My brother-in-law is a heavy equipment operator - contract-based dump truck driver, but also any kind of heavy equipment (he loves trackhoes, the bigger and badder, the better - especially to knock a building down with). With his profession, which he has been doing for well over 25 years - he and everything he owns is covered in dirt, mud, and grease (or so it seems).
Well, one day he came over to my house and said "Hey cr0sh, I found some computers in a dumpster behind a fast food joint, you want them?" - I took a look at what he brought home. There they were, just laying in the back of his beat up Ford pickup, sitting in some dirt and grease - two Apple IIGS boxes, and a floppy drive...
Yeah, I replied, grabbed them, took them inside - and asked if there was anything else over there. He told me there was a bunch of other stuff, but he had spied them while in line to get a hamburger, and there was a line behind them, and he had to get back to his job site (lunch break, I guess - so they were sitting in the sun, in the back of the truck, on a construction job site) - so he never picked up the other stuff.
I asked him if he could show me where this place was (it was on the other side of town, a good 50 miles away from my house at the time) - and we went over there, and lo! There it was, a bunch of other Apple IIGS junk. I grabbed it all, threw it in the back of my pickup, and went home.
Apparently a nearby "after-school" daycare or something nearby got rid of all their Apple IIGS stuff (but strangely, kept all of their software - I didn't find any) by binning it.
I dusted off the big bits of junk, but didn't clean it greatly - of all the parts, the floppy drives seemed the cleanest, but I checked the heads on those just to be sure. I put the parts together, hooked the output up to an old TV, stuck in my Fallout floppy from highschool (15 years ago) - and booted.
First off let me say that what I am going to tell you will likely void any warantee you have on the motherboard and/or the vid card, and might even break your machine (well, at least the motherboard), so don't try this unless you really don't care.
Pull your motherboard out the box, and put it in a very well lighted area. Ideally, use one of those magnifying lamps (the ones with a flexible or levered arm that have a lamp and magnifying lens you can look through). Position the lamp so you can see down inside the AGP slots, and can see the contacts.
Now, take a very small jeweler's flat screwdriver (the smallest you can find), and very carefully insert it (which is the reason for the magnifying lamp), and pry the contacts away from the sides - just a little, not a lot - don't bend them too much, just a little bit to give their grip back, but not so much so that when you insert the vid card it catches on them and bends them. Do all of the contacts this way. Sometimes, you may be able to spot one or more of the contacts that seem further "back" than the others - ie, further apart from the sides than the tighter ones. If that is the case, deal with only those first, and if it doesn't fix it, move on to the others - there are a lot of contacts in an AGP slot, don't mess with what isn't broken if you can tell it apart.
My guess is that they have simply lost their grip - either from age or from swapping the card out constantly for a different card (and if you are somebody who upgrades their vid card with every game or whatnot - this is likely the cause).
Good luck - and like I said, this very well may cause damage (ie, you bend a pin too much, it breaks off or it bends/catches on the vid card, you turn it on, smoke comes out from a short, etc)...
You obviously have never been witness to a "land train". I have seen only one in my life, so I can understand your ignorance. Basically, they are like super-large semi tractors (they are slightly longer and wider than a standard semi), with three slightly larger (longer, taller, wider) trailers hooked end-to-end. Standard trailers are 70-80 feet long. So, figure everything a little bigger, and you get a 300 foot long semi transporting "stuff". Where I saw this land train was on a highway in Colorado - it was big, unmistakably big. I have not seen one in use anywhere else or since, but I do know they are typically used in Alaska for freight hauling...
Actually, while most people think it is a tank-top, it really isn't (though rapidly becoming synonymous) - in actuality a "wife-beater" shirt is a regular white t-shirt (or any t-shirt, and the also manufacture them with hems) in which the "arms" are cut-off at the shoulder. Whereas a "tank-top" has holes for the arms that are much larger.
Getting information out of the brain is going to be difficult at best - as others have noted, it is a very noisy output on the best of days. Filtering the noise, etc - tough, though not impossible to do. What is difficult is analysing the results (the brainwave plots). I remember an old Steve Ciarcia Workshop column or book (late 70's - early 80's) that detailed building your own EEG machine using cheap high-gain op-amps (designed for this work, with isolation and such - when you are dealing with electricity around the brain, you need safety above all else) - I can't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if he didn't show how to interface it with an S-100 bus computer...
Now, getting data into the brain, that would be easier. We have two main, "high bandwidth" conduits for input; the eyes and the ears. First off - look up "brainwave stimulation", "light and sound", etc - here's a few links:
There are other projects out there as well - just google, and you will find them.
Also - look into "Neurophone" and "Voice to Skull" technologies - these use two systems: ultrasound and microwave. Of the two, microwave seems to offer direct neuron stimulation. Basically, on both systems, a carrier wave is set up and voice is FM modulated on top of the carrier wave. The signal is beamed to the subjects head. In the ultrasound version, the skull filters out the carrier wave, leaving the original signal, and bone conduction allows the subject to "hear" the original sound. In the microwave system, the brain itself does the filtering, and the brain then reconstructs the sound. Both systems suffer from major drawbacks in sound quality. Both versions are patented. NASA at one time was interested in the research. Basically, to the subject, it sounds like voices are speaking in their heads - and in the case of microwaves being used as the transmission medium (the research originally started when radar and microwave technicians reported hearing "clicking" type noise whenever they worked on live equipment), it makes you wonder about wearing tinfoil hats (hmmm). I know that the ultrasound version has recently been used as a testbed for "beaming" custom music or advertisements to people on an individual basis - I know/. stories have reported on this in the past (heck, you will find my comments in them on voice to skull).
Anyhow - once you have a couple of ways to get data into the eyes and ears (and/or vestibular system) - and note, a good quality HMD could be used as a light/sound device - you then can play. I can see using the sound part to play music, and underneath the music have the sound binaural beat doing the brain-wave thing (basically, what you do is inject two different audio signals into the ears - say the left at 30 Hz, and the right at 36 Hz - which will yield a "beat tone" of around 6 Hz, which will make you drowsy, etc). Get the sound going, and sync up the eyes in a similar matter, to the sound. Maybe monitor (via IR leds and a camera) the eyes, see what they do, and if you can tell when you are in the meditative state - then alter the sound and/or visuals to force something different (say, ramp slowly from 10 Hz to 6 Hz - then hold at 6, then ramp quickly up to 7-8 Hz, injecting crazy patterns into the eyes - if using an HMD, maybe something like a visualization hack).
Another thing or possibility would be the idea of computer controlled or directed lucid dreaming, via a brain-wave system - imagine donning the goggles and headphones, lying back, listening to a relaxing audio CD as the computer drops you down to a lucid dreaming state, then starts putting suggestions into your ears and eyes, suggesting and guiding a lucid dream (perhaps the computer could also monitor breathing rate, skin conductivity, etc - to help control the "dream")...
There are ATMs that dispense change - I think Wells Fargo uses them, mostly. Unfortunately, you can't do a withdrawal and get change (withdrawals are limited to multiples of $20.00) - apparently they are meant for check cashing, where you stick you check in, and it will give you back your money (minus some likely fee unless you have an account with the bank), plus any change...
Good grief, you'd think this legislation was drafted by someone who wanted to cripple the U.S. Economy for good.
I think what we may be witnessing is some kind of "meta-war". That probably isn't the right term. What I mean to say is that the MPAA and RIAA are composed of many multi-national corporations. Individually, many of these corporations have a "war-chest" or ability to generate income that exceeds the GNP of many smaller nations. Together, who's to say they don't have more power and wealth than any single large first world country?
Maybe they don't today, but maybe they are trying to get it, via an economic war. They buy their politicians, who sell out their own country by helping to introduce and pass laws like the DMCA, etc - that effectively undermine and destroy the content production base, to turn us into a consumer market (they have just about won this battle), only buying their product, not making it (who says they need to manufacture it in any form here? Its all just bits, and bits can be offshored). Perhaps they are trying to get to a point where they are big enough...
...To eventually hire one of the multi-national mercenary army corporations that have formed (and are being used) in the past 10 years. Or, perhaps they will create a new one of their own? We have corporations raping our world, we have corporations supplying mercenary troops, logistics, and weapon systems. Many of these corporations are multi-national conglomerates. Maybe we are witnessing the rebirth or reforming of even more powerful keiretsu - taking the next step of becoming virtual "states" having no true borders, but with the control, power, money, and even a standing army to back it all up?
The infinitely cool thing about a UTM isn't all that you said - yeah, all of that is cool, don't get me wrong, your points are valid.
The cool thing about a UTM is the fact that it can emulate any other UTM. The fact of this is in the domain of emulators - software that emulates hardware. It is in this domain that I find computers most fascinating, because it hints that software and hardware are the same thing and that in theory, you don't need what we call hardware to run software. Hardware is software "realized" in physical form - but because software can emulate hardware - is the "real" form absolutely necessary?
If you break that, you no longer have a UTM - and if you don't have a UTM, you no longer have a true computer, you have a special purpose calculator, at best. What is trying to be done isn't removing the concept of a UTM, but tying it up in such a way with laws and DRM to allow others to control "your" UTM - so that you can't really have a UTM.
Unfortunately for them, you can easily build a very slow UTM using nothing but paper and pencil and some rules. You could probably cobble a UTM even from the crap that they would later pass off as a "computer" - but here we are talking about hacking at a hardware/software level. If this trend continues, a black market in information processing and technology will develop in those countries affected by such laws. Hackers/phreakers/techno-anarchists will find a home and a "job" in this bleak future, they will be the "drug dealers" of the 21st century. I hate the fact that each day it seems to be leading to this, and that one day I might have to choose between chains and freedom in my coding, and that freedom will become synonymous with illegality as a result...
She was shot in the back, as she was driving away from the officer in her SUV. He was in no way threatened - other than resisting arrest, and leaving the scene of a crime - how was his life in danger to justify shooting the suspect (remember, innocent until proven guilty by a jury of peers) in the back?
It is really an upside-down version of a device that appeared in issue 13 (Jan/Feb 1994) of PCVR. The article was entitled "A Simple 3D Tracker" by Stefan Elsner. It utilised digital encoders and motors to provide tensioning on the lines. Four lines were ran from the four upper corners of a room from the motor/spool/sensor packages at the floor corners of the room (and over pulleys at the top corners), and down to a mount which had a sensor to measure yaw for an HMD. Pitch and roll of the head were done using gravity pendulums on the side and back of the head. The idea was to be able to track the user's head position, with 6DOF, in a large volume, cheaply and accurately.
Interestingly, the issue also covered building an arm-based tracker and electrolytic tilt-sensor interfacing, as well as sourceless mag tracking on a homebrew budget. One of these days I hope to be able to find the time to scan in all of my back issue and present them on the web for others to download. I have the permission from the publisher/editor of the magazine (Joseph Gradecki). He has a website (I think it is josephgradecki.com or something similar), and made mention of putting them up, but last I looked all he had were the magazine covers, and nothing more. But, at some point I am going to do this - I have his permission, and all the back issues. Maybe somebody will find the articles useful...
Remember the trade-off: resolution vs. field-of-view (FOV) - you can max one or the other, but always at the expense of the other one (unless you have money to burn for Kaiser Electro-Optics stuff).
Now, since you are doing a wearable, and not an immersive VR rig, you are going to want detail (resolution), and not immersion (so FOV is not as important). However, you aren't going to be able to get that detail cheaply. You are going to want a minimum of 800x600, 20-30 degree horizontal FOV (and it will suck bad unless you use larger fonts). You won't find that with a camcorder viewfinder (it will show you, at best, NTSC/PAL resolution - after the conversion from VGA to composite video).
I am not saying don't try the camcorder or LCD TV solutions, just don't expect much. You might be able to get something around the usability of a palm pilot display - which could be *very* useful, if done right. Try to stick with a black and white viewfinder (higher apparent resolution). You may or may not find it difficult to interface with, some will take composite easily, others use completely different standards.
You might also try a modded VictorMaxx StuntMaster HMD - abysmal resolution, but cheap to get. A better HMD for modding is a Forte VFX-1 - it has a much better LCD/backlight than the StuntMaster (that is, it isn't washed out - I think the res is near the same, though).
Good luck - but don't expect this to be cheap or easy - it's a very niche market...
Why should everything down to the machine code have to have a GPL license?
Because your code is only as free (as in "freedom") as what it runs on top of - all the way down to the microcode in the CPU.
Why is this important? Because anything else has the potential to limit you with your code. An absurd, but not impossible, case would be where Intel (or AMD, or any other CPU manufacturer) changes the license on their CPU saying something akin to AYBABTU - and require you to use *only* their compiler for their products. In fact, this is the way it is for some microcontroller products put out by other companies (though most are not this stupid), and NVidia more or less does it with their GPUs, so it is certainly possible to do it with a full CPU by a major manufacturer. If you can't compile for a platform, is your code still worth anything? Is it still "free"? Would anybody use it, let alone buy it?
Now, the above case is highly unlikely to happen - the first major CPU manufacturer to try it would find themselves out of clients, and out of business. But what about this case: Intel only licenses Microsoft compilers to compile for their CPU - anything else is deemed "illegal". Does your code still have freedom? Perhaps within the borders of an MS world - but right there you have restrictions - perhaps the compiler costs $1000.00 , and not just any "random hacker" can get it - is your code still "free" (as in freedom, remember)?
Even this case is likely too absurd - but what about this case: Intel only licenses their CPUs to allow compilers which can compile "encrypted" byte codes, with a license key, running on an "approved", DRM and DMCA-compliant chip architecture - where the compiler code is audited for each release, and none of it is open-source...
If you have been paying any attention, this is the world we seem to rapidly be heading toward, where the whole f'in' system is locked down, and only "approved" people can code for it (and they probably have to pass the equivalent of a bar exam issued by the state to get that approval). Is your code still free? I don't think my code would have its freedom under this system.
You see, there is a real reason, and a real danger that RMS sees, and more people need to get it through their thick skulls that this was why he start GNU and created the GPL. The GPL isn't dangerous to profits - its dangerous to people and organizations (government, corporate, and private) who want to secure and profit off of absolute control of your life...
If you don't see this, you are either ignorant or willfully blind to what is currently happenning.
A similar "waterfall"-type system design is used for large "chiller" units for buildings - mainly large office buildings or apartments. Typically, they put the units on the top of the building, but sometimes they will be at ground level on smaller buildings.
Basically, water is pumped and allowed to run over the heat-exchanger radiator, through which a "brine" is circulated (typically water with anti-freeze or similar to prevent corrosion and increase "wetness"). This brine is circulated through pipes and lines to the various heat-exchanger radiators in the duct system in the building. Air is force-circulated through these, the brine picks up the heat and circulates the heat back to the large heat-exchanger/waterfall unit, which transfers the heat and evaporates the water, cooling the brine, which is circulated back to the rest of the system.
All the benefits of swamp cooling (the cooling part), without the "muggy" feeling on days with high-humidity (though as with a swamp cooler, efficiency still drops on those humid days)...
Last year, I went to Burning Man for the first time. I was fortunate enough to catch the "Critical Tits" bike parade. About a quarter the way through the parade, I realized I was more interested in seeing the people, than I was at seeing their bodies.
Indeed, I saw more nudity at Burning Man than I have ever seen anywhere. My memories of the experience, though, focus around the friendships, acquaintances, and conversations I had - regardless of (and in some case, in spite of) the state of dress.
American society seems to exhibit symptoms of behavior that would be regarded as psychopathic, if those same symptoms were applied to a single person. The way this society approaches sex versus violence is but one aspect of this behavior. Part of me believes America will realize how irrational it is to think nudity equals sex (or that nudity immediatly leads to sex, or is only about sex) at about the same time that religion is found to be irrational. Thus, I don't hold out much hope of this ever happenning within my lifetime, though I honestly hope I am proved wrong.
I am keeping all my old crap, because it may become the only way to truely be free to do what I want (code, create music/video, etc) when the rest of the world is locked down in DRM-madness.
The scary part is that by doing so, I may inadvertantly become a part of a grey-or-black market...
Psst, buddy - want me to rip those CD's to MP3...?
In a certain book called "Android Design", by Martin Bradley Weinstein, this DRAM chip camera design was known as the "RAMERA" system, IIRC. He gave enough info to build it, but I think it was originally referenced in an old Ciarcia's Celler book or magazine from the period (early 1980's)...
Heh - that's nothing: This book, still being published by Lindsay - showed kids how to build such a machine (using, at the time, a commercial x-ray tube which could be bought at a drugstore or radio shop)!
I own an original copy of this book (kinda rare). One thing that continues to amaze me about the projects in the book is that they were expected to be understood and constructed by children, likely ages 10-15. Some of the projects (like homebrew wet cells) used some pretty dangerous chemicals. There were warnings throughout, but not to the point of "paranoia" like you see in some so-called "science experiment" books of today (except for those which have watered down everything to make the experiments uber-safe).
Today, it seems like you can't even get a kid to imagine how to build stuff, especially relatively complex stuff (an electric motor, a steam engine or tubine, a radio, etc) - let alone expect him to understand it. While knowledge of such devices doesn't have much practical use to most people, the education it gives about how to do things for yourself, and why they work, is what is important. Unfortunately for most of today's generation, such thinking skills are not shown or taught as much as they once were...
There are plenty of stories out there of men involved in tests, in which they faced the bomb as it was going off. As "protection", they were told to shut their eyes tightly and cover them with their hands. They would be told (by officers and others in the area, who wore welding-goggle-like protection) when they could remove them, and (in some cases), advance to near ground zero of the test. Despite having there eyes shut and their hands over them, many reported being able to see the bones of their hands (like an x-ray)...
I own a copy of this book, and I urge everyone who is interested to hunt down and buy it. It is truely eye opening. The imagery is both beautiful as well as haunting. One image in particular (one which shows soldier's reactions to the explosion) is most interesting - they have a look of awe and disbelief on their faces, it is difficult to describe it exactly...
But yet again, I would have to sign up for *another* site, give them my email address, etc for more spam to come through. Where is our network of ends going to? Why can't I easily respond? So - I am posting what I wanted to post there here. Mods, please realize this was meant for his blog, and not for this site - but after I wrote such a long response, I didn't want to just chuck it. Mod me how you will...
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Mr. Powell, welcome to blogging, and as one respondent noted, "Welcome to Hell".
I wanted to post my comments regarding FCC regulation, digital TV (and associated DRM measures), and indecency - if for nothing else than to establish my position with you and with the community on where I stand on these issues. If you note, they fall very much in line with what others have written here.
I am a "tech savvy" (actually, that is an understatement) citizen of this country. I am also a voter.
Regarding regulation, I understand that for the public airwaves, there must be some form of regulation, otherwise, in the end, the airwaves would be filled with nothing but static, as station after station stomped the commons with overlapping broadcasts. Whether it is TV or radio, the result would be the same; an unlistenable (or unwatchable) morass of grey static.
However, the current situation and regulations make it impossible for a truely free market to exist. Current licensing fees and regulations make it impossible to easily and cheaply set up low power FM radio stations (even in markets where such stations could be set up without interference). This has left commercial radio (like ClearChannel) the only choice in most markets, which isn't a choice at all. National Public Radio (NPR) also struggles with these regulations.
The situation with television is even worse. While startup costs have always been a limiting factor for small (independent) television stations, those costs have dropped rapidly in recent years, allowing the possibility for someone to broadcast a TV station from their home. However, licensing costs, fees, paperwork, and other FCC regulation issues have made it impossible for such services to become available.
In a way, cable TV was an attempt to get around this issue, and in some ways, it has succeeded. By confining the "airwaves" to a coax broadcast medium, and utilizing a different spectrum for broadcasting, many more channels could be delivered to the consumer's door. This availability of channels has spawned the concept of "niche" channels - it seems now if there is an interest, there is a channel (or two, or more) for it. The content for these channels is created by privately owned companies (and the networks) who sell through distribution channels to the cable broadcasters. It isn't a perfect solution, but it is what we have.
The internet is rapidly changing all of this. The internet was originally developed as a "network of ends", where everything connected to this network was "smart", but the network itself remained "stupid" - its only job to shuffle around the packets of information via openly developed and published protocols. Such a network is inherently robust by its nature and structure.
A network of "smart" endpoints means that anyone can become (in concept) a broadcaster. I, or anyone else, can for instance, build a server (serving web pages or anything else), and put it on the internet, and others can find it and read (and/or download) information off of it. It is a different way of distributing information: Instead of the "push" model of traditional broadcasting, the internet is based on the "pull" model, where those that want information must seek it out and request it from the servers. This model has proved itself to be very popular. Content "pushing" has been tried for the internet, but the popularity of such implementations bombed very quickly. The population of the internet has spoken, "pulled" content is what we want.
Consumers have long requested this model for television: Pay-Per-View programming is
We already have tons of capable players. What is lacking is a legal decoder - a legal form of DeCSS. Such a module would have a very simple interface (likely only stdin/out, but maybe something a little more complex). We know it would be small (look how small DeCSS is) - basically it would take the encoded stream and spit out the decoded stream, which could be passed on to whatever software we wanted to use.
It wouldn't be the best solution (I dislike any proprietary and closed software because of the possible unknown security holes that could be opened up - how do you know if that DVD player software can't execute code in a buffer overrun or something?), but it would be better than "yet-another-player", and it would allow others to easily develop for it. Ideally, it would simply drop in to mplayer or xine as another module for playback.
We probably won't ever see this, though - simply for the fact that they (the DVD-CCA) want to control the entire stream - they don't want a decoded stream "in the open" anywhere if they can help it...
I understand what you are saying - in the long run, it won't matter - at some point you are going to have enough apps accessing the drive and other issues (ie, scheduling/resource management) are going to hit you.
But for simple stuff (ie, MP3 playing on XMMS while copying a bunch of files in a terminal, perhaps), not having the parameters properly set (ie, leaving them at default) may be causing the problem (for the original poster) *now* - if he isn't aware of hdparm.
A lot of people still don't know about hdparm, furthermore most new users of linux don't know that when they do an install (on most distros), the parameters are set for LCD systems, not optimized for current hardware configurations (which I think is a good thing, but to a new user it makes everything look slow).
If you had, you will see that in most Linux installations, the hdparm parameters are set to represent the lowest common denominator of PC installations. In other words, most distributions ship with the hard drive settings so that you can install it on a circa 1992 hardware, and it will work out of the box. You have to tweak it from there.
Generally, on a new install of Linux, your buffered disk reads will be around ~4 MB/sec - even if you have the latest motherboard ultraATA/66 EIDE etc wazoo out the back - still, only 4 MB/sec.
Now, one would think this would be enough for MP3 playback, but when you are copying files while playing back the MP3 - priority likely goes to the file copy, not to the application. I don't know why this is, but I would wager it has to do with the fact the linux, out of the box, is a server system - with multimedia tacked on afterward. All of this can be tweaked, but in the end, data copy speed for core OS functions are going to get the most priority, not sound. At any rate, anything on the linux box having to do with the disk system (which is almost anything) will benefit from using hdparm to boost it to proper levels.
With proper use (for your hardware - don't just try this willy-nilly, because hdparm can be used to "force" settings that older hardware may not like, leading to data corruption), hdparm can take that 4 MB/sec number and turn it into 20 MB/sec or more. This is going to help everything. Application startup time is reduced dramatically. Directory listings and searching take less time. Hopefully, the extra speed will allow more time for the sound subsystem to keep its buffer full and not allow underruns leading to "skips".
hdparm has to honestly be one of the most undelooked at tools for increasing performance in a Linux system. Everything will get a boost from using hdparm - just remember to update your/etc/rc* scripts to reinstate your choices on reboot. A good document for hdparm can be found here:
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Well, one day he came over to my house and said "Hey cr0sh, I found some computers in a dumpster behind a fast food joint, you want them?" - I took a look at what he brought home. There they were, just laying in the back of his beat up Ford pickup, sitting in some dirt and grease - two Apple IIGS boxes, and a floppy drive...
Yeah, I replied, grabbed them, took them inside - and asked if there was anything else over there. He told me there was a bunch of other stuff, but he had spied them while in line to get a hamburger, and there was a line behind them, and he had to get back to his job site (lunch break, I guess - so they were sitting in the sun, in the back of the truck, on a construction job site) - so he never picked up the other stuff.
I asked him if he could show me where this place was (it was on the other side of town, a good 50 miles away from my house at the time) - and we went over there, and lo! There it was, a bunch of other Apple IIGS junk. I grabbed it all, threw it in the back of my pickup, and went home.
Apparently a nearby "after-school" daycare or something nearby got rid of all their Apple IIGS stuff (but strangely, kept all of their software - I didn't find any) by binning it.
I dusted off the big bits of junk, but didn't clean it greatly - of all the parts, the floppy drives seemed the cleanest, but I checked the heads on those just to be sure. I put the parts together, hooked the output up to an old TV, stuck in my Fallout floppy from highschool (15 years ago) - and booted.
No problem - all ran *perfectly*...
Pull your motherboard out the box, and put it in a very well lighted area. Ideally, use one of those magnifying lamps (the ones with a flexible or levered arm that have a lamp and magnifying lens you can look through). Position the lamp so you can see down inside the AGP slots, and can see the contacts.
Now, take a very small jeweler's flat screwdriver (the smallest you can find), and very carefully insert it (which is the reason for the magnifying lamp), and pry the contacts away from the sides - just a little, not a lot - don't bend them too much, just a little bit to give their grip back, but not so much so that when you insert the vid card it catches on them and bends them. Do all of the contacts this way. Sometimes, you may be able to spot one or more of the contacts that seem further "back" than the others - ie, further apart from the sides than the tighter ones. If that is the case, deal with only those first, and if it doesn't fix it, move on to the others - there are a lot of contacts in an AGP slot, don't mess with what isn't broken if you can tell it apart.
My guess is that they have simply lost their grip - either from age or from swapping the card out constantly for a different card (and if you are somebody who upgrades their vid card with every game or whatnot - this is likely the cause).
Good luck - and like I said, this very well may cause damage (ie, you bend a pin too much, it breaks off or it bends/catches on the vid card, you turn it on, smoke comes out from a short, etc)...
You obviously have never been witness to a "land train". I have seen only one in my life, so I can understand your ignorance. Basically, they are like super-large semi tractors (they are slightly longer and wider than a standard semi), with three slightly larger (longer, taller, wider) trailers hooked end-to-end. Standard trailers are 70-80 feet long. So, figure everything a little bigger, and you get a 300 foot long semi transporting "stuff". Where I saw this land train was on a highway in Colorado - it was big, unmistakably big. I have not seen one in use anywhere else or since, but I do know they are typically used in Alaska for freight hauling...
Actually, while most people think it is a tank-top, it really isn't (though rapidly becoming synonymous) - in actuality a "wife-beater" shirt is a regular white t-shirt (or any t-shirt, and the also manufacture them with hems) in which the "arms" are cut-off at the shoulder. Whereas a "tank-top" has holes for the arms that are much larger.
Now, getting data into the brain, that would be easier. We have two main, "high bandwidth" conduits for input; the eyes and the ears. First off - look up "brainwave stimulation", "light and sound", etc - here's a few links:
Hack Canada's Brain-Wave Machine
Futuremind Light & Sound
Neural Signals, Inc
There are other projects out there as well - just google, and you will find them.
Also - look into "Neurophone" and "Voice to Skull" technologies - these use two systems: ultrasound and microwave. Of the two, microwave seems to offer direct neuron stimulation. Basically, on both systems, a carrier wave is set up and voice is FM modulated on top of the carrier wave. The signal is beamed to the subjects head. In the ultrasound version, the skull filters out the carrier wave, leaving the original signal, and bone conduction allows the subject to "hear" the original sound. In the microwave system, the brain itself does the filtering, and the brain then reconstructs the sound. Both systems suffer from major drawbacks in sound quality. Both versions are patented. NASA at one time was interested in the research. Basically, to the subject, it sounds like voices are speaking in their heads - and in the case of microwaves being used as the transmission medium (the research originally started when radar and microwave technicians reported hearing "clicking" type noise whenever they worked on live equipment), it makes you wonder about wearing tinfoil hats (hmmm). I know that the ultrasound version has recently been used as a testbed for "beaming" custom music or advertisements to people on an individual basis - I know /. stories have reported on this in the past (heck, you will find my comments in them on voice to skull).
Anyhow - once you have a couple of ways to get data into the eyes and ears (and/or vestibular system) - and note, a good quality HMD could be used as a light/sound device - you then can play. I can see using the sound part to play music, and underneath the music have the sound binaural beat doing the brain-wave thing (basically, what you do is inject two different audio signals into the ears - say the left at 30 Hz, and the right at 36 Hz - which will yield a "beat tone" of around 6 Hz, which will make you drowsy, etc). Get the sound going, and sync up the eyes in a similar matter, to the sound. Maybe monitor (via IR leds and a camera) the eyes, see what they do, and if you can tell when you are in the meditative state - then alter the sound and/or visuals to force something different (say, ramp slowly from 10 Hz to 6 Hz - then hold at 6, then ramp quickly up to 7-8 Hz, injecting crazy patterns into the eyes - if using an HMD, maybe something like a visualization hack).
Another thing or possibility would be the idea of computer controlled or directed lucid dreaming, via a brain-wave system - imagine donning the goggles and headphones, lying back, listening to a relaxing audio CD as the computer drops you down to a lucid dreaming state, then starts putting suggestions into your ears and eyes, suggesting and guiding a lucid dream (perhaps the computer could also monitor breathing rate, skin conductivity, etc - to help control the "dream")...
Fascinating thoughts and ideas...
There are ATMs that dispense change - I think Wells Fargo uses them, mostly. Unfortunately, you can't do a withdrawal and get change (withdrawals are limited to multiples of $20.00) - apparently they are meant for check cashing, where you stick you check in, and it will give you back your money (minus some likely fee unless you have an account with the bank), plus any change...
I think what we may be witnessing is some kind of "meta-war". That probably isn't the right term. What I mean to say is that the MPAA and RIAA are composed of many multi-national corporations. Individually, many of these corporations have a "war-chest" or ability to generate income that exceeds the GNP of many smaller nations. Together, who's to say they don't have more power and wealth than any single large first world country?
Maybe they don't today, but maybe they are trying to get it, via an economic war. They buy their politicians, who sell out their own country by helping to introduce and pass laws like the DMCA, etc - that effectively undermine and destroy the content production base, to turn us into a consumer market (they have just about won this battle), only buying their product, not making it (who says they need to manufacture it in any form here? Its all just bits, and bits can be offshored). Perhaps they are trying to get to a point where they are big enough...
...To eventually hire one of the multi-national mercenary army corporations that have formed (and are being used) in the past 10 years. Or, perhaps they will create a new one of their own? We have corporations raping our world, we have corporations supplying mercenary troops, logistics, and weapon systems. Many of these corporations are multi-national conglomerates. Maybe we are witnessing the rebirth or reforming of even more powerful keiretsu - taking the next step of becoming virtual "states" having no true borders, but with the control, power, money, and even a standing army to back it all up?
The cool thing about a UTM is the fact that it can emulate any other UTM. The fact of this is in the domain of emulators - software that emulates hardware. It is in this domain that I find computers most fascinating, because it hints that software and hardware are the same thing and that in theory, you don't need what we call hardware to run software. Hardware is software "realized" in physical form - but because software can emulate hardware - is the "real" form absolutely necessary?
If you break that, you no longer have a UTM - and if you don't have a UTM, you no longer have a true computer, you have a special purpose calculator, at best. What is trying to be done isn't removing the concept of a UTM, but tying it up in such a way with laws and DRM to allow others to control "your" UTM - so that you can't really have a UTM.
Unfortunately for them, you can easily build a very slow UTM using nothing but paper and pencil and some rules. You could probably cobble a UTM even from the crap that they would later pass off as a "computer" - but here we are talking about hacking at a hardware/software level. If this trend continues, a black market in information processing and technology will develop in those countries affected by such laws. Hackers/phreakers/techno-anarchists will find a home and a "job" in this bleak future, they will be the "drug dealers" of the 21st century. I hate the fact that each day it seems to be leading to this, and that one day I might have to choose between chains and freedom in my coding, and that freedom will become synonymous with illegality as a result...
She was shot in the back, as she was driving away from the officer in her SUV. He was in no way threatened - other than resisting arrest, and leaving the scene of a crime - how was his life in danger to justify shooting the suspect (remember, innocent until proven guilty by a jury of peers) in the back?
Interestingly, the issue also covered building an arm-based tracker and electrolytic tilt-sensor interfacing, as well as sourceless mag tracking on a homebrew budget. One of these days I hope to be able to find the time to scan in all of my back issue and present them on the web for others to download. I have the permission from the publisher/editor of the magazine (Joseph Gradecki). He has a website (I think it is josephgradecki.com or something similar), and made mention of putting them up, but last I looked all he had were the magazine covers, and nothing more. But, at some point I am going to do this - I have his permission, and all the back issues. Maybe somebody will find the articles useful...
Now, since you are doing a wearable, and not an immersive VR rig, you are going to want detail (resolution), and not immersion (so FOV is not as important). However, you aren't going to be able to get that detail cheaply. You are going to want a minimum of 800x600, 20-30 degree horizontal FOV (and it will suck bad unless you use larger fonts). You won't find that with a camcorder viewfinder (it will show you, at best, NTSC/PAL resolution - after the conversion from VGA to composite video).
I am not saying don't try the camcorder or LCD TV solutions, just don't expect much. You might be able to get something around the usability of a palm pilot display - which could be *very* useful, if done right. Try to stick with a black and white viewfinder (higher apparent resolution). You may or may not find it difficult to interface with, some will take composite easily, others use completely different standards.
You might also try a modded VictorMaxx StuntMaster HMD - abysmal resolution, but cheap to get. A better HMD for modding is a Forte VFX-1 - it has a much better LCD/backlight than the StuntMaster (that is, it isn't washed out - I think the res is near the same, though).
Good luck - but don't expect this to be cheap or easy - it's a very niche market...
Because your code is only as free (as in "freedom") as what it runs on top of - all the way down to the microcode in the CPU.
Why is this important? Because anything else has the potential to limit you with your code. An absurd, but not impossible, case would be where Intel (or AMD, or any other CPU manufacturer) changes the license on their CPU saying something akin to AYBABTU - and require you to use *only* their compiler for their products. In fact, this is the way it is for some microcontroller products put out by other companies (though most are not this stupid), and NVidia more or less does it with their GPUs, so it is certainly possible to do it with a full CPU by a major manufacturer. If you can't compile for a platform, is your code still worth anything? Is it still "free"? Would anybody use it, let alone buy it?
Now, the above case is highly unlikely to happen - the first major CPU manufacturer to try it would find themselves out of clients, and out of business. But what about this case: Intel only licenses Microsoft compilers to compile for their CPU - anything else is deemed "illegal". Does your code still have freedom? Perhaps within the borders of an MS world - but right there you have restrictions - perhaps the compiler costs $1000.00 , and not just any "random hacker" can get it - is your code still "free" (as in freedom, remember)?
Even this case is likely too absurd - but what about this case: Intel only licenses their CPUs to allow compilers which can compile "encrypted" byte codes, with a license key, running on an "approved", DRM and DMCA-compliant chip architecture - where the compiler code is audited for each release, and none of it is open-source...
If you have been paying any attention, this is the world we seem to rapidly be heading toward, where the whole f'in' system is locked down, and only "approved" people can code for it (and they probably have to pass the equivalent of a bar exam issued by the state to get that approval). Is your code still free? I don't think my code would have its freedom under this system.
You see, there is a real reason, and a real danger that RMS sees, and more people need to get it through their thick skulls that this was why he start GNU and created the GPL. The GPL isn't dangerous to profits - its dangerous to people and organizations (government, corporate, and private) who want to secure and profit off of absolute control of your life...
If you don't see this, you are either ignorant or willfully blind to what is currently happenning.
Basically, water is pumped and allowed to run over the heat-exchanger radiator, through which a "brine" is circulated (typically water with anti-freeze or similar to prevent corrosion and increase "wetness"). This brine is circulated through pipes and lines to the various heat-exchanger radiators in the duct system in the building. Air is force-circulated through these, the brine picks up the heat and circulates the heat back to the large heat-exchanger/waterfall unit, which transfers the heat and evaporates the water, cooling the brine, which is circulated back to the rest of the system.
All the benefits of swamp cooling (the cooling part), without the "muggy" feeling on days with high-humidity (though as with a swamp cooler, efficiency still drops on those humid days)...
Last year, I went to Burning Man for the first time. I was fortunate enough to catch the "Critical Tits" bike parade. About a quarter the way through the parade, I realized I was more interested in seeing the people, than I was at seeing their bodies.
Indeed, I saw more nudity at Burning Man than I have ever seen anywhere. My memories of the experience, though, focus around the friendships, acquaintances, and conversations I had - regardless of (and in some case, in spite of) the state of dress.
American society seems to exhibit symptoms of behavior that would be regarded as psychopathic, if those same symptoms were applied to a single person. The way this society approaches sex versus violence is but one aspect of this behavior. Part of me believes America will realize how irrational it is to think nudity equals sex (or that nudity immediatly leads to sex, or is only about sex) at about the same time that religion is found to be irrational. Thus, I don't hold out much hope of this ever happenning within my lifetime, though I honestly hope I am proved wrong.
Can't wait to return home...
I am keeping all my old crap, because it may become the only way to truely be free to do what I want (code, create music/video, etc) when the rest of the world is locked down in DRM-madness.
The scary part is that by doing so, I may inadvertantly become a part of a grey-or-black market...
Psst, buddy - want me to rip those CD's to MP3...?
Then watch parents squirm and whine...
In a certain book called "Android Design", by Martin Bradley Weinstein, this DRAM chip camera design was known as the "RAMERA" system, IIRC. He gave enough info to build it, but I think it was originally referenced in an old Ciarcia's Celler book or magazine from the period (early 1980's)...
I own an original copy of this book (kinda rare). One thing that continues to amaze me about the projects in the book is that they were expected to be understood and constructed by children, likely ages 10-15. Some of the projects (like homebrew wet cells) used some pretty dangerous chemicals. There were warnings throughout, but not to the point of "paranoia" like you see in some so-called "science experiment" books of today (except for those which have watered down everything to make the experiments uber-safe).
Today, it seems like you can't even get a kid to imagine how to build stuff, especially relatively complex stuff (an electric motor, a steam engine or tubine, a radio, etc) - let alone expect him to understand it. While knowledge of such devices doesn't have much practical use to most people, the education it gives about how to do things for yourself, and why they work, is what is important. Unfortunately for most of today's generation, such thinking skills are not shown or taught as much as they once were...
There are plenty of stories out there of men involved in tests, in which they faced the bomb as it was going off. As "protection", they were told to shut their eyes tightly and cover them with their hands. They would be told (by officers and others in the area, who wore welding-goggle-like protection) when they could remove them, and (in some cases), advance to near ground zero of the test. Despite having there eyes shut and their hands over them, many reported being able to see the bones of their hands (like an x-ray)...
I own a copy of this book, and I urge everyone who is interested to hunt down and buy it. It is truely eye opening. The imagery is both beautiful as well as haunting. One image in particular (one which shows soldier's reactions to the explosion) is most interesting - they have a look of awe and disbelief on their faces, it is difficult to describe it exactly...
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Mr. Powell, welcome to blogging, and as one respondent noted, "Welcome to Hell".
I wanted to post my comments regarding FCC regulation, digital TV (and associated DRM measures), and indecency - if for nothing else than to establish my position with you and with the community on where I stand on these issues. If you note, they fall very much in line with what others have written here.
I am a "tech savvy" (actually, that is an understatement) citizen of this country. I am also a voter.
Regarding regulation, I understand that for the public airwaves, there must be some form of regulation, otherwise, in the end, the airwaves would be filled with nothing but static, as station after station stomped the commons with overlapping broadcasts. Whether it is TV or radio, the result would be the same; an unlistenable (or unwatchable) morass of grey static.
However, the current situation and regulations make it impossible for a truely free market to exist. Current licensing fees and regulations make it impossible to easily and cheaply set up low power FM radio stations (even in markets where such stations could be set up without interference). This has left commercial radio (like ClearChannel) the only choice in most markets, which isn't a choice at all. National Public Radio (NPR) also struggles with these regulations.
The situation with television is even worse. While startup costs have always been a limiting factor for small (independent) television stations, those costs
have dropped rapidly in recent years, allowing the possibility for someone to broadcast a TV station from their home. However, licensing costs, fees,
paperwork, and other FCC regulation issues have made it impossible for such services to become available.
In a way, cable TV was an attempt to get around this issue, and in some ways, it has succeeded. By confining the "airwaves" to a coax broadcast medium, and utilizing a different spectrum for broadcasting, many more channels could be delivered to the consumer's door. This availability of channels has spawned the concept of "niche" channels - it seems now if there is an interest, there is a channel (or two, or more) for it. The content for these channels is created by privately owned companies (and the networks) who sell through distribution channels to the cable broadcasters. It isn't a perfect solution, but it is what we have.
The internet is rapidly changing all of this. The internet was originally developed as a "network of ends", where everything connected to this network was "smart", but the network itself remained "stupid" - its only job to shuffle around the packets of information via openly developed and published protocols. Such a network is inherently robust by its nature and structure.
A network of "smart" endpoints means that anyone can become (in concept) a broadcaster. I, or anyone else, can for instance, build a server (serving web pages or anything else), and put it on the internet, and others can find it and read (and/or download) information off of it. It is a different way of distributing information: Instead of the "push" model of traditional broadcasting, the internet is based on the "pull" model, where those that want information must seek it out and request it from the servers. This model has proved itself to be very popular. Content "pushing" has been tried for the internet, but the popularity of such implementations bombed very quickly. The population of the internet has spoken, "pulled" content is what we want.
Consumers have long requested this model for television: Pay-Per-View programming is
We already have tons of capable players. What is lacking is a legal decoder - a legal form of DeCSS. Such a module would have a very simple interface (likely only stdin/out, but maybe something a little more complex). We know it would be small (look how small DeCSS is) - basically it would take the encoded stream and spit out the decoded stream, which could be passed on to whatever software we wanted to use.
It wouldn't be the best solution (I dislike any proprietary and closed software because of the possible unknown security holes that could be opened up - how do you know if that DVD player software can't execute code in a buffer overrun or something?), but it would be better than "yet-another-player", and it would allow others to easily develop for it. Ideally, it would simply drop in to mplayer or xine as another module for playback.
We probably won't ever see this, though - simply for the fact that they (the DVD-CCA) want to control the entire stream - they don't want a decoded stream "in the open" anywhere if they can help it...
But for simple stuff (ie, MP3 playing on XMMS while copying a bunch of files in a terminal, perhaps), not having the parameters properly set (ie, leaving them at default) may be causing the problem (for the original poster) *now* - if he isn't aware of hdparm.
A lot of people still don't know about hdparm, furthermore most new users of linux don't know that when they do an install (on most distros), the parameters are set for LCD systems, not optimized for current hardware configurations (which I think is a good thing, but to a new user it makes everything look slow).
If you had, you will see that in most Linux installations, the hdparm parameters are set to represent the lowest common denominator of PC installations. In other words, most distributions ship with the hard drive settings so that you can install it on a circa 1992 hardware, and it will work out of the box. You have to tweak it from there.
Generally, on a new install of Linux, your buffered disk reads will be around ~4 MB/sec - even if you have the latest motherboard ultraATA/66 EIDE etc wazoo out the back - still, only 4 MB/sec.
Now, one would think this would be enough for MP3 playback, but when you are copying files while playing back the MP3 - priority likely goes to the file copy, not to the application. I don't know why this is, but I would wager it has to do with the fact the linux, out of the box, is a server system - with multimedia tacked on afterward. All of this can be tweaked, but in the end, data copy speed for core OS functions are going to get the most priority, not sound. At any rate, anything on the linux box having to do with the disk system (which is almost anything) will benefit from using hdparm to boost it to proper levels.
With proper use (for your hardware - don't just try this willy-nilly, because hdparm can be used to "force" settings that older hardware may not like, leading to data corruption), hdparm can take that 4 MB/sec number and turn it into 20 MB/sec or more. This is going to help everything. Application startup time is reduced dramatically. Directory listings and searching take less time. Hopefully, the extra speed will allow more time for the sound subsystem to keep its buffer full and not allow underruns leading to "skips".
Speeding up Linux Using hdparm