Does anybody remember or know what the name brand of the following is/was?
This kit had a nickel-plated steel backplate, which was magnetic. The blocks were made of clear styrene plastic with white tops. There was a magnet inside the cube that held it in place on the backplate. There were springy copper conductor plates on the sides of the cubes, and these were connected to components inside the cube. The white plastic tops had standard schematic symbols marked on them. Ground was provided by the backplate.
I got one of these for Christmas when I was six, and I had built all thirty circuits by nightfall. I must have messed with this stuff daily for the next six months. All I had to do was arrange the blocks and occasionally stick a fresh nine volt in the battery cube. Lost track of the thing whan I was twelve.:(
Does anybody recognize this? Who built them? I want one again!
The DOD is not going to lose the best world-wide source of spread spectrum hash to hide things in.
Not only can you hide signal in it, but one of the up/down links is located in Quantico, Va., if memeory serves. Extremely convienient for three letter agencies.
just like the rest of the broadcast media, private or otherwise.
All that matters to them is to get enough eyeballs to make the product placement and advert points. So what if a bunch of geeks get inconvienienced by it? They can move to a different town and change their names. "Cyber-terrorists", my ass. Maybe we should start using the term "media-terrorist". It fits.
Having worked for these folks, I can tell you that Don Henly was right. All they want is dirty laundry...
Such currents are well documented, especially in arctic regions. I am told changes in salinity and mineral content can vary greatly by depth in any one place. As to the cause, good question.
Even without such a current, though, the metals content of seawater, plus its availability and ease of handling have had engineers trying to work out extraction methods for some time.
NetApp has this stuff down cold. Yeah, you got to pay for it. So what. Even at their MSRP they are way cheaper than the learning curve and development cost of doing this yourself. They blew sun out of thae water not so much on performance but on overall reliability and ease of integration.
The only grief I've ever had with them is integration into a backup scheme, and most of that was due to legacy mainframe-style backup equipment needing to used.
I will set myself up as the executive director of a non-profit corporation, drop some money on production of some public service announcements, roll them into the Ad Council list, and sit back for the ride.
I figure if our clients have enough cash to buy games, they have enough to afford some pretty heavy dues. All we have to do is get the relatives in an uproar, and maybe they will pay for it.
After we get enough donations we will find some pop pyschologist to run us up a feel-good clone of AA or something, print some bumper-stickers and tee-shirts ("One Level At A Time") and then set folks up running sessions in vacant strip-mall spaces. Get on the local judicial lists as a treatment agency, and rile up some college students to write us grants for local and federal program monies.
Any investors, er, executive vice-directors? How can you go wrong? Isn't this America's traditional way of dealing with morally paniccing issues?
Consider this:
Find a heavy-metals rich undercurrent in the ocean, pump into tanks, run through bacteria farm, release back to sea. Use bacteria as ore for slightly modified conventional refining process.
Granted, you couldn't extract gold this way, as most of its existence in seawater is in the form of chloride, but there are a number of metals (silver, lead, uranium, thorium come to mind) that would be amenable.
Alternatively, locate sulphate-based ore bodies by ecologically benign means, drill holes into same, explosive fragment, and then pump bacteria-laden soup down hole and back out for extraction. I'll take a few well housings hidden in the trees over a strip-mine any day.
That just happened to die at their site, and got covered again. It would be just our luck to find the improbable case, and then try to build science out of it.
If the remains do turn out to match the strata dates, this could change estimated evolution rates quite a bit.
Had to deal with an IBM 5100 for a while, it was the fastest thing I could get my hands on, weighed thirty pounds, but at least it came with a decent handle.
Had a choice between APL and BASIC, I finally settled on the APL as the higher-level operators gave us better performance, and the workspace-based nature of the language was very good for allowing the equipment to be shared out.
What ever happened to Dr. Iverson, anyway?
Isotopic ratio changes and lattice structures
on
Isotropic Silicon?
·
· Score: 3
The method currently used in industry for separating quantities differing isotopes is photochemical in nature. Differing frequencies of energy (light or microwave) are introduced, giving one isotope or the other of an element an increase rate of bonding with other "collector" elements. Separation after exposure is relatively simple.
This technology uses high-power frequency-selective energy sources, like LASER and MASER, in which the previously soviet union was the undisputed leader. Imagine that.
By making all the atoms in a crystalline latice the same mass, their positions become very regular, and this supposedly helps heat transfer.
Exactly so. I was thinking of the manufacturing process for most components, which happens in lots, and about technology "hold" times (the time it takes for a design to be older/less salable).
What I don't know is the extent to which JIT or similar business methods have been implemented in larger electronics manufacturing. Could be that the parts producer runs smaller lots and scaled to order.
and found no trace of such pricing data. Which also means that there is no formal market and hence, maybe nobody to track prices.
On the other hand, this might represent an opportunity. I wonder if electronics manufacturers have considered selling futures on their products, and if there would be willing buyers? Might be a way to provide up-front financing to smooth cash flow for the parts maker, and provide a guaranteed supply to parts users.
The electronics industry may be too vertical for this, however, with a lot of the consumer equipment companies owning parts manufacturers.
already in existance just with URLs, this should make a real stack of them about the time we get another area code split in say, 805, and all those wonderful tables have to be changed.
Okay, okay, you ring a bell and I answer without thinking about why I am standing up against the tiled wall. Good doggy, drool please...
As I mentioned in another reply, the speakerphone didn't work out for me, plus I tend to do more equipment configuration than email. Part of that config work is web documentation and TFTP serving, so none of the handhelds have been a good fit so far. The HP came closest, but I might as well have been lugging around a laptop.
found the speakerphone function useless in our noisy environments (central office and computer rooms). I never did find the adjustments for the cutoffs. Plus, I only got to play with the thing for a few hours. Confiscated by a manager who went off to impress the folks upstairs.
Most of the time, when I need a keyboard, it's to TELNET and configure a piece of equipment or to act as a TFTP server, so my needs are not typical, perhaps.
This thing suffers from the problems that almost all of the combined personal comms fodlops do:
1. Try looking something up on it while making a telephone call -- "uhm, yeah, uh, can I call you back, I have to look it up in my phone..."
2. Too small to type, too small to read, too big to hold up to ear for extended length of time.
3. I'd hate to try and get my data back off this puppy after it took a swim in the urinal. My phone doesn't store anything more than a few numbers, and I don't use my Palm until I am safely seated.;-)
What I really want is a speaker/microphone with a magnetic off-switch glued to my mastoid or other suitable place, and RF linked to my Startac, with special software to listen for voice dialing commands. I want a Palmtop that has a screen like the old HP 360LX, wide enough to get 640 pixels across, but works like a Palm with a touch screen. And make it about twice deep (480 pixels), Also, I want the two week battery life, even if I have to go to monochrome to get it.
I know what I want. How come I never get invited to focus groups?
...would know this. Sean Connery almost died from it, and we couldn't have that. As it was, the evil traitor in the red spacesuit bit it, sparks flying off the solar panels as he slowly fell, his pressure suit breached.
We are catching up to science fiction, and I for one am glad to see it. Now bring me my flying car.
Dig around in the trash, come up with a good '486 or maybe a pentium, strap minimal ram and hard disk in it, load up old copy of Win '95 and get them a new screen and keyboard. Hide the box underneath the desk, lock down all the programs, have the sucker autodial on boot and automatically start browser and email.
You should be able to do the above for about three hundred bucks (less if you have stuff laying around) and it can be upgraded slowly as the folk's learning curve is traversed. Sooner or later, the user will want something more than an internet appliance can manage, and you end up in this spot anyway. Get it over with early.
Alarm systems are nice. Sometimes they work as a deterrent, especially if they are visible and have a security/alarm company backing them up.
Otherwise, an alarm system is simply a nuisance to your neighbors. Any cop can tell you that IF they get any call at all about a house alarm going off, it is most likely to be a noise complaint, not the report of a burglary.
The other part of the equation is response time. A good bagman works simply. Smash down back door, set off alarm, grab predetermined stuff, search for other good items, stuff in back of van/pickup truck, and be gone in less than ten minutes.
Consider physical security first. If a dude nearly breaks his shoulder trying to whack the entry point, he may just move right along to easier pickings.
If you have to have an alarm, consider silent alert types. These folks will only stay around as long as they feel safe, and there is no difference between a burglar that sticks around for three minuted or one that hangs around for a half-hour, as long as they get away. They still have your stuff. Getting them caught in the act, or having them bypass you all together are the only ways to go.
I know about this. In my youth I used to spend a great deal of time at the airport waiting for tapes to arrive.
Unless you have a requirement for serious backhaul services, just drop your three video feeds directly on any of the normal carrier's sat feeds, downlink at Guam, and rebroadcast.
End equipment costs will be a lot less than digital (for now, at any rate) and your most probable configuration is fairly normal (read: you can find someone to fix it).
Having seen what the military puts up with from FTS2001 and the commercial carriers, I would stay as far away from that sort of service as I could get.
Perhaps. I wasn't so much thinking of purchasing raw cable, but the actual assembly, already made up. Surprisingly inexpensive if you are looking for something that everyone uses.
The best of both worlds might be to simply figure out the proper length of ribbion cable, accounting for the proper turns to get it out of airflow and where it has to be. Amazing what equipment vendors will put us through to save an extra case or two of flat ribbon. More amazing that we put up with it.
Slashdot Mirror
I want to see how she unties them.
This kit had a nickel-plated steel backplate, which was magnetic. The blocks were made of clear styrene plastic with white tops. There was a magnet inside the cube that held it in place on the backplate. There were springy copper conductor plates on the sides of the cubes, and these were connected to components inside the cube. The white plastic tops had standard schematic symbols marked on them. Ground was provided by the backplate.
I got one of these for Christmas when I was six, and I had built all thirty circuits by nightfall. I must have messed with this stuff daily for the next six months. All I had to do was arrange the blocks and occasionally stick a fresh nine volt in the battery cube. Lost track of the thing whan I was twelve. :(
Does anybody recognize this? Who built them? I want one again!
Not only can you hide signal in it, but one of the up/down links is located in Quantico, Va., if memeory serves. Extremely convienient for three letter agencies.
Looking at Geocities' typical web content mix, does this make Microsoft the world's largest dealer of badly produced amateur porn?
All that matters to them is to get enough eyeballs to make the product placement and advert points. So what if a bunch of geeks get inconvienienced by it? They can move to a different town and change their names. "Cyber-terrorists", my ass. Maybe we should start using the term "media-terrorist". It fits.
Having worked for these folks, I can tell you that Don Henly was right. All they want is dirty laundry...
Even without such a current, though, the metals content of seawater, plus its availability and ease of handling have had engineers trying to work out extraction methods for some time.
The only grief I've ever had with them is integration into a backup scheme, and most of that was due to legacy mainframe-style backup equipment needing to used.
What I have seen are the non-profit executive director's homes and automobiles...
I will set myself up as the executive director of a non-profit corporation, drop some money on production of some public service announcements, roll them into the Ad Council list, and sit back for the ride.
I figure if our clients have enough cash to buy games, they have enough to afford some pretty heavy dues. All we have to do is get the relatives in an uproar, and maybe they will pay for it.
After we get enough donations we will find some pop pyschologist to run us up a feel-good clone of AA or something, print some bumper-stickers and tee-shirts ("One Level At A Time") and then set folks up running sessions in vacant strip-mall spaces. Get on the local judicial lists as a treatment agency, and rile up some college students to write us grants for local and federal program monies.
Any investors, er, executive vice-directors? How can you go wrong? Isn't this America's traditional way of dealing with morally paniccing issues?
Consider this:
Find a heavy-metals rich undercurrent in the ocean, pump into tanks, run through bacteria farm, release back to sea. Use bacteria as ore for slightly modified conventional refining process.
Granted, you couldn't extract gold this way, as most of its existence in seawater is in the form of chloride, but there are a number of metals (silver, lead, uranium, thorium come to mind) that would be amenable.
Alternatively, locate sulphate-based ore bodies by ecologically benign means, drill holes into same, explosive fragment, and then pump bacteria-laden soup down hole and back out for extraction. I'll take a few well housings hidden in the trees over a strip-mine any day.
If the remains do turn out to match the strata dates, this could change estimated evolution rates quite a bit.
Had a choice between APL and BASIC, I finally settled on the APL as the higher-level operators gave us better performance, and the workspace-based nature of the language was very good for allowing the equipment to be shared out.
What ever happened to Dr. Iverson, anyway?
This technology uses high-power frequency-selective energy sources, like LASER and MASER, in which the previously soviet union was the undisputed leader. Imagine that.
By making all the atoms in a crystalline latice the same mass, their positions become very regular, and this supposedly helps heat transfer.
Is ASCAP going to sue if they don't have the sheet music?
What I don't know is the extent to which JIT or similar business methods have been implemented in larger electronics manufacturing. Could be that the parts producer runs smaller lots and scaled to order.
On the other hand, this might represent an opportunity. I wonder if electronics manufacturers have considered selling futures on their products, and if there would be willing buyers? Might be a way to provide up-front financing to smooth cash flow for the parts maker, and provide a guaranteed supply to parts users.
The electronics industry may be too vertical for this, however, with a lot of the consumer equipment companies owning parts manufacturers.
already in existance just with URLs, this should make a real stack of them about the time we get another area code split in say, 805, and all those wonderful tables have to be changed.
As I mentioned in another reply, the speakerphone didn't work out for me, plus I tend to do more equipment configuration than email. Part of that config work is web documentation and TFTP serving, so none of the handhelds have been a good fit so far. The HP came closest, but I might as well have been lugging around a laptop.
Most of the time, when I need a keyboard, it's to TELNET and configure a piece of equipment or to act as a TFTP server, so my needs are not typical, perhaps.
1. Try looking something up on it while making a telephone call -- "uhm, yeah, uh, can I call you back, I have to look it up in my phone..." ;-)
2. Too small to type, too small to read, too big to hold up to ear for extended length of time.
3. I'd hate to try and get my data back off this puppy after it took a swim in the urinal. My phone doesn't store anything more than a few numbers, and I don't use my Palm until I am safely seated.
What I really want is a speaker/microphone with a magnetic off-switch glued to my mastoid or other suitable place, and RF linked to my Startac, with special software to listen for voice dialing commands. I want a Palmtop that has a screen like the old HP 360LX, wide enough to get 640 pixels across, but works like a Palm with a touch screen. And make it about twice deep (480 pixels), Also, I want the two week battery life, even if I have to go to monochrome to get it.
I know what I want. How come I never get invited to focus groups?
We are catching up to science fiction, and I for one am glad to see it. Now bring me my flying car.
You should be able to do the above for about three hundred bucks (less if you have stuff laying around) and it can be upgraded slowly as the folk's learning curve is traversed. Sooner or later, the user will want something more than an internet appliance can manage, and you end up in this spot anyway. Get it over with early.
Otherwise, an alarm system is simply a nuisance to your neighbors. Any cop can tell you that IF they get any call at all about a house alarm going off, it is most likely to be a noise complaint, not the report of a burglary.
The other part of the equation is response time. A good bagman works simply. Smash down back door, set off alarm, grab predetermined stuff, search for other good items, stuff in back of van/pickup truck, and be gone in less than ten minutes.
Consider physical security first. If a dude nearly breaks his shoulder trying to whack the entry point, he may just move right along to easier pickings.
If you have to have an alarm, consider silent alert types. These folks will only stay around as long as they feel safe, and there is no difference between a burglar that sticks around for three minuted or one that hangs around for a half-hour, as long as they get away. They still have your stuff. Getting them caught in the act, or having them bypass you all together are the only ways to go.
Unless you have a requirement for serious backhaul services, just drop your three video feeds directly on any of the normal carrier's sat feeds, downlink at Guam, and rebroadcast.
End equipment costs will be a lot less than digital (for now, at any rate) and your most probable configuration is fairly normal (read: you can find someone to fix it).
Having seen what the military puts up with from FTS2001 and the commercial carriers, I would stay as far away from that sort of service as I could get.
The best of both worlds might be to simply figure out the proper length of ribbion cable, accounting for the proper turns to get it out of airflow and where it has to be. Amazing what equipment vendors will put us through to save an extra case or two of flat ribbon. More amazing that we put up with it.