Are these guy's going for the MOST COSTLY robot to build with a Palm?
From my calcs, this thing would cost over $250 - over the cost of a Palm!
Heck, the wheels and servos alone cost over $100!
Now, since this was all about a Palm robot, we can just say this is one part that is needed, and has other uses besides the robot, so let's not really factor it in...
So how to make a cheaper robot? Start by dropping the holonomic drive! A simple two wheel approach will work fine, and will also save you on a servo. That alone will drop your cost by over $60 (not $75, because you make up the $10-$15 by using two normal R/C aircraft landing gear wheels bolted onto the servos). Save another $6.00 on the acrylic by taping the parts to a few FREE AOL CD's (as well as possibly creating a winning entry in the previously posted UltimateChaos contest!). Save around $30 by hooking up some matched IR LED/Transistor pairs instead of the sensors (you may have to calibrate this yourself - plus you might need a few more parts - but not much more - get one of those sensor interface Forrest Mims books at RatShack while yer at it). You'll also save close to $14.00 if you already have the glue, tape, and heat shrink tubing available (any geek worth his salt BETTER have these things handy). Finally, save the $32.00 for the battery, and spend only about $10.00 of it for a used ni-cad pack for a cell phone at your neighborhood electronics junk yard (provided you live in a place that has one or two).
So, what do we have? I just told you how to save over $150 by a) dropping the holonomic drive, which only has value as being "the" thing to do in robotics today (seems like a fashion show!) b) using cheaper parts and stuff around you. Now, I say use that serial port thing, 'cause you probably couldn't do better on your own for less, and it is cheap and easy enough to use. However, know that they way they want you to build a table-top robot is a damn expensive way to go.
Oh, almost forgot - since the cheaper way to do it involves the tank-drive approach, and this is a table-top robot, you don't need casters. If you want (or need) something to rest the fore/aft portions of the robot on, use a couple felt pads.
In fact, refuse to sign, and if they hassle you, tell them why you are refusing to sign (the digitization/copying issue), and threaten to walk away and take your business "elsewhere". If they STILL refuse to cooperate - WALK AWAY - and go elsewhere (even if means you must go out of your way, DO IT).
YOU ARE IN CONTROL - NOT THEM!
This works even better if you explain your reasoning when there are several people behind you. In fact, explain to the cashier and to those in line why this is a BAD thing - as well as how it can be improved - you seem to know enough about this to be effective. Explain it to the store manager as well (they are generally called when someone refuses to sign).
Finally - don't sign in the box on the receipt. My paranoid side tells me that they probably just stuff these "manual" receipts into a bag to be digitised later. Call me paranoid, but if I were a business, or a company peddling this tech, that is what I would do (or in the case of the vendor of the tech, tout as a "feature" to prospective clients)...
* Side note - I love to do this, every time I go to Best Buy, or Sears (don't go there much, though), or Home Base (Gah! At a hardware store now?!). I just love the look on the cashier's and managers faces, like I was refusing to use a laser scanner for fear of radiation or something - heh, heh...
Want to know another scary place that _may_ initiate it? The US Post Office. They have the machines needed, same as everywhere else - so far though, I haven't been asked to use it (when purchasing money orders for Ebay transactions)...
Probably too late to be noticed...
on
KBasic
·
· Score: 2
But, as a Linux newbie who has several years experience with VB (since the 3.0 days), I think this is a step in the right direction - but not for the reasons you may think...
Forget the language - it's the IDE that I want.
This is probably the ONLY thing M$ has done right - an IDE that has a "forms" editor (to lay out your windows), an attribute settings editor (to modify controls), code editing windows (intrinsically tied to the controls*), and controls to drop on the form, to build the forms easily.
I don't know of any comparable system for Linux (now, I know I am showing my lack of Linux knowledge here - I am sure there are good IDEs, and code editors, and maybe even form layout editors for X - who knows? - I just haven't gotten to the point of investigating about them yet). I know there is some similar things for Java...
After I learned C/C++ (stronger in C than C++ - yes, amazingly I am a coder who knows about both!), I realized that what I wanted was the ability to have an IDE like VB's, but the ability to write the "glue" code in C/C++ (and glue code is what most of VB is - it is almost possible to build an app in VB, that does useful work, without writing a line of code - that isn't to say it will be a perfect app - nay, one needs to add code to add exception handling, so that one doesn't screw up a DB table or something). Such a beast has yet to appear - the closest I have seen has been some of the Java IDEs.
If this could be done - if the Linux dev community can see past it's arrogance (yes, VB is limiting in some respects, but it is also very powerful - if only in the RAD arena alone - once you know how to leverage it, it can be great for many types of applications - Quake clone? Unlikely - Frontend for data visualization - Done every day), they would realize the importance of the IDE, and not of the language (this also assumes the IDE will be extractable from the rest of the code).
(*) - This is one of the powers of the VB IDE above VisualC (and the few other IDEs for other languages/platforms). With VisualC, one must build the form(s), then build the code, then do a wierd "hooking" process to "attach" the code to the various events that the form sends out, so that when an event occurs, the code is executed (and overrides a default action). Then the programmer can compile and link the app to form an executable. I like the way VB does this - just double-click the control, select the event procedure to override, and code - then compile to "test" the app. A real RAD tool...
I will say something for this article - it made me think. It made me question what I believe will happen. It made me step away and consider other alternatives.
For that alone, the article has merit.
However, other things Jaron writes about seem to infer on his part a lack of knowledge of certain subjects. One instance that I know of is his questioning why nature hasn't come up with the wheel in the course of evolution. My answer would be it probably has something to do with the disconnect between the wheel and what it rotates on. Being able to supply the chemical nourishment to the "moving" part is difficult - the best you could hope for in a bio-wheel would be some form of membrane transfer (like that which occurs in our lungs, to get oxygen into the blood cells), however, the wheel would have to rotate slowly enough for this to actually work (now, if I am wrong about all of this, someone please correct me). But we do have "almost wheels" in nature - certain bacteria flaggella, and of course the ball and socket joints used throughout the body.
I don't know - what Lanier writes about seems to make sense and non-sense - but at least it will keep me thinking...
I understand what you are saying - but I wasn't thinking this thing would be small - I was thinking that this device would actually be pretty huge (with dishes the size of the larger air-bearing mounted dishes). Still, you are right in saying that the amount of light that would be collected would be small (since this thing would work similarly to a motion picture camera, in a stop-motion time-domain kind of way) - this would limit its usefulness to real-time study at best, and time-lapse would be next to impossible, I would imagine.
Let's say you sped up the rotation of the thing - let's say you could spin the sucker (man, and would it be a sight!) up to 2000 rpm - increasing the sampling rate - would this help? I know it would be dangerous, for certain - if it were even possible.
IOW, there is a difference between a mirror that is always there in one position, vs one that is there for brief blips of time (with longer times in between where it is not there). But what if those brief blips happened so fast (due to higher speed and more spinning mirrors) that at any one point on the disk, if looked at steadily, the mirror was always "on" (just "flickering" rapidly)?
Of course, I just thought of something that would mess up everything - Corriolis force/precession issues. If it didn't destroy the machine outright, it most certainly will cause problems with the mercury.
NBD - it was all just a thought exercise anyhow. Thanks for replying!
You don't say whether the install of 98 is a "real" install, or an install from a copy of another CD (ie, a copy you don't own). We can assume you own it, but think about this:
Might it not be possible that Windows 98 did some surrepticious "upgrading" during the night? Maybe IE5 asked to upgrade (I have seen this happen several times), and you said "sure, why not" - and that upgrade added a bit of code to cause Windows 98 to verify that it was a legal copy with M$'s servers. Or maybe it checked to see if you had Linux installed in another partition (somehow). Then, if either of these tests failed, it refuses to boot up (or maybe it erased part of itself to cause the bootup to fail, or something similar).
Now, more than likely, this is not the case - I would look into all the other suggestions first. However, given the way M$ has been acting lately, and given all of the other crap we have seen in the recent past with companies ROUTINELY violating peoples rights and machines, can you really blame me for thinking this?
I say you tell M$ where to stick it, and nuke the partition to allow your Linux one room to grow (unless you have some dire need on the M$ side, that isn't or can't be replicated to some extent on the Linux side)...
I don't know about you, but this guy definitely wasn't too bright. He needs to take a tip from OC'ers, and learn to dump the heat.
Where, you might ask?
Well, if I was growing MJ, and wanting to dump the heat in the least expensive, but most innocent looking way, I would build myself a large swimming pool, preferably with one end for diving (>10 feet deep). After digging the hole (but prior to the cement pouring), I would lay copper tubing coils all over the bottom, bringing the taps up near the pumps. I would set up an extra pump, and a heat exchanger to wherever my growing area was at, insulate the hell out of everything (to make sure heat doesn't escape through the walls or ceiling), install some nice air circulators to circulate the air through the heat exchanger, then pump a brine/antifreeze mixture through the whole thing. I might even go so far as to build a "spa" to monitor ambient vs. cooling pond (for that is what the pool would be) temperatures.
Heh, who'd of thought there would be a need to put a heatsink on your MJ growing op?
I was just now thinking, as perhaps a "kickoff" to get others thinking:
1. Ok, by rotating the mercury, a parabolic shape is created that can be used as a mirror (I have that SciAm article somewhere - nifty to do it with epoxy!), but it can only point "up" (at whatever latitude you are at).
2. Now, imagine if you created "artificial" gravity via a centrifuge-like device, that whirled these spinning dishes of mercury around (and you thought a single dish might cause problems!) - multiple dishes, angled (via a gimbal arangement, so that the vector for "down" can rotate about a "roll" axis) around this whirly thing - speed the thing up to allow the dishes to point in, slow it down to allow them to point more "vertical".
3. Use a computer to "select" which dish to use, which will be one in a certain position - the dishes could be "snapshot" selected as they come into position.
What I am trying to explain is hard to explain - I hope a few people understand. I also wonder if there would be some kind of anomolies in the "mirror" due to the various force vectors at play (leading to distortion in the surface)...
Heh - your comment about building "a mic and speakers from raw components" brought back a memory from when I was a kid:
I wanted some speakers (actually, a complete stereo, but I wasn't going to push it) for my bedroom, and everything I had (scrounged radio speakers, other crap speakers) never sounded too good. I wanted some 12's - but my parents wouldn't by them for me - so I went on a quest to get "big sound".
I ended up trying a variety of things - I built a bass tube using a carpet paper tube and a four inch mid-range/tweeter I had (I took off the tweeter, and pasted a piece of paper over the hole where the coil was). I used some info I gleaned from an old pop-sci issue I had discussing the Bose Acoustimass system (3:1 ratio on the tube). That sounded pretty nice, actually.
I even tried to build my own speaker from some construction paper, a box, some magnet wire (from an old motor), a toilet paper tube (for the coil form), and a piece of an old speaker magnet. I never got good sound from this - but I did get some sound - enough to listen to, at least.
Speakers aren't hard to build - microphones aren't either (and I have a copy of The Boy Electrician, so I can give it to MY son).
Maybe they can take my soldering iron away - big deal: a dowel, a nail, and a gas stove are all I need then.
Scarily (is this a word?), this is possible, in some respect:
http://www.raven1.net/index.html
Admittedly, this site seems like one big rant and raving of a loon - but look into "voice to skull" technology - dig deep enough, and you WILL find proposals for such experimentation, at.mil and.gov sites (whether or not such proposals have been followed through is up in the air).
Many of these devices rely on technology similar to the "personal dance floor" stuff that was posted here on/. several weeks back. That of non-linearity of air, and other interfaces (such as using an ultrasound/microwave carrier frequency for the audio, then the carrier is filtered from the signal via normal acoustic means for ultrasonic, and via neural activity for microwave). The patents are all out there, just look.
While never actually, built or tested, such a plane was designed, to use "coal (or paraffin coated lignite dust) for fuel", according to the following site:
http://visi.net/~djohnson/lippisch/lip13b.html BTW - Check out other planes on this site - very strange stuff!
Yeah - a friend of mine learned this in another way - never wear a white t-shirt when arc-welding (unless one uses those wrap-around goggles, of course one would still need some kind of face mask, unless they liked to get hit in the face with bits of molten metal). He did that one day, and the light creeped up underneath the mask - needless to say, he had a very painful experience not long after he was done welding...
Nuts and Volts magazine ran a series of articles (later condensed into a small booklet for subscribers) a while back detailing how to do it (make the X/Y table, the Z head, adding a Dremel), but it could still set you back a grand...
Here in Phoenix, I was milling (no pun intended) around a place downtown (behind BOB), called Equipment Exchange - pretty cool place. Lots of chip fab equipment, much of it in VERY used condition - but there were a few gems. My favorite devices were the industrial robots (they actually had a Unimate! The thing was HUGE!). But one thing I did find in the expansive warehouse (it has to be seen to be believed), was three or four assembling tables of some sort (I think they were for SMT work, but not sure - for like auto-gluing of chips, or something).
Each table had a small X/Y board, with nice lead screws, and a small Z head. Each lead screw was powered by a stepper, with extremely smooth movement. The table even had a custom XT mounted on it.
I didn't ask the price of anything I saw (for one, I didn't know who to ask, as I was the only person in the warehouse, and two, it seemed like most of the stuff was out-of-range pricewise for me, and I didn't really have much need for any of it - I was just checking the place out), so I don't know how much one cost - but I imagine they might let you have one for a few hundred (for all I know, maybe even less!)...
Anyhow, that is what I found - so a homebrew job might be possible, if you know where to shop.
BTW (and totally OT): All you Apple IIe nuts in Phoenix: there was a stash of HUNDREDS of Apple IIe floppies in the bottom of the warehouse - in a couple of cases, they were in fair condition - I would guess around 1000 floppies total. Many cool programs (I found several Eamon disks in the stack).
I like the product, and it has an excellent price for what you are getting, but I would be willing to pay $150-200 if it was wireless. Heck, it would be more useful if it had a longer cord - but wireless is truely where it would be great.
Imagine creating a web-cam bot that could roam around the house (at least until its batteries died) under control from a web page based interface!
I guess until they do this, one will have to cobble together thier own wireless cam solution (maybe one of those X-Cams mounted on the bot)...
I first read this book years ago - at least 12 years ago - I was probably in High School or something (gawd I feel OLD!). I have since reread it many times, and have a paperback copy sitting proudly on one of my shelves.
Since reading this review, I realize that the time has come for me to re-read it again (right after I finish the current one I am reading - something called "Net-Slaves", not a very "great" book, but OK, and funny in areas).
If you haven't read Hackers, I urge you to pick up a copy and do so - a truely great read.
I hate this CueCat thing as much as the next geek (I got mine - free and clear, no trace), as well as all the bull that went on with the iOpener, etc.
Seriously, why don't we build our own open-source bar-code scanning solution? True, one can get laser and wand scanners that output to serial ASCII pretty cheap and all, but even for those one must surf the used market. Doing it ourselves though is the way we work - we are geeks, right? A soldering iron and some simple parts never hurt anyone (outside of a burn here or there, right?)...
These devices are simple! Something could be built quite easily with a handful of parts (heck, most or all could be found in a busted remote control). Find something to stuff it all in, and a scanner can be built.
What isn't so obvious is the software to decode the barcode - plenty to normalize the scanning speed, direction of scan, and probably a million other things that I don't know of would need to be coded, but come on! Open Source enthusiasts have managed to put together amazing packages of complexity - a bar-code decoding package shouldn't be too difficult, I would think. What is stopping us?
I would think that we could come up with a true open design for a wand style reader, made from a few parts (I would imagine on the low end the scanner would consist of a high brightness red LED, a phototransistor, and a low val resistor, like 470 ohm - vcc (5 volts) would be run through the resistor (to drop current and voltage a bit), then split to drive the collector of the phototran, and the LED. The emitter of the phototran (I am thinking a NPN phototran here) could drive a pin on a parallel port. Throw all of this into a nifty case - like a BIC pen). Once the code is done (GPL'd, of course), distribute it with schematics for the reader, maybe a few pictures of a completed sample device, and construction hints...
I heard that in AU some guy had a local (regional?) chain of hamburger joints named "Burger King" - completely legal (in AU), but boy did the bruhaha start when the "real" BK decided to establish "down under" - in the end, BK (US) called themselves something else in AU (though I never heard what name they did choose - anyone know?)...
Well, that clears that up, and nixes all my points - except for one:
Why isn't anybody (the manufacturers) doing anything to shield this stuff (the airplane control systems, or the CD/DVD drives), so that there won't be any problems (from interference)?
It's almost like someone saying "BRR! It's chilly in here" on a winter day, yet refusing to do anything about the window that is open, and instead putting on a jacket (of course, I have known of people who have done this - such is stupidity)...
Free binaries? Or is source code included? If source is included, is it just there for educational purposes (like many game coding books do), but you retain copyright?
To be honest, I don't think there is a lot you can do, outside of bad press. Maybe the best thing to do is learn from it, and move on. If you have invested a ton of time into the coding, ask yourself what the time was worth - maybe it would be better to go the legal route...
Your situation sounds like something that happened to me, though my situation wasn't as clear cut. I created a game, and sent it to a game dev company here in Phoenix (under an NDA aggreement), trying to get my foot in the door for a job (no luck). They played it and liked it, but they were looking for 3D developers (it was a 2D game), so no dice (NBD, I thought).
A few months later, I am looking around, and found a web site with a Windows version (mine was DOS only) of nearly my exact game (even the name was similar)! Since I don't know who released the game (it definitely wasn't the game dev company I contacted - I thought it might either be a coincidence, or one of the coders at the company ripped the idea), I decided "What the heck, I have nothing to lose" - and released the full code to the game (can't remember if I did it under GPL, or PD - doesn't matter) on my web site (prior to that, it was the binary only).
I didn't feel like a drawn out battle over such a fuzzy issue - it wasn't blatent enough to warrant anything like that...
Well, I never said that I wasn't an abnormality in the "system", but the way you phrased the question may it seem like you were targeting individuals:
You will never go to your local food store and aruge for a better price.
If you were meaning to target the group as a whole, then a better phrasing would have been:
The average American would never go to the local food store and aruge for a better price.
I can't say that I have been to a country where one is expected to barter (closest I can admit to would be a Mexican border town - usually you can barter there, it isn't unheard of, but vendors get ansy when they see an American bartering), but I would imagine I would enjoy it. I tend to only barter if I feel the price is unfair, or if I would like to get a lower price (if I feel the product is worth what it is marked at, then I will pay what it is marked at, no questions asked - it doesn't matter if it is a flea market, garage sale, or car dealership - fair is fair).
You are right in saying that "when you shop in a US store, you aren't expected to barter" - but just because you are expected to do something, doesn't mean you have to, or should...
You will never go to your local food store and aruge for a better price.
Bzzt - try again. I am an American, and I love to haggle. If I go into a grocery store, and see a product at one price that I know that I can get elsewhere for less, I will let the manager know, and let him know that I am fully prepared to walk out of the store, not buy ANYTHING, and spend my money at a competitor. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
What really gripes me is the way they screw with you on "bulk" pricing. A store may charge $3.99/lb for chicken breast, for a four breast package. But the "family" pack of 20 breasts may go for $2.99/lb. WTF? The family size took more effort to prepare than the smaller pack (more pieces to put in the pack, generally by hand - but if by machine, then it shouldn't matter). On top of this, both packs are store brand packs, packed at the same store - from the same bulk purchase by the store. Thus, the difference in the pack isn't the amount of chicken in the pack, nor the amount of effort to prepare the pack, nor where the chicken came from. So why is it?
It is simply by what they define as "family". Apparently, they define a family as 2 adults, 2 kids - with a big freezer to stick all that meat in. They have never heard of a 2 person family with a small freezer who like to prepare meals the "european" style (ie, going to the store several times a week - or daily - rather than "stocking" up).
When I see this practice, I haggle. Hardly ever win though (gotta love the people's looks around me - they think I'm nuts - I love it!).
Regarding car buying: Many people like to haggle when buying a car - what people don't like is the shitty way salesmen treat them during the process, such as leading them away from the car they want, trying to get them in a higher priced car, or doing bait-and-switch style tactics. I am not saying everyone loves to haggle for a car, but quite a few people do.
Lastly - regarding yard sales in America - yes, people do still haggle at them - but I have had a few yard sales in the last couple of years, and have been to many more. What I have been seeing is people NOT haggling at yard sales, which was strange (like every item had FIRM marked on it, or something)...
they used a continuous beam of X-rays which were strong enough to light up a fluorescent screen with an image of the child's foot!
I am too young to remember them, but I do know of them.
All you/.'ers out there, if you want a real treat - try to find a copy of "The Boy Electrician" by Alfred Morgan. A rare classic, this book actually shows the kid of yesteryear how to build the device spoken of above (a fluoroscope, back when one could buy an x-ray tube nearly anywhere), as well as a host of other fascinating devices from the time (mostly motors, and other electrical gadgets)...
If I had one of these calcs (my standard sci calc TI something or another works fine for what I need it for - but I understand others have different needs)...
From what I have read, these calcs take 4 AAA batteries. This would probably be a 6 volt source. I would hook up a connector to the battery compartment, wired in parallel with the batteries, and use NiMH batteries as suggested, and charge them from a charger. This would be a very practical solution, and not too hard to implement.
Now, add the solar cells panel - go down to a Harbor Freight or Fry's Electronics (HF will be cheaper, but work with what you have), and pick up a 12 volt car battery solar charging system. These systems generally consist of a 12 volt panel of solar cells, sometimes two or three wired in parallel to up the current for charging a car battery. Get the smallest one you can.
Once you have the panel, you will need to open it up, and rewire the cells to be two (or however many) strings of cells, wired in parallel, each string of cells producing 6 volts. You essentially want enough current to charge the batteries, but not too much to fry them (by quick charging them for too long). If you want to find the current output, wire a 1 meg resistor as your load across the contacts, then check the voltage across the resistor, I=V/R (I may be wrong here - but this stuff is easy to look up, and I know I am close).
Most solar cells typically generate only.5 volts or less per cell, at typically 10-30 ma of current capacity. That would be 12-15 cells per string. If you want to make you own panel, look for solar cell grab bags - the cells migh be broken, but they are more than usable still...
Slashdot Mirror
Are these guy's going for the MOST COSTLY robot to build with a Palm?
From my calcs, this thing would cost over $250 - over the cost of a Palm!
Heck, the wheels and servos alone cost over $100!
Now, since this was all about a Palm robot, we can just say this is one part that is needed, and has other uses besides the robot, so let's not really factor it in...
So how to make a cheaper robot? Start by dropping the holonomic drive! A simple two wheel approach will work fine, and will also save you on a servo. That alone will drop your cost by over $60 (not $75, because you make up the $10-$15 by using two normal R/C aircraft landing gear wheels bolted onto the servos). Save another $6.00 on the acrylic by taping the parts to a few FREE AOL CD's (as well as possibly creating a winning entry in the previously posted UltimateChaos contest!). Save around $30 by hooking up some matched IR LED/Transistor pairs instead of the sensors (you may have to calibrate this yourself - plus you might need a few more parts - but not much more - get one of those sensor interface Forrest Mims books at RatShack while yer at it). You'll also save close to $14.00 if you already have the glue, tape, and heat shrink tubing available (any geek worth his salt BETTER have these things handy). Finally, save the $32.00 for the battery, and spend only about $10.00 of it for a used ni-cad pack for a cell phone at your neighborhood electronics junk yard (provided you live in a place that has one or two).
So, what do we have? I just told you how to save over $150 by a) dropping the holonomic drive, which only has value as being "the" thing to do in robotics today (seems like a fashion show!) b) using cheaper parts and stuff around you. Now, I say use that serial port thing, 'cause you probably couldn't do better on your own for less, and it is cheap and easy enough to use. However, know that they way they want you to build a table-top robot is a damn expensive way to go.
Oh, almost forgot - since the cheaper way to do it involves the tank-drive approach, and this is a table-top robot, you don't need casters. If you want (or need) something to rest the fore/aft portions of the robot on, use a couple felt pads.
I support the EFF - do you?
Nope - OTS serial servo interface board - go to the site and read it...
I support the EFF - do you?
Want to NOT be nervous next time?
REFUSE TO SIGN!
REFUSE TO SIGN!
REFUSE TO SIGN!
In fact, refuse to sign, and if they hassle you, tell them why you are refusing to sign (the digitization/copying issue), and threaten to walk away and take your business "elsewhere". If they STILL refuse to cooperate - WALK AWAY - and go elsewhere (even if means you must go out of your way, DO IT).
YOU ARE IN CONTROL - NOT THEM!
This works even better if you explain your reasoning when there are several people behind you. In fact, explain to the cashier and to those in line why this is a BAD thing - as well as how it can be improved - you seem to know enough about this to be effective. Explain it to the store manager as well (they are generally called when someone refuses to sign).
Finally - don't sign in the box on the receipt. My paranoid side tells me that they probably just stuff these "manual" receipts into a bag to be digitised later. Call me paranoid, but if I were a business, or a company peddling this tech, that is what I would do (or in the case of the vendor of the tech, tout as a "feature" to prospective clients)...
* Side note - I love to do this, every time I go to Best Buy, or Sears (don't go there much, though), or Home Base (Gah! At a hardware store now?!). I just love the look on the cashier's and managers faces, like I was refusing to use a laser scanner for fear of radiation or something - heh, heh...
Want to know another scary place that _may_ initiate it? The US Post Office. They have the machines needed, same as everywhere else - so far though, I haven't been asked to use it (when purchasing money orders for Ebay transactions)...
I support the EFF - do you?
But, as a Linux newbie who has several years experience with VB (since the 3.0 days), I think this is a step in the right direction - but not for the reasons you may think...
Forget the language - it's the IDE that I want.
This is probably the ONLY thing M$ has done right - an IDE that has a "forms" editor (to lay out your windows), an attribute settings editor (to modify controls), code editing windows (intrinsically tied to the controls*), and controls to drop on the form, to build the forms easily.
I don't know of any comparable system for Linux (now, I know I am showing my lack of Linux knowledge here - I am sure there are good IDEs, and code editors, and maybe even form layout editors for X - who knows? - I just haven't gotten to the point of investigating about them yet). I know there is some similar things for Java...
After I learned C/C++ (stronger in C than C++ - yes, amazingly I am a coder who knows about both!), I realized that what I wanted was the ability to have an IDE like VB's, but the ability to write the "glue" code in C/C++ (and glue code is what most of VB is - it is almost possible to build an app in VB, that does useful work, without writing a line of code - that isn't to say it will be a perfect app - nay, one needs to add code to add exception handling, so that one doesn't screw up a DB table or something). Such a beast has yet to appear - the closest I have seen has been some of the Java IDEs.
If this could be done - if the Linux dev community can see past it's arrogance (yes, VB is limiting in some respects, but it is also very powerful - if only in the RAD arena alone - once you know how to leverage it, it can be great for many types of applications - Quake clone? Unlikely - Frontend for data visualization - Done every day), they would realize the importance of the IDE, and not of the language (this also assumes the IDE will be extractable from the rest of the code).
(*) - This is one of the powers of the VB IDE above VisualC (and the few other IDEs for other languages/platforms). With VisualC, one must build the form(s), then build the code, then do a wierd "hooking" process to "attach" the code to the various events that the form sends out, so that when an event occurs, the code is executed (and overrides a default action). Then the programmer can compile and link the app to form an executable. I like the way VB does this - just double-click the control, select the event procedure to override, and code - then compile to "test" the app. A real RAD tool...
I support the EFF - do you?
I will say something for this article - it made me think. It made me question what I believe will happen. It made me step away and consider other alternatives.
For that alone, the article has merit.
However, other things Jaron writes about seem to infer on his part a lack of knowledge of certain subjects. One instance that I know of is his questioning why nature hasn't come up with the wheel in the course of evolution. My answer would be it probably has something to do with the disconnect between the wheel and what it rotates on. Being able to supply the chemical nourishment to the "moving" part is difficult - the best you could hope for in a bio-wheel would be some form of membrane transfer (like that which occurs in our lungs, to get oxygen into the blood cells), however, the wheel would have to rotate slowly enough for this to actually work (now, if I am wrong about all of this, someone please correct me). But we do have "almost wheels" in nature - certain bacteria flaggella, and of course the ball and socket joints used throughout the body.
I don't know - what Lanier writes about seems to make sense and non-sense - but at least it will keep me thinking...
I support the EFF - do you?
I understand what you are saying - but I wasn't thinking this thing would be small - I was thinking that this device would actually be pretty huge (with dishes the size of the larger air-bearing mounted dishes). Still, you are right in saying that the amount of light that would be collected would be small (since this thing would work similarly to a motion picture camera, in a stop-motion time-domain kind of way) - this would limit its usefulness to real-time study at best, and time-lapse would be next to impossible, I would imagine.
Let's say you sped up the rotation of the thing - let's say you could spin the sucker (man, and would it be a sight!) up to 2000 rpm - increasing the sampling rate - would this help? I know it would be dangerous, for certain - if it were even possible.
IOW, there is a difference between a mirror that is always there in one position, vs one that is there for brief blips of time (with longer times in between where it is not there). But what if those brief blips happened so fast (due to higher speed and more spinning mirrors) that at any one point on the disk, if looked at steadily, the mirror was always "on" (just "flickering" rapidly)?
Of course, I just thought of something that would mess up everything - Corriolis force/precession issues. If it didn't destroy the machine outright, it most certainly will cause problems with the mercury.
NBD - it was all just a thought exercise anyhow. Thanks for replying!
I support the EFF - do you?
You don't say whether the install of 98 is a "real" install, or an install from a copy of another CD (ie, a copy you don't own). We can assume you own it, but think about this:
Might it not be possible that Windows 98 did some surrepticious "upgrading" during the night? Maybe IE5 asked to upgrade (I have seen this happen several times), and you said "sure, why not" - and that upgrade added a bit of code to cause Windows 98 to verify that it was a legal copy with M$'s servers. Or maybe it checked to see if you had Linux installed in another partition (somehow). Then, if either of these tests failed, it refuses to boot up (or maybe it erased part of itself to cause the bootup to fail, or something similar).
Now, more than likely, this is not the case - I would look into all the other suggestions first. However, given the way M$ has been acting lately, and given all of the other crap we have seen in the recent past with companies ROUTINELY violating peoples rights and machines, can you really blame me for thinking this?
I say you tell M$ where to stick it, and nuke the partition to allow your Linux one room to grow (unless you have some dire need on the M$ side, that isn't or can't be replicated to some extent on the Linux side)...
I support the EFF - do you?
I don't know about you, but this guy definitely wasn't too bright. He needs to take a tip from OC'ers, and learn to dump the heat.
Where, you might ask?
Well, if I was growing MJ, and wanting to dump the heat in the least expensive, but most innocent looking way, I would build myself a large swimming pool, preferably with one end for diving (>10 feet deep). After digging the hole (but prior to the cement pouring), I would lay copper tubing coils all over the bottom, bringing the taps up near the pumps. I would set up an extra pump, and a heat exchanger to wherever my growing area was at, insulate the hell out of everything (to make sure heat doesn't escape through the walls or ceiling), install some nice air circulators to circulate the air through the heat exchanger, then pump a brine/antifreeze mixture through the whole thing. I might even go so far as to build a "spa" to monitor ambient vs. cooling pond (for that is what the pool would be) temperatures.
Heh, who'd of thought there would be a need to put a heatsink on your MJ growing op?
I support the EFF - do you?
I was just now thinking, as perhaps a "kickoff" to get others thinking:
1. Ok, by rotating the mercury, a parabolic shape is created that can be used as a mirror (I have that SciAm article somewhere - nifty to do it with epoxy!), but it can only point "up" (at whatever latitude you are at).
2. Now, imagine if you created "artificial" gravity via a centrifuge-like device, that whirled these spinning dishes of mercury around (and you thought a single dish might cause problems!) - multiple dishes, angled (via a gimbal arangement, so that the vector for "down" can rotate about a "roll" axis) around this whirly thing - speed the thing up to allow the dishes to point in, slow it down to allow them to point more "vertical".
3. Use a computer to "select" which dish to use, which will be one in a certain position - the dishes could be "snapshot" selected as they come into position.
What I am trying to explain is hard to explain - I hope a few people understand. I also wonder if there would be some kind of anomolies in the "mirror" due to the various force vectors at play (leading to distortion in the surface)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Heh - your comment about building "a mic and speakers from raw components" brought back a memory from when I was a kid:
I wanted some speakers (actually, a complete stereo, but I wasn't going to push it) for my bedroom, and everything I had (scrounged radio speakers, other crap speakers) never sounded too good. I wanted some 12's - but my parents wouldn't by them for me - so I went on a quest to get "big sound".
I ended up trying a variety of things - I built a bass tube using a carpet paper tube and a four inch mid-range/tweeter I had (I took off the tweeter, and pasted a piece of paper over the hole where the coil was). I used some info I gleaned from an old pop-sci issue I had discussing the Bose Acoustimass system (3:1 ratio on the tube). That sounded pretty nice, actually.
I even tried to build my own speaker from some construction paper, a box, some magnet wire (from an old motor), a toilet paper tube (for the coil form), and a piece of an old speaker magnet. I never got good sound from this - but I did get some sound - enough to listen to, at least.
Speakers aren't hard to build - microphones aren't either (and I have a copy of The Boy Electrician, so I can give it to MY son).
Maybe they can take my soldering iron away - big deal: a dowel, a nail, and a gas stove are all I need then.
I support the EFF - do you?
Scarily (is this a word?), this is possible, in some respect:
.mil and .gov sites (whether or not such proposals have been followed through is up in the air).
/. several weeks back. That of non-linearity of air, and other interfaces (such as using an ultrasound/microwave carrier frequency for the audio, then the carrier is filtered from the signal via normal acoustic means for ultrasonic, and via neural activity for microwave). The patents are all out there, just look.
http://www.raven1.net/index.html
Admittedly, this site seems like one big rant and raving of a loon - but look into "voice to skull" technology - dig deep enough, and you WILL find proposals for such experimentation, at
Many of these devices rely on technology similar to the "personal dance floor" stuff that was posted here on
Crazy shit, I know - but it seems real enough...
I support the EFF - do you?
Ah, yes - but they do have a speaker coil...
[/me reaches for Dremel to cut grill on "tamper proof" speakers]
I support the EFF - do you?
While never actually, built or tested, such a plane was designed, to use "coal (or paraffin coated lignite dust) for fuel", according to the following site:
http://visi.net/~djohnson/lippisch/lip13b.html
BTW - Check out other planes on this site - very strange stuff!
I support the EFF - do you?
Yeah - a friend of mine learned this in another way - never wear a white t-shirt when arc-welding (unless one uses those wrap-around goggles, of course one would still need some kind of face mask, unless they liked to get hit in the face with bits of molten metal). He did that one day, and the light creeped up underneath the mask - needless to say, he had a very painful experience not long after he was done welding...
I support the EFF - do you?
Well, you could always build one...
Nuts and Volts magazine ran a series of articles (later condensed into a small booklet for subscribers) a while back detailing how to do it (make the X/Y table, the Z head, adding a Dremel), but it could still set you back a grand...
Here in Phoenix, I was milling (no pun intended) around a place downtown (behind BOB), called Equipment Exchange - pretty cool place. Lots of chip fab equipment, much of it in VERY used condition - but there were a few gems. My favorite devices were the industrial robots (they actually had a Unimate! The thing was HUGE!). But one thing I did find in the expansive warehouse (it has to be seen to be believed), was three or four assembling tables of some sort (I think they were for SMT work, but not sure - for like auto-gluing of chips, or something).
Each table had a small X/Y board, with nice lead screws, and a small Z head. Each lead screw was powered by a stepper, with extremely smooth movement. The table even had a custom XT mounted on it.
I didn't ask the price of anything I saw (for one, I didn't know who to ask, as I was the only person in the warehouse, and two, it seemed like most of the stuff was out-of-range pricewise for me, and I didn't really have much need for any of it - I was just checking the place out), so I don't know how much one cost - but I imagine they might let you have one for a few hundred (for all I know, maybe even less!)...
Anyhow, that is what I found - so a homebrew job might be possible, if you know where to shop.
BTW (and totally OT): All you Apple IIe nuts in Phoenix: there was a stash of HUNDREDS of Apple IIe floppies in the bottom of the warehouse - in a couple of cases, they were in fair condition - I would guess around 1000 floppies total. Many cool programs (I found several Eamon disks in the stack).
I support the EFF - do you?
I like the product, and it has an excellent price for what you are getting, but I would be willing to pay $150-200 if it was wireless. Heck, it would be more useful if it had a longer cord - but wireless is truely where it would be great.
Imagine creating a web-cam bot that could roam around the house (at least until its batteries died) under control from a web page based interface!
I guess until they do this, one will have to cobble together thier own wireless cam solution (maybe one of those X-Cams mounted on the bot)...
I support the EFF - do you?
I first read this book years ago - at least 12 years ago - I was probably in High School or something (gawd I feel OLD!). I have since reread it many times, and have a paperback copy sitting proudly on one of my shelves.
Since reading this review, I realize that the time has come for me to re-read it again (right after I finish the current one I am reading - something called "Net-Slaves", not a very "great" book, but OK, and funny in areas).
If you haven't read Hackers, I urge you to pick up a copy and do so - a truely great read.
I support the EFF - do you?
I hate this CueCat thing as much as the next geek (I got mine - free and clear, no trace), as well as all the bull that went on with the iOpener, etc.
Seriously, why don't we build our own open-source bar-code scanning solution? True, one can get laser and wand scanners that output to serial ASCII pretty cheap and all, but even for those one must surf the used market. Doing it ourselves though is the way we work - we are geeks, right? A soldering iron and some simple parts never hurt anyone (outside of a burn here or there, right?)...
These devices are simple! Something could be built quite easily with a handful of parts (heck, most or all could be found in a busted remote control). Find something to stuff it all in, and a scanner can be built.
What isn't so obvious is the software to decode the barcode - plenty to normalize the scanning speed, direction of scan, and probably a million other things that I don't know of would need to be coded, but come on! Open Source enthusiasts have managed to put together amazing packages of complexity - a bar-code decoding package shouldn't be too difficult, I would think. What is stopping us?
I would think that we could come up with a true open design for a wand style reader, made from a few parts (I would imagine on the low end the scanner would consist of a high brightness red LED, a phototransistor, and a low val resistor, like 470 ohm - vcc (5 volts) would be run through the resistor (to drop current and voltage a bit), then split to drive the collector of the phototran, and the LED. The emitter of the phototran (I am thinking a NPN phototran here) could drive a pin on a parallel port. Throw all of this into a nifty case - like a BIC pen). Once the code is done (GPL'd, of course), distribute it with schematics for the reader, maybe a few pictures of a completed sample device, and construction hints...
We have an itch to scratch - let's scratch it!
I support the EFF - do you?
I heard that in AU some guy had a local (regional?) chain of hamburger joints named "Burger King" - completely legal (in AU), but boy did the bruhaha start when the "real" BK decided to establish "down under" - in the end, BK (US) called themselves something else in AU (though I never heard what name they did choose - anyone know?)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Well, that clears that up, and nixes all my points - except for one:
Why isn't anybody (the manufacturers) doing anything to shield this stuff (the airplane control systems, or the CD/DVD drives), so that there won't be any problems (from interference)?
It's almost like someone saying "BRR! It's chilly in here" on a winter day, yet refusing to do anything about the window that is open, and instead putting on a jacket (of course, I have known of people who have done this - such is stupidity)...
I support the EFF - do you?
Free binaries? Or is source code included? If source is included, is it just there for educational purposes (like many game coding books do), but you retain copyright?
To be honest, I don't think there is a lot you can do, outside of bad press. Maybe the best thing to do is learn from it, and move on. If you have invested a ton of time into the coding, ask yourself what the time was worth - maybe it would be better to go the legal route...
Your situation sounds like something that happened to me, though my situation wasn't as clear cut. I created a game, and sent it to a game dev company here in Phoenix (under an NDA aggreement), trying to get my foot in the door for a job (no luck). They played it and liked it, but they were looking for 3D developers (it was a 2D game), so no dice (NBD, I thought).
A few months later, I am looking around, and found a web site with a Windows version (mine was DOS only) of nearly my exact game (even the name was similar)! Since I don't know who released the game (it definitely wasn't the game dev company I contacted - I thought it might either be a coincidence, or one of the coders at the company ripped the idea), I decided "What the heck, I have nothing to lose" - and released the full code to the game (can't remember if I did it under GPL, or PD - doesn't matter) on my web site (prior to that, it was the binary only).
I didn't feel like a drawn out battle over such a fuzzy issue - it wasn't blatent enough to warrant anything like that...
I support the EFF - do you?
Well, I never said that I wasn't an abnormality in the "system", but the way you phrased the question may it seem like you were targeting individuals:
You will never go to your local food store and aruge for a better price.
If you were meaning to target the group as a whole, then a better phrasing would have been:
The average American would never go to the local food store and aruge for a better price.
I can't say that I have been to a country where one is expected to barter (closest I can admit to would be a Mexican border town - usually you can barter there, it isn't unheard of, but vendors get ansy when they see an American bartering), but I would imagine I would enjoy it. I tend to only barter if I feel the price is unfair, or if I would like to get a lower price (if I feel the product is worth what it is marked at, then I will pay what it is marked at, no questions asked - it doesn't matter if it is a flea market, garage sale, or car dealership - fair is fair).
You are right in saying that "when you shop in a US store, you aren't expected to barter" - but just because you are expected to do something, doesn't mean you have to, or should...
I support the EFF - do you?
You will never go to your local food store and aruge for a better price.
Bzzt - try again. I am an American, and I love to haggle. If I go into a grocery store, and see a product at one price that I know that I can get elsewhere for less, I will let the manager know, and let him know that I am fully prepared to walk out of the store, not buy ANYTHING, and spend my money at a competitor. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
What really gripes me is the way they screw with you on "bulk" pricing. A store may charge $3.99/lb for chicken breast, for a four breast package. But the "family" pack of 20 breasts may go for $2.99/lb. WTF? The family size took more effort to prepare than the smaller pack (more pieces to put in the pack, generally by hand - but if by machine, then it shouldn't matter). On top of this, both packs are store brand packs, packed at the same store - from the same bulk purchase by the store. Thus, the difference in the pack isn't the amount of chicken in the pack, nor the amount of effort to prepare the pack, nor where the chicken came from. So why is it?
It is simply by what they define as "family". Apparently, they define a family as 2 adults, 2 kids - with a big freezer to stick all that meat in. They have never heard of a 2 person family with a small freezer who like to prepare meals the "european" style (ie, going to the store several times a week - or daily - rather than "stocking" up).
When I see this practice, I haggle. Hardly ever win though (gotta love the people's looks around me - they think I'm nuts - I love it!).
Regarding car buying: Many people like to haggle when buying a car - what people don't like is the shitty way salesmen treat them during the process, such as leading them away from the car they want, trying to get them in a higher priced car, or doing bait-and-switch style tactics. I am not saying everyone loves to haggle for a car, but quite a few people do.
Lastly - regarding yard sales in America - yes, people do still haggle at them - but I have had a few yard sales in the last couple of years, and have been to many more. What I have been seeing is people NOT haggling at yard sales, which was strange (like every item had FIRM marked on it, or something)...
I support the EFF - do you?
they used a continuous beam of X-rays which were strong enough to light up a fluorescent screen with an image of the child's foot!
/.'ers out there, if you want a real treat - try to find a copy of "The Boy Electrician" by Alfred Morgan. A rare classic, this book actually shows the kid of yesteryear how to build the device spoken of above (a fluoroscope, back when one could buy an x-ray tube nearly anywhere), as well as a host of other fascinating devices from the time (mostly motors, and other electrical gadgets)...
I am too young to remember them, but I do know of them.
All you
I support the EFF - do you?
If I had one of these calcs (my standard sci calc TI something or another works fine for what I need it for - but I understand others have different needs)...
.5 volts or less per cell, at typically 10-30 ma of current capacity. That would be 12-15 cells per string. If you want to make you own panel, look for solar cell grab bags - the cells migh be broken, but they are more than usable still...
From what I have read, these calcs take 4 AAA batteries. This would probably be a 6 volt source. I would hook up a connector to the battery compartment, wired in parallel with the batteries, and use NiMH batteries as suggested, and charge them from a charger. This would be a very practical solution, and not too hard to implement.
Now, add the solar cells panel - go down to a Harbor Freight or Fry's Electronics (HF will be cheaper, but work with what you have), and pick up a 12 volt car battery solar charging system. These systems generally consist of a 12 volt panel of solar cells, sometimes two or three wired in parallel to up the current for charging a car battery. Get the smallest one you can.
Once you have the panel, you will need to open it up, and rewire the cells to be two (or however many) strings of cells, wired in parallel, each string of cells producing 6 volts. You essentially want enough current to charge the batteries, but not too much to fry them (by quick charging them for too long). If you want to find the current output, wire a 1 meg resistor as your load across the contacts, then check the voltage across the resistor, I=V/R (I may be wrong here - but this stuff is easy to look up, and I know I am close).
Most solar cells typically generate only
I support the EFF - do you?