Get your head out of your behind and smell the coffee. How do I know? Because it happenned to me...
I started out at my last company in a cubicle, about a year or so later I had an office. Not a large one, but an office nonetheless. Things were going good, then about a year later I was moved to a smaller office. I was being paid well and the work was cool, so I didn't complain to much.
About a year after that, the office was reconstructed, while we worked, so people that had offices had to get cubes, and while some got their offices back - I didn't. I made a fuss, I tried to make deals - nothing, absolutely nothing worked. They said they didn't have room. My cubicle was a large one, but it had a weird "doorway", monitor faced out, and it was on a corner of an intersection where people naturally gravitated to hold impromptu meetings - meaning I could hear everything and had no privacy, period. Meanwhile, the office I used to have continued to be unoccupied.
For about a year this went on, and my old office continued to be unoccupied (along with about 2-3 others - but there wasn't room, remember?). I continued to have a cubicle, no privacy, and my one solace was that my supervisor allowed me to work from home over VPN three times a week, so it wasn't too bad for those two days I was in the office. My productivity never reduced, and my supervisor was pleased with my work.
Eventually, another individual moved and took my old office (me and him got along ok, so I didn't begrudge him having it), even though we supposedly "didn't have room". Whatever. Several months went by, my project was cancelled, and I was "let go"...
All in all, it was a fortunate thing to happen - I work for a business still in a "startup" phase, with fewer people than I have fingers to count them on. Furthermore, I sit in an "office" room which is quite large (24 x 16 feet), three walls of which have whiteboard space, plus a video projector and screen. I get to work on very interesting projects, and I make more money.
I don't know what my old employer was smoking, but they need to give it up.
He argues that intelligence is the ability make predictions of the future.
Sorta - I think you missed the main point:
Those "predictions" are based on matching patterns already "stored" in the neural network matrix. Basically, by his theory, our brains (at least the frontal lobes) take an input, and match that pattern via neural network cascades, which are feedback loops which hook into the motor system, hearing, visual, etc.
Among other things, this theory easily explains synesthesia - that is, the "crossing" of senses - in most people, it rarely happens, but some people it happens to all the time. Imaging smelling the color purple! Actually, this happenned to me once - to me, the color purple smells/tastes like artificial "purple" grape flavor. Ok, it was a fluke - I was drinking said soda, and thought to myself as soon as I drank it, "purple". Purple in my mind is so wired with the same flavor/color as artificial grape, that seeing or smelling or tasting one, leads to the other.
Same with how smells can trigger memories and emotions - his theory makes a lot of sense. So, the "predictions" of the future are merely pattern playbacks in our minds based on prior patterns laid down for other similar things...
...new to life, or new to the computer industry in general. Why do I say that? Let me relate a little story...
Back when I was a kid, about 15 or so years ago, my parents bought me a game for my TRS-80 Color Computer, called "Gates of Delerium", from a company in Canada called "Diecom". It was basically a clone of the old Ultima RPG. It came on a couple of floppies, and it had a custom copy protection scheme on the main game floppy that didn't allow it to be copied using the normal commands of the Color Computer disk system for backups, nor could you use anything else (the second floppy was for player data - it could be easily copied). I played that game often, but not fanatically, and took very good care of all of my disks. Then, I graduated high school, left home, went to school, time passed...
Fast forward many years: I decide to get my old system back, feeling nostalgic, etc - and having played with various emulators (mainly Jeff Vavasour's stuff), I want to get my old stuff converted and saved to preserve it. I set up my old system, and start going through the disks...
Most of my disks are fine - I am able to copy them easily. Some are corrupted, some of the stuff copies, some of it is garbled, likely lost. Some of disks are completely garbled. But then I come to my Gates of Delerium floppies...
Trying them out on my original machine, the game disk loads so far, then hangs - it seems like it is so close to loading, yet so far. The disk looks fine, not dirty, etc - but it won't load. I try making copies (even a supposedly byte-for-byte copy using various ROM routines) - but no go there, either. I try running it in the emulator (off the original floppy and a 1.2 Mb 5.25" drive) - no dice. Now I am dismayed - have I lost the game for good?
Through a lot of work, I manage to track down one of the principles of the company, one of founders, Dave Dies himself. The company Diecom is long out of business, and Dave (at the time) was doing his own software development for games on PDAs and cell phones (can't remember the name of the company off hand). I was able to get in contact with him, and talk with him about my problems, but he couldn't offer much in the way of help.
Off and on, I posted this story occasionally to various forums, most frequently here on/. - a couple of years passed since I talked with Dave, and I had basically let the matter sit - knowing that the disk might be getting worse with age, but what more could I do?
One day, I get an email from some guy in Canada, and to make a long story that was suppose to be short shorter - we ended up (along with help from another guy) getting Gates of Delerium working, at least in emulation mode. It took a special hardware disk copier made by a non-descript company in Germany which one of these guys owned, some custom code work to cause the disk controller on the CoCo to read and write non-standard tracks (which was how the copy protection mainly worked), some guesswork (which one of the guys had used to port other Diecom software to the CoCo emulator in MESS), and a little bit of luck (that three guys, only one of which owned a real copy of the game, -me-, which was partially broken - all could come together over the internet and do this - that is luck). Since that time, I have only seen *one* other copy of Gates of Delerium being sold on Ebay, and have only heard of a couple of other people who owned it or knew about it. It was -this- close to being gone forever.
In the end, would it have really mattered? No. Life wouldn't have come to a screeching halt, but the world would be just a little poorer for it, and the leftover CoCo enthusiasts and emulation fans would have also lost a bit of history, too. All this - because one company a long time ago decided that it was better to make it impossible or nearly so - to copy a piece of software. If it can happen to a lowly floppy, it can happen to a movie on a DVD - in fact, it is already happenning to DVDs - the funky "rotting" that is occurring, and delamination -
This is a pretty cool projector - I currently own a projector that is old and larger than this (and difficult as hell to find bulbs for, since they are 6V bulbs), but still pretty tiny: the Fujix P401 - it was sold (IIRC) sometime in the 80's - it was about the size of a couple of VHS tapes stacked, and the resolution is really crappy - 320x200 or something like that. Image quality isn't too bad as long as you keep it below 40" or so. At its max size of around 60" or so, pixels are pretty big and ugly, but still viewable to an extent. Colors aren't great, a little washed out. It only takes composite input - it was designed to allow you to playback your tapes from a camcorder (one presumes a Fuji camcorder). One neat feature it has that this new projector doesn't (not that it needs it), is the ability to flip the lens so that you could use an "internally" built mini-rear-projection screen, a couple of inches diagonal...
This is the most impressive one I have seen...
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Pity you have to pay for the engine to legally develop with it - but man, does it show the possibility (IE only, unfortunately):
If you knew about the history of Orion, you would know that the baseline size of the ship, as designed by Dyson, was going to be the diameter of the General Dynamics office, which was a large and round building in Southern California.
Basically, what Orion promised was the ability to lift a large amount of mass into orbit and beyond - imagine being able to launch an office building stuffed with construction equipment, supplies and people and still having room left over for a ton of other fun stuff. Accelerate it at a constant 1G or so, and the "floor" of the ship becomes that which is 90 degrees perpendicular to the vector of acceleration, so to people on-board the ship, it would be like being inside an office building on Earth.
You are right that this is something that has never been tried, but a lot of testing was done by the engineers and Dyson at General Dynamics on the system, so much so there isn't any reason to believe that it couldn't be built and made to work. As I noted, its main use as a heavy lift vehicle here on Earth is not likely to occur because of fallout from the explosions, but in space it *would not* be a problem - the background radiation outside our atmosphere isn't low, and outside of the Van Allen belts it is very high, and we would only be adding a bare trickle to that.
Furthermore, nuclear power (whether we are talking an Orion-type pulsed-explosion system, or a more "conventional" reactor mass ejection system) is the *only* technology we have to make exploration of the solar system and beyond anywhere near feasible...
Actually - they may soon be able to re-create the original design:
What is believed to be the original CoCo 3 prototype was "found" in a backroom of Microware (makers of OS-9, and the extensions to Extended BASIC on the 3, IIRC). This was announced by the guy who received it on a CoCo enthusiast list I am on - he is supposedly going to show (showed?) it at the CoCoFest in Chicago. He and others are attempting to figure out what it is, whether it is wired right, whether it can be powered up, what parts if any are missing, etc - before they apply power or do anything that could damage it. This prototype was slated to be THROWN AWAY. Sadly, this is the case for much old hardware, especially crap gathering dust in backrooms. Had it not been for someone at Microware realizing what it was, and then knowing of someone who would be interested in it, it might had have the same fate. Fortunately, it was rescued.
What is interesting to note about this possible prototype is the huge size of it - around 2-3 feet long and about 1.5 feet wide, with a multitude of chips on it, plus an extreme rat's nest of wiring (either wire-wrap or point-to-point on the backside). It would seem to indicate that the GIME chip, which is no longer made (nor is the design available anymore) - is rendered in discrete logic, or maybe PALs - on this board. It may be possible thus to RE the design of the GIME - and perhaps unlock a mode which has been rumored to exist on the CoCo 3 - a 320x200 256 color mode (stock CoCo 3's can display a 320x200 16 color mode as the highest color mode - highest res mode was 640x200 and four colors - there were also tweaks to GIME registers which could increase the res to 225 vertical as well).
There has been speculation that it may have only existed on the prototype, and not on actual production machines (in theory because the CoCo was a "bastard child" of Tandy at the time, it was a lower cost but still capable machine that ran a ton of useful software, along with being able to run OS-9, a multi-tasking, multi-user windowing OS for 8-bit machines (!) - which was directly competing with their much more expensive Tandy 1000 (near PCjr clone) and 2000 (286?) machines - so they axed that capability, in addition to having sales-reps steer people away from the CoCo).
Anyhow, with this prototype, if they can get it working and can RE the GIME - plus receive a bunch of blessings from different places (notably Microsoft and Microware) - maybe, just maybe, something similar to the "C=64 in a joystick" game device could be made and the CoCo 3 resurrected. I for one would love an all in one joystick to play Canyon Climber, Reactoid, and Dungeons of Daggorath on my TV (of course, I could easily play them now on my working CoCo's and cartridges, but that isn't the point). Or, perhaps a NitrOS-9 CoCo "4" machine or kit (or maybe a PCI board?) could be made for enthusiasts, with backwards compatibility for older stuff. The main thing holding back a lot of these efforts have been the GIME. It has been emulated, but the emulation isn't perfect - some things that use the GIME's special system to achieve weird effects and such simply won't run on emulators - so having this prototype may ultimately fix those issues as well.
This has been a very exciting find - if you or anyone else is a CoCoNut, I encourage you to look into this...
But due to a myriad of other reasons, we will likely never use this technology any time soon:
The ideas and technology was developed in the 1960's by Freeman Dyson, and was called "Project Orion". The project, I believe, was a sub-project of Project Plowshare - the "Atoms to Peace" initiative to look for peaceful uses of atomic energy beyond nuclear reactors. Orion was a true "heavy lift" vehicle - 200 tons to Mars from Earth's surface would have been EASY. Unfortunately, it had an ultimate downside of the fact that it used the energy of multiple nuclear explosions to power it (and all the attendent issues with fallout, among other problems). Also, because of what powered it and the need to keep them small - new designs for the nuclear bomb "propellant" created working designs for miniature nuclear bombs (few kiloton range, IIRC - as small as a basketball) - which were immediately classified, of course (ie, "suitcase" nukes). The project did get to the point of building working model craft that were propelled by explosions generated with "plastic" explosives detonated behind the model - this was done by the company General Dynamics. Other testing was done on the ablative properties of the pusher plate, what could be done to protect it, how fast it would lose material to the nuclear blast, etc - as well as what could be done for sheilding of the crew, etc (IIRC, a tank of water was to be used between the floor of the cabin and the pusher plate/drive system).
It has been proposed that such machines be built in orbit, a little bit at a time, then gradually moved out of orbit and "launched" (and, if the acceleration is kept at a steady rate, simulation of around 1G "gravity" is possible within the craft as well). However, such craft would have to deal with the term "nuclear", and the irrational fear it inspires in people (I am not trying to say all radiation is safe, nor am I saying that we should resume above ground "testing" or such - but use as a propulsion system in space, why not? Where is the danger?)
That may happen - but what I think would be more likely to happen would be similar to the ad links (and considering the trademark/legal issues they are already facing, I am wondering how it would play out - especially considering the stupid arguments the "opposition" is making) - you search for coffee (or pizza), and in addition to the "boring" push pins to your local eateries, you also get paid for "branded" pins (with cute little waving flags or something), with the links at the top of the list, etc - designed to catch your attention.
I wouldn't be surprised if this already existed, just waiting for the rollout from beta...
At one point there was a researcher working with technology that would stimulate your vestibular nerves externally with an electric field.
I remember this - IIRC, it was an actual company with a developed product who was doing a combo beta/dev program, where you could buy the API and a device for around $200.00 or so to develop on it. Also, it was based around the same stimulus principles behind medical devices used to stimulate the vestibular system for vertigo research (so I call BS with you). The main idea was that the device could be used in conjunction with a fully immersive HMD setup, so that there would be one more sensory input to the body (simulating motion, etc) in addition to the visual, to help reduce simulator sickness issues...
I have always wondered how well it worked, and why it never went anywhere (probably because no one bought HMDs - thus no need for their product, either - at least in the consumer sector)...
QBASIC is actually a sub-set of QuickBASIC - while it has many of the statements and such of QuickBASIC, it doesn't have them all, and certain things it can't do that QuickBASIC can, or it takes a lot of extra effort to do in QBASIC. Some of the extra functionality comes from the fact that QuickBASIC is a real compiled language, and not interpreted like QBASIC, but not all.
Also, what about the lead-up to Visual Basic? More or less, after QuickBasic 4.5, we got PDS 7.1 (IIRC - Professional Development System - essentially QB4.5 with some DOS windowing enhancements and a slightly modified IDE), then came Visual Basic for DOS (still a lot of similarities to QB4.5 and PDS 7.1 - but with much greater control of windowing capabilities, and I think it allowed for easy mouse integration and event-driven code routines), then VB 1.0, I think (for Windows 3.1? Can't remember)...
QBASIC 1.1 was some weird thing they threw into DOS around version 5 or so, and kept in some form or another all the way through Windows 98 or so. It came out after VB for DOS - it may have even been released after VB3.0 (??) - strange release...
If it is a brand new house, and built like all the other expensive crackerboxes I've seen - it is anything but a "piece of cake".
First off, in most house construction, both interior and exterior walls have horizontal firebreaks between the vertical studs (ie, an 18 inch 2x4 running horizontally), to provide fire protection (keeps the fire from getting to the attic as quick). So, to drill holes for wires (any wiring) after the sheetrock is on - means a flexible drill and a bit of luck - or punching holes in the drywall and patching (or replacing the drywall). Furthermore, so many damn new houses now have "vaulted ceilings" - where there is no "attic" - so fishing wires through those areas is a real nightmare.
It sounds like the house though, hasn't been built yet - but unfortunately, you run into other problems. You typically aren't allowed to run your own lines (liability issues on the construction site), nor can you hire your own contractor in many cases (liability issues generally, once again). You typically have to use the "approved" wiring contractor for the subdivision - and since he has it "locked up" - he will gouge you for EVERY penny - $100.00 or more per cable pull/drop is not unheard of.
Just several more reasons NOT to buy an overpriced cardboard/styrofoam shitbox they call a "house". Want real value? Buy a pre-1980 block constructed house, or something older. Make sure you get a good inspection before you sign. Check out attic access, etc - see how easy or hard it is to run lines yourself (btw - if you buy too old of a home, you might have more trouble than it is worth - especially if you need to replace the entire electrical system because of age, or you need to drill or make holes in plaster ceilings or walls).
Or, better yet, if you can afford it - have your house custom built. You might want to look into the idea of a steel or alluminum frame building, or precast concrete, or rammed earth, or any of a number of alternative building systems which you might find easier to wire as they are built or afterward. One other thing: if you do build and wire it yourself - run the wiring in conduit with pull strings for later upgrades - you will thank me later...
I would say try your hand at writing javascript games - no, I am serious! Amazingly enough, if you have a recent browser which can support javascript and CSS (ie, DHTML) - you have everything needed to create a basic game. Drop the game "page(s)" on a webserver and add in some CGI processing, and you have a way to save/load information as well (game save points, scores, levels, etc).
Javascript, CSS, and DHTML are each well documented on the internet, and there are numerous books to get you started, as well.
Finally, before you cry out "but Javascript won't let me create a cool game!" - take a look at this:
Chalk me up as another satisfied customer - I have had my website on them (shared virtual) for several years now. They have excellent staff - they will help you with issues that you don't quite grok, while at the same time letting you have a lot of freedom for what you do understand. HE isn't for the timid - if you don't understand command line *nix, apache, perl, etc - you will be seriously lacking on their system. But if you do - man-oh-man, they kick!
Have you even read the book?
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I have, and I need to re-read it (once isn't enough) - but one thing I do remember, quite clearly (and annoyingly), is that it seemed that on every other page, he consistently writes how he wasn't the first person to come up with this, or that - how he was merely bringing various ideas together, ideas that existed from others (and himself) from before, into a cohesive whole. He plainly writes, many, many times, how he is merely standing on shoulders of giants.
Basically, when you are implementing mechanical adding machines (and even logic) - ultimately you need to overcome friction. You wouldn't believe the lengths to which Babbage (and his engineer/draftsman Clement) went to overcome this issue. Litterally months and years were spent on this problem - and the designs which came out of the work were very beautiful (especially the spiral carry mechanism).
Push-pull logic has this same issue, too - I believe Konrad Zuse had to come up with some interesting designs on his mechanical machines as well.
Another issue with gear-based mechanisms is that of tooth lash - that is, the small amount of movement between the teeth as the gears mesh - this slight amount of movement can cause premature wear and failure, excess friction, and inaccuracy - this too, was something Babbage had to work very hard at overcomming in his systems, and came up with a very elegant locking mechanism for his machines.
Interestingly enough, friction played a large part in the various differential analyzers created in the early part of the 20th century - knife edge wheels rotating on glass discs. Very tough to transmit the miniscule torque - what was done was a form of servo mechanism/mechanical assist with motors - very similar to that of power steering in an automobile. Even so, it wasn't enough, and these systems tended to get "out of tune" and produce wrong answers at a whim, or at least inaccurate results. However, they were a little more forgiving, being an analog system (and, interestingly, they drove a two-axis pen plotter which drew a graph to show the progress/answer to the simulation being run)...
Read up on your history of programming languages, of Grace Hopper's writings on COBOL, and if you can find them (very difficult), contemporary advertisements/reviews of COBOL for the time - you will find that indeed, it was marketed as a "simple, english-like" language for business people. At the time, it was very simple - compared to custom assembler for each mainframe (which was almost always different between machines even from the same manufacturer, like IBM), COBOL was a breeze!
Impossible, you say? I think not. The answer to our energy problems lie all around us, if we only care to look, think about the problem, and solve it creatively.
First off, each of us (yes, including me) live our lives wrong. We also tend to live in (and work in) buildings designed wrong. Now, both of these statements are pretty bold - but both are very true.
How much do you throw away? What do you throw away? How much do you recycle? How much do you recycle? How much do you reuse, and what do you reuse? These are the key questions, and the answers are the key to free energy.
Want your eyes opened? Take a look around your neighborhood on trash day. If your city has such a program, especially take a look on "bulk pickup" day. What do you see? What are people literally paying to have hauled away and buried?
I have seen bikes, refrigerators, computers, car parts, engines, dishwashers, cut up trees, wood, etc. All of these items took a lot of energy to make. Several of them could still work just perfectly, if we would only take the time to fix them. Those that can't be fixed, still could be put to other uses. The wood and the cut up trees could be further processed for the raw materials, or used as simple fuel. Water heaters could become storage tanks for solar heated water. That old window could become the front to a solar collector panel. That old engine and car alternator could become a cheap and easy to build power generation system (heh - heat the scrap wood in that old 55 gallon drum using a solar panel made from busted mirrors epoxied onto an old K-band sat dish, drive off the wood gas, power the engine with that (or cook with it), the stuff left over - charcoal for a barbeque!). All of this junk - going to waste.
Go to a landfill (even better, go to one that handles construction scrap only) - watch as thousands of tons per day of scrap wood, steel, aluminum, sand, dirt, concrete, etc - get buried in huge piles! All of this could be used and reused! How many times have you seen busted up concrete (or broken brick and block) being thrown away? Why not build a wall or a living structure out of it? What about that dirt - maybe a rammed earth house, perhaps? The wood, the steel - all of that has obvious uses. Why are we throwing it away?
As far as our houses and buildings are concerned - we build all of these wrong. We build them as energy wasting monstrosities. A monolithic dome house, or a thick-walled earthship-style house - will be much more energy efficient in the long run than a stick-frame constructed house. Build it out of scrap and throwaway items, and it becomes even cheaper. Build in skylights for daytime lighting. Collect rainwater in tanks to use for the garden and yard instead of the tap. Collect your greywater runoff as well. Collect your black water runoff into a methane digester system to produce fuel. Heat your house with solar panels made from scrap plywood, windows, and 2x4s. Install LED lighting for nighttime use. Build a wind generator using old automobile brake rotors and rare-earth magnets. Build a solar oven and slow cook your food.
The answers are endless, and so are the possibilities. None of this is fiction, or dreamwork. Many people have done this and are doing it everyday. There are tons of accounts on the internet - most show "how-to" methods. Want to start? Start by building a simple solar box oven, and cook some chili or rice in it. You can easily build one using cardboard boxes, a scrap piece of glass, and newspaper for insulation. For the glass, go to a glass shop and ask - many times they have odd sizes or whatnot they can't sell, and will happily give them to you. Or, go to Lowes, to the glass cutting area - many times they will have scrap glass (and acrylic, too) that they will give away for the asking. Or, find an oven door and take the tempered glass from it (or how about an old refrigerator - use an old glass shelf). There are tons of recipies online for solar ovens - give it a shot (yes, it will work in the wintertime - you just need sun). I guarantee you will be pleased. You will then know that it is possible to get free energy. There are tons of other ways (I know of several to get free cooling in the summertime!). Think about it, learn about it, and realize what you are missing!
As someone who only wished he were an artist, as well as someone who has seen what real artists are capable of (via wandering the playa at Burning Man), I don't think you need to worry.
True artists are capable of thinking and bringing to life creations that are utterly astounding in scope, beauty, breadth and ultimately, thought. Their works make you stop, and stare, and wonder, dream and imagine. Sometimes, as in the case of David Best's "Temple of Stars" (Quicktime VR), words and pictures cannot even begin to do justice for the work - you have to have been there to truely appreciate it (I walked across it at night, a truely amazing experience). This is but one very recent example of art that is breathtaking to behold...
There is much art of such beauty out there created by artists. This art can be found everywhere, from the truely large, to the intricately small and delicate. I cannot fathom how these people are able to think about, let alone bring to reality, their visions. Artists are truely on another level of thought, and through their works, one at minimum hopes to be able to touch those thoughts, and at best, learn or be imparted upon some modicum of wisdom to be able to think in kind.
What is generally thought of as cybersickness is not caused (in the most part) by focal plane issues, but focal plane issues can make it worse. Cybersickness is most generally caused by sensory mismatches occurring, especially in a fully immersive environment. Things like lag (where your eyes see one thing, but you feel like you are doing something else, like turning your head and the tracking not keeping the image up to date), or general motion-sickness issues make up the majority of cybersickness problems.
It is a fact that even when the optics are focused at infinity, the eyes still focus on the image plane of the LCD - which may only be inches (in optical path length) from the eyes. The further "back" you can move it, the better - but the eyes will still be focused on it, and not on the virtual distances of the objects/environment being represented. Prolonged use will lead to eyestrain, which causes headaches and such, and may may other cybersickness issues more acute.
This is generally not seen in simulators (like flight and driving simulators), nor in AR setups - because there are other things for the eyes to focus on, other than the screen (either real world objects, or the cabin of the vehicle being simulated).
I encourage you to research this topic - cybersickness, eyestrain in HMDs, causes, possible fixes, etc - there are many papers on the internet and in books, etc - that have been published in the past 10-12 years.
You are correct in the fact that a hologram cannot be used in a 3D projection system - at least currently. I could see a future where a hologram could be reversed scanned (ie, the interference pattern scanned), to yield the 3D points - all the information is there to do it, and we can already create simple holograms by printing with a laser printer on transparencies from a 3D model - so the reverse should be possible. Whether it would be useful or practical is another matter.
Finally, yes - color will always be an issue with true holograms - because of the monochromatic nature of laser light (not to mention the coherence and purity) - true holograms tend to by monocromatic by nature. I have heard of true color holograms being possible, but I have never seen one.
Finally, realize that I never said that there should only be holograms and nothing else, nor vice-versa - but that I think there is a place for all of the technologies currently...
One of the current, biggest issues with VR technology, that we have yet to overcome, is the issue that when you design a VR HMD (or a CAVE, or anything else where 3D is a 2D representation on a flat image plane), is that the eye focuses on that image plane (ie, the screen in a CAVE, or the LCD/CRT of an HMD), even if the optics are designed to be "focused at infinity". The eyes, being fixed at this focus, quickly tire, and eye strain results, leading to a number of issues in VR use (headaches, tired eyes, itching, dizziness, etc).
In augmented reality (AR) systems, this is less of an issue (at least with ones which utilize "see-thru" HMDs) - because the eye can now focus on other "real world" objects located at different distances (and not just the one fixed distance of the image plane).
Some VR technology holds the promise/possibility of being able to change this - direct retina painting via lasers may work better in this regard (while possibly introducing other issues), adaptive optics might hold another possibility as well.
Holograms, on the other hand, are a much different subject: there is no "image plane" - the holographic image holds all the information about the object, your eye is able to focus on any one point on the object image, just as if it were the real object itself instead of an image. When you think about it, this is a crazy and weird thing - we should be truely amazed that we as humans know how to do this, and understand the workings behind it, enough to the point where we have computers able to make the interference patterns from virtual 3D models (like GM or Ford did using CAD models a few years ago). With a high enough resolution LCD system, it might be possible for this to be done real-time (shine the laser through the LCD interference pattern to get the hologram).
On another note, the 3D "projection" systems, like that of Actuality Systems and others - do approximate holograms in that because they are painting voxels in a 3D volume, they too have multiple image planes, and thus there isn't any eye fatigue problems with them, either. But they suffer from their own issues which limits their use.
I think there is still much to be done when it comes to 3D and representations of it - all currently existing technologies still have a place and use. We have only begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved...
Actually, cable "grew out" of broadcast TV - back in the 60's, in order to get TV, you had to have an antenna - a good one, stuck up on your roof. It had to be positioned "just so" - to pick up one of a variety (anywhere from 3-10, I would imagine) of channels - sometimes one position would work well for a few channels, but not all. So, you had numerous rotating methods (mechanical, electrical, manual, etc) and devices on the market (omni antennas, etc) - to make your picture as clear as possible.
Understandably, people began to get fed up with all of this. First off, the antennas looked really ugly. Secondly, depending on your area, you couldn't get good reception without having a very tall mast for your antenna (which didn't help with the asthetics), or sometimes it was simply impossible (due to location, like in a city with tall buildings) to get good reception.
Enter the model of "cable TV" - in which there was one group of antennas for all the channels in a central spot for an area (depending on how far the coax would run), and this signal was run to all the "subscribers" for use of the signal. No more unsightly antenna, no more crappy signal. You might even get more channels (better equipment on the antenna end, coupled with taller towers for the antennas, etc). It was a complete win-win, and a new market openned.
Eventually, satellite feeds were introduced, then scrambled pay-feeds (with no commercials), like HBO. Sometimes, the new feeds had less commercials. Over time, all of this changed, to what we have now - where you pay, and pay, and pay some more (that is, you pay for your HBO and still get commercials - I remember when HBO was commercial free - just minute or so gaps where the HBO logo was shown, and maybe some previews of upcoming movies).
What do you plan to DO with it?
on
Clusters at Home?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Imagining and dreaming about having a cluster is one thing - knowing what to do with it once you have it built is another. Oftentimes I have dreamt and looked into what it would take (parts-wise and cost) to build a simple cluster, but in the end, I never went any further simply because I have no use for such a machine - it wasn't worth the time and expense, simply to be able to brag "yeah, I got a cluster at home" - BFD! It's like bragging you own a Humvee at home, and drive it around occasionally - but you have no clue how to off-road. At that point, it is simply a waste of money, resources, and time.
Perhaps you have an idea what you would do with it? If you don't, then I would suggest spending your time thinking about why you need a cluster, before building one. Building a small cluster is nearly (not quite) like putting together a Lego model - everything is commodity parts, from the boards to the cpus, to the ethernet cables and the switch, etc - even the cluster software is free and easily available. Putting together a cluster will teach you a little, but unless you have plans to use that knowledge personally and/or in the future (ie, job prospects), your time, money and resources may be better spent on other things.
Ah, yes - didn't mention it because it wasn't relevant, but yes - when you operate a stirling engine in reverse (that is, supply motive power to the pistons to move them), the 'hot' side gets hot, and the 'cold' side gets cold (very hot and very cold) - they use such devices for cryogenic applications - as you noted to produce liquid gasses, as well as for cryo-freezers, etc. There is one company that makes such a device and sells an "experimenter's kit" - it runs on AC, causing the piston to move up and down (basically a magnet hooked to the piston that is sync'ed to the alternating magnetic field to move it up and down), generating the hot and cold sides - but what is cool, is that if you run it in "reverse" (reverse from their point of view - they sell these as cryo-cooling pumps - not as stirling engines) - it produces AC electricity - basically a one-moving part stirling engine with an integrated AC generator! Pretty shweet! Seriously, they note this on their web site, and the kit is pretty reasonably priced, I think it is under $300.00...
The book goes into very great detail, but it presents a model of the neocortex fairly different from that of other models, while at the same time building upon earlier work (like neural networks). Hawkins isn't proposing to build a human mind, but rather an "artificial neocortex". He deliberately ignores (though while acknowledges them) the effects other areas of the brain has on the neocortex (I don't think it is because he thinks they don't have anything to do with thinking, or that they aren't needed - I think he simply wants to understand and be able to use the neocortex for machine thinking, which would be radically different from human). His model, while different in subtle ways, seems similar to experiments and devices Igor Aleksander has built (interestingly, you don't here much about this individual - he isn't presented in Hawkins' book, and other AI books I have read don't mention his work, either - I tend to wonder if these two individuals will go down like Charles Babbage did - thier work highly relevant, perhaps even precient - but not used because they became obscure - for instance, when ENIAC was designed and built, none of the people involved had heard of Babbage!).
What is really crazy, and I hesitate to link it, because this individual is known as an extreme crank in AI circles - alright, those of you who know who I am talking about will know who I mean, so I won't mention him by name or moniker - is that Hawkins' ideas and model seem to be very similar (though developed in a different way) to that other individual's model. While Mr. M's model is convoluted, and serial like (with attendent streams of information flowing facilitating recall of thoughts/ideas/abstractions) - Mr. Hawkin's model of the neocortex is very similar in scope - only doing the same type of learning and recall using strict hierarchical, interrelated networks of neurons.
He comes away showing how, in the neocortex, all patterns are the same, in that for instance, knowing how a sentence is written or spoken activates the same patterns. These patterns, while they are learned, and later played back - cause other patterns to fire off and playback (or be learned, if only slightly) - which is why a song or the taste of a certain food, sometimes brings back certain feelings and thoughts - because the playback of what the pattern of the taste of the food causes the same/similar triggers to cause playback of the patterns for those thoughts and feelings. The concept of feedback in learning is the important part...
I encourage *everyone interested in this kind of computing* to pick up Hawkins' book, as well as Aleksander's book (and, I would implore you to (re)read Mr. M's ideas with a fresh mind, in the context of the models presented by Hawkins and Aleksander, and see if you don't agree that all seem to be studying similar paths in the same goal of what creates consciousness and intelligence - you may come back surprised)...
Slashdot Mirror
I started out at my last company in a cubicle, about a year or so later I had an office. Not a large one, but an office nonetheless. Things were going good, then about a year later I was moved to a smaller office. I was being paid well and the work was cool, so I didn't complain to much.
About a year after that, the office was reconstructed, while we worked, so people that had offices had to get cubes, and while some got their offices back - I didn't. I made a fuss, I tried to make deals - nothing, absolutely nothing worked. They said they didn't have room. My cubicle was a large one, but it had a weird "doorway", monitor faced out, and it was on a corner of an intersection where people naturally gravitated to hold impromptu meetings - meaning I could hear everything and had no privacy, period. Meanwhile, the office I used to have continued to be unoccupied.
For about a year this went on, and my old office continued to be unoccupied (along with about 2-3 others - but there wasn't room, remember?). I continued to have a cubicle, no privacy, and my one solace was that my supervisor allowed me to work from home over VPN three times a week, so it wasn't too bad for those two days I was in the office. My productivity never reduced, and my supervisor was pleased with my work.
Eventually, another individual moved and took my old office (me and him got along ok, so I didn't begrudge him having it), even though we supposedly "didn't have room". Whatever. Several months went by, my project was cancelled, and I was "let go"...
All in all, it was a fortunate thing to happen - I work for a business still in a "startup" phase, with fewer people than I have fingers to count them on. Furthermore, I sit in an "office" room which is quite large (24 x 16 feet), three walls of which have whiteboard space, plus a video projector and screen. I get to work on very interesting projects, and I make more money.
I don't know what my old employer was smoking, but they need to give it up.
Sorta - I think you missed the main point:
Those "predictions" are based on matching patterns already "stored" in the neural network matrix. Basically, by his theory, our brains (at least the frontal lobes) take an input, and match that pattern via neural network cascades, which are feedback loops which hook into the motor system, hearing, visual, etc.
Among other things, this theory easily explains synesthesia - that is, the "crossing" of senses - in most people, it rarely happens, but some people it happens to all the time. Imaging smelling the color purple! Actually, this happenned to me once - to me, the color purple smells/tastes like artificial "purple" grape flavor. Ok, it was a fluke - I was drinking said soda, and thought to myself as soon as I drank it, "purple". Purple in my mind is so wired with the same flavor/color as artificial grape, that seeing or smelling or tasting one, leads to the other.
Same with how smells can trigger memories and emotions - his theory makes a lot of sense. So, the "predictions" of the future are merely pattern playbacks in our minds based on prior patterns laid down for other similar things...
Back when I was a kid, about 15 or so years ago, my parents bought me a game for my TRS-80 Color Computer, called "Gates of Delerium", from a company in Canada called "Diecom". It was basically a clone of the old Ultima RPG. It came on a couple of floppies, and it had a custom copy protection scheme on the main game floppy that didn't allow it to be copied using the normal commands of the Color Computer disk system for backups, nor could you use anything else (the second floppy was for player data - it could be easily copied). I played that game often, but not fanatically, and took very good care of all of my disks. Then, I graduated high school, left home, went to school, time passed...
Fast forward many years: I decide to get my old system back, feeling nostalgic, etc - and having played with various emulators (mainly Jeff Vavasour's stuff), I want to get my old stuff converted and saved to preserve it. I set up my old system, and start going through the disks...
Most of my disks are fine - I am able to copy them easily. Some are corrupted, some of the stuff copies, some of it is garbled, likely lost. Some of disks are completely garbled. But then I come to my Gates of Delerium floppies...
Trying them out on my original machine, the game disk loads so far, then hangs - it seems like it is so close to loading, yet so far. The disk looks fine, not dirty, etc - but it won't load. I try making copies (even a supposedly byte-for-byte copy using various ROM routines) - but no go there, either. I try running it in the emulator (off the original floppy and a 1.2 Mb 5.25" drive) - no dice. Now I am dismayed - have I lost the game for good?
Through a lot of work, I manage to track down one of the principles of the company, one of founders, Dave Dies himself. The company Diecom is long out of business, and Dave (at the time) was doing his own software development for games on PDAs and cell phones (can't remember the name of the company off hand). I was able to get in contact with him, and talk with him about my problems, but he couldn't offer much in the way of help.
Off and on, I posted this story occasionally to various forums, most frequently here on /. - a couple of years passed since I talked with Dave, and I had basically let the matter sit - knowing that the disk might be getting worse with age, but what more could I do?
One day, I get an email from some guy in Canada, and to make a long story that was suppose to be short shorter - we ended up (along with help from another guy) getting Gates of Delerium working, at least in emulation mode. It took a special hardware disk copier made by a non-descript company in Germany which one of these guys owned, some custom code work to cause the disk controller on the CoCo to read and write non-standard tracks (which was how the copy protection mainly worked), some guesswork (which one of the guys had used to port other Diecom software to the CoCo emulator in MESS), and a little bit of luck (that three guys, only one of which owned a real copy of the game, -me-, which was partially broken - all could come together over the internet and do this - that is luck). Since that time, I have only seen *one* other copy of Gates of Delerium being sold on Ebay, and have only heard of a couple of other people who owned it or knew about it. It was -this- close to being gone forever.
In the end, would it have really mattered? No. Life wouldn't have come to a screeching halt, but the world would be just a little poorer for it, and the leftover CoCo enthusiasts and emulation fans would have also lost a bit of history, too. All this - because one company a long time ago decided that it was better to make it impossible or nearly so - to copy a piece of software. If it can happen to a lowly floppy, it can happen to a movie on a DVD - in fact, it is already happenning to DVDs - the funky "rotting" that is occurring, and delamination -
This is a pretty cool projector - I currently own a projector that is old and larger than this (and difficult as hell to find bulbs for, since they are 6V bulbs), but still pretty tiny: the Fujix P401 - it was sold (IIRC) sometime in the 80's - it was about the size of a couple of VHS tapes stacked, and the resolution is really crappy - 320x200 or something like that. Image quality isn't too bad as long as you keep it below 40" or so. At its max size of around 60" or so, pixels are pretty big and ugly, but still viewable to an extent. Colors aren't great, a little washed out. It only takes composite input - it was designed to allow you to playback your tapes from a camcorder (one presumes a Fuji camcorder). One neat feature it has that this new projector doesn't (not that it needs it), is the ability to flip the lens so that you could use an "internally" built mini-rear-projection screen, a couple of inches diagonal...
TRIGLAV RPG
If you knew about the history of Orion, you would know that the baseline size of the ship, as designed by Dyson, was going to be the diameter of the General Dynamics office, which was a large and round building in Southern California.
Basically, what Orion promised was the ability to lift a large amount of mass into orbit and beyond - imagine being able to launch an office building stuffed with construction equipment, supplies and people and still having room left over for a ton of other fun stuff. Accelerate it at a constant 1G or so, and the "floor" of the ship becomes that which is 90 degrees perpendicular to the vector of acceleration, so to people on-board the ship, it would be like being inside an office building on Earth.
You are right that this is something that has never been tried, but a lot of testing was done by the engineers and Dyson at General Dynamics on the system, so much so there isn't any reason to believe that it couldn't be built and made to work. As I noted, its main use as a heavy lift vehicle here on Earth is not likely to occur because of fallout from the explosions, but in space it *would not* be a problem - the background radiation outside our atmosphere isn't low, and outside of the Van Allen belts it is very high, and we would only be adding a bare trickle to that.
Furthermore, nuclear power (whether we are talking an Orion-type pulsed-explosion system, or a more "conventional" reactor mass ejection system) is the *only* technology we have to make exploration of the solar system and beyond anywhere near feasible...
What is believed to be the original CoCo 3 prototype was "found" in a backroom of Microware (makers of OS-9, and the extensions to Extended BASIC on the 3, IIRC). This was announced by the guy who received it on a CoCo enthusiast list I am on - he is supposedly going to show (showed?) it at the CoCoFest in Chicago. He and others are attempting to figure out what it is, whether it is wired right, whether it can be powered up, what parts if any are missing, etc - before they apply power or do anything that could damage it. This prototype was slated to be THROWN AWAY. Sadly, this is the case for much old hardware, especially crap gathering dust in backrooms. Had it not been for someone at Microware realizing what it was, and then knowing of someone who would be interested in it, it might had have the same fate. Fortunately, it was rescued.
What is interesting to note about this possible prototype is the huge size of it - around 2-3 feet long and about 1.5 feet wide, with a multitude of chips on it, plus an extreme rat's nest of wiring (either wire-wrap or point-to-point on the backside). It would seem to indicate that the GIME chip, which is no longer made (nor is the design available anymore) - is rendered in discrete logic, or maybe PALs - on this board. It may be possible thus to RE the design of the GIME - and perhaps unlock a mode which has been rumored to exist on the CoCo 3 - a 320x200 256 color mode (stock CoCo 3's can display a 320x200 16 color mode as the highest color mode - highest res mode was 640x200 and four colors - there were also tweaks to GIME registers which could increase the res to 225 vertical as well).
There has been speculation that it may have only existed on the prototype, and not on actual production machines (in theory because the CoCo was a "bastard child" of Tandy at the time, it was a lower cost but still capable machine that ran a ton of useful software, along with being able to run OS-9, a multi-tasking, multi-user windowing OS for 8-bit machines (!) - which was directly competing with their much more expensive Tandy 1000 (near PCjr clone) and 2000 (286?) machines - so they axed that capability, in addition to having sales-reps steer people away from the CoCo).
Anyhow, with this prototype, if they can get it working and can RE the GIME - plus receive a bunch of blessings from different places (notably Microsoft and Microware) - maybe, just maybe, something similar to the "C=64 in a joystick" game device could be made and the CoCo 3 resurrected. I for one would love an all in one joystick to play Canyon Climber, Reactoid, and Dungeons of Daggorath on my TV (of course, I could easily play them now on my working CoCo's and cartridges, but that isn't the point). Or, perhaps a NitrOS-9 CoCo "4" machine or kit (or maybe a PCI board?) could be made for enthusiasts, with backwards compatibility for older stuff. The main thing holding back a lot of these efforts have been the GIME. It has been emulated, but the emulation isn't perfect - some things that use the GIME's special system to achieve weird effects and such simply won't run on emulators - so having this prototype may ultimately fix those issues as well.
This has been a very exciting find - if you or anyone else is a CoCoNut, I encourage you to look into this...
The ideas and technology was developed in the 1960's by Freeman Dyson, and was called "Project Orion". The project, I believe, was a sub-project of Project Plowshare - the "Atoms to Peace" initiative to look for peaceful uses of atomic energy beyond nuclear reactors. Orion was a true "heavy lift" vehicle - 200 tons to Mars from Earth's surface would have been EASY. Unfortunately, it had an ultimate downside of the fact that it used the energy of multiple nuclear explosions to power it (and all the attendent issues with fallout, among other problems). Also, because of what powered it and the need to keep them small - new designs for the nuclear bomb "propellant" created working designs for miniature nuclear bombs (few kiloton range, IIRC - as small as a basketball) - which were immediately classified, of course (ie, "suitcase" nukes). The project did get to the point of building working model craft that were propelled by explosions generated with "plastic" explosives detonated behind the model - this was done by the company General Dynamics. Other testing was done on the ablative properties of the pusher plate, what could be done to protect it, how fast it would lose material to the nuclear blast, etc - as well as what could be done for sheilding of the crew, etc (IIRC, a tank of water was to be used between the floor of the cabin and the pusher plate/drive system).
It has been proposed that such machines be built in orbit, a little bit at a time, then gradually moved out of orbit and "launched" (and, if the acceleration is kept at a steady rate, simulation of around 1G "gravity" is possible within the craft as well). However, such craft would have to deal with the term "nuclear", and the irrational fear it inspires in people (I am not trying to say all radiation is safe, nor am I saying that we should resume above ground "testing" or such - but use as a propulsion system in space, why not? Where is the danger?)
I wouldn't be surprised if this already existed, just waiting for the rollout from beta...
I remember this - IIRC, it was an actual company with a developed product who was doing a combo beta/dev program, where you could buy the API and a device for around $200.00 or so to develop on it. Also, it was based around the same stimulus principles behind medical devices used to stimulate the vestibular system for vertigo research (so I call BS with you). The main idea was that the device could be used in conjunction with a fully immersive HMD setup, so that there would be one more sensory input to the body (simulating motion, etc) in addition to the visual, to help reduce simulator sickness issues...
I have always wondered how well it worked, and why it never went anywhere (probably because no one bought HMDs - thus no need for their product, either - at least in the consumer sector)...
Also, what about the lead-up to Visual Basic? More or less, after QuickBasic 4.5, we got PDS 7.1 (IIRC - Professional Development System - essentially QB4.5 with some DOS windowing enhancements and a slightly modified IDE), then came Visual Basic for DOS (still a lot of similarities to QB4.5 and PDS 7.1 - but with much greater control of windowing capabilities, and I think it allowed for easy mouse integration and event-driven code routines), then VB 1.0, I think (for Windows 3.1? Can't remember)...
QBASIC 1.1 was some weird thing they threw into DOS around version 5 or so, and kept in some form or another all the way through Windows 98 or so. It came out after VB for DOS - it may have even been released after VB3.0 (??) - strange release...
First off, in most house construction, both interior and exterior walls have horizontal firebreaks between the vertical studs (ie, an 18 inch 2x4 running horizontally), to provide fire protection (keeps the fire from getting to the attic as quick). So, to drill holes for wires (any wiring) after the sheetrock is on - means a flexible drill and a bit of luck - or punching holes in the drywall and patching (or replacing the drywall). Furthermore, so many damn new houses now have "vaulted ceilings" - where there is no "attic" - so fishing wires through those areas is a real nightmare.
It sounds like the house though, hasn't been built yet - but unfortunately, you run into other problems. You typically aren't allowed to run your own lines (liability issues on the construction site), nor can you hire your own contractor in many cases (liability issues generally, once again). You typically have to use the "approved" wiring contractor for the subdivision - and since he has it "locked up" - he will gouge you for EVERY penny - $100.00 or more per cable pull/drop is not unheard of.
Just several more reasons NOT to buy an overpriced cardboard/styrofoam shitbox they call a "house". Want real value? Buy a pre-1980 block constructed house, or something older. Make sure you get a good inspection before you sign. Check out attic access, etc - see how easy or hard it is to run lines yourself (btw - if you buy too old of a home, you might have more trouble than it is worth - especially if you need to replace the entire electrical system because of age, or you need to drill or make holes in plaster ceilings or walls).
Or, better yet, if you can afford it - have your house custom built. You might want to look into the idea of a steel or alluminum frame building, or precast concrete, or rammed earth, or any of a number of alternative building systems which you might find easier to wire as they are built or afterward. One other thing: if you do build and wire it yourself - run the wiring in conduit with pull strings for later upgrades - you will thank me later...
Javascript, CSS, and DHTML are each well documented on the internet, and there are numerous books to get you started, as well.
Finally, before you cry out "but Javascript won't let me create a cool game!" - take a look at this:
Illumia RPG
and especially this:
TRIGLAV RPG
Chalk me up as another satisfied customer - I have had my website on them (shared virtual) for several years now. They have excellent staff - they will help you with issues that you don't quite grok, while at the same time letting you have a lot of freedom for what you do understand. HE isn't for the timid - if you don't understand command line *nix, apache, perl, etc - you will be seriously lacking on their system. But if you do - man-oh-man, they kick!
I have, and I need to re-read it (once isn't enough) - but one thing I do remember, quite clearly (and annoyingly), is that it seemed that on every other page, he consistently writes how he wasn't the first person to come up with this, or that - how he was merely bringing various ideas together, ideas that existed from others (and himself) from before, into a cohesive whole. He plainly writes, many, many times, how he is merely standing on shoulders of giants.
Basically, when you are implementing mechanical adding machines (and even logic) - ultimately you need to overcome friction. You wouldn't believe the lengths to which Babbage (and his engineer/draftsman Clement) went to overcome this issue. Litterally months and years were spent on this problem - and the designs which came out of the work were very beautiful (especially the spiral carry mechanism).
Push-pull logic has this same issue, too - I believe Konrad Zuse had to come up with some interesting designs on his mechanical machines as well.
Another issue with gear-based mechanisms is that of tooth lash - that is, the small amount of movement between the teeth as the gears mesh - this slight amount of movement can cause premature wear and failure, excess friction, and inaccuracy - this too, was something Babbage had to work very hard at overcomming in his systems, and came up with a very elegant locking mechanism for his machines.
Interestingly enough, friction played a large part in the various differential analyzers created in the early part of the 20th century - knife edge wheels rotating on glass discs. Very tough to transmit the miniscule torque - what was done was a form of servo mechanism/mechanical assist with motors - very similar to that of power steering in an automobile. Even so, it wasn't enough, and these systems tended to get "out of tune" and produce wrong answers at a whim, or at least inaccurate results. However, they were a little more forgiving, being an analog system (and, interestingly, they drove a two-axis pen plotter which drew a graph to show the progress/answer to the simulation being run)...
Read up on your history of programming languages, of Grace Hopper's writings on COBOL, and if you can find them (very difficult), contemporary advertisements/reviews of COBOL for the time - you will find that indeed, it was marketed as a "simple, english-like" language for business people. At the time, it was very simple - compared to custom assembler for each mainframe (which was almost always different between machines even from the same manufacturer, like IBM), COBOL was a breeze!
First off, each of us (yes, including me) live our lives wrong. We also tend to live in (and work in) buildings designed wrong. Now, both of these statements are pretty bold - but both are very true.
How much do you throw away? What do you throw away? How much do you recycle? How much do you recycle? How much do you reuse, and what do you reuse? These are the key questions, and the answers are the key to free energy.
Want your eyes opened? Take a look around your neighborhood on trash day. If your city has such a program, especially take a look on "bulk pickup" day. What do you see? What are people literally paying to have hauled away and buried?
I have seen bikes, refrigerators, computers, car parts, engines, dishwashers, cut up trees, wood, etc. All of these items took a lot of energy to make. Several of them could still work just perfectly, if we would only take the time to fix them. Those that can't be fixed, still could be put to other uses. The wood and the cut up trees could be further processed for the raw materials, or used as simple fuel. Water heaters could become storage tanks for solar heated water. That old window could become the front to a solar collector panel. That old engine and car alternator could become a cheap and easy to build power generation system (heh - heat the scrap wood in that old 55 gallon drum using a solar panel made from busted mirrors epoxied onto an old K-band sat dish, drive off the wood gas, power the engine with that (or cook with it), the stuff left over - charcoal for a barbeque!). All of this junk - going to waste.
Go to a landfill (even better, go to one that handles construction scrap only) - watch as thousands of tons per day of scrap wood, steel, aluminum, sand, dirt, concrete, etc - get buried in huge piles! All of this could be used and reused! How many times have you seen busted up concrete (or broken brick and block) being thrown away? Why not build a wall or a living structure out of it? What about that dirt - maybe a rammed earth house, perhaps? The wood, the steel - all of that has obvious uses. Why are we throwing it away?
As far as our houses and buildings are concerned - we build all of these wrong. We build them as energy wasting monstrosities. A monolithic dome house, or a thick-walled earthship-style house - will be much more energy efficient in the long run than a stick-frame constructed house. Build it out of scrap and throwaway items, and it becomes even cheaper. Build in skylights for daytime lighting. Collect rainwater in tanks to use for the garden and yard instead of the tap. Collect your greywater runoff as well. Collect your black water runoff into a methane digester system to produce fuel. Heat your house with solar panels made from scrap plywood, windows, and 2x4s. Install LED lighting for nighttime use. Build a wind generator using old automobile brake rotors and rare-earth magnets. Build a solar oven and slow cook your food.
The answers are endless, and so are the possibilities. None of this is fiction, or dreamwork. Many people have done this and are doing it everyday. There are tons of accounts on the internet - most show "how-to" methods. Want to start? Start by building a simple solar box oven, and cook some chili or rice in it. You can easily build one using cardboard boxes, a scrap piece of glass, and newspaper for insulation. For the glass, go to a glass shop and ask - many times they have odd sizes or whatnot they can't sell, and will happily give them to you. Or, go to Lowes, to the glass cutting area - many times they will have scrap glass (and acrylic, too) that they will give away for the asking. Or, find an oven door and take the tempered glass from it (or how about an old refrigerator - use an old glass shelf). There are tons of recipies online for solar ovens - give it a shot (yes, it will work in the wintertime - you just need sun). I guarantee you will be pleased. You will then know that it is possible to get free energy. There are tons of other ways (I know of several to get free cooling in the summertime!). Think about it, learn about it, and realize what you are missing!
True artists are capable of thinking and bringing to life creations that are utterly astounding in scope, beauty, breadth and ultimately, thought. Their works make you stop, and stare, and wonder, dream and imagine. Sometimes, as in the case of David Best's "Temple of Stars" (Quicktime VR), words and pictures cannot even begin to do justice for the work - you have to have been there to truely appreciate it (I walked across it at night, a truely amazing experience). This is but one very recent example of art that is breathtaking to behold...
There is much art of such beauty out there created by artists. This art can be found everywhere, from the truely large, to the intricately small and delicate. I cannot fathom how these people are able to think about, let alone bring to reality, their visions. Artists are truely on another level of thought, and through their works, one at minimum hopes to be able to touch those thoughts, and at best, learn or be imparted upon some modicum of wisdom to be able to think in kind.
It is a fact that even when the optics are focused at infinity, the eyes still focus on the image plane of the LCD - which may only be inches (in optical path length) from the eyes. The further "back" you can move it, the better - but the eyes will still be focused on it, and not on the virtual distances of the objects/environment being represented. Prolonged use will lead to eyestrain, which causes headaches and such, and may may other cybersickness issues more acute.
This is generally not seen in simulators (like flight and driving simulators), nor in AR setups - because there are other things for the eyes to focus on, other than the screen (either real world objects, or the cabin of the vehicle being simulated).
I encourage you to research this topic - cybersickness, eyestrain in HMDs, causes, possible fixes, etc - there are many papers on the internet and in books, etc - that have been published in the past 10-12 years.
You are correct in the fact that a hologram cannot be used in a 3D projection system - at least currently. I could see a future where a hologram could be reversed scanned (ie, the interference pattern scanned), to yield the 3D points - all the information is there to do it, and we can already create simple holograms by printing with a laser printer on transparencies from a 3D model - so the reverse should be possible. Whether it would be useful or practical is another matter.
Finally, yes - color will always be an issue with true holograms - because of the monochromatic nature of laser light (not to mention the coherence and purity) - true holograms tend to by monocromatic by nature. I have heard of true color holograms being possible, but I have never seen one.
Finally, realize that I never said that there should only be holograms and nothing else, nor vice-versa - but that I think there is a place for all of the technologies currently...
One of the current, biggest issues with VR technology, that we have yet to overcome, is the issue that when you design a VR HMD (or a CAVE, or anything else where 3D is a 2D representation on a flat image plane), is that the eye focuses on that image plane (ie, the screen in a CAVE, or the LCD/CRT of an HMD), even if the optics are designed to be "focused at infinity". The eyes, being fixed at this focus, quickly tire, and eye strain results, leading to a number of issues in VR use (headaches, tired eyes, itching, dizziness, etc).
In augmented reality (AR) systems, this is less of an issue (at least with ones which utilize "see-thru" HMDs) - because the eye can now focus on other "real world" objects located at different distances (and not just the one fixed distance of the image plane).
Some VR technology holds the promise/possibility of being able to change this - direct retina painting via lasers may work better in this regard (while possibly introducing other issues), adaptive optics might hold another possibility as well.
Holograms, on the other hand, are a much different subject: there is no "image plane" - the holographic image holds all the information about the object, your eye is able to focus on any one point on the object image, just as if it were the real object itself instead of an image. When you think about it, this is a crazy and weird thing - we should be truely amazed that we as humans know how to do this, and understand the workings behind it, enough to the point where we have computers able to make the interference patterns from virtual 3D models (like GM or Ford did using CAD models a few years ago). With a high enough resolution LCD system, it might be possible for this to be done real-time (shine the laser through the LCD interference pattern to get the hologram).
On another note, the 3D "projection" systems, like that of Actuality Systems and others - do approximate holograms in that because they are painting voxels in a 3D volume, they too have multiple image planes, and thus there isn't any eye fatigue problems with them, either. But they suffer from their own issues which limits their use.
I think there is still much to be done when it comes to 3D and representations of it - all currently existing technologies still have a place and use. We have only begun to scratch the surface of what can be achieved...
Understandably, people began to get fed up with all of this. First off, the antennas looked really ugly. Secondly, depending on your area, you couldn't get good reception without having a very tall mast for your antenna (which didn't help with the asthetics), or sometimes it was simply impossible (due to location, like in a city with tall buildings) to get good reception.
Enter the model of "cable TV" - in which there was one group of antennas for all the channels in a central spot for an area (depending on how far the coax would run), and this signal was run to all the "subscribers" for use of the signal. No more unsightly antenna, no more crappy signal. You might even get more channels (better equipment on the antenna end, coupled with taller towers for the antennas, etc). It was a complete win-win, and a new market openned.
Eventually, satellite feeds were introduced, then scrambled pay-feeds (with no commercials), like HBO. Sometimes, the new feeds had less commercials. Over time, all of this changed, to what we have now - where you pay, and pay, and pay some more (that is, you pay for your HBO and still get commercials - I remember when HBO was commercial free - just minute or so gaps where the HBO logo was shown, and maybe some previews of upcoming movies).
Perhaps you have an idea what you would do with it? If you don't, then I would suggest spending your time thinking about why you need a cluster, before building one. Building a small cluster is nearly (not quite) like putting together a Lego model - everything is commodity parts, from the boards to the cpus, to the ethernet cables and the switch, etc - even the cluster software is free and easily available. Putting together a cluster will teach you a little, but unless you have plans to use that knowledge personally and/or in the future (ie, job prospects), your time, money and resources may be better spent on other things.
Ah, yes - didn't mention it because it wasn't relevant, but yes - when you operate a stirling engine in reverse (that is, supply motive power to the pistons to move them), the 'hot' side gets hot, and the 'cold' side gets cold (very hot and very cold) - they use such devices for cryogenic applications - as you noted to produce liquid gasses, as well as for cryo-freezers, etc. There is one company that makes such a device and sells an "experimenter's kit" - it runs on AC, causing the piston to move up and down (basically a magnet hooked to the piston that is sync'ed to the alternating magnetic field to move it up and down), generating the hot and cold sides - but what is cool, is that if you run it in "reverse" (reverse from their point of view - they sell these as cryo-cooling pumps - not as stirling engines) - it produces AC electricity - basically a one-moving part stirling engine with an integrated AC generator! Pretty shweet! Seriously, they note this on their web site, and the kit is pretty reasonably priced, I think it is under $300.00...
The book goes into very great detail, but it presents a model of the neocortex fairly different from that of other models, while at the same time building upon earlier work (like neural networks). Hawkins isn't proposing to build a human mind, but rather an "artificial neocortex". He deliberately ignores (though while acknowledges them) the effects other areas of the brain has on the neocortex (I don't think it is because he thinks they don't have anything to do with thinking, or that they aren't needed - I think he simply wants to understand and be able to use the neocortex for machine thinking, which would be radically different from human). His model, while different in subtle ways, seems similar to experiments and devices Igor Aleksander has built (interestingly, you don't here much about this individual - he isn't presented in Hawkins' book, and other AI books I have read don't mention his work, either - I tend to wonder if these two individuals will go down like Charles Babbage did - thier work highly relevant, perhaps even precient - but not used because they became obscure - for instance, when ENIAC was designed and built, none of the people involved had heard of Babbage!).
What is really crazy, and I hesitate to link it, because this individual is known as an extreme crank in AI circles - alright, those of you who know who I am talking about will know who I mean, so I won't mention him by name or moniker - is that Hawkins' ideas and model seem to be very similar (though developed in a different way) to that other individual's model. While Mr. M's model is convoluted, and serial like (with attendent streams of information flowing facilitating recall of thoughts/ideas/abstractions) - Mr. Hawkin's model of the neocortex is very similar in scope - only doing the same type of learning and recall using strict hierarchical, interrelated networks of neurons.
He comes away showing how, in the neocortex, all patterns are the same, in that for instance, knowing how a sentence is written or spoken activates the same patterns. These patterns, while they are learned, and later played back - cause other patterns to fire off and playback (or be learned, if only slightly) - which is why a song or the taste of a certain food, sometimes brings back certain feelings and thoughts - because the playback of what the pattern of the taste of the food causes the same/similar triggers to cause playback of the patterns for those thoughts and feelings. The concept of feedback in learning is the important part...
I encourage *everyone interested in this kind of computing* to pick up Hawkins' book, as well as Aleksander's book (and, I would implore you to (re)read Mr. M's ideas with a fresh mind, in the context of the models presented by Hawkins and Aleksander, and see if you don't agree that all seem to be studying similar paths in the same goal of what creates consciousness and intelligence - you may come back surprised)...