The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night. (Jean Baudrillard)
IN 1989, BEFORE HTML EXISTED, A PRE-BROWSER REMOTE UI WAS PROPOSED: jWindows. But it was botched, and never implemented -- good ideas are a dime a dozen. HTML came, and it ended up trying to shove a UI through a browser window, and now we're stuck with it.
here's a look back at a windowing extension of the ASCII command set, just another good idea that was not to be...
--| jWindows spec, v1.0.2 |---
Modem Windowing and E-Mail Retrieval Standard JWindows and JScript Version 1.02 - July 9, 1989 By J.PENNER (GEnie)
One paragraph on JWindows Background: I am proposing a new standard for telecomunications. It is called JWindows, and JScript. JWindows will allow the average programmer to add window and graphic capabilities to his/her bbs program with minimal effort. It provides an alternative to the limited ANSI control codes for cursor positioning, and color, and is much easier to implement then a huge, complex spec like X-Windows. JWindows is maybe not the most comprehensive set of windowing features, but one of it's main advantages is it's relative simplicity, and it strives for portability among machines, so that an IBM user can phone up a Macintosh, and receive JWindows properly, and an Amiga equiped with a JWindows type terminal program, can receive Window commands from a VAX. JScript attempts to standardize the accessing of some pretty standard features on BBS's: Entering in your name and password, Reading Mail Addressed to You, and Up/Downloading a File. So, enough talk, let's get to the proposal...
This proposal comes in two parts:
1. This first part is the Windowing standard called JWindows, it allows Macintoshes, and PC's the ability to send Windows, Buttons, Menus, and Some Graphics over the phone to any other Mac or PC which has a terminal program supporting this simple protocol.
2. The Second part of this proposal deals with a standard form for computer scripts to automatically access a BBS, or information service to do such basic operations like: Logging On, Logging Off, Retrieving Mail Sent to You, Reading New Bulletins, and Up/Downloading a File.
Part I - Windowing Standard for Telecommunications Programs
There are two ends to this, the terminal that recieves the commands (typically Joe User Phoning up a service like GEnie, or his favorite BBS) will be called the Host, and the BBS Program, or Information Service (like GEnie, or CompuServe hint hint) will be called the Sender. Now this Standard aims to be fairly straightforward in it's approach, When the Sender sends a String (under the Heading "String") the Host will respond by doing the appropriate action on the screen. If none of these special escape sequences are sent, then text sent to the host will appear at the current cursor position just as text has always appeared in terminal programs. All coordinates are given in pixels, and start at 0,0 in the top left corner of the screen, for a rectangle, the coordinates will be given as: a,b,c,d So, a will be the left side of the rectangle (sometimes called X1), and b will be the Top of the Rectangle (sometimes called Y1), and c will be the right side of the rectangle (sometimes called X2), and d will be the bottom of the rectangle (sometimes called Y2). Keep in mind, a lot of these commands could be VERY easily implemented by someone writing a simple terminal program in Microsoft QuickBasic. Now for the commands:
Command String _______ __________________________
WINDOW 27,01,id,X,Y,Z,a,b,c,d
Makes a window - id, is of course the id number of the window the Sender wishes to create. - If X=1 then create a window if the window already is open, then ignore the command. - If X=0 then close the window, If Y=1 then Select the window, if Y=0 then Deselect the window. - Z is the Window type with valid numbers being 1,2,3,4 which corespond to the 4 macintosh wi
where's the value for the consumer in this -- when the reasoning is to 'limit the hardware capabilities of ULPCs so that they don't eat into the market for mainstream PCs running Windows Vista'...??
would you trust your life to OCR of a badly photocopied page?? basically, if the OCR proramme of the environment scanning algorithm in the robot happens to get one letter wrong -- bif! machine guns fer you!!:-P
totally agree -- for more than twenty years, i've had various text colours -- but i always come back to white text on a dark blue background (RGB = 0, 20, 50).
to get really comfortable reading text for a long time -- i find it is the background colour that counts, and dark blue is the easiest on the eyes for longs periods of time.
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself. (Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena v2)
the thing that has never been explained to me though is -- how does a quantitative change (an increase in processing power) bring about a qualitative change??... que music -- just where is it that we say -- that's where the magic happens!??
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." (Thomas Alva Edison)
"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labour." (Nikola Tesla, New York Times, October 19, 1931)
the fact that games didn't exist that another one of us had written was a huge motivation to learn how to code.
by keeping the situation in the school like that -- it keeps the motivation/reward for learning how to code high.
if kids are really young, they won't know how to code yet, and won't be able to play games 'like the rest of the kids'.
in school -- if you don't pass in maths or science, you get a failing grade. likewise, if you're never get past a certain level of programming, you simply won't be allowed to play any videogames at school.
if they're young and good, they'll get rewarded by getting to play games sooner, since once they've written a game themself, they'll be allowed to play the games others have written as well.:-)
when i grew up, the closest thing to a computer was the LED display on a digital clock. the TRS-80 and the PET came out around when we got to grade 10 -- there were no videogames in our classroom that other students hadn't written themselves. if you wanted to play pacMan, and didn't have quarters -- you'd better start coding....!
it was expected that the computer was a general purpose tool, and to get it to do something, you would have to write a programme. until visicalc came along, you would have to write your own spreadsheet! you couldn't turn on the machine without being in the commandline, and if you added a line number before what you typed, you were already entering code.
from the work of all the kids using the computer classroom, there were about 10-20 games available to us -- if you typed the RUN/ESC key, and then LIST -- it was like looking at the HTML of a web page today -- you wanted more lives in your game? you changed the variable in line 10 -- we only played the games other students in our school had written -- we had fun, and we generally also knew what made them tick.
upon reflection of the years, i think this worked out to be a good situation -- if you're in a school, it wouldn't be bad from a learning perspective to have no games except what others in the school have written. if you need someone to draw sprites or paint your 3D graphics -- then make that part of the art course. if you need to solve a kinematic joint for a character, put it on the maths test for grade 12. by the end of the year, it will have been a collaboration for the whole school to come up with one game. subsequent students will be able to play and learn from the source code former students have written. advanced students might be able to look up techniques from say, the source code of doom -- but they'll still have to write their own games using their own implementations. there's always a couple senior kids that can handle that -- especially if they've got a teacher that has loved, and grown up with code.:-)
changes in small things that are repeated bring a big long term gain. here is a set of small definite low-cost policies which could offer significant value for the improvement of the quality of life for citizens:
- car-free tax break for those who use a bike or transit
instead of car as their primary mode of transit.
- gardening tax break for those who don't use lawn mowers.
more, if they cultivate their own gardens instead of having a lawn.
credits for those who break-up parking lots with trees clumps;
hands off around rivers and watersheds.
- free government requires free software; and public data storage
requires open-formats. no proprietary formats in government period.
- congress may only approve a budget if money spent for
education exceeds amount spent for military.
- voucher system for schools -- more integration of alternative
systems such as waldorf and montessori into publicly funded schools.
- no tax on the difference between square and top-round windows.
self-performed home improvement is tax-deductable.
- free-up use of wood pulp with renewable hemp production.
- no more clear cutting; tree removed requires planting replacement.
- free the music -- public funding of artists -- the ones who receive
the money to be determined through peer-review of artistic merrit.
- recognitions of merrit -- tax break may be given when
a group in the community volunteers it in recognition
of someone's outstanding service to a local community.
- bike access corridors; setting up 'bike villages'
in depleted old downtown areas, and 'road' dollars
going to covered bike-lanes for winter along useful corridors;
require accomodation for bikes in planning malls and suburbs.
- chess taught as a standard subject in schools.
- more funding for the arts -- patronage mediated by
peer-review of funding. funded artists can be called upon
at times to be used in public classrooms for education of
the young by the best in the field.
- insofar as architects and artists get publiclly funded, they
may at times be called in for consultation to determine the
direction of how to improve basic builders habits, and help
in schools.
- encouragement for more apprenticeships in construction and
building-craft.
- sun tzu's 'art of war' to be required reading for every soldier.
a copy of steiner's 'philosphy of freedom' donated to every library.
the more things change, the more they stay the same -- now they're back to using 9 pins to implement the spec -- other than making the connectors physically different so people don't end up plugging in old RS-422 cables into it -- from the number of actual pins needed to implement a spec -- we're physically back to using 9 pins that were available in the DB9 form factor, only this connector is considerably more difficult to manufacture.:-^
most of the debate between science and religion takes place at a very stupid level -- between simple-minded religious zealots and sometimees narrow-minded scientific adherents -- therefore, it is refreshing to have a somewhat more insightful take as given by mr. albert einstein:
"It is, therefore, easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.
"What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!
"Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious workers are the only profoundly religious people.
"In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this [cosmic religious] feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. "
(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, New York, 1954)
now it is mandated that CFLs replace incandescent because of 'better energy efficiency' -- but has anyone considered that now we're going to have to live with a crappy light spectrum everywhere because of it?
halogens have a better colour spectrum than either incandescent or CFL.
and LEDs are more energy efficient than CFL.
requiring CFLs means that there will be millions of bulbs which DO have toxic mercury and other hard to decompose electronic chip components) to dispose of -- oh wait -- you didn't think they would ever burn out?? but you know its a fact that every single one of those CFL bulbs will be in the dumpster sooner or later.
we should get rid of CFLs entirely by replacing them with LEDs and Halogen.
but it IS hokey and garrish. unlike the VW beatle - which was a hard act to follow (floating cars!) -- the designers of the new VW beatle managed to upgrade a classic. this however, is definitely a downgrade. it is not going to be the KITT that people remember.
The scientists who think of Nature in the customary manner of our time, generally have no very clear idea of what constitutes the field of their researches. "Nature" has grown to be a rather vague and undefined conception. Therefore we will not take our start from the prevailing idea of what Nature is, but from the way in which the scientist of modern time will generally work.
The scientist today seeks to approach Nature from three vantage-points. In the first place he is at pains to observe Nature in such a way that from her several creatures and phenomena he may form concepts of species, kind and genus. He sub-divides and classifies the beings and phenomena of Nature. You need only recall how in external, sensory experience so many single wolves, single hyenas, single phenomena of warmth, single phenomena of electricity are given to the human being, who thereupon attempts to gather up the single phenomena into kinds and species. So then he speaks of the species "wolf" or "hyena", likewise he classifies the phenomena into species, thus grouping and comprising what is given, to begin with, in many single experiences. Now we may say, this first important activity is already taken more or less unconsciously for granted. Scientists in our time do not reflect that they should really examine how these "universals", these general ideas, are related to the single data.
The second thing, done by the man of today in scientific research, is that he tries by experiment, or by conceptual elaboration of the results of experiment, to arrive at what he calls the "causes" of phenomena. Speaking of causes, our scientists will have in mind forces or substances or even more universal entities. They speak for instance of the force of electricity, the force of magnetism, the force of heat or warmth, and so on. They speak of an unknown "ether" or the like, as underlying the phenomena of light and electricity. From the results of experiment they try to arrive at the properties of this ether. Now you are well aware how very controversial is all that can be said about the "ether" of Physics. There is one thing however to which we may draw attention even at this stage. In trying, as they put it, to go back to the causes of phenomena, the scientists are always wanting to find their way from what is known into some unknown realm. They scarcely ever ask if it is really justified thus to proceed from the known to the unknown. They scarcely trouble, for example, to consider if it is justified to say that when we perceive a phenomenon of light or colour, what we subjectively describe as the quality of colour is the effect on us, upon our soul, our nervous apparatus, of an objective process that is taking place in the universal ether -- say a wave-movement in the ether. They do not pause to think, whether it is justified thus to distinguish (what is what they really do) between the "subjective" event and the "objective", the latter being the supposed wave-movement in the ether, or else the interaction thereof with processes in ponderable matter.
Shaken though it now is to some extent, this kind of scientific outlook was predominant in the 19th century, and we still find it on all hands in the whole way the phenomena are spoken of; it still undoubtedly prevails in scientific literature to this day.
Now there is also a third way in which the scientist tries to get at the configuration of Nature. He takes the phenomena to begin with -- say, such a simple phenomenon as that a stone, let go, will fall to earth, or if suspended by a string, will pull vertically down towards the earth. Phenomena like this the scientist sums up and so arrives at what he calls a "Law of Nature". This statement for example would be regarded as a simple "Law of Nature": "Every celestial body attracts to itself the bodies that are upon it". We call the force of attraction Gravity or Gravitation and then express how it works in certain "Law
in early CD players -- there was a shift away from 16 - 24 - 48 bit DACs when someone came up with the idea to use a 1 bit DAC 16 times as fast -- the same thing is happening now with cores on a CPU -- somewhere, someone is going to think of a CPU with 4096 -- 16383 -- and yes, even 32,768 discrete 1 bit cores (!!) -- it is going to take someone substantially changing the kernal scheduler to take advantage of it -- but there WILL be thousands of cores in a single CPU within the next ten years -- but it will require a rethink in the kernal scheduler, and programmers in their habits to take advantage of it.
Slashdot Mirror
The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems
cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle
of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them.
The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization
perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his
primitive night. (Jean Baudrillard)
| Re:My vote: The Browser
IN 1989, BEFORE HTML EXISTED, A PRE-BROWSER REMOTE UI WAS PROPOSED: jWindows.
But it was botched, and never implemented -- good ideas are a dime a dozen.
HTML came, and it ended up trying to shove a UI through a browser window,
and now we're stuck with it.
here's a look back at a windowing extension of the ASCII command set,
just another good idea that was not to be...
--| jWindows spec, v1.0.2 |---
Modem Windowing and E-Mail Retrieval Standard
JWindows and JScript Version 1.02 - July 9, 1989
By J.PENNER (GEnie)
One paragraph on JWindows Background: I am proposing a new standard for telecomunications. It is called JWindows, and JScript. JWindows will allow the average programmer to add window and graphic capabilities to his/her bbs program with minimal effort. It provides an alternative to the limited ANSI control codes for cursor positioning, and color, and is much easier to implement then a huge, complex spec like X-Windows. JWindows is maybe not the most comprehensive set of windowing features, but one of it's main advantages is it's relative simplicity, and it strives for portability among machines, so that an IBM user can phone up a Macintosh, and receive JWindows properly, and an Amiga equiped with a JWindows type terminal program, can receive Window commands from a VAX. JScript attempts to standardize the accessing of some pretty standard features on BBS's: Entering in your name and password, Reading Mail Addressed to You, and Up/Downloading a File. So, enough talk, let's get to the proposal...
This proposal comes in two parts:
1. This first part is the Windowing standard called JWindows, it allows Macintoshes, and PC's the ability to send Windows, Buttons, Menus, and Some Graphics over the phone to any other Mac or PC which has a terminal program supporting this simple protocol.
2. The Second part of this proposal deals with a standard form for computer scripts to automatically access a BBS, or information service to do such basic operations like: Logging On, Logging Off, Retrieving Mail Sent to You, Reading New Bulletins, and Up/Downloading a File.
Part I - Windowing Standard for Telecommunications Programs
There are two ends to this, the terminal that recieves the commands (typically Joe User Phoning up a service like GEnie, or his favorite BBS) will be called the Host, and the BBS Program, or Information Service (like GEnie, or CompuServe hint hint) will be called the Sender. Now this Standard aims to be fairly straightforward in it's approach, When the Sender sends a String (under the Heading "String") the Host will respond by doing the appropriate action on the screen. If none of these special escape sequences are sent, then text sent to the host will appear at the current cursor position just as text has always appeared in terminal programs. All coordinates are given in pixels, and start at 0,0 in the top left corner of the screen, for a rectangle, the coordinates will be given as: a,b,c,d So, a will be the left side of the rectangle (sometimes called X1), and b will be the Top of the Rectangle (sometimes called Y1), and c will be the right side of the rectangle (sometimes called X2), and d will be the bottom of the rectangle (sometimes called Y2). Keep in mind, a lot of these commands could be VERY easily implemented by someone writing a simple terminal program in Microsoft QuickBasic. Now for the commands:
Command String
_______ __________________________
WINDOW 27,01,id,X,Y,Z,a,b,c,d
Makes a window
- id, is of course the id number of the window the Sender wishes to create.
- If X=1 then create a window if the window already is open, then ignore the command.
- If X=0 then close the window, If Y=1 then Select the window, if Y=0 then Deselect the window.
- Z is the Window type with valid numbers being 1,2,3,4 which corespond to the 4 macintosh wi
where's the value for the consumer in this -- when the reasoning is to 'limit the hardware capabilities of ULPCs so that they don't eat into the market for mainstream PCs running Windows Vista'...??
would you trust your life to OCR of a badly photocopied page?? :-P
basically, if the OCR proramme of the environment scanning
algorithm in the robot happens to get one letter wrong -- bif! machine guns fer you!!
totally agree -- for more than twenty years, i've had various text colours -- but i always come back to white text on a dark blue background (RGB = 0, 20, 50).
to get really comfortable reading text for a long time -- i find it is the background colour that counts, and dark blue is the easiest on the eyes for longs periods of time.
interesting; mod parent up.
i sure hope they don't fritz their brains by exposing themselves to that much HARSHLY modulated unshielded RF energy...
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful
as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate
a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value
than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
(Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena v2)
since i've been born -- the universe is 500 million years older or younger every ten years.
william beaty did this in 1998 - with nice animated GIFs too:
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html
the thing that has never been explained to me though is -- how does a quantitative change (an increase in processing power) bring about a qualitative change??
2cents
j
leopard broke SMB server mounts (when tiger worked fine).
sure hope this is fixed - its a deal breaker for adopting leopard.
2cents
j
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
(Thomas Alva Edison)
"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once
with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found
the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that
a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labour."
(Nikola Tesla, New York Times, October 19, 1931)
the fact that games didn't exist that another one of us had written was a huge motivation to learn how to code.
by keeping the situation in the school like that -- it keeps the motivation/reward for learning how to code high.
if kids are really young, they won't know how to code yet, and won't be able to play games 'like the rest of the kids'.
in school -- if you don't pass in maths or science, you get a failing grade. likewise, if you're never get past
a certain level of programming, you simply won't be allowed to play any videogames at school.
if they're young and good, they'll get rewarded by getting to play games sooner, since once they've written
a game themself, they'll be allowed to play the games others have written as well.
j
when i grew up, the closest thing to a computer was the LED display on a digital clock. the TRS-80 and the PET came out around when we got to grade 10 -- there were no videogames in our classroom that other students hadn't written themselves. if you wanted to play pacMan, and didn't have quarters -- you'd better start coding....!
it was expected that the computer was a general purpose tool, and to get it to do something, you would have to write a programme. until visicalc came along, you would have to write your own spreadsheet! you couldn't turn on the machine without being in the commandline, and if you added a line number before what you typed, you were already entering code.
from the work of all the kids using the computer classroom, there were about 10-20 games available to us -- if you typed the RUN/ESC key, and then LIST -- it was like looking at the HTML of a web page today -- you wanted more lives in your game? you changed the variable in line 10 -- we only played the games other students in our school had written -- we had fun, and we generally also knew what made them tick.
upon reflection of the years, i think this worked out to be a good situation -- if you're in a school, it wouldn't be bad from a learning perspective to have no games except what others in the school have written. if you need someone to draw sprites or paint your 3D graphics -- then make that part of the art course. if you need to solve a kinematic joint for a character, put it on the maths test for grade 12. by the end of the year, it will have been a collaboration for the whole school to come up with one game. subsequent students will be able to play and learn from the source code former students have written. advanced students might be able to look up techniques from say, the source code of doom -- but they'll still have to write their own games using their own implementations. there's always a couple senior kids that can handle that -- especially if they've got a teacher that has loved, and grown up with code.
2cents from toronto island,
j
changes in small things that are repeated bring a big long term gain.
here is a set of small definite low-cost policies which could offer significant
value for the improvement of the quality of life for citizens:
- car-free tax break for those who use a bike or transit
instead of car as their primary mode of transit.
- gardening tax break for those who don't use lawn mowers.
more, if they cultivate their own gardens instead of having a lawn.
credits for those who break-up parking lots with trees clumps;
hands off around rivers and watersheds.
- free government requires free software; and public data storage
requires open-formats. no proprietary formats in government period.
- congress may only approve a budget if money spent for
education exceeds amount spent for military.
- voucher system for schools -- more integration of alternative
systems such as waldorf and montessori into publicly funded schools.
- no tax on the difference between square and top-round windows.
self-performed home improvement is tax-deductable.
- free-up use of wood pulp with renewable hemp production.
- no more clear cutting; tree removed requires planting replacement.
- free the music -- public funding of artists -- the ones who receive
the money to be determined through peer-review of artistic merrit.
- recognitions of merrit -- tax break may be given when
a group in the community volunteers it in recognition
of someone's outstanding service to a local community.
- bike access corridors; setting up 'bike villages'
in depleted old downtown areas, and 'road' dollars
going to covered bike-lanes for winter along useful corridors;
require accomodation for bikes in planning malls and suburbs.
- chess taught as a standard subject in schools.
- more funding for the arts -- patronage mediated by
peer-review of funding. funded artists can be called upon
at times to be used in public classrooms for education of
the young by the best in the field.
- insofar as architects and artists get publiclly funded, they
may at times be called in for consultation to determine the
direction of how to improve basic builders habits, and help
in schools.
- encouragement for more apprenticeships in construction and
building-craft.
- sun tzu's 'art of war' to be required reading for every soldier.
a copy of steiner's 'philosphy of freedom' donated to every library.
the more things change, the more they stay the same -- now
they're back to using 9 pins to implement the spec -- other than
making the connectors physically different so people don't end up
plugging in old RS-422 cables into it -- from the number of actual
pins needed to implement a spec -- we're physically back to using
9 pins that were available in the DB9 form factor, only this connector
is considerably more difficult to manufacture.
most of the debate between science and religion takes place at a very stupid level -- between simple-minded religious zealots and sometimees narrow-minded scientific adherents -- therefore, it is refreshing to have a somewhat more insightful take as given by mr. albert einstein:
"It is, therefore, easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.
"What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!
"Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious workers are the only profoundly religious people.
"In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this [cosmic religious] feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. "
(Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, New York, 1954)
CFLs suck.
now it is mandated that CFLs replace incandescent because of 'better energy efficiency' -- but has anyone considered that now we're going to have to live with a crappy light spectrum everywhere because of it?
halogens have a better colour spectrum than either incandescent or CFL.
and LEDs are more energy efficient than CFL.
requiring CFLs means that there will be millions of bulbs which DO have toxic mercury and other hard to decompose electronic chip components) to dispose of -- oh wait -- you didn't think they would ever burn out?? but you know its a fact that every single one of those CFL bulbs will be in the dumpster sooner or later.
we should get rid of CFLs entirely by replacing them with LEDs and Halogen.
lord of the rings had one of these -- the beacons of minis tirith
signalled using blazing torches in towers just like this.
but it IS hokey and garrish. unlike the VW beatle - which was a hard act to follow (floating cars!) -- the designers of the new VW beatle managed to upgrade a classic. this however, is definitely a downgrade. it is not going to be the KITT that people remember.
cheap opinion - 2cents
how much does it cost to safely dispose of this after the twenty years are up?
10,000 years??
(the little problem nobody wants to talk about)
we're all terrorists now!
First Scientific Lecture-Course
The scientists who think of Nature in the customary manner of our time, generally have no very clear idea of what constitutes the field of their researches. "Nature" has grown to be a rather vague and undefined conception. Therefore we will not take our start from the prevailing idea of what Nature is, but from the way in which the scientist of modern time will generally work.
The scientist today seeks to approach Nature from three vantage-points. In the first place he is at pains to observe Nature in such a way that from her several creatures and phenomena he may form concepts of species, kind and genus. He sub-divides and classifies the beings and phenomena of Nature. You need only recall how in external, sensory experience so many single wolves, single hyenas, single phenomena of warmth, single phenomena of electricity are given to the human being, who thereupon attempts to gather up the single phenomena into kinds and species. So then he speaks of the species "wolf" or "hyena", likewise he classifies the phenomena into species, thus grouping and comprising what is given, to begin with, in many single experiences. Now we may say, this first important activity is already taken more or less unconsciously for granted. Scientists in our time do not reflect that they should really examine how these "universals", these general ideas, are related to the single data.
The second thing, done by the man of today in scientific research, is that he tries by experiment, or by conceptual elaboration of the results of experiment, to arrive at what he calls the "causes" of phenomena. Speaking of causes, our scientists will have in mind forces or substances or even more universal entities. They speak for instance of the force of electricity, the force of magnetism, the force of heat or warmth, and so on. They speak of an unknown "ether" or the like, as underlying the phenomena of light and electricity. From the results of experiment they try to arrive at the properties of this ether. Now you are well aware how very controversial is all that can be said about the "ether" of Physics. There is one thing however to which we may draw attention even at this stage. In trying, as they put it, to go back to the causes of phenomena, the scientists are always wanting to find their way from what is known into some unknown realm. They scarcely ever ask if it is really justified thus to proceed from the known to the unknown. They scarcely trouble, for example, to consider if it is justified to say that when we perceive a phenomenon of light or colour, what we subjectively describe as the quality of colour is the effect on us, upon our soul, our nervous apparatus, of an objective process that is taking place in the universal ether -- say a wave-movement in the ether. They do not pause to think, whether it is justified thus to distinguish (what is what they really do) between the "subjective" event and the "objective", the latter being the supposed wave-movement in the ether, or else the interaction thereof with processes in ponderable matter.
Shaken though it now is to some extent, this kind of scientific outlook was predominant in the 19th century, and we still find it on all hands in the whole way the phenomena are spoken of; it still undoubtedly prevails in scientific literature to this day.
Now there is also a third way in which the scientist tries to get at the configuration of Nature. He takes the phenomena to begin with -- say, such a simple phenomenon as that a stone, let go, will fall to earth, or if suspended by a string, will pull vertically down towards the earth. Phenomena like this the scientist sums up and so arrives at what he calls a "Law of Nature". This statement for example would be regarded as a simple "Law of Nature": "Every celestial body attracts to itself the bodies that are upon it". We call the force of attraction Gravity or Gravitation and then express how it works in certain "Law
in early CD players -- there was a shift away from 16 - 24 - 48 bit DACs when someone came up with the idea to use a 1 bit DAC 16 times as fast -- the same thing is happening now with cores on a CPU -- somewhere, someone is going to think of a CPU with 4096 -- 16383 -- and yes, even 32,768 discrete 1 bit cores (!!) -- it is going to take someone substantially changing the kernal scheduler to take advantage of it -- but there WILL be thousands of cores in a single CPU within the next ten years -- but it will require a rethink in the kernal scheduler, and programmers in their habits to take advantage of it.