From my sources, this was done a long time ago. There's a Caltech press release entitled "The DNA Double Helix Conducts Current as a Molecular Wire" that was released 11/11/1993. You can go to Caltech's site and search for 'DNA conduct' and you'll see it's there.
Further, there's an research brief at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (who knew we had such an institute?) from 1997 talking about the same thing.
Well, I think they concluded that the radio source is the same as the black hole.
To quote John Kormendy (quoted in the article) "'And the nice thing is they intersect right on top, almost exactly, of this radio source, Sagittarius A, which people have long suspected is a black hole.'"
I imagine the effect must be pretty minor. Planes don't move that fast. Given the frequency of the waves you'll be using, the frequency shift (as a percentage) would be small. (You notice the proverbial train's doppler effect, but of course audio frequency hugely lower than anything you'll transmit digital data on.)
$1000 per plane per day? That might pay the cost of installing one ethernet jack in the plane. But forget the plane. The network is a huge cost. How much did Iridium cost? (Hey, if they didn't blow it up already, maybe United will buy it.)
I hope they keep the ban on cell phones for purely aesthetic reasons even after they come to their senses about the non-existant danger they always tell you about.
I once heard that you can't use cell phones in the air because of the havoc it would wreak on the cellular network. As I understand, when you're on the ground your cell phone broadcast reaches perhaps a few stations at once. The stuccoed buildings and thick mountains and stuff prevent your cellular signal from reaching every cellular station in the state.
When you're up in the air, those barriers disappear. It's a clear signal between you and 300 cellular stations. They aren't designed to resolve that kind of confusion, and maybe something breaks.
I'm pretty sure you can get the airline to just send the package. Continental happens to have a few options for domestic and international shipping. I have no idea if they fly to Russia, but other carriers must have the same services, no? I guess your friend would have to travel to the airport to get it, but that's not too bad.
Yeah, these hybrids that use combustion engines in the powertrain baffle me. Perhaps there is some sweet-spot of performance and efficiency found by using both an electric motor and a combustion engine in the powertrain, but this seems a little kooky to me, and inordinately complex.
The cause for premature hybrid death, as mentioned below, must be the artificial constraint of zero-emission sales. EVs evolved, and have gotten pretty good as pure electrics. The energy/mass ratio of batteries is much lower than gasoline, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that an easy solution to range and weight problems is to slap a generator on the back of an EV1. (And then you can take out a few batteries too.) It just seems like such an easy solution. It even keeps the oil industry lobbyists kinda happy since we're still using petroleum:)
What I don't understand is why car makers skipped over hybrids to electric cars (like the EV1) and then came back to hybrids. Hybrids seemed the logical choice for an easy win; gasoline distribution has already been figured out and the stations are in place, hybrids are easily much more efficient and less polluting, and hybrids get better range than electrics.
I suppose they're a bit expensive, but so are 12-packs of marine deep-cycle batteries on electric cars. Any thoughts?
I think cubes are a very strange shape for hardware. They're not very ergonomic, aren't the idea shape (when it comes to a space issue, all sides are same size), but do look cool.
I agree. I'm waiting for them to come in rackmountable cases before I let them in my machine room.
Human interface is also important. Cell phones are shrinking to the point that they barely reach between your ear and your mouth. Actually, if you're yuppy enough to have one of these bad boys then maybe it doesn't reach at all.
You find the same problem with PDAs and laptops. If you want a big screen, you have to be willing to carry a computer that resembles a cafeteria tray. The keyboard can only be shrunk so much before you have to use the back of a pencil to punch it.
There are a host of technological solutions that are able to overcome these difficulties, though:
speech recognition, and
some sort of wearable HUD (as mentioned below)
For speech recognition, accuracy is getting to the 99% accuracy point. I haven't tried any of the latest products, but they're supposed to be pretty damn good.
Processing power is probably stopping speech recognition from appearing in embedded systems immediately, but faster, more efficient chips are appearing all the time. Besides, embedded systems typically have a limited number of menu items, so they needn't be that accurate. Computers have plenty of processing power--I'm not really sure why speech recognition hasn't taken off for use in computers. (Why am I typing this?;-) ) I suppose it's just that people aren't used to talking (not swearing) to their computers yet.
So, imagine this. The laptop of the future will be strapped to your belt, and the screen will be a visor. No keyboard, you just talk into the attached microphone. The cellphone will probably be something similar. If you don't wear the whole thing on your head, you'll have a wireless headset and a beeper-like black box on your belt.
A lot of stuff is already moving in this direction. Quack.com has stuff like weather, stock quotes, and movie showtimes on a toll-free number (1.800.73.QUACK). It did a pretty good job of recognizing my voice, but it kinda chokes if there's background noise. Why browse the web on your cell phone's tiny little screen when you can have it read to you?
I don't know if it's a classic game, but one of the PC games I remember playing was this game called "OMEGA." There are still some copies out there on the net if you want to look for them. Here's one omega page.
Now that was a game. It has it's own little programming syntax you use to program your tank. You can then pit your tank against anyone else's in a simulation. It programmer vs. programmer.
Might even be kinda fun to have a little tournament...? (Not like I have the time for it:) )
And the sound quality is more or less how you encode it. Atleast that's what i've understood
In the limit, I suppose we could agree that's true. But for mp3s to be useful, most people encode them at 128 or 256 k/s.
If you can't hear the difference between mp3s and CDs, or if you don't care, then you're just a lucky duck. You'll probably save yourself a bundle. If you want to hear the difference ("come to the dark side") just dig out a CD you have somewhere, and download the mp3. Do a little A-B comparison and you'll notice that the mp3 doesn't quit hit the highs and lows like the CD does. The resolution (detail of the music) is also decreased a bit by the mpeg compression.
Be careful otherwise you'll turn into a nut, ever looking for better sound quality and spending thousands of dollars on stupid things like speaker cables. But might as well listen to good quality music insofar as it's convenient;-)
No matter what technical problems stand in the way,
Music WILL become a subscription medium.
Music WILL be pirated.
The record industry will realize it's not selling music, but CONVENIENCE.
People will always be able to pirate music. The idea of secure digital music is preposterous.
The music industry will still want to make money. If they can't make money by selling music, they'll make it by selling convenience.
I still buy CDs, even though almost everything I listen to is available from Napster and other sources. Why? Because it's much more convenient for me to have a CD than it is for me to download mp3s and move them about. (The sound quality on CDs is also better.)
As long as CDs remain more convenient, the recording industry will continue to make money off them. Very soon, though, mp3s will be as convenient as CDs (for the masses, not just us geeks). When we get to that point, and digital distribution is painless and easy for every schmoe, the industry will make money by making it easy to subscribe to music.
For $10/month, you'll get all the high quality digital music you want. You might be able to get it for free somewhere else, but for ten bucks, might as well do it the legitimate way. Heck, almost everyone pays $30 for cable TV, and they could steal it with no problem. It's just not convenient to be on the wrong side of the law when legitimacy is so cheap.
RESOLUTION matters a bit more than size to me. More pixels == more information. Bigger size != more pixels (well, not necessarily). Or maybe this isn't true for LCDs?
Slashdot Mirror
From my sources, this was done a long time ago. There's a Caltech press release entitled "The DNA Double Helix Conducts Current as a Molecular Wire" that was released 11/11/1993. You can go to Caltech's site and search for 'DNA conduct' and you'll see it's there.
Further, there's an research brief at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (who knew we had such an institute?) from 1997 talking about the same thing.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
Well, I think they concluded that the radio source is the same as the black hole.
To quote John Kormendy (quoted in the article) "'And the nice thing is they intersect right on top, almost exactly, of this radio source, Sagittarius A, which people have long suspected is a black hole.'"
I imagine the effect must be pretty minor. Planes don't move that fast. Given the frequency of the waves you'll be using, the frequency shift (as a percentage) would be small. (You notice the proverbial train's doppler effect, but of course audio frequency hugely lower than anything you'll transmit digital data on.)
$1000 per plane per day? That might pay the cost of installing one ethernet jack in the plane. But forget the plane. The network is a huge cost. How much did Iridium cost? (Hey, if they didn't blow it up already, maybe United will buy it.)
I hope they keep the ban on cell phones for purely aesthetic reasons even after they come to their senses about the non-existant danger they always tell you about.
I once heard that you can't use cell phones in the air because of the havoc it would wreak on the cellular network. As I understand, when you're on the ground your cell phone broadcast reaches perhaps a few stations at once. The stuccoed buildings and thick mountains and stuff prevent your cellular signal from reaching every cellular station in the state.
When you're up in the air, those barriers disappear. It's a clear signal between you and 300 cellular stations. They aren't designed to resolve that kind of confusion, and maybe something breaks.
I'm pretty sure you can get the airline to just send the package. Continental happens to have a few options for domestic and international shipping. I have no idea if they fly to Russia, but other carriers must have the same services, no? I guess your friend would have to travel to the airport to get it, but that's not too bad.
Wow.... I would prefer that one just because of the coolness factor. I would trade my old coffee table/couch for that thing any day!!
And it's probably got warm seats too :)
Yeah, these hybrids that use combustion engines in the powertrain baffle me. Perhaps there is some sweet-spot of performance and efficiency found by using both an electric motor and a combustion engine in the powertrain, but this seems a little kooky to me, and inordinately complex.
The cause for premature hybrid death, as mentioned below, must be the artificial constraint of zero-emission sales. EVs evolved, and have gotten pretty good as pure electrics. The energy/mass ratio of batteries is much lower than gasoline, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that an easy solution to range and weight problems is to slap a generator on the back of an EV1. (And then you can take out a few batteries too.) It just seems like such an easy solution. It even keeps the oil industry lobbyists kinda happy since we're still using petroleum :)
What I don't understand is why car makers skipped over hybrids to electric cars (like the EV1) and then came back to hybrids. Hybrids seemed the logical choice for an easy win; gasoline distribution has already been figured out and the stations are in place, hybrids are easily much more efficient and less polluting, and hybrids get better range than electrics.
I suppose they're a bit expensive, but so are 12-packs of marine deep-cycle batteries on electric cars. Any thoughts?
I think cubes are a very strange shape for hardware. They're not very ergonomic, aren't the idea shape (when it comes to a space issue, all sides are same size), but do look cool.
I agree. I'm waiting for them to come in rackmountable cases before I let them in my machine room.
Is there any place for a computer historian? Yeah: maintaining legacy systems is all about history :)
baldeep
Keep in mind that thermodynamics is fine and dandy, but there is no energy being produced by liquid nitrogen. It's really just storing energy.
In this sense, nothing really produces energy. Energy is only stored. Entropy always increases. Viva la heat death!
baldeep
Human interface is also important. Cell phones are shrinking to the point that they barely reach between your ear and your mouth. Actually, if you're yuppy enough to have one of these bad boys then maybe it doesn't reach at all.
You find the same problem with PDAs and laptops. If you want a big screen, you have to be willing to carry a computer that resembles a cafeteria tray. The keyboard can only be shrunk so much before you have to use the back of a pencil to punch it.
There are a host of technological solutions that are able to overcome these difficulties, though:
- speech recognition, and
- some sort of wearable HUD (as mentioned below)
For speech recognition, accuracy is getting to the 99% accuracy point. I haven't tried any of the latest products, but they're supposed to be pretty damn good.Processing power is probably stopping speech recognition from appearing in embedded systems immediately, but faster, more efficient chips are appearing all the time. Besides, embedded systems typically have a limited number of menu items, so they needn't be that accurate. Computers have plenty of processing power--I'm not really sure why speech recognition hasn't taken off for use in computers. (Why am I typing this? ;-) ) I suppose it's just that people aren't used to talking (not swearing) to their computers yet.
So, imagine this. The laptop of the future will be strapped to your belt, and the screen will be a visor. No keyboard, you just talk into the attached microphone. The cellphone will probably be something similar. If you don't wear the whole thing on your head, you'll have a wireless headset and a beeper-like black box on your belt.
A lot of stuff is already moving in this direction. Quack.com has stuff like weather, stock quotes, and movie showtimes on a toll-free number (1.800.73.QUACK). It did a pretty good job of recognizing my voice, but it kinda chokes if there's background noise. Why browse the web on your cell phone's tiny little screen when you can have it read to you?
Well, that's my fantasy at least.
If you're lazy, here's a site with omega executables.
baldeep
I don't know if it's a classic game, but one of the PC games I remember playing was this game called "OMEGA." There are still some copies out there on the net if you want to look for them. Here's one omega page.
Now that was a game. It has it's own little programming syntax you use to program your tank. You can then pit your tank against anyone else's in a simulation. It programmer vs. programmer.
Might even be kinda fun to have a little tournament...? (Not like I have the time for it :) )
baldeep
In the limit, I suppose we could agree that's true. But for mp3s to be useful, most people encode them at 128 or 256 k/s.
If you can't hear the difference between mp3s and CDs, or if you don't care, then you're just a lucky duck. You'll probably save yourself a bundle. If you want to hear the difference ("come to the dark side") just dig out a CD you have somewhere, and download the mp3. Do a little A-B comparison and you'll notice that the mp3 doesn't quit hit the highs and lows like the CD does. The resolution (detail of the music) is also decreased a bit by the mpeg compression.
Be careful otherwise you'll turn into a nut, ever looking for better sound quality and spending thousands of dollars on stupid things like speaker cables. But might as well listen to good quality music insofar as it's convenient ;-)
baldeepNo matter what technical problems stand in the way,
People will always be able to pirate music. The idea of secure digital music is preposterous.
The music industry will still want to make money. If they can't make money by selling music, they'll make it by selling convenience.
I still buy CDs, even though almost everything I listen to is available from Napster and other sources. Why? Because it's much more convenient for me to have a CD than it is for me to download mp3s and move them about. (The sound quality on CDs is also better.)
As long as CDs remain more convenient, the recording industry will continue to make money off them. Very soon, though, mp3s will be as convenient as CDs (for the masses, not just us geeks). When we get to that point, and digital distribution is painless and easy for every schmoe, the industry will make money by making it easy to subscribe to music.
For $10/month, you'll get all the high quality digital music you want. You might be able to get it for free somewhere else, but for ten bucks, might as well do it the legitimate way. Heck, almost everyone pays $30 for cable TV, and they could steal it with no problem. It's just not convenient to be on the wrong side of the law when legitimacy is so cheap.
RESOLUTION matters a bit more than size to me. More pixels == more information. Bigger size != more pixels (well, not necessarily). Or maybe this isn't true for LCDs?
baldeep