You know, I'm not scared of flying. I'm not afraid of death, either. Those two seem to go together very well.
Airplanes are an engineering miracle. Does that mean I have to use them? Does that mean they can't miraculously engineer aircraft in which I can use electronics?
For business passengers, the use of a laptop is an important issue, I'm sure. For me, well, I like entertainment. I recently took a flight from San Diego to Amsterdam, and after reading Good Omens and like 4 chapters in a Human Physiology textbook, I was done reading. I pulled out my Game Boy Advance and entertained myself for the rest of the flight.
Without it, yeah, I might have been forced to talk to the nasty, old, smelly guy next to me. Had I had work to do, I would have had to put it off until I arrived. I shudder at the thought of either of those situations. I also dislike that people think that such a practice should be acceptable. If they want to boost revenues and keep me flying, they need to stop taking away the things I can do and the hassle I have to go through.
Searching on Kazaa yesterday for LOTR - The Two Towers (yes, I know, I'm such a pirate), I found about 4 files of 800MB - 1 GB in size. They all said, "Incomplete" or "Does not Work" in the filename.
It's not just that these files exist and don't work, but that people have them and just don't care. With HDs getting so large, who can blame them, either? Even a gig here and there isn't hurting most people.
So, I decided to download one of them and see. The Kazaa description was "LOTR - The Two Towers." The filename was "Eight-Legged Freaks Part 1 of 2." The actual file, upon some A/V work on my part, turned out to be several hours of audio from a trailer for The Scorpion King.
The Mona Lisa blocks light on the wall behind it. You'd see a black patch on the wall, because there'd be no light. To get this to work, you'd have to mimic light going in both directions, so that the lights in the room would "pass through" the cloak and hit the wall behind it, then bounce off and "pass through" the cloak again.
Huh? As I understand it, everything reflects light. If this cloak of invisibility works as it is intended, you could be very much concealed. The painting/couch/whatever-the-hell behind the person would be obscured by the person, yes, but the light reflected from the object to the back of the "cloak" should be represented on the front of the "cloak." Thus, standing in front of a couch should create a picture of the couch on the front of the "cloak." Thus, to the man looking from the front at the "cloak"-wearing man, he sees the room that lies behind the "cloak"-wearing man.
The real problem will be perspective, depth perception, and dealing with visual acuity. Sure, the guy in the front might be easily confused, but 10 people in a room at different angles and positions would see a man-shaped object with a couch-image spiraling around him pretty quickly and easily.
Of course, I put "cloak" in quotes because what I'm picturing is more of a poncho or drape-type garment. An actual cloak would leave some parts still visible, like a Megadeth t-shirt underneath. So no move silently bonus or ACS bonus, but +10 to hide in shadows.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I'm not scared of flying. I'm not afraid of death, either. Those two seem to go together very well.
Airplanes are an engineering miracle. Does that mean I have to use them? Does that mean they can't miraculously engineer aircraft in which I can use electronics?
For business passengers, the use of a laptop is an important issue, I'm sure. For me, well, I like entertainment. I recently took a flight from San Diego to Amsterdam, and after reading Good Omens and like 4 chapters in a Human Physiology textbook, I was done reading. I pulled out my Game Boy Advance and entertained myself for the rest of the flight.
Without it, yeah, I might have been forced to talk to the nasty, old, smelly guy next to me. Had I had work to do, I would have had to put it off until I arrived. I shudder at the thought of either of those situations. I also dislike that people think that such a practice should be acceptable. If they want to boost revenues and keep me flying, they need to stop taking away the things I can do and the hassle I have to go through.
It's more ridiculous than you might think.
Searching on Kazaa yesterday for LOTR - The Two Towers (yes, I know, I'm such a pirate), I found about 4 files of 800MB - 1 GB in size. They all said, "Incomplete" or "Does not Work" in the filename.
It's not just that these files exist and don't work, but that people have them and just don't care. With HDs getting so large, who can blame them, either? Even a gig here and there isn't hurting most people.
So, I decided to download one of them and see. The Kazaa description was "LOTR - The Two Towers." The filename was "Eight-Legged Freaks Part 1 of 2." The actual file, upon some A/V work on my part, turned out to be several hours of audio from a trailer for The Scorpion King.
I mean, Jesus. Sorry if it's a little off-topic.
The Mona Lisa blocks light on the wall behind it. You'd see a black patch on the wall, because there'd be no light. To get this to work, you'd have to mimic light going in both directions, so that the lights in the room would "pass through" the cloak and hit the wall behind it, then bounce off and "pass through" the cloak again.
Huh? As I understand it, everything reflects light. If this cloak of invisibility works as it is intended, you could be very much concealed. The painting/couch/whatever-the-hell behind the person would be obscured by the person, yes, but the light reflected from the object to the back of the "cloak" should be represented on the front of the "cloak." Thus, standing in front of a couch should create a picture of the couch on the front of the "cloak." Thus, to the man looking from the front at the "cloak"-wearing man, he sees the room that lies behind the "cloak"-wearing man.
The real problem will be perspective, depth perception, and dealing with visual acuity. Sure, the guy in the front might be easily confused, but 10 people in a room at different angles and positions would see a man-shaped object with a couch-image spiraling around him pretty quickly and easily.
Of course, I put "cloak" in quotes because what I'm picturing is more of a poncho or drape-type garment. An actual cloak would leave some parts still visible, like a Megadeth t-shirt underneath. So no move silently bonus or ACS bonus, but +10 to hide in shadows.