Thanks for the tip! That 200-project kit, along with your enthusiastic description, really makes it seem attractive! So much so that I'm starting to feel tempted to buy a kit for myself too! I never did learn electronics, and the knowledge would come in handy. I once had to make a circuit board, and although in the end it did work fine, my lack of knowledge made the work slow and limited my choices. If I can only spare the time, a kit would probably be fun and interesting.
The price is indeed astonishing. With that price I can't understand why toy shops and electronics retailers aren't filled floor to ceiling with kits.
Also, if you wanted to "insert" some circuitry in a fixed position kit, that would be a nightmare. This kit is just a matter of moving a couple wires. That was no problem at all, i did it a few times. The thin wooden board was generously sized and had a dense grid of holes, regularly spaced. The diagram paper had much fewer holes, only one hole at each point where components connected, each paper hole fitting over a board hole. To insert additional components you'd just punch a new hole in the paper over a board hole, and insert a fixture in the new hole. You could easily make room by bending the wires on a few components. They were the ordinary type of components used in the electronics industry, little cylinders with long flexible wires sticking out, not mounted on anything.
The number of components was much greater than in the 200-project kit, but the number of projects was much smaller. Having a larger number of projects is probably better.
Thanks for the links! That actually looks interesting. Maybe there are some possibilities after all.
I'm in Sweden, and didn't find anything in Swedish shops, and I didn't think of ordering abroad over the Web. Stupid of me. I'll look into this a bit more next time it's time for gifts. Thanks!
From the pictures I get the impression that in these kits the components are in fixed places, and you connect them with wires crisscrossing the kit. But I'm not sure because the pictures aren't very big. My childhood kit was a bit better as a teaching tool, in that for every project there was a circuit diagram on thick paper, with holes where you put fixtures for connecting the components. You fixed this paper diagram on a board, attached one fixture in each hole, and then fixed each component over its diagram symbol. Thus the circuitry looked just like the diagram.
If they had only included explanations about electronics it would have taught me quite a lot.
From this teaching viewpoint maybe this kit is better. Unfortunately it looks toyish, a silly and unimportant detail, but it can be very important for ticklish youngsters of a certain age. I wish toy manufacturers would design their stuff to look a bit more adult than their intended audience, because children will accept stuff that looks more adult than their age, but youngsters will be offended by stuff that looks more childish than their age.
Indeed! I tried to find something similar to my childhood kit for my nephew and niece some years ago, when they were the right age. I think I searched very thoroughly everywhere. I couldn't find anything. Very unfortunate indeed.
So true. I wish each article would have two parts, an overview introductory explanation for general readers and an in-depth part for mathematicians. Trying to satisfy both audiences with the same explanation is impossible, and both audiences are important.
Who gives a flying fuck what YOU think? Just in case you didn't notice, I would like to point out that you are not being entirely polite.
Furthermore, please note that this is a discussion site. This means that it is intended as a place where people may voice their thoughts and opinions, just like the grandparent did.
You might consider bearing this in mind in the future, should you wish to give a less stupid impression.
Mod parent up! The proposal that clicking on sigma you'd get an explanation for sigma is excellent. And I bet it could usually be arranged automatically.
It's an important problem that Wikipedia math articles very often dive straight into a very low-level (IOW detailed) explanation where there should reasonably be a high-level (IOW overview) introduction before the low-level details. Too many Wikipedians confuse high-level overview and dumbing down. They are not the same thing.
At UTC 13:16 on Sunday 16 December you write about an event on 16 December 1947... Coincidence?
You write this in 2007 and mention a UFO incident on 7/7 1947... Coincidence?
2 posts about this subject appear on this page, one enumerating 2 points and the other mentioning 2 dates, and these posts appear 22 minutes apart... Coincidence?
I think not. Clearly this can't be coincidence. Clearly you're an alien pretending to be a conspiracy theorist.
You can't fool me! You're just PRETENDING to be a conspiracy theorist!
All the conspiracy theorists on the Web are really GOVERNMENT AGENTS! You're all just PRETENDING to be conspiracy theorists, to distract us so we don't notice your GREAT CONSPIRACY!
Nothing wrong with what you describe. The thing I dislike is outfits that automatically harvest and squat on hundreds of thousands of domain names just in case someone wants a name, then they demand exorbitant fees.
In the meantime the Web gets spammed with hundreds of thousands of automatically generated pages that contain no real content, just text snippets automatically lifted from real pages. It's like e-mail spam but on the Web.
Whenever you look for a meaningful domain name it's squatted by one of these outfits. Real outfits have to either pay the leeches or choose a less useful name that is more difficult to remember.
If you're reserving a name for future real use I see nothing wrong in using it in the meantime. It's the massive bulk squatting and massive auto-generated spamming that annoy me. It blocks real, creative domain-name users.
Anybody who has held a soldering iron and done something digital with single transistors please raise your hand ? Why digital? I made analog circuits with single transistors — a radio, and intercom, and some other cool gadgets.
It was all part of an electronics toy set called "Electronic Engineering", where you could build various gadgets by connecting components in predefined ways. Very cool, but unfortunately I was far too young to understand what I was doing. Still it did capture my attention and speed me on the road to geekdom.
I will never understand what they expected to gain from grabbing a no-value name like that. It's all automatic, an outfit will harvest and release tens of thousands of names a day, without any human seeing them.
So, make it worth their time to continue clogging up the internet? Sadly, as long as pretend-to-do-no-evil giant Google keeps encouraging and rewarding these shady practices, us regular guys are utterly powerless. It would take a tremendous concerted effort to outvote Google with our pitiful dollars.
Even so, I'd try everything I could before resorting to paying the leeches. It's just too distasteful for words.
On the contrary, Slashdot users are from everywhere around the globe. Not everyone has English as their first language. And yet they're definitely welcome.
And when I say welcome, obviously I'm thinking of everyone except you. Asshole.
Just wait until they realize how detailed the actual streets are, and how terrorists could use them for planning. They'll issue orders that the actual streets be blurred.
Good luck convincing Apple. Apple's second system could be the BSD system that that it is based on.
But the idea is to limit the current oligopoly, so the regulation should probably state that a computer with specifically Windows pre-installed should have a second operating system. No use hitting Apple which isn't an oligopoly.
Wouldn't modern technology allow guiding the capsule with high precision to a specific target? If so, cover a field with suitable large, soft airbags, and have a capsule carrying no airbags land in the center of this field.
Does the entire capsule have to land softly? If not, you could have only the astronaut seats land softly, inside a capsule that slams down hard.
The seats could hang in elastic fixtures that make them move just as far as external landing airbags would, just as softly or probably softer. The seats would be braked all the way through this movement, giving a more regular braking than external airbags.
The volume of air where the seats move when landing would be used for that only while landing. During flight it would be useful living/working space.
There should be regulations stating that whenever a computer is sold with a pre-installed operating system, at least two different systems must be installed, such that the user can easily choose one or the other at power-up.
Exceptions might be made for very low-cost machines.
SP1 [...] in fact might cause applications to break that were running under Vista. Clearly Microsoft is releasing this to solve the problem with Vista being too popular.
Slashdot Mirror
You must be new here. The instant anyone bashes Vista it gains credibility on slashdot.
My goodness! I'll have to upgrade to a better tinfoil hat.
The price is indeed astonishing. With that price I can't understand why toy shops and electronics retailers aren't filled floor to ceiling with kits. Also, if you wanted to "insert" some circuitry in a fixed position kit, that would be a nightmare. This kit is just a matter of moving a couple wires. That was no problem at all, i did it a few times. The thin wooden board was generously sized and had a dense grid of holes, regularly spaced. The diagram paper had much fewer holes, only one hole at each point where components connected, each paper hole fitting over a board hole. To insert additional components you'd just punch a new hole in the paper over a board hole, and insert a fixture in the new hole. You could easily make room by bending the wires on a few components. They were the ordinary type of components used in the electronics industry, little cylinders with long flexible wires sticking out, not mounted on anything.
The number of components was much greater than in the 200-project kit, but the number of projects was much smaller. Having a larger number of projects is probably better.
Thanks for the links! That actually looks interesting. Maybe there are some possibilities after all.
I'm in Sweden, and didn't find anything in Swedish shops, and I didn't think of ordering abroad over the Web. Stupid of me. I'll look into this a bit more next time it's time for gifts. Thanks!
From the pictures I get the impression that in these kits the components are in fixed places, and you connect them with wires crisscrossing the kit. But I'm not sure because the pictures aren't very big. My childhood kit was a bit better as a teaching tool, in that for every project there was a circuit diagram on thick paper, with holes where you put fixtures for connecting the components. You fixed this paper diagram on a board, attached one fixture in each hole, and then fixed each component over its diagram symbol. Thus the circuitry looked just like the diagram.
If they had only included explanations about electronics it would have taught me quite a lot.
From this teaching viewpoint maybe this kit is better. Unfortunately it looks toyish, a silly and unimportant detail, but it can be very important for ticklish youngsters of a certain age. I wish toy manufacturers would design their stuff to look a bit more adult than their intended audience, because children will accept stuff that looks more adult than their age, but youngsters will be offended by stuff that looks more childish than their age.
Indeed! I tried to find something similar to my childhood kit for my nephew and niece some years ago, when they were the right age. I think I searched very thoroughly everywhere. I couldn't find anything. Very unfortunate indeed.
So true. I wish each article would have two parts, an overview introductory explanation for general readers and an in-depth part for mathematicians. Trying to satisfy both audiences with the same explanation is impossible, and both audiences are important.
Furthermore, please note that this is a discussion site. This means that it is intended as a place where people may voice their thoughts and opinions, just like the grandparent did.
You might consider bearing this in mind in the future, should you wish to give a less stupid impression.
Mod parent up! The proposal that clicking on sigma you'd get an explanation for sigma is excellent. And I bet it could usually be arranged automatically.
It's an important problem that Wikipedia math articles very often dive straight into a very low-level (IOW detailed) explanation where there should reasonably be a high-level (IOW overview) introduction before the low-level details. Too many Wikipedians confuse high-level overview and dumbing down. They are not the same thing.
At UTC 13:16 on Sunday 16 December you write about an event on 16 December 1947... Coincidence?
You write this in 2007 and mention a UFO incident on 7/7 1947... Coincidence?
2 posts about this subject appear on this page, one enumerating 2 points and the other mentioning 2 dates, and these posts appear 22 minutes apart... Coincidence?
I think not. Clearly this can't be coincidence. Clearly you're an alien pretending to be a conspiracy theorist.
You can't fool me! You're just PRETENDING to be a conspiracy theorist!
All the conspiracy theorists on the Web are really GOVERNMENT AGENTS! You're all just PRETENDING to be conspiracy theorists, to distract us so we don't notice your GREAT CONSPIRACY!
It's 60. Please elaborate.
Nothing wrong with what you describe. The thing I dislike is outfits that automatically harvest and squat on hundreds of thousands of domain names just in case someone wants a name, then they demand exorbitant fees.
In the meantime the Web gets spammed with hundreds of thousands of automatically generated pages that contain no real content, just text snippets automatically lifted from real pages. It's like e-mail spam but on the Web.
Whenever you look for a meaningful domain name it's squatted by one of these outfits. Real outfits have to either pay the leeches or choose a less useful name that is more difficult to remember.
If you're reserving a name for future real use I see nothing wrong in using it in the meantime. It's the massive bulk squatting and massive auto-generated spamming that annoy me. It blocks real, creative domain-name users.
It was all part of an electronics toy set called "Electronic Engineering", where you could build various gadgets by connecting components in predefined ways. Very cool, but unfortunately I was far too young to understand what I was doing. Still it did capture my attention and speed me on the road to geekdom.
Even so, I'd try everything I could before resorting to paying the leeches. It's just too distasteful for words.
On the contrary, Slashdot users are from everywhere around the globe. Not everyone has English as their first language. And yet they're definitely welcome.
And when I say welcome, obviously I'm thinking of everyone except you. Asshole.
Just wait until they realize how detailed the actual streets are, and how terrorists could use them for planning. They'll issue orders that the actual streets be blurred.
But the idea is to limit the current oligopoly, so the regulation should probably state that a computer with specifically Windows pre-installed should have a second operating system. No use hitting Apple which isn't an oligopoly.
A Tivo isn't a general-purpose computer for office work. The regulation should of course specify systems where it makes sense and limits oligopoly.
Wouldn't modern technology allow guiding the capsule with high precision to a specific target? If so, cover a field with suitable large, soft airbags, and have a capsule carrying no airbags land in the center of this field.
Does the entire capsule have to land softly? If not, you could have only the astronaut seats land softly, inside a capsule that slams down hard.
The seats could hang in elastic fixtures that make them move just as far as external landing airbags would, just as softly or probably softer. The seats would be braked all the way through this movement, giving a more regular braking than external airbags.
The volume of air where the seats move when landing would be used for that only while landing. During flight it would be useful living/working space.
There should be regulations stating that whenever a computer is sold with a pre-installed operating system, at least two different systems must be installed, such that the user can easily choose one or the other at power-up.
Exceptions might be made for very low-cost machines.