axis servo motion control on an 8080 about 20 years ago. (The company was subsequently sold to Allen Bradley, which used the company's products to create their first microprocessor-based CNC controller. Prior to this, I believe they used HP mini-computers.)
The hardware - optical encoders with enough hardware to get the encoder values into a CPU-readable I/O register, and simple servo controllers with a hardware "velocity loop". (You give it a velocity value, and it tries it's darndest to keep the motor at that velocity.) Position and acceleration control done completely by software.
I did this for a parametrically-programmed (as opposed to a step-by-step CNC controller) tru-flute machine for this company. I implemented simimar software on a Z80 for another company, which used it to retrofit cam-operated lathes used to make turbo housings for diesel trucks. (Fewer axes, though - piece of cake.)
20 years later - I wouldn't be surprised to find quite a few hobbyists who could do it on a 4gHz Pentium IV...
I seem to recall hearing of some people who did this as a hobbyist project at the time. You see, pen plotters were not cheap...
While Opera may be an "actual company" with "actual revenues" and more than 6 developers, they haven't managed to arrange for a website that is slashdot-proof.
OK, here's the pr0n angle: you send a picture of what's behind the screen (i.e. your bedroom, preferably not a wall a foot away...) to the pr0n site. They shoot live pr0n on a green screen and superimpose it on your background. The pr0n actors can see the superimposed video so they can get in the right positions and not walk through walls, etc. I guess they will need a green bed with green sheets.
Great idea for bachlor parties. Get everyone liquored-up real good first, and see who actually believes it.
OK, so you can do a Google search for part of the URL and find all of the cameras that Google knows about.
But why does Google know about them in the first place?
Google (or any other indexing bot) can't find web pages that don't have a link to them. And, typically, they can only find sites that have links from other sites, or that have been "suggested" to the search engine by a user.
So, somebody put a link to the webcam in a publically-accessible page somewhere. If somebody puts a link to a security cam or a nanny cam in their home page or blog, sure, they can expect the world to be looking in!
I've been noticing this a lot lately. I keep missing the lead story of the local 11:00 news because "Whose Line Is It Anyway" runs over by a minute or two...
It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.
I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)
After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.
At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)
There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.
One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.
The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.
The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.
And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.
Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.
I used a ChenbroRM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.
I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An
SMC 8508T)
Many years ago I did embedded work on a contract basis for a company that built gauging and inspection equipment for the auto industry.
I agreed to write the software for a system to gauge truck axles at a Bendix plant in Ohio near the Pensylvania border.
What I didn't know at the time is how far behind they were on the job. I was busy on another programming job (for the same company) so they hadn't even told me about the truck-axle job until I was done with the previous one. Oh, and they hadn't told the customer that no software had yet been written. They were told that I was there to "make a few final adjustments" to the software.
They told me that they were facing a tight deadline, and that I would have to write the software IN THE AXLE PLANT while their hardware technician fiddled around and pretended to be taking his time to wire-in the panel.
What they hadn't told me is that they were already several days late, and had basically left the customer hanging, wondering where we were.
So, we arrive at this axle stamping plant, and immediately some guy starts YELLING at us, "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN?!"
Now, I'd been in auto plants before, but only for brief periods for tests, to diagnose problems and the like. I once did some programming on a test line at the GM Tech Center (controlling a machine to put the goop on a windshield prior to installation) but the workstation was in a nice glass booth isolated from the floor.
For the next two weeks, my working environment was sitting out on the line of an axle stamping plant, with an Altair computer (see, I said this was a few years ago...) writing assembly code from scratch and on the fly. I had some REALLY basic specifications.
The sound was deafening. The place was filthy. Fork-lifts went wizzing by.
There was no other place to work - not even to sit and noodle on paper. Fat chance the guys that yelled at us on the way in were going to give us a DESK in a quiet area. Besides, we had to carry on with the "final adjustments" charade.
The line was down, of course, waiting for us to complete the job, and every minute was lost $$$ and mounting pressure. The guys that run the line were standing around twiddling their thumbs.
Actually, they were pretty good (unlike the nasty plant bosses) and I used them to help design the UI.
(Yes, there was a little UI - some heavy-duty buttons on a pedestal, and an LCD display that could read-out some diagnostic values).
Nothing like having USERS right there to help you design stuff interactively!
It's way to obvious that most slashdotters are either:
a. Unix users or b. Conspiracy theorists
I'd guess that the intersection between the two is enormous!
While I don't know how the AOL software works, one can easily imagine that it has something akin to cookies. So, if AOL issued a cookie to the previous user, that cookie would be held by the client software. There may be one or more cookie that would be machine, rather than user-specific, and would be sent back by a given machine regardless of which user account is used.
Alternately, it could be a GUID created by the client software, say on first use, and then sent to AOL upon connection.
A GUID is a Windows thingie, kinda similar to a cookie. It's a "Globally Unique ID". It's basically a hash of the MAC address and the current time. (But if there is no network card, there are other ways of making it machine-specific - Windows decides how.)
There are zillions of GUIDs used by Windows. They are typically used in the registry. But program data files often contain them - for example, Word files.
You can't reverse-engineer a GUID to find out what machine produced one. It's a one-way hash. But if you know that a given GUID came from a given machine, and you see that GUID again - you know that it came from the same machine.
(1 in a billion fluke excepted. The fluke could only happen in the case where there is no network interface on the computer.)
Actually, that's not true. Film has a "grain" structure, caused by lumps of silver-halide. The grain is the limiting factor in film resolution. Film certainly does not provide resolution at the "atomic" level.
The resolution of high-end consumer digital cameras now matches or exceeds that of typical consumer 35mm film.
The biggest advantage that film does have - it will continue to enjoy for some time to come - is dynamic range. You can't even come close with digital. No digital camera - even the most costly professional models - came come anywhere close to the dynamic range of consumer 35mm film and print material - let alone that in an Ansel Adams or Weston print. (And that was the film technology 50 years ago!)
These are gas-permeable hard lenses that act as "braces for your eyeballs". They gradually change the shape of your cornea. The initial change, over the first couple of months is dramatic, with a lesser change over the next two years. You have to get a series of different lenses, with different "base curves", as your eyeball shape changes. You wear "retainers" after that.
First developed in Russia, some consider this bunk. It does work, at least for non-extreme cases of near-sightedness. It's not perfect. I went from a -2.5/-3 to +.25/-.75
When you take the lenses out, there is a degradation as the eyeball goes back to it's old shape. It won't go back completely. You will have very good vision for several hours, though - after that things get more blurry. The "retainers" only need to be worn for a couple of hours a day to retain the shape.
I like getting out of bed and being able to see, or being able to take my lenses out for a couple of hours and participate in sports without having to worry about the lenses. Before I got the Ortho-K lenses, my perscription was getting progressivly more negative - since then, it improved significantly and has not changed in years. (Save for near vision!)
In any case, if you wear contact lens, do consider gas-permeable hard lenses, whether Ortho-K or not. They do take some getting used to - they are not as easy to wear as soft lenses, initially. After adjustment, though, I think they actually become easier to wear. Smoke, for example, is much less of a bother than with soft lenses. They are also easier to put in and remove than those huge hydrophylic soft lenses. Ortho-K lenses are larger than conventional gas-permeable hard lenses, but much smaller than those big floppy pizza-eyes.
Gas-permeable hard lenses also correct astigmatism by providing a solid, spherical front surface - tears fill-in the gap. Soft lenses aren't able to do this, except the bizarre weighted versions that will not work if you happen to be sideways at the time.
As I have grown older (I am 48, and have had the Ortho-K lenses for about 10 years) I have started to have problems with near vision. No problem - I just take out my lenses when working in front of the screen. Once you have had surgery, this is not an option. (Of course, this would also be the case if Ortho-K fully corrects your vision, except that after a while with them out, it will start going back...) I've also had my perscription adjusted to "mono-vision" which allows me to read super-market shelves, my watch, my cell phone, and the speedometer, without taking my lenses out. Reading is uncomfortable, though.
If you get Ortho-K lenses, and decide to have surgery later, there is an extended adjustment period required (about 6 months) where you first have to switch to soft contacts, and then to no contacts at all, before the surgery can be done.
There is also new surgery for presbo (somebody else spell it for me - NEAR VISION!) It sounds scarey - they do surgery on the muscles that focus the eye, shortening them. My eye doctor doesn't recommend this surgery - he wants to see a few more years of experience with it.
They probably would not have been slashdotted if the original poster had given the right information.
Only a small number of those sites are for sale. The map and search is for ALL sites. It appears that they rent space and/or offer other services at the other sites.
If you look down toward the bottom of the page, there is a link for "Sites for Sale". However, that doesn't work right now, nor do most of the features on this page.
Probably because they got slashdotted by people wanting to know how to buy sites that aren't for sale...
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree.
Back in the 70's, when I took Computer Science in college, they taught us about interpreters, emulators, and even virtulization.
We had one class where we had to write an assembler and bytecode interpreter, anther where we wrote a compiler, another where we wrote a virtual machine.
Seems this would give one a pretty good background for writing a game console emulator.
They don't teach this stuff any more?
In many cases, business cards are given out for the specific use of the individual they are given to.
Sure, salespeople give out business cards in hopes that you will pass them on to others - and will give you extras. An executive assistant probably hopes you keep it to yourself.
I find the site really, really creepy.
But, then, I find "networking" creepy. And I suppose that's what this is all about.
There are two kinds of calls I just automatically hang-up on:
1. (dead air - predictive dialer failed to predict) CLICK!
2. "I was given your name by..." CLICK!
I suppose people will now have to start printing shrink-wrap contracts on the back of their business cards. "By accepting this card, you agree..."
I agree - mod this up - IMO it is exactly what is going on. Unfortunately, the Brazilian authorities don't want to highlight the extent of the drug and gang problem, and have bungled their press releases by focusing on P.C. issues.
Sorry, but the "better" bulbs on that page tout dimming to 20% of full brightness, while the "best" tout dimming to 10% of full brightness.
:)
Neither of these is acceptable for "architectural" applications, where 2% is the accepted minimum standard.
While 20% or 10% certainly will save electricity, it's not dim enough to be perceived by humans as "dim". Ok, certainly not "seductively dim".
Full dimming is possible, but only with expensive ballasts and special wiring. Such systems are commonly used today in TV studio lighting.
The problem with retrofit CF dimmable bulbs is they basically have to put a complete dimmer in a throw-away bulb. There's only so much they can do at a throw-away price.
That's a trivial example.
I did a search for "vintage posters". What I got was listing after listing of REPRODUCTION vintage posters. Nobody searching for a vintage poster wants a reproduction of a vintage poster. The listings all say "vintage poster" in the heading, though they typically disclose the fact that they are reproductions somewhere in the text. If you're looking for vintage posters, there's no point in searching eBay - it's like finding a needle in a haystack.
I filed a complaint. Nada.
I haven't tried these yet, but was planning on using them in my kitchen - a recent remodel leaves me with WAY too many switches to diddle with. Actually, I'd planned to install Lightolier Compose PLC dimmers. The Insteon products looked attractive, though, because of the interchangable colors for both the switch itself and the lights. (I can get the Lightoliers in grey, but they have to be special-ordered...)
But they currently don't have a trailing-edge ("electronic") dimmer. This is needed for some older electronic-ballast track lights (most newer ones now work with leading-edge dimmers). It's also needed for electronic transformers commonly used for under-cabinet lighting. I talked to their tech support, and they didn't seem to have a clue.
At least they do communicate with X-10 devices, so I could install a different brand dimmer for my under-cabinet lights. (Which use an electronic transformer that can only be dimmed with a trailing-edge dimmer.)
The technology looks promising. But they need to expand the line out to handle a full compliment of load types.
BTW, Lightolier went the other way - the Compose line now has ONLY trailing-edge dimmers. These will work fine on all three types of loads - incandescent, inductive, and, electronic.
Naw, the Coral Cache is slashdotted too!
Anyway, Mozilla's own extension list has always worked well for me. Why do we need another one?
Oh, I know! For anonymous' Adsense income!
Google can't find out anything about you if they can't track you with a cookie.
You don't NEED cookies to do most things with Google. (Unlike some other web sites which either fail to function or give you a page saying that you need to turn on cookies.)
You can use Firefox's "allow for session" option if you need to set language, turn off safe filtering, etc.
Of course, you need to avoid using any Google services (such as Gmail) that require a login.
Well, I implemented 5-axis servo motion control on an 8080 about 20 years ago. (The company was subsequently sold to Allen Bradley, which used the company's products to create their first microprocessor-based CNC controller. Prior to this, I believe they used HP mini-computers.)
The hardware - optical encoders with enough hardware to get the encoder values into a CPU-readable I/O register, and simple servo controllers with a hardware "velocity loop". (You give it a velocity value, and it tries it's darndest to keep the motor at that velocity.) Position and acceleration control done completely by software.
I did this for a parametrically-programmed (as opposed to a step-by-step CNC controller) tru-flute machine for this company. I implemented simimar software on a Z80 for another company, which used it to retrofit cam-operated lathes used to make turbo housings for diesel trucks. (Fewer axes, though - piece of cake.)
20 years later - I wouldn't be surprised to find quite a few hobbyists who could do it on a 4gHz Pentium IV...
I seem to recall hearing of some people who did this as a hobbyist project at the time. You see, pen plotters were not cheap...
While Opera may be an "actual company" with "actual revenues" and more than 6 developers, they haven't managed to arrange for a website that is slashdot-proof.
OK, here's the pr0n angle: you send a picture of what's behind the screen (i.e. your bedroom, preferably not a wall a foot away...) to the pr0n site. They shoot live pr0n on a green screen and superimpose it on your background. The pr0n actors can see the superimposed video so they can get in the right positions and not walk through walls, etc. I guess they will need a green bed with green sheets.
Great idea for bachlor parties. Get everyone liquored-up real good first, and see who actually believes it.
OK, so you can do a Google search for part of the URL and find all of the cameras that Google knows about.
But why does Google know about them in the first place?
Google (or any other indexing bot) can't find web pages that don't have a link to them. And, typically, they can only find sites that have links from other sites, or that have been "suggested" to the search engine by a user.
So, somebody put a link to the webcam in a publically-accessible page somewhere. If somebody puts a link to a security cam or a nanny cam in their home page or blog, sure, they can expect the world to be looking in!
I've been noticing this a lot lately. I keep missing the lead story of the local 11:00 news because "Whose Line Is It Anyway" runs over by a minute or two...
It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.
I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)
After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.
I wound-up with a Middle Atlantic Products WRK-24MDK "presentation enclosure system" which is a 30" deep 24U enclosed cabinet.
At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)
There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.
One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.
The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.
The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.
And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.
Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.
I used a Chenbro RM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.
I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An SMC 8508T)
Many years ago I did embedded work on a contract basis for a company that built gauging and inspection equipment for the auto industry.
I agreed to write the software for a system to gauge truck axles at a Bendix plant in Ohio near the Pensylvania border.
What I didn't know at the time is how far behind they were on the job. I was busy on another programming job (for the same company) so they hadn't even told me about the truck-axle job until I was done with the previous one. Oh, and they hadn't told the customer that no software had yet been written. They were told that I was there to "make a few final adjustments" to the software.
They told me that they were facing a tight deadline, and that I would have to write the software IN THE AXLE PLANT while their hardware technician fiddled around and pretended to be taking his time to wire-in the panel.
What they hadn't told me is that they were already several days late, and had basically left the customer hanging, wondering where we were.
So, we arrive at this axle stamping plant, and immediately some guy starts YELLING at us, "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN?!"
Now, I'd been in auto plants before, but only for brief periods for tests, to diagnose problems and the like. I once did some programming on a test line at the GM Tech Center (controlling a machine to put the goop on a windshield prior to installation) but the workstation was in a nice glass booth isolated from the floor.
For the next two weeks, my working environment was sitting out on the line of an axle stamping plant, with an Altair computer (see, I said this was a few years ago...) writing assembly code from scratch and on the fly. I had some REALLY basic specifications.
The sound was deafening. The place was filthy. Fork-lifts went wizzing by.
There was no other place to work - not even to sit and noodle on paper. Fat chance the guys that yelled at us on the way in were going to give us a DESK in a quiet area. Besides, we had to carry on with the "final adjustments" charade.
The line was down, of course, waiting for us to complete the job, and every minute was lost $$$ and mounting pressure. The guys that run the line were standing around twiddling their thumbs.
Actually, they were pretty good (unlike the nasty plant bosses) and I used them to help design the UI.
(Yes, there was a little UI - some heavy-duty buttons on a pedestal, and an LCD display that could read-out some diagnostic values).
Nothing like having USERS right there to help you design stuff interactively!
It's way to obvious that most slashdotters are either:
a. Unix users or
b. Conspiracy theorists
I'd guess that the intersection between the two is enormous!
While I don't know how the AOL software works, one can easily imagine that it has something akin to cookies. So, if AOL issued a cookie to the previous user, that cookie would be held by the client software. There may be one or more cookie that would be machine, rather than user-specific, and would be sent back by a given machine regardless of which user account is used.
Alternately, it could be a GUID created by the client software, say on first use, and then sent to AOL upon connection.
A GUID is a Windows thingie, kinda similar to a cookie. It's a "Globally Unique ID". It's basically a hash of the MAC address and the current time. (But if there is no network card, there are other ways of making it machine-specific - Windows decides how.)
There are zillions of GUIDs used by Windows. They are typically used in the registry. But program data files often contain them - for example, Word files.
You can't reverse-engineer a GUID to find out what machine produced one. It's a one-way hash. But if you know that a given GUID came from a given machine, and you see that GUID again - you know that it came from the same machine.
(1 in a billion fluke excepted. The fluke could only happen in the case where there is no network interface on the computer.)
It's The Dynamic Range, Stupid.
Discuss.
Actually, that's not true. Film has a "grain" structure, caused by lumps of silver-halide. The grain is the limiting factor in film resolution.
Film certainly does not provide resolution at the "atomic" level.
The resolution of high-end consumer digital cameras now matches or exceeds that of typical consumer 35mm film.
The biggest advantage that film does have - it will continue to enjoy for some time to come - is dynamic range. You can't even come close with digital. No digital camera - even the most costly professional models - came come anywhere close to the dynamic range of consumer 35mm film and print material - let alone that in an Ansel Adams or Weston print. (And that was the film technology 50 years ago!)
I got Ortho-K contact lenses several years ago.
These are gas-permeable hard lenses that act as "braces for your eyeballs". They gradually change the shape of your cornea. The initial change, over the first couple of months is dramatic, with a lesser change over the next two years. You have to get a series of different lenses, with different "base curves", as your eyeball shape changes. You wear "retainers" after that.
First developed in Russia, some consider this bunk. It does work, at least for non-extreme cases of near-sightedness. It's not perfect. I went from a -2.5/-3 to +.25/-.75
When you take the lenses out, there is a degradation as the eyeball goes back to it's old shape. It won't go back completely. You will have very good vision for several hours, though - after that things get more blurry. The "retainers" only need to be worn for a couple of hours a day to retain the shape.
I like getting out of bed and being able to see, or being able to take my lenses out for a couple of hours and participate in sports without having to worry about the lenses. Before I got the Ortho-K lenses, my perscription was getting progressivly more negative - since then, it improved significantly and has not changed in years. (Save for near vision!)
In any case, if you wear contact lens, do consider gas-permeable hard lenses, whether Ortho-K or not. They do take some getting used to - they are not as easy to wear as soft lenses, initially. After adjustment, though, I think they actually become easier to wear. Smoke, for example, is much less of a bother than with soft lenses. They are also easier to put in and remove than those huge hydrophylic soft lenses. Ortho-K lenses are larger than conventional gas-permeable hard lenses, but much smaller than those big floppy pizza-eyes.
Gas-permeable hard lenses also correct astigmatism by providing a solid, spherical front surface - tears fill-in the gap. Soft lenses aren't able to do this, except the bizarre weighted versions that will not work if you happen to be sideways at the time.
As I have grown older (I am 48, and have had the Ortho-K lenses for about 10 years) I have started to have problems with near vision. No problem - I just take out my lenses when working in front of the screen. Once you have had surgery, this is not an option. (Of course, this would also be the case if Ortho-K fully corrects your vision, except that after a while with them out, it will start going back...) I've also had my perscription adjusted to "mono-vision" which allows me to read super-market shelves, my watch, my cell phone, and the speedometer, without taking my lenses out. Reading is uncomfortable, though.
If you get Ortho-K lenses, and decide to have surgery later, there is an extended adjustment period required (about 6 months) where you first have to switch to soft contacts, and then to no contacts at all, before the surgery can be done.
There is also new surgery for presbo (somebody else spell it for me - NEAR VISION!) It sounds scarey - they do surgery on the muscles that focus the eye, shortening them. My eye doctor doesn't recommend this surgery - he wants to see a few more years of experience with it.
How did they record a flicker of LIGHT with a RADIO telescope?
They probably would not have been slashdotted if the original poster had given the right information.
Only a small number of those sites are for sale. The map and search is for ALL sites. It appears that they rent space and/or offer other services at the other sites.
If you look down toward the bottom of the page, there is a link for "Sites for Sale". However, that doesn't work right now, nor do most of the features on this page.
Probably because they got slashdotted by people wanting to know how to buy sites that aren't for sale...