I think the name should be Damn it. This way, when your kids have annoyed the living crap out of you with it, you scream "DAMN IT!" and it will come over and give you sad little digital puppy dog optic receptors and you will be forced to give in.
OTOH, it would be really cool if somebody hacked its "garbage" file and the scientificly engineered perfect little puppy knocked over the kitchen garbage and scattered it around the house.
Right, I understood where you were going with the 3 motors at 120 degree spacings. But with 2 linear motors ocilating, you would only require one at a a time for motion in a straight line, with the other one only needed for trajectory correction. But then again, linear motors might require more power to run, I hadnt considered that before. Or mabey not, but it's something to think about. As a former machinist and amateur ME, I love gizmos like these... sounds like it might be a fun project to play with, and thank you for sharing your ideas.
Oh, and as for the mouse you mentioned, mabey I'll make one out of a CueCat =)
....(provided you used, say, pager motors, and such to build it).
I guess I am wondering if it would be possible to build such a platform this way, with say three vibrating motors,
set @ 120 degrees apart...?
Well, since you were wondering... The robot platform sound like a really good idea, but I think you are slightly misunderstanding how vibratory motion works. Let me explain this a little. A vibrating motor in say, a pager as you mentioned, uses an eccentric weight spun by a rotory motor to cause a condition of imballence, or wabble, and thus vibration. Vibratory motion equipement uses mostly linear motors and don't exactly "vibrate" but change directions at high speeds, causing the effect of vibration. It relies on basic laws of inertia, like the tablecloth trick. If you place an object on a table, and yank the tablecloth out real fast, the objects inertia will prevent it from moving. Vibratory motion works on the same principal, but think of it like this, the tablecloth is pulled slowly say one inch, and the object moves. Then it is pulled the other way one inch very fast, and the object stays. Then it repeats, over and over. A system like this would probably use at least 2 such motors opposed 90 degrees for direction control, although 3 at 120 would work as well, perhaps be even more accurate, but you would be required to run at least 2 of them at all times, so it might not be as efficient. So it's not exactly a vibration as much as it is a shuffle. You did get me thinking though, and a simple wabble type device would work great for manually moving a heavy object.
I have worked a lot with vibratory manufacturing equipment in the past, such as the bowl feeders and inline feeders that he mentioned in his webpage. These are fairly reliable, simple devices. But they do come with their limitations, and drawbacks. Because they depend mostly on predetermined friction, anything that serves to change this factor becomes nightmarish in troubleshooting. For example, bowl feeders are generally finished with a rough texture, often provided from a sandblasting operation. As this finish erodes, so does the performance of the device. In turn, the "intensity" of the vibrations must be increased to compensate. Even as the number of parts in a bowl changes during use it can cause in imbalance. In a computer controlled system, this would require some type of feedback device to report movement relative to power. Paramaters would have to be in place as well, for each part to be moved. Also, with existing vibratory technoligy, parts are very often similar, and vibratory devices are used to put them in order and a specific position within the bowl feeder, such as puttin a certian end up or facing forward, then transfered into an inline feeder for acceptance by a fixed pick and place device, for what ever operations need to be carried out on the part. There are exceptions to these conditions, I'm sure, but these are the most common uses. Parts or objects that are all different and are going to be sorted by a "universal" vibratory device would become very tricky to manipulate. The surface area, mass, density, and coefficient of friction would all come into play in the operation.
As wonderful as such a device would be, there are certian problems inherent to vibratory movement in a mechanical device that are unavoidable. Wear, operating temperature, part size, mass, etc all must be compensated for one way or another. The only place I see such devices remotely practical is in a manufacturing environment where regular tasks are carried out, and such variables can be compensated for by an operator. The only way this could be functional for semi-random objects, although not exactly practical, is through a vision system. However, in order to identify, (and therefor track) an object is to preprogram its shape into the system.
Still, I hope that they get this thing to work. If it can be made to work cheaply and efficiently enough, it would hold great advantages to assembly and manufacturing operations. Perhaps, as mentioned, someday it could clean our desks for us after we go home or perform some other similarly cool task. Also, some people had questions about the noise from such a device. Most vibratory equipment is extremely quiet, since range of motion is controlled electriclly and not by mechanical stops, although rubber stops are sometimes used. Rubber mounts eliminate the remaining noise. A low humm is often all that is heard from this equipment. Good luck to the people working on this, but it's going to be a long road ahead.
The article says that wherever humans go, they bring a small amount of fungus with them. Now, if fungus can grow on the outside of MIR, who is to say that some fungus couldn't be tracked with astronauts on the eventual Mars mission? Fungus can grow under many abnormal conditions, I wonder what they will do to prevent fungal infestations on Martian soil? Knowing the politics of NASA, just getting to Mars will be the most important thing, I just hope they take some kind of preventative measures to clean the outside of anything coming in contact with the Martian atmosphere.
Perhaps, but I was going on the original stipulation that it was going to be $20 for the media. Just the same, it's more than 2 speakers, most people have many audio players, portable CD players, MP3 players, car radios, home systems, computer, walkmans, the list goes on. Now, when you figure in the cost of "upgrading" all of this equipment, the music better be free. And that doesn't include what will be needed to play this music. What are they going to want people to do? Toss out their multi hundred dollar investment in already inflated CD's and buy new equipment to listen to new music? At home this might not be a problem, but what about more space-restricted areas like cars and personal listening devices? Will I have to pick one or the other? Or pay huge $$$$ for a CD/SDMI player? What if I want go go on the component level and add EQ's or amplifiers? If the decoder is in the speaker how will I do this? See, the biggest problem is that you will loose portability. And still, as long as there is enough pissed off geeks out there, it will still find it's way onto the 'net in MP3 or some other format. The more bold the challenge is, the bolder people will defy the rules. That's just human nature.
...calls on countries to pass uniform laws that would, among other things, ban hacking devices...
So, who gets to define "hacking devices"? After all, isn't a computer a hacking device? And software designed to probe networks to test security, as well as a billion other things. So what's next? Will I need to have a permit to have a port scanner? I'm all for cracking down on cybercrime, but this level of control scares me. I see another case of the gov't making innocent people criminals just for having "hacking devices". And so what if it's illegal to have "hacking devices". If criminals cared about the law, they wouldn't be criminals, would they?
Just one question: Where does the IOC get off with being able to tell the athletes that they cannot tell people about their own lives? That sounds about as absured as telling somebody they do not have rights over their own autobiographies. And the Olympics, of all events. Is nothing sacred any more?
So now I have to go buy new "copy protected" speakers just to listen to my hard-earned $20 purchace? Me thinks not. Besides, what is to stop me from putting a microphone in front of the speaker? Or opening the speaker cabinet and connecting a CDR to the speaker wires (albiet at very low volume, or through a stepdown transformer) for a purer signal? In fact, since the music would have to be processed in the speaker, it would probably have to come in a low level signal and be decrypted and amplified there instead of the reciever, MP3player, whatever. So I could, with a little savvy, get music right from the preamp out on the board in the speaker cabinet. There is probably a hundred other ways around this too.
OTOH, most people are probably not quite that savvy, or have a high enough quality microphone to recored from the speaker with acceptable quality. And I suppose you would also need 2 microphones to get Stereo sound. So the idea isn't all that far off, but I think the requirement to get new speakers with no sound difference just to listen to your new music would be a big marketing problem. Especially since you loose the portability of your hard earned music. Can't take it in the car, another room, or a in a portable without buying the special speakers.
If audio can be converted into an analog stream (i.e. sound) that we can hear, it can be caputured, and converted into any form of media the listener desires. All the encryption, secret formats, or whatever they want to do will not matter, because they won't be able to sell them unless it can be decoded into audio at some point in time. This is a loosing battle for the RIAA, I wish they would just give it up already, and find a way to work with digital online music, instead of taking a Music Nazi stance against it. Online music is here to stay, one way or the other, legal or not. And no amount of encryption or copy protection will stop that. And as long as they are still selling CD's, every song in creation will be on MP3 anyway, just like they are now.
Encryption, copy protection, whatever are only good if both parties involved are concerned with security.
DOJ, take notice. Why does Micro$oft make such efforts to blatently take over the entire computer market? If this isn't considered "Anti-Competitive business practice", I don't know what is. You would think that they might have learned something from the M$ Monopoly trials.
Why is it that the RIAA etc. only seems to launch attacks at the schools? Is it the high number of "offenders"? Or just because the potential is greater due to high bandwidth connections? The way I see it, the universities are acting as little more than ISP's as far as the internet goes. And the students are, for the most part, all adults (as in 18+ years old) and responsabile for their own actions. So, what makes the universities any different than any other ISP? AOL probably serves at least 100x the number of users, and I'm not counting the BYOS, only the users who dialup to AOL servers. So why not try to force AOL to block Napster? And Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision, etc. the list goes on. Perhaps because schools are small time compared to large corperate entities such as a large ISP. Nor do schools have the legal funding to fight such matters in court, as internet access isn't part of their business plan. Face it, I'm sure that a good number of Napster users had MP3's in mind when they got their cable or DSL line. Not all, mabey not even the majority, but a lot.
If a school want's to block Napster access only for the reasons of bandwidth, then fine. But until the RIAA has the balls to try and make a major ISP block Napster, then they should just keep their pants on.
And I suppose you don't play games on your PC? After all, PC's weren't designed to play games. At least not at first, but they are now. What is so difficult for some people to accept evolution? Who is to say that in a few years PDA like devices might not be all we have? Personally, I would love to have all the power of a modern PC in something that I could bring anywhere. Come home, plug in a keyboard and a moniter, you have your PC. On the road, your PDA has all the versatility of what we now consider state of the art computing. Need something a little more practical on the road? Plug your PDA into a docking station in the back of your laptop frame, you have a keyboard and moniter, everything still running from the PDA. Battery, processor, hard drive etc right there. And 5 gig flash memory cards replace CD's and floppys. Hell, they can even replace hard drives. Who knows what the not-too-distant future will bring. But I do believe it is forward thinking and creative people like those who port linux or games to PDA's and digital cams that will inspire the next great leap in computer evolution. Or mabey even bring it to us.
Yeah, I dunno what's up with the 3 popups, that's been happening a lot lately. I apolagize for that. What can you expect from free webhosting I guess. If it bothers you that much, bitch here. That is beyond my control, and I make no money off of them. And as for the lameness, I don't see a link to your webpage, in fact, you don't even have the balls to post with a username here on/.
I forgive you though =) (sarcasm)
Have a nice day. (sarcasm)
Moderate this post as you may. I don't care this time
They have
already convinced congress to tax those media to "compensate" for the potential piracy.
So you are saying that if I purchase a CD/R or CD/RW then I am paying royalties to the RIAA? Yet, it is still illegal to pirate CD's and sell them. I guess that the people who use them to back up files, store pictures of their grandchildren, backup software, and other legal uses also owe the RIAA for their horrible abuse of technology. By the way, I will be on the corner in Times Square selling burned CD's next week. And I will gladly tell the judge that I paid royalties to the RIAA when I bought the CD/R =) Why is it that big business always gets to have their cake and eat it too?
Thank you all for politely correcting me on the DVD information and the DVD video differences. I still don't understand why the hell they woudn't want EVERYONE to be able to play DVD's. Mabey they want more people to buy seperate home players. Who knows, but thank you for correcting me.
If that is true, buy a DVD and then try to run it on a Linux system. It fails, you return it. 1000s of people do this,
they may get annoyed.
Sounds good, but, although I've never purchaced a DVD, I'll betcha it says "requires win95 or higher" or something like that on the package. OTOH, it sounds like a good way to let them know that their is a market for such a software package. But let me ask this, some Linux distros are offering a DVD format (SuSe is one, I don't know if there are others). Assuming that one logicly wouldn't be installing Linux through Windowz, how does this work? Would not the DeCSS code have to be on the boot disk? I still don't understand this whole thing anyway. The way I see it, they would see a higher sales in the DVD movies, and that shouldn't be anything but good for them. I suppose somewhere in their twisted minds they think they will make more money off of licencing the code than they will selling DVD's. Unless they're more worried about people using DVD technology to store more information on a CD without paying royalties. In this case, I can understand their gripes (eh, sort of). The whole thing might make more sense if the MPAA would just say what their real intentions are. But being that it is probably greed, I'm not holding my breath.
I think this entire article is a bit redundant. When Win95 first came into existance, and AOL and Prodigy were signing up members in exponentialy larger quantaties, netties said the same thing. And this was in the days of the 56k being elite. People said the net was going to be saturated, that it couldn't handle the traffic, it was going to slow to a crawl, blah blah. And they were partly right. But, evolution continues. If I remember correctly, 2 million American homes are now subscribers to cable modems. And I don't even know about DSL. And I can't think of any that I have talked to that said they ever got a truely "slow" connection with their service as a result of saturation. Had this happened five years ago, I don't doubt that it would have exceded the bandwith potential on our backbones. Computers get faster, modems get faster, routers get faster, servers get faster, and it all moves along at pretty much the same speed. Why? Because it has to. If a company like 3Com (just an example) wants to develop some wonderful high speed connection, do you really think that they will spend all that money on R&D and production if there is no market for it? I seriously doubt it. They will work with ISP's on the technoligy to impliment it. So, do I really think that this technoligy will tap out the current bandwith availability? Probably, but it will just be a kick in the @ss for the ISP's to step it up to the next level.
Slashdot Mirror
OTOH, it would be really cool if somebody hacked its "garbage" file and the scientificly engineered perfect little puppy knocked over the kitchen garbage and scattered it around the house.
Oh, and as for the mouse you mentioned, mabey I'll make one out of a CueCat =)
Well, since you were wondering... The robot platform sound like a really good idea, but I think you are slightly misunderstanding how vibratory motion works. Let me explain this a little. A vibrating motor in say, a pager as you mentioned, uses an eccentric weight spun by a rotory motor to cause a condition of imballence, or wabble, and thus vibration. Vibratory motion equipement uses mostly linear motors and don't exactly "vibrate" but change directions at high speeds, causing the effect of vibration. It relies on basic laws of inertia, like the tablecloth trick. If you place an object on a table, and yank the tablecloth out real fast, the objects inertia will prevent it from moving. Vibratory motion works on the same principal, but think of it like this, the tablecloth is pulled slowly say one inch, and the object moves. Then it is pulled the other way one inch very fast, and the object stays. Then it repeats, over and over. A system like this would probably use at least 2 such motors opposed 90 degrees for direction control, although 3 at 120 would work as well, perhaps be even more accurate, but you would be required to run at least 2 of them at all times, so it might not be as efficient. So it's not exactly a vibration as much as it is a shuffle. You did get me thinking though, and a simple wabble type device would work great for manually moving a heavy object.
As wonderful as such a device would be, there are certian problems inherent to vibratory movement in a mechanical device that are unavoidable. Wear, operating temperature, part size, mass, etc all must be compensated for one way or another. The only place I see such devices remotely practical is in a manufacturing environment where regular tasks are carried out, and such variables can be compensated for by an operator. The only way this could be functional for semi-random objects, although not exactly practical, is through a vision system. However, in order to identify, (and therefor track) an object is to preprogram its shape into the system.
Still, I hope that they get this thing to work. If it can be made to work cheaply and efficiently enough, it would hold great advantages to assembly and manufacturing operations. Perhaps, as mentioned, someday it could clean our desks for us after we go home or perform some other similarly cool task. Also, some people had questions about the noise from such a device. Most vibratory equipment is extremely quiet, since range of motion is controlled electriclly and not by mechanical stops, although rubber stops are sometimes used. Rubber mounts eliminate the remaining noise. A low humm is often all that is heard from this equipment. Good luck to the people working on this, but it's going to be a long road ahead.
Winfile.exe
Mabey this should be made a /. poll?
So, who gets to define "hacking devices"? After all, isn't a computer a hacking device? And software designed to probe networks to test security, as well as a billion other things. So what's next? Will I need to have a permit to have a port scanner? I'm all for cracking down on cybercrime, but this level of control scares me. I see another case of the gov't making innocent people criminals just for having "hacking devices". And so what if it's illegal to have "hacking devices". If criminals cared about the law, they wouldn't be criminals, would they?
OTOH, most people are probably not quite that savvy, or have a high enough quality microphone to recored from the speaker with acceptable quality. And I suppose you would also need 2 microphones to get Stereo sound. So the idea isn't all that far off, but I think the requirement to get new speakers with no sound difference just to listen to your new music would be a big marketing problem. Especially since you loose the portability of your hard earned music. Can't take it in the car, another room, or a in a portable without buying the special speakers.
Encryption, copy protection, whatever are only good if both parties involved are concerned with security.
If a school want's to block Napster access only for the reasons of bandwidth, then fine. But until the RIAA has the balls to try and make a major ISP block Napster, then they should just keep their pants on.
I forgive you though =) (sarcasm)
Have a nice day. (sarcasm)
Moderate this post as you may. I don't care this time
You proved your point. 'nuff said.
So you are saying that if I purchase a CD/R or CD/RW then I am paying royalties to the RIAA? Yet, it is still illegal to pirate CD's and sell them. I guess that the people who use them to back up files, store pictures of their grandchildren, backup software, and other legal uses also owe the RIAA for their horrible abuse of technology. By the way, I will be on the corner in Times Square selling burned CD's next week. And I will gladly tell the judge that I paid royalties to the RIAA when I bought the CD/R =) Why is it that big business always gets to have their cake and eat it too?
Sounds good, but, although I've never purchaced a DVD, I'll betcha it says "requires win95 or higher" or something like that on the package. OTOH, it sounds like a good way to let them know that their is a market for such a software package. But let me ask this, some Linux distros are offering a DVD format (SuSe is one, I don't know if there are others). Assuming that one logicly wouldn't be installing Linux through Windowz, how does this work? Would not the DeCSS code have to be on the boot disk? I still don't understand this whole thing anyway. The way I see it, they would see a higher sales in the DVD movies, and that shouldn't be anything but good for them. I suppose somewhere in their twisted minds they think they will make more money off of licencing the code than they will selling DVD's. Unless they're more worried about people using DVD technology to store more information on a CD without paying royalties. In this case, I can understand their gripes (eh, sort of). The whole thing might make more sense if the MPAA would just say what their real intentions are. But being that it is probably greed, I'm not holding my breath.
It's evolution, baby!