Here is a WIG (wing in ground effect) craft built by a hovercraft hobbyist. It sure looks like a lot of fun. Also, I found out a while back that the FAA doesn't regulate WIG craft, so you don't need a pilots license as long as it can only fly in ground effect and not as a regular aircraft.
Modafinil has been prescribed in France for probably 20 years. It may not be fully understood, but it is one of the few drugs that have a very low incidence of side effects.
One of the most interesting applications for the drug has been explored by US and Canadian military. Their research showed that a person can maintain 95% of their otherwise normal alertness without any sleep while taking modafinil. The test lasted a week, but the subjects indicated that they could have gone on much longer. I would suspect that modafinil has has found its way into quite a few contingency plans by now, since an army that doesn't need to sleep can be quite a foe.
And for the people that might reply to this to say that sleep is so needed, I would like to point out that there are people that are born without the need for sleep. They lead normal lives, except some have two jobs.
Here is testimony presented in house hearings this topic. Some of the testimony is rather interesting: like Dr. Wakefield's graphs that show the rise in autism in the UK delayed the US by 10 years, eventhough the same criteria is used in both countries.
If you look at history, most every attempt at doing something like this has failed.
Remember when they used to distribute software on disks that couldn't be copied? Did that stop people from copying software? They don't even try that anymore.
The movie industry just hasn't learned the lesson yet. VHS tapes still have a copy protect, but people copy them anyway. Look at the DVD encryption. That was eventually cracked. Between consumer's failure to buy into less features, and hackers abilities to thwart their efforts, the movie industry will eventually learn that the effort is not worth it.
They will eventually discover that it is cheaper to make a new movie than to hold on to the old ones.
In the mean time, expect more stupid ideas from Holywood.
Here in Dallas a couple of weeks ago I saw 7 Bell lift trucks all backed up to the same wire between two poles. Thought it was strange to have so many. Later I asked a Bell guy working behind my house. He said that someone had put TWO bullet holes in the line about 10 feet apart. I said "That's amazing, why would someone shoot at the phone line?". He said "don't know, but it happens all the time". He went on to say that it looked like a 9mm.
When I was working at "a major semi-conductor mfg in Dallas", there was a story about how the company had purchased the manufacturing process for arseen gas. Arseen gas is deadly in just a few ppm, and is used in sc mfg (I don't know how prevalent). The old process was complex and expensive, but the new one was easy and cheap. So much so that the inventor of the process used it to kill insects in his fruit orchard by mixing this up in a 55 gallon barrel that was positioned upwind from the orchard. But he didn't get rich by selling the process. It was actually the heirs to his estate that sold the process. The enormous value of the process was not discovered until the inventor was killed when the wind shifted just after mixing up a batch!
I have to ask: What does this have to do with the normal topics of/.? Just a very loose tie-in with encryption. Rob really needs to reel it in. /. is wandering farther and farther every day.
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Here is a WIG (wing in ground effect) craft built by a hovercraft hobbyist. It sure looks like a lot of fun. Also, I found out a while back that the FAA doesn't regulate WIG craft, so you don't need a pilots license as long as it can only fly in ground effect and not as a regular aircraft.
Modafinil has been prescribed in France for probably 20 years. It may not be fully understood, but it is one of the few drugs that have a very low incidence of side effects.
One of the most interesting applications for the drug has been explored by US and Canadian military. Their research showed that a person can maintain 95% of their otherwise normal alertness without any sleep while taking modafinil. The test lasted a week, but the subjects indicated that they could have gone on much longer. I would suspect that modafinil has has found its way into quite a few contingency plans by now, since an army that doesn't need to sleep can be quite a foe.
And for the people that might reply to this to say that sleep is so needed, I would like to point out that there are people that are born without the need for sleep. They lead normal lives, except some have two jobs.
Here is testimony presented in house hearings this topic. Some of the testimony is rather interesting: like Dr. Wakefield's graphs that show the rise in autism in the UK delayed the US by 10 years, eventhough the same criteria is used in both countries.
If you look at history, most every attempt at doing something like this has failed.
Remember when they used to distribute software on disks that couldn't be copied? Did that stop people from copying software? They don't even try that anymore.
The movie industry just hasn't learned the lesson yet. VHS tapes still have a copy protect, but people copy them anyway. Look at the DVD encryption. That was eventually cracked. Between consumer's failure to buy into less features, and hackers abilities to thwart their efforts, the movie industry will eventually learn that the effort is not worth it.
They will eventually discover that it is cheaper to make a new movie than to hold on to the old ones.
In the mean time, expect more stupid ideas from Holywood.
Here in Dallas a couple of weeks ago I saw 7 Bell lift trucks all backed up to the same wire between two poles. Thought it was strange to have so many. Later I asked a Bell guy working behind my house. He said that someone had put TWO bullet holes in the line about 10 feet apart. I said "That's amazing, why would someone shoot at the phone line?". He said "don't know, but it happens all the time". He went on to say that it looked like a 9mm.
When I was working at "a major semi-conductor mfg in Dallas", there was a story about how the company had purchased the manufacturing process for arseen gas. Arseen gas is deadly in just a few ppm, and is used in sc mfg (I don't know how prevalent). The old process was complex and expensive, but the new one was easy and cheap. So much so that the inventor of the process used it to kill insects in his fruit orchard by mixing this up in a 55 gallon barrel that was positioned upwind from the orchard. But he didn't get rich by selling the process. It was actually the heirs to his estate that sold the process. The enormous value of the process was not discovered until the inventor was killed when the wind shifted just after mixing up a batch!
I have to ask: What does this have to do with the normal topics of /.?
/. is wandering farther and farther every day.
Just a very loose tie-in with encryption.
Rob really needs to reel it in.