So, I'm undecided, is it morally wrong to submit a small website for a slashdot story, knowing full well that that site is going to get shutdown inside of 24 hours?
It seems to me a more responsible article would be about the concept of coin shrinking in general, and perhaps only link to the google search results.
As it stands, this article did nothing but direct the slashdot readers' attention to the concept, and then demonstrate that some poor guy's page is unavailable, before going on to show us a googled list of sites.
For what it's worth, our group (http://sam.phys.lsu.edu) )uses a variety of systems (from redhat linux to various Windows versions to Mac OS) with our HP Color Laserjet 4500N. I dont know about cost, but this baby's been pretty reliable for 6 ot 7 years, over several systems. Perhaps you could find a used one cheap?
Oh come on, what you're saying is "maybe scientist should take a break and save some for the rest of us." Go ahead and try to find supporters of that philosophy. As a physicist-in-training, I can tell you that there're a hell of a lot of unsolved problems out there, and I think it's the height of egotism to think we as a generation have any chance of solving all the 'interesting' problems. Even if NP problems become routinely processable, they'll only open the door to more difficult, wonderful and powerful problems. Don't worry, the human race will have beautiful problems for centuries to come.
I don't think it works that way. True, your body does have inertia, and you ARE used to the forces that come from that. But you can't just match the inertia of the surface you're walking on. Think of this: if you stand on solid ground and lean over, you fall with a characteristic equation of motion. In this thing, if you go off balace, you fall one way, the sphere rolls the other way. You have a different equation of motion, it won't FEEL quite right. Another example would be straffing (to appeal to the quake fans) rapidly changing direction from left to right would feel very strange, like the ground was moving under you (which it is). There's no way around that.
True, but come on. We're not just talking quality here, but quantity. Sure, the general quality of the forces may be the same as the real world, but the actualy numbers are gonna be really different. I think this thing's only hope is in the adaptability of the human balance mechanism. There's no way this thing can perfectly emulate reality without being a massless sphere: something that can accelerate at infinity. That's a fact.
Well, maybe they intend to interleave stereoptic images in the projections, with the occupant wearing a set of radio controlled flicker glasses. That's how the CAVE systems work. Ok sure, you're back to head mounted hardware. But it will fix the parallax errors.
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I always pictured something like Zorak from Space Ghost, but with two heads.
So, I'm undecided, is it morally wrong to submit a small website for a slashdot story, knowing full well that that site is going to get shutdown inside of 24 hours?
It seems to me a more responsible article would be about the concept of coin shrinking in general, and perhaps only link to the google search results.
As it stands, this article did nothing but direct the slashdot readers' attention to the concept, and then demonstrate that some poor guy's page is unavailable, before going on to show us a googled list of sites.
For what it's worth, our group (http://sam.phys.lsu.edu) )uses a variety of systems (from redhat linux to various Windows versions to Mac OS) with our HP Color Laserjet 4500N. I dont know about cost, but this baby's been pretty reliable for 6 ot 7 years, over several systems. Perhaps you could find a used one cheap?
Oh come on, what you're saying is "maybe scientist should take a break and save some for the rest of us." Go ahead and try to find supporters of that philosophy. As a physicist-in-training, I can tell you that there're a hell of a lot of unsolved problems out there, and I think it's the height of egotism to think we as a generation have any chance of solving all the 'interesting' problems. Even if NP problems become routinely processable, they'll only open the door to more difficult, wonderful and powerful problems. Don't worry, the human race will have beautiful problems for centuries to come.
I don't think it works that way. True, your body does have inertia, and you ARE used to the forces that come from that. But you can't just match the inertia of the surface you're walking on. Think of this: if you stand on solid ground and lean over, you fall with a characteristic equation of motion. In this thing, if you go off balace, you fall one way, the sphere rolls the other way. You have a different equation of motion, it won't FEEL quite right. Another example would be straffing (to appeal to the quake fans) rapidly changing direction from left to right would feel very strange, like the ground was moving under you (which it is). There's no way around that.
True, but come on. We're not just talking quality here, but quantity. Sure, the general quality of the forces may be the same as the real world, but the actualy numbers are gonna be really different. I think this thing's only hope is in the adaptability of the human balance mechanism. There's no way this thing can perfectly emulate reality without being a massless sphere: something that can accelerate at infinity. That's a fact.
Well, maybe they intend to interleave stereoptic images in the projections, with the occupant wearing a set of radio controlled flicker glasses. That's how the CAVE systems work. Ok sure, you're back to head mounted hardware. But it will fix the parallax errors.