I think you are dead on here, I was thinking the same thing...
On a related note - I wonder if the flux in welding rod (stick arc welding) would behave the same way? I also wonder if NASA could build a MIG-style solder gun (and use argon or something as an inert gas for preventing the oxidation - though that wouldn't cure the wetting issue of solder)?
True, true - I suppose "savior" was too loaded and incorrect of a word. What I was trying to convey was more the move toward commodity PCs. While Microsoft certainly wasn't the first in this arena, they are arguably what mattered to cause this shift (for better or for worse - I am not an MS appologist, personally I hate their predatory business practices which have helped to gut the hobbyist computing market - thankfully, there's Linux and a host of other OS solutions for this out there).
I would have to almost say this is an "urban legend" or something - you hear all the time about people who lose their sight, and while I am sure many (perhaps even most) suffer from temporary depression and anxiety from being plunged into a world of darkness, I doubt they "go crazy". That isn't to say spontaneously gaining sight wouldn't cause these people discomfort or anxiety, though. Just that it wouldn't be a cause for them to have a mental breakdown. I can also imagine headaches and mental stress from the new information coming into their brain - I have heard that after a certain point, if the brain hasn't had visual stimulus or proper development (like from a non-corrected lazy eye or something) - after a certain age it never develops properly. I could only imagine at that point the stimulus could be anything from a 24/7 light show (with no real information), or at least when the eyes are open (something I have always wondered about - many blind people close their eyes, like they are sleeping - it seems like an involuntary response, and not a conscious decision)...
Do you notice yourself getting older? Same principle, just on a much longer time scale. That, and it isn't all happenning in one shot (that is, all your cells at once aren't dying and being replaceds, but at any one moment, there are some cells dying and being replaced). Right now, the question is still philisophical, but I would bet that if the process occurred extremely quickly, you would never notice it.
...just who and what IBM is, and what they stand for.
In a word, profit.
They are ultimately doing all of this not for the community, but for their bottom line. At one time, they were the "evil ones", and Microsoft was the "savior" (horrors!).
Let us not forget this bit of computing history - lest IBM win, then turn around and bite us...
Where the hell have you been for the past 40+ years (since kuru was discovered), or even 20+ years (1982, when the term Prion was introduced by Prusiner - meaning "PROteinaceous INfectious particles")?
You have a strange meaning for "recent"...
Big point scrabble words...
on
Word Up
·
· Score: 3, Informative
While not the biggest, a great "power word" is "fajita" - placed right (and make sure it is in your "agreed upon" dictionary) - this sucker can get you big points in one wallop.
There are much better words out there, though -/.'ers, what are your suggestions?
What if you are flying from LA to San Fransisco? Where and how does the interstate commerce clause come up there?
IIRC, this "clause" is what the feds always bring up when it comes to so-called "illegal" drugs. Case in point, the prohibition on medical marijuana. A state (say, Oregon) passes a law allowing for medical marijuana, and allowing people to grow and sell it to those needing it for medical purposes within the state of Oregon - how can the feds prevent this with the commerce clause restriction? It isn't crossing state lines, yet they always bring this up.
I hate what my country and government has become...
"None Dare Call It Conspiracy" by Gary Allen (with Larry Abraham) - Published by Concord Press (P.O. Box 2686, Seal Beach, CA 90740) - Copyright 1971 by Gary Allen.
There isn't an ISBN number listed anywhere on my copy, which is a paperback. It is unknown whether the above address for Concord Press is still active (unlikely?). My copy lists three printings: Feb 1972 - 350,000, March 1972 - 1,250,000, April 1972 - 4,000,000.
I haven't read my copy yet (next on my list!) - but based on that last chapter, Nixon figures into it all, which might explain the huge ramp-up in printing in such a short time period. This book is most likely out of print. Check used book stores for copies...
Interesting - I recently watched Kill Bill for the first time - and I thought it was a great movie. It was very over the top - it was like watching a live action manga/anime (so many live action shots looked exactly like cheap anime - it worked perfectly). The crazy amount of blood, the obvious wire-fu effects - it was a tounge-in-cheek homage to obvious recent chinese wire-fu martial arts flicks. It didn't try to take itself seriously.
I have found that, by far, most people who didn't like this movie went into the theater knowing it wasn't real. Those that tended to like it (on first viewing), tend to be those who believed (or wanted to believe) that what they were seeing was real footage, edited into a "posthumous documentary" of sorts.
I fall into the latter camp - however, I can't really stand watching it a second time, now that I know it wasn't real (at the time I watched it in the theater, it was still a toss-up on whether it was real or not). I must admit, the marketing of the movie was a near-perfectly executed concept.
If you really want to learn, you are going to want to spend the money for one of the "real" defensive driving-type schools (Bondurant, etc) - they have courses and cars set up to allow you to practice and learn how a car feels and reacts in extreme situations (slick water, etc).
There are also schools out there (lotsa $$$) that will teach you how to use your car as a weapon, or get out of major situations (ie, you are a cheuffuer (sp?) for a rich dude with enemies, and they are shooting at your bullet proof glass limo - quick, what do you do?) - but these would be overkill.
Rarely will you find a low-cost defensive driving class that will have the special cars (ie, anti-tip "training wheels") and special tracks ("slick" tracks) and courses needed to let you know how a car really performs in odd scenarios.
Interestingly, yesterday we had a police chase here in the Phoenix area (actually, Tempe/Mesa area) between the cops and a stolen F150 4x4 (looked like it had a lift kit on it, too) - they through out a stop strip, the guy lost control, weaved back and forth, then spun a 180 or so before finally stopping - but he didn't roll.
I was certain he was going to roll it, but it didn't happen - even with the apparent lift kit. Not sure what that says, but the truck didn't act like you would think it would act...
I own a 1979 Bronco 4x4, which weighs in slight excess of 6000 lbs. It is not my primary driver (I own a 1994 Ford Ranger XLT 4 banger for that). I bought this truck for the express purpose of recreational driving, mainly off-road use.
Now, what you are saying is that in order for me to use it, if it were banned - I would need to get a trailer, and *another* big truck to haul it to where I wanted to off-road at. Do you have any idea how assinine that is?
Now, you would have another large truck, pulling a very large trailer, getting even worse gas mileage (because it wouldn't only need to be a large truck to haul the 6000 lbs, but the extra weight of the load and the trailer as well), and possibly being even more dangerous to drive on the road (because now as the driver I must take into account the extra weight, the load on the trailer, and the total length).
I thought this was an interesting design when I saw it, was wondering if it would work - still might, I suppose.
Whatever happenned to the team that built a large bladed helicopter for this event, when it was first started - I remember it was a university team, and the helicopter had one rotor, but was tip propelled by props on the end, which were powered by the rider via thin cable (monofilament?) which was wrapped around hubs on the axles of the propellers, and was drawn in by pedalling. By having it tip powered, they eliminated the extra rotor (as in the current contender's design), as well as not needing a tail rotor (as in conventional designs) - and since it was powered from the tips, there was no center torque to counteract...
It wasn't really vibrations, but rather specific frequency AC currents that stimulated the vestibular system of the brain (in some bizaar manner). The device was a very advanced version of a similar system used by researchers studying vertigo and other such phenomena (it is a medical device). Basically, they took the technology and made it better. They added computer control and made it more presise. Whereas the original medical device could only simulate "falling", they were able to simulate falling or accelleration in any direction. The last I heard on it, they were seeking beta testers (where you had to pay around $300.00 for a Windows SDK and the hardware), then it just "vanished" off the radar - I am not sure if it was a "dot-com" bust, or something else, but as far as I know, nothing more was done...
This has been done - I believe it was called the "CyberSphere" or something equally passe - anyhow, it was created by a guy in the UK, he actually got a lot of press for it. Something he had to invent was a manner of casting the plastic panels that made up the sphere - it was quite large, and the panels had to be a special shape to hold up to the weight of the sphere, as well as a person stepping around on the inside. It was supported by an air bearing - though I think a mechanical friction link (like an old mouseball) was used for movement detection (although, today one could sense it optically). One of the big problems, which I think killed it - was the fact that in order to make the ball rigid enough, the weight increased to such a point that you could walk inside it, but when you stopped or changed directions, the momentum of the ball continued in the direction you were going, causing awkward moments at best, falls at worst...
That's the rub, though - the family settled out of court, rather than going to trial to determine what exactly happened and getting justice for their son's death. That is a tragedy. If their son could see it, he would probably be puking over what his family agreed to (but who really knows?)...
If taxpayer dollars are limited to the $1 million mark for the deductible (makes sense) - then there have been a lot of settlements here in Maricopa County with the Sheriff's Dept (New Times consistently cites a high dollar figure for taxpayers - 15-30 million or something like that)...
I never meant to imply that I thought Joe Arpaio personally killed Scott Norberg. His policies and training regimen (or lack thereof) of his staff, though, certainly contributed greatly to the man's death. Little about these policies have changed since that time.
That's good to hear - I have had to deal EDI translation (to and from the standards) for the supposedly "simple" forms (for orders and inventory) - and that was a nightmare. From what I have seen, the financial standards are much worse (though not quite as bad as healthcare)...Ugh.
For desktop, non-immersive VR (which is all current FPS games are) it isn't necessary. But when you put on a fully immersive HMD (heck, any HMD, really - that you can't "see through", like certain ones for augmented reality, or AR) - things get a whole lot trickier. When you are wearing an HMD, all visual cues come from the video. So, when you move (ie, if you were dumping the video from an FPS into the immersive HMD, and using keyboard controls to walk), your brain thinks you are moving - but your ear tells your brain differently - and BAM! - motion sickness ensues.
Creating these 360 moving surfaces helps to alleviate this motion sickness issue (not completely, but it helps), by introducing real motion into the action. Now, the problem then becomes syncing up the motion in the real world (that is, the distance you move your legs), with that of the video in the virtual world. If the two don't match - I am certain motion sickness would ensue again. Thus, I don't think you could add a "scaling factor" to the motion in the virtual world to "move faster" without causing the same motion cue disconnect.
I would say for long distance travel, you would simply step into a "teleporter" device, enter in where you want to go, and step out of it into the new location. This "device" could be called up by the UI, or it could be a part of the game. Or, you could make it like a "dimension door". Some kind of a portal or small room (like an elevator car) would be needed, rather than just "jumping" - because it would make the transition more "natural", and less confusing. You could certainly just do "abrupt jumps", which an experienced user of the virtual world could get used to, but a casual user would quickly tire of it (and it could certainly cause other forms of simulator sickness).
So, for short distances, walking/running works well. For longer distances, either virtual vehicles, travel "platforms" (ie, virtual "skateboards"?), and/or dimensional jump portals or rooms could be used.
No - the point of these moveable tiles (and the other 360 movement controllers they have created) is to keep you in one spot while you "move" through the virtual world. When you are wearing an HMD, it is kinda hard to see where you are going and avoid hitting a real-world wall.
The game was called "Dactyl Nightmare" and the system it ran on was W Industries, Ltd "Virtuality 1000" stand-up pod (they also had a sit down pod for driving). Custom Amiga 3000 hardware with CD-ROM drive and custom graphics cards. Not sure what tracking was done with (the later 2000 series used a 486 with custom graphics cards and a Polhemus tracker). The HMD used low-res, miniature CRT displays (320 x 240 for each eye) optically folded into the eyes (like a periscope), with a very wide field of view (essential for immersive simulations).
The later 2000 series (still being made and sold) had much light HMDs (LCDs with 640x480 resolution), large FOV, polhemus tracking (I managed to recently pick up one of these HMDs and a joystick, plus a portion of the tracker - for around $300.00 on eBay). I played the game "Zone Hunter" on this system at an arcade once (long time ago) - much better display, much light, much easier to use than the old 1000 series. The current series of Visette HMDs being made supposedly has 800x600 resolution, with the same large FOV of the 2000 HMD (60 degrees H x 45 degrees V)...
If you ever want an interesting project, look into LEEP optics. These were a special set of optics and lenses that performed a manner of lossless "optical compression" on images - that is, used one way with a camera, they could record a fairly high resolution image. When the optics were used to view the image, the image would appear with the original resolution, plus a very large FOV (for perspective, immersion begins at approximately 60 degrees H x 45 degrees V - LEEP optics were in the 100-120 degree H range, never saw what the vertical range was).
A company back in the early to mid-1990s, I believe they were called Fakespace, made a boom mounted HMD-like device which used the optics, and software that pre-warped the images sent to LCD or CRT displays in the HMD, where the optics would distort it back for the user. The boom acted as a tracking system, too (FWIW, boom mounted trackers are cheap, and easy to construct for homebrew use, plus they have near-zero lag - the difficult part is the software to determine orientation and position of the user endpoint, usually mounted to the HMD).
I never got a chance to try out the system, though, so I don't really have any personal views on it, but if it was true, that would have been a sweet HMD.
The price was never mentioned in any literature I have come across (always "call for pricing", meaning if you had a question, it was out of your price range) - but the LEEP optics set was noted in several areas to have cost around $10,000+ (just the lenses, mind you!)...
Slashdot Mirror
On a related note - I wonder if the flux in welding rod (stick arc welding) would behave the same way? I also wonder if NASA could build a MIG-style solder gun (and use argon or something as an inert gas for preventing the oxidation - though that wouldn't cure the wetting issue of solder)?
True, true - I suppose "savior" was too loaded and incorrect of a word. What I was trying to convey was more the move toward commodity PCs. While Microsoft certainly wasn't the first in this arena, they are arguably what mattered to cause this shift (for better or for worse - I am not an MS appologist, personally I hate their predatory business practices which have helped to gut the hobbyist computing market - thankfully, there's Linux and a host of other OS solutions for this out there).
I would have to almost say this is an "urban legend" or something - you hear all the time about people who lose their sight, and while I am sure many (perhaps even most) suffer from temporary depression and anxiety from being plunged into a world of darkness, I doubt they "go crazy". That isn't to say spontaneously gaining sight wouldn't cause these people discomfort or anxiety, though. Just that it wouldn't be a cause for them to have a mental breakdown. I can also imagine headaches and mental stress from the new information coming into their brain - I have heard that after a certain point, if the brain hasn't had visual stimulus or proper development (like from a non-corrected lazy eye or something) - after a certain age it never develops properly. I could only imagine at that point the stimulus could be anything from a 24/7 light show (with no real information), or at least when the eyes are open (something I have always wondered about - many blind people close their eyes, like they are sleeping - it seems like an involuntary response, and not a conscious decision)...
Do you notice yourself getting older? Same principle, just on a much longer time scale. That, and it isn't all happenning in one shot (that is, all your cells at once aren't dying and being replaceds, but at any one moment, there are some cells dying and being replaced). Right now, the question is still philisophical, but I would bet that if the process occurred extremely quickly, you would never notice it.
In a word, profit.
They are ultimately doing all of this not for the community, but for their bottom line. At one time, they were the "evil ones", and Microsoft was the "savior" (horrors!).
Let us not forget this bit of computing history - lest IBM win, then turn around and bite us...
You have a strange meaning for "recent"...
There are much better words out there, though - /.'ers, what are your suggestions?
IIRC, this "clause" is what the feds always bring up when it comes to so-called "illegal" drugs. Case in point, the prohibition on medical marijuana. A state (say, Oregon) passes a law allowing for medical marijuana, and allowing people to grow and sell it to those needing it for medical purposes within the state of Oregon - how can the feds prevent this with the commerce clause restriction? It isn't crossing state lines, yet they always bring this up.
I hate what my country and government has become...
There isn't an ISBN number listed anywhere on my copy, which is a paperback. It is unknown whether the above address for Concord Press is still active (unlikely?). My copy lists three printings: Feb 1972 - 350,000, March 1972 - 1,250,000, April 1972 - 4,000,000.
I haven't read my copy yet (next on my list!) - but based on that last chapter, Nixon figures into it all, which might explain the huge ramp-up in printing in such a short time period. This book is most likely out of print. Check used book stores for copies...
Heh - mercury delay lines - revisited!
Interesting - I recently watched Kill Bill for the first time - and I thought it was a great movie. It was very over the top - it was like watching a live action manga/anime (so many live action shots looked exactly like cheap anime - it worked perfectly). The crazy amount of blood, the obvious wire-fu effects - it was a tounge-in-cheek homage to obvious recent chinese wire-fu martial arts flicks. It didn't try to take itself seriously.
I have found that, by far, most people who didn't like this movie went into the theater knowing it wasn't real. Those that tended to like it (on first viewing), tend to be those who believed (or wanted to believe) that what they were seeing was real footage, edited into a "posthumous documentary" of sorts.
I fall into the latter camp - however, I can't really stand watching it a second time, now that I know it wasn't real (at the time I watched it in the theater, it was still a toss-up on whether it was real or not). I must admit, the marketing of the movie was a near-perfectly executed concept.
There are also schools out there (lotsa $$$) that will teach you how to use your car as a weapon, or get out of major situations (ie, you are a cheuffuer (sp?) for a rich dude with enemies, and they are shooting at your bullet proof glass limo - quick, what do you do?) - but these would be overkill.
Rarely will you find a low-cost defensive driving class that will have the special cars (ie, anti-tip "training wheels") and special tracks ("slick" tracks) and courses needed to let you know how a car really performs in odd scenarios.
Interestingly, yesterday we had a police chase here in the Phoenix area (actually, Tempe/Mesa area) between the cops and a stolen F150 4x4 (looked like it had a lift kit on it, too) - they through out a stop strip, the guy lost control, weaved back and forth, then spun a 180 or so before finally stopping - but he didn't roll.
I was certain he was going to roll it, but it didn't happen - even with the apparent lift kit. Not sure what that says, but the truck didn't act like you would think it would act...
Now, what you are saying is that in order for me to use it, if it were banned - I would need to get a trailer, and *another* big truck to haul it to where I wanted to off-road at. Do you have any idea how assinine that is?
Now, you would have another large truck, pulling a very large trailer, getting even worse gas mileage (because it wouldn't only need to be a large truck to haul the 6000 lbs, but the extra weight of the load and the trailer as well), and possibly being even more dangerous to drive on the road (because now as the driver I must take into account the extra weight, the load on the trailer, and the total length).
Such an idea makes no sense at all...
Whatever happenned to the team that built a large bladed helicopter for this event, when it was first started - I remember it was a university team, and the helicopter had one rotor, but was tip propelled by props on the end, which were powered by the rider via thin cable (monofilament?) which was wrapped around hubs on the axles of the propellers, and was drawn in by pedalling. By having it tip powered, they eliminated the extra rotor (as in the current contender's design), as well as not needing a tail rotor (as in conventional designs) - and since it was powered from the tips, there was no center torque to counteract...
Lazy ostriches and sheep - the lot of them!
It wasn't really vibrations, but rather specific frequency AC currents that stimulated the vestibular system of the brain (in some bizaar manner). The device was a very advanced version of a similar system used by researchers studying vertigo and other such phenomena (it is a medical device). Basically, they took the technology and made it better. They added computer control and made it more presise. Whereas the original medical device could only simulate "falling", they were able to simulate falling or accelleration in any direction. The last I heard on it, they were seeking beta testers (where you had to pay around $300.00 for a Windows SDK and the hardware), then it just "vanished" off the radar - I am not sure if it was a "dot-com" bust, or something else, but as far as I know, nothing more was done...
This has been done - I believe it was called the "CyberSphere" or something equally passe - anyhow, it was created by a guy in the UK, he actually got a lot of press for it. Something he had to invent was a manner of casting the plastic panels that made up the sphere - it was quite large, and the panels had to be a special shape to hold up to the weight of the sphere, as well as a person stepping around on the inside. It was supported by an air bearing - though I think a mechanical friction link (like an old mouseball) was used for movement detection (although, today one could sense it optically). One of the big problems, which I think killed it - was the fact that in order to make the ball rigid enough, the weight increased to such a point that you could walk inside it, but when you stopped or changed directions, the momentum of the ball continued in the direction you were going, causing awkward moments at best, falls at worst...
If taxpayer dollars are limited to the $1 million mark for the deductible (makes sense) - then there have been a lot of settlements here in Maricopa County with the Sheriff's Dept (New Times consistently cites a high dollar figure for taxpayers - 15-30 million or something like that)...
I never meant to imply that I thought Joe Arpaio personally killed Scott Norberg. His policies and training regimen (or lack thereof) of his staff, though, certainly contributed greatly to the man's death. Little about these policies have changed since that time.
That's good to hear - I have had to deal EDI translation (to and from the standards) for the supposedly "simple" forms (for orders and inventory) - and that was a nightmare. From what I have seen, the financial standards are much worse (though not quite as bad as healthcare)...Ugh.
Creating these 360 moving surfaces helps to alleviate this motion sickness issue (not completely, but it helps), by introducing real motion into the action. Now, the problem then becomes syncing up the motion in the real world (that is, the distance you move your legs), with that of the video in the virtual world. If the two don't match - I am certain motion sickness would ensue again. Thus, I don't think you could add a "scaling factor" to the motion in the virtual world to "move faster" without causing the same motion cue disconnect.
I would say for long distance travel, you would simply step into a "teleporter" device, enter in where you want to go, and step out of it into the new location. This "device" could be called up by the UI, or it could be a part of the game. Or, you could make it like a "dimension door". Some kind of a portal or small room (like an elevator car) would be needed, rather than just "jumping" - because it would make the transition more "natural", and less confusing. You could certainly just do "abrupt jumps", which an experienced user of the virtual world could get used to, but a casual user would quickly tire of it (and it could certainly cause other forms of simulator sickness).
So, for short distances, walking/running works well. For longer distances, either virtual vehicles, travel "platforms" (ie, virtual "skateboards"?), and/or dimensional jump portals or rooms could be used.
No - the point of these moveable tiles (and the other 360 movement controllers they have created) is to keep you in one spot while you "move" through the virtual world. When you are wearing an HMD, it is kinda hard to see where you are going and avoid hitting a real-world wall.
The later 2000 series (still being made and sold) had much light HMDs (LCDs with 640x480 resolution), large FOV, polhemus tracking (I managed to recently pick up one of these HMDs and a joystick, plus a portion of the tracker - for around $300.00 on eBay). I played the game "Zone Hunter" on this system at an arcade once (long time ago) - much better display, much light, much easier to use than the old 1000 series. The current series of Visette HMDs being made supposedly has 800x600 resolution, with the same large FOV of the 2000 HMD (60 degrees H x 45 degrees V)...
A company back in the early to mid-1990s, I believe they were called Fakespace, made a boom mounted HMD-like device which used the optics, and software that pre-warped the images sent to LCD or CRT displays in the HMD, where the optics would distort it back for the user. The boom acted as a tracking system, too (FWIW, boom mounted trackers are cheap, and easy to construct for homebrew use, plus they have near-zero lag - the difficult part is the software to determine orientation and position of the user endpoint, usually mounted to the HMD).
I never got a chance to try out the system, though, so I don't really have any personal views on it, but if it was true, that would have been a sweet HMD.
The price was never mentioned in any literature I have come across (always "call for pricing", meaning if you had a question, it was out of your price range) - but the LEEP optics set was noted in several areas to have cost around $10,000+ (just the lenses, mind you!)...