I agree whole heartedly. Before I was able to watch TV by myself, my dad made me recite from memory Ohm's Law and I needed to demonstrate a knowledge of electron beams, cathodes, anodes, steering coils and RF theory. Only then, did I have background needed to watch Spongebob Squarepants on my own.
Another pest would be fire ants. Fire ants would probably be ideal because they would no doubt be easy to locate using current computer vision technologies. You see, they build these big dirt mounds, sometimes three feet in diameter, that can be spotted from the air. Then, all you have to do is program the robot to land squarely on top of the nest with a bump, and voila, fuel is crawling all over your robot in a bristling brown mass. Then the robot just sits and takes on 'fuel' for a few hours and once the ants stop attacking, it takes off looking for another nest.
If it were effective, it would be interesting to see what types of evolutionary adaptations the ants would make to try to avoid getting eaten by a robot that can't be harmed by being stung.
Here's an idea. Perhaps a revert war is should be viewed as information itself. So for each article, there's a volatility index useful for identifying contraversial subjects. If you notice that an article has high volatility and are interested in examining it, you can see a history of the article over time.
Was JUST a demonstration of my powers. Next time I will hit downtown Enid Oklahoma unless I receive the sum of One Million Dollars. Muhahahaha Muhahahaha Muhahahaha!
For better visualization of this, imagine playing a near life-sized game of C&C or Warcraft where you are in command, and you are playing head-to-head against another player except that you are physically on a sports field. You will have to change your physical location to change a units orders. You can send them off somewhere, but you will have to go to them to change their orders. Imagine a battlefield where you can give orders to flying units and watch as they do battle overhead.
Another possibility that comes to mind is "Virtual Geocaching" Where you home in on a series of hidden virtual relics using a HUD GPS.
Obviously FPS's are probably going to be the first AR games available, but you can do other types of games too.
before augmented reality is mainstream. From the article: even games with beneficial or neutral content can be harmful to children because of the connection between gameplay and our obesity epidemic
I think good games and physical conditioning are going to merge and really catch on--even with those who are not really in shape. Current barriers are miniaturization of equipment, battery improvements, and HUD improvements, but I think we are close.
Certainly. All you need for a stirling to work is a temerature differential, which shouldn't be too hard with geothermal. Geothermal won't, however, solve the current nuclear waste problem.
The Acoustic Stirling, a new engine that has been recently been developed,
Acoustic Stirling Press Brief, could take the heat energy that is generated by nuclear waste and convert it into electrical energy. When the waste is doing work for you, it's no longer waste.
Hydrogen isn't an "energy source," it's a (somewhat inefficient) way of storing energy.
Gasoline isn't an "energy source" either, it's an extremely inefficient way of storing what was ultimately energy from the sun. That's why we call fossil fuels non-renewable.
Hydrogen IS an efficient way of storing energy derived from solar, nuclear, wind, hydro or other sources. It's efficient because it can be moved around using existing natural gas infrastructures.
I read the Wired article that poses a compelling argument for the pebble bed reactor. Summary: With these small plants you still have the waste issue, but the waste is contained in durable billiard ball-sized chunks. Much safer than conventional nuke plants because you can walk away from the plant and not suffer a meltdown. (So if you put Homer in charge the worst that's going to happen is the plant will stop producing power.) Helium is gas used to transfer the energy to turbines so no containment tower needed.
Call me a PIMBY as in: Give me free power and you can Put It in My Back Yard.
While tourism might be cool, I think there's a place for AR in our daily lives. If AR were accessible right now, I'd no longer have to decide whether to exercise or play GTA. I think it would be neat if the First Person Shooter could be integrated with a sophisticated body movement sensor and HUD so that you could get your daily 10,000 steps in and, at the same time, boost your score.
We just leaned a few days ago on Slashdot about the potential of
nuclear rocket engines that could greatly reduce the transit time between Earth and Mars from ~9 months to ~7 weeks. Reducing the transit time solves a great many more problems that teaching astronauts how to hibernate IMHO. BTM
You know, I kept telling them that they would later regret having made that translucent plastic lens cap. But did they listen to me? Noooo! "You're just a programmer", they said. "Shut up and write code", they said.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree whole heartedly. Before I was able to watch TV by myself, my dad made me recite from memory Ohm's Law and I needed to demonstrate a knowledge of electron beams, cathodes, anodes, steering coils and RF theory. Only then, did I have background needed to watch Spongebob Squarepants on my own.
No, no shuttles please. Paying the Russians would still no doubt be cheaper than shuttle missions.
For starters, the Russian boosters don't have to drag multi-ton wings into space. Wings that are useless in space.
BTM
Another pest would be fire ants. Fire ants would probably be ideal because they would no doubt be easy to locate using current computer vision technologies. You see, they build these big dirt mounds, sometimes three feet in diameter, that can be spotted from the air. Then, all you have to do is program the robot to land squarely on top of the nest with a bump, and voila, fuel is crawling all over your robot in a bristling brown mass. Then the robot just sits and takes on 'fuel' for a few hours and once the ants stop attacking, it takes off looking for another nest.
If it were effective, it would be interesting to see what types of evolutionary adaptations the ants would make to try to avoid getting eaten by a robot that can't be harmed by being stung.
BTM
Oh, hadn't you heard? We "split up" and she wound up as a primitive ironing board.
The odds that any asteroid would hit on a Friday the 13 are (roughly) one in 7 * 31 = 217
BTM
Here's an idea. Perhaps a revert war is should be viewed as information itself. So for each article, there's a volatility index useful for identifying contraversial subjects. If you notice that an article has high volatility and are interested in examining it, you can see a history of the article over time.
BTM
That's right. A 200 M.P.H. wind on earth at sea level exerts a lot more force than the same speed wind on Mars (at canal level?).
BTM
they want their headline back!
BTM
Well I think PSP is an important public health issue, so here's a current link:
PSP
BTM
Was JUST a demonstration of my powers. Next time I will hit downtown Enid Oklahoma unless I receive the sum of One Million Dollars. Muhahahaha Muhahahaha Muhahahaha!
Does that mean that I need to go to a hair salon to get a memory upgrade? And what happens if I decide to get a hair cut?
BTM
the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland security are getting together, as ungovernment-like as that may be, i.e. turf battles, etc.
My favorite argument against the existence of an omnipotent god goes something like this:
Q: Can god carry any weight?
A: Yes!
Q: Can god make anything?
A: Of course!
Q: Can god make something so heavy that he himself cannot carry it?
A: Yes, er.. Ummm. Nevermind...
For better visualization of this, imagine playing a near life-sized game of C&C or Warcraft where you are in command, and you are playing head-to-head against another player except that you are physically on a sports field. You will have to change your physical location to change a units orders. You can send them off somewhere, but you will have to go to them to change their orders. Imagine a battlefield where you can give orders to flying units and watch as they do battle overhead.
Another possibility that comes to mind is "Virtual Geocaching" Where you home in on a series of hidden virtual relics using a HUD GPS.
Obviously FPS's are probably going to be the first AR games available, but you can do other types of games too.
BTM
before augmented reality is mainstream. From the article:
even games with beneficial or neutral content can be harmful to children because of the connection between gameplay and our obesity epidemic
I think good games and physical conditioning are going to merge and really catch on--even with those who are not really in shape. Current barriers are miniaturization of equipment, battery improvements, and HUD improvements, but I think we are close.
BTM
Certainly. All you need for a stirling to work is a temerature differential, which shouldn't be too hard with geothermal. Geothermal won't, however, solve the current nuclear waste problem.
BTM
Hmmm. Maybe more than just two birds! Maybe thousands of birds if you're lucky!
The Acoustic Stirling, a new engine that has been recently been developed, Acoustic Stirling Press Brief, could take the heat energy that is generated by nuclear waste and convert it into electrical energy. When the waste is doing work for you, it's no longer waste.
BTM
Hydrogen isn't an "energy source," it's a (somewhat inefficient) way of storing energy.
Gasoline isn't an "energy source" either, it's an extremely inefficient way of storing what was ultimately energy from the sun. That's why we call fossil fuels non-renewable.
Hydrogen IS an efficient way of storing energy derived from solar, nuclear, wind, hydro or other sources. It's efficient because it can be moved around using existing natural gas infrastructures.
BTM
I read the Wired article that poses a compelling argument for the pebble bed reactor. Summary: With these small plants you still have the waste issue, but the waste is contained in durable billiard ball-sized chunks. Much safer than conventional nuke plants because you can walk away from the plant and not suffer a meltdown. (So if you put Homer in charge the worst that's going to happen is the plant will stop producing power.) Helium is gas used to transfer the energy to turbines so no containment tower needed.
Call me a PIMBY as in: Give me free power and you can Put It in My Back Yard.
BTM
While tourism might be cool, I think there's a place for AR in our daily lives. If AR were accessible right now, I'd no longer have to decide whether to exercise or play GTA. I think it would be neat if the First Person Shooter could be integrated with a sophisticated body movement sensor and HUD so that you could get your daily 10,000 steps in and, at the same time, boost your score.
BTM
We just leaned a few days ago on Slashdot about the potential of nuclear rocket engines that could greatly reduce the transit time between Earth and Mars from ~9 months to ~7 weeks. Reducing the transit time solves a great many more problems that teaching astronauts how to hibernate IMHO.
BTM
Cassini's data has already thrown scientists for loop.
No, that's correct english, they are obviously describing some of the intricacies of their software. Specifically their Java exception handling.
BTM
You know, I kept telling them that they would later regret having made that translucent plastic lens cap. But did they listen to me? Noooo! "You're just a programmer", they said. "Shut up and write code", they said.
BTM
Whew! That bit of information is relatively difficult to find.
BTM