Lots of great ideas and advice here - heed them all! But as another poster noticed, the best way to solar cool your house is to design the house to be solar cooled - retrofitting an existing dwelling is either going to prove challenging, costly, or inefficient, or all three! Especially if you live in a standard neighborhood home.
Forget trying to run a regular AC unit, unless you want to spend BIG BUCKS on the batteries and solar panels - and you will spend a lot of money on them (though prices have come down a lot). If you ever want to go solar electric, and you can't outright pay for the panels, you might consider rolling them into your home loan (if you get one), or as part of the purchase of your house (think of it as buying the electricity for you homes needs for 20 years up front - then the cost is VERY cheap).
Really, though, you need to work with nature, not against it. So, design, plan, and build your house accordingly.
Choose the right type of house - for most enviroments, a dome-style house is going to be the absolutely most efficient kind of house around. Use 40 foot lengths of rebar set and wired/welded into a 20 or 30 foot diameter concrete "foundation" ring - rebar around that, to make a dome of rebar, cover with wire mesh - dip burlap sacks in concrete and cover the outside and inside - or use shotcrete. Spray with foam insulation, or cover with dirt? Build walls a few feet thick, and you had EXCELLENT insulation (earthen mass).
I like the idea of burying PVC pipe in the ground - great idea. Also, look into the idea of a "solar cooling tower". This is basically two tall towers - one painted black, the other painted white. The black one absorbs heat, and the air inside rises, while the white one stays cooler. Inside the white one, you water mist or evap cool air, so it falls - place on opposite sides of your house, and let the cycle flow the air through! Heck, there has even been a cpu cooler or two built using this principle (shower cooling)!!!
Or, look into how the Romans use to cool their places: Dig a large, deep trench (several hundred feet long, 15-20 feet deep), put a pipe at the bottom, and run air through that - or, bury your house! I have also heard of a "heat pump" whereby in the summertime, hot air in the house was heat-exchanged (just like an AC unit) to a large hole in the ground filled with rock or steel, to store the excess heat in the house in the rock and steel during the summer - when winter came, the reverse was done, to pull the summer heat back out of the rocks/steel. Just keep in mind that you don't have to dig very far down until the earth temperature stabilizes - that is how you do it.
Another thing: in northern New Mexico, there is an old pueblo built by the Acoma indian tribe, where the apartments are passed down the maternal side - anyhow, they are built of adobe, with walls several feet thick. I was there in August, 100 degree temps outside, felt A/C'd on the inside - but there was NO A/C UP THERE - they had to truck in propane and water. Keep in mind "earth mass".
There are other things to keep in mind - with proper orientation, you can line your house up (or the windows), so that maximum sun shines in the wintertime into a greenhouse (south exposure), but with the right angling of the windows, less in the summer (due to the angle of the earth and sun), to help keep the house cool.
Another thing to think about is keeping the coolness in during the day, and letting it in at night - think insulation over all of the windows (there is a system that uses styrofoam beads to fill/evacuavate a dual pane window system with a powerful vacuum system to insulate a solar house).
Also, remember that there are propane powered refrigerators, which use heat to remove heat (sounds counterintuitive, but once you understand refrigeration systems, it isn't) - so, replace the propane flame with a solar concentrator! There are solar refrigerators that do this (or a similar system using solar water heated panels) - so it should be possible to do the same with an A/C unit of sorts.
It takes a lot of creativity to live off-the-grid, and more so to cool a home. But with proper building techniques, coupled with a knowledge of both past and current cooling systems - you can do so very comfortably...
Besides, of course, the end to these squabbles over what format this and that - is the availability of cheap DVD Authoring drives. While regular DVD+/-RW drives are cool and all, why should we settle for the lesser capabilities offerred by them?
There was also a very short lived 3 inch size available (not sure on the PC at the time, but I do remember it being available for the RS Color Computer 2 running OS-9 Level 1)...
Imagine if those same 75% voted with their feet/wallet, and didn't go into the "smoking" restaurants/bars at all, and ate at home (or gone to the few non-smoking places)? Don't you think the business owners would then get the message?
I watched it - and while I don't think I wasted my time (it wasn't that bad of a show), I don't think it will last more than a season - maybe two (if it is *very* lucky).
What many of you/.'ers here seem to be missing is that the world protrayed in CC isn't all "bright and shiny" - it is today's world, set only a few years in the future. The show revealed what we should already know: in the future, people will be petty, people will be greedy, and lawyers will still be making tons of money. Oh, and the abortion debate will still be going on (I would even interject something here about religion, but not enough was revealed in the show, yet).
I got a feeling from the show that in the world of CC, everything looks OK - but in reality, it isn't - look a little closer (ie, be more than a prole or a sheep) - and you will see the dystopia - a dystopia that is around us today.
Today, look at how our rights and the way we live are being eroded, seemingly on a day-by-day basis. Maybe it isn't much different from the past, maybe we just have more information sources 24/7 - I don't know - still, it seems to me like the United States is going to hell in a handbasket - and everyone is smiling.
Everyone is buying shiny houses, shiny cars, shiny clothes - and refusing to see the dystopia unfolding right before their eyes.
In our current world, on the surface - it looks all fine and dandy - shiny. But in reality, we are still arguing and prosecuting (and persecuting) thousands, if not millions, of people simply because of viewpoints they hold, or because of who they are biologically. Furthermore, many of us are each saying "F the environment", collectively supporting bad practices instead of embracing renewable methods.
Is today not Century City - just 25-26 years in the "past"? Arguing that it isn't simply exhibits blatent willfulness to ignore what is right in front of one's face...
They don't have to - what ever happened to voting with one's feet or wallet (ie, for the thick skulled - if you don't like something going on inside - GO SOMEWHERE ELSE)?
Something like this should be fairly easy to construct - whether it would work well or not, that is another thing.
First, get yourself a copy of Forrest M. Mims III's "Engineer's Mini-Notebook - Op Amp IC Circuits" (RS 276-5011) - probably not very easy to find (I believe it may be out of print - go to ratshack and ask). Alternatively, grab a copy of "The Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook" (ISBN 1-878707-03-5).
Ok, now - if you have the mini-notebook, look on page 12 - if you have the other book, look on page 93. Basically, what you are looking for is the "Inverting Amplifier" (both circuits are nearly identical - though the original booklet shows a resistor R3 hanging off pin 3 of the 741).
So, anyhow, you run your mic input (exercise left for the reader) into the Vin to pin 2 of the 741, and an inverted waveform will show on pin 6. Run that output through an amplifier, then the output of the amp into a speaker - and there is your basic sound cancellation system.
By taking the input sound waveform, inverting it through the 741, amplifying it, then outputing it through a speaker - the valleys and crests of the two waveforms should nearly match each other (with the exception of a slight delay introduced by the circuit/amps).
Want to take it a step further? Tie an A/D and a D/A on each end - and inbetween set up a really fast DSP or microcontroller, and perform on each sample of the waveform a form of amplitude forecasting - so that you can maybe cancel out the effects of the delay in the circuit by adjusting for them dynamically. Probably would be difficult to do homebrew, but if you grok what I am talking about, you can see how it would help, and why it would be fun to try.
Hope this inspires someone - good luck!!!
Who can forget "Riptide"?
on
Retro Vision
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· Score: 2
Hey, alongside Magnum P.I. and Miami Vice - what about "Riptide" for old 80's TV?
Welcome aboard the Riptide, home of the world-famous Riptide Detective Agency. Meet, from left to right, Murray Bozinsky, computer expert, inventer of the Roboz, Nick Ryder, pilot of the Screaming Mimi, an old Sikorsky helicopter with a big smile on its 'face', and Cody Allen, owner of the Riptide.
Sadly, this seems to be one of the few (or only?) Riptide fan sites around - most people don't even remember this series (it only lasted a few seasons, IIRC)...
Actually, google does sell one product that is actually kinda cool, although pricy. It is called the Google Search Appliance.
Basically, they have packaged up their search engine into a small server case (1U), which can be used in a single capacity (for small businesses), or networked together in multiples for larger businesses, or as a company grows.
With it, a company can set it up to search their own website, or in a more useful context, search their intranet for cataloging and indexing internal documents.
Now, I know that alone won't keep them afloat after an IPO, but it is an interesting form of their technology that they sell...
Actually, I think they would say "Bravo!", and award you at least an honorable mention, and a contract.
If part of the purpose of this race is to help develop an autonomous mobile supply carrier truck, then the strategy you talk about would actually be useful. Think of it as an "electronically coupled off-rail train", and the implications and applications become obvious.
Such technology would be useful for so many purposes - coupled with an actual autonomous navigation system that work, one or the other could be switched out as needed (ie, if the lead is taken out by a mine, perhaps, the next behind could take over "lead", keeping the train moving forward, and around the "dead" lead truck).
I would say a little "bullshitting" might be a good thing, done on an occasional basis. For example, to the "why is the sky blue" question, answer:
"Because the day before you were born I was painting a fencepost and I tripped, the bucket flew up in the sky, and splashed the sky blue. I liked it so much, I didn't change it."
See what their reaction is, then wink and laugh - see if they understand the "joke", that you were "ribbing" them. Then explain why the sky is really blue (translated appropriate for their age and intelectual development level, of course).
I would think playing such a charade on the kid would help stimulate the humor side, as well as help teach the kid not to believe everything they hear as "gospel", so they learn to question more...
I wonder if they mean the case is this funky bright yellow with lots of dohicky plastic bits (bonus points if they are a shade of grey!) that don't do anything...
Oh, right - they are saying *utility*, not *sport utility*...
You nailed it (no pun intended) on the head with "d" - porn is *very* stereotyped right now. But that won't last, it will eventually move out of the rut.
Regarding the prior post, points 2 and 4:
Both are related, "in glasses" personal viewers and VR HMD's today are identical, mainly because most users are demanding resolution over field-of-view. Because of this trade off, we see in the current market today more high-res, low FOV HMD's, rather than HMDs which immerse you in the display. Even many of the very high-end HMDs, with insane resolutions - still have small FOVs, which are crap for fully immersive environments. These are exactly the type of environments that would be wanted for porn.
In a way, the boat was already missed. When VR was the "hot thing" in the early 90's, the push was for large FOV - not resolution. Resolutions were known to get better (it was just a matter of time), but something changed in the industry to flip this. At any rate, it was the wrong time. About the mid-90's, VR-for-entertainment (that is, true immersive VR) started to collapse, and the internet took off, and online porn never really had a chance to experiment in this area. I think what was wanted was something akin to the Virtuality Visette technology (approx 60 deg horizontal x 45 deg vert FOV, @ 640x480 res), at a Forte VFX-1 (which had an ok FOV, but crappy res - and it wasn't immersive, though the flip front was cool) or better price-point (the Visette goes for about $1500.00, while the VFX-1 went for around $500.00). Had such a device come to market, I bet gamers would have snapped it up quickly, and today's gaming and porn world would be much different.
What we will likely see grow today, instead, will be something more akin to machinima-meets-porn (perhaps even with the frag-fest - XXX Duke Nukem 3D?) - all "actors" are 3D models, getting the moves on. Move your viewpoint around, check out different "rooms", etc. We don't have fully immersive VR on PC's today, but we do have what was termed "desktop VR" on just about every game console and PC, what with the wealth of FPS-type games. I expect porn to follow this trend. In a way, it is already happenning - there is 3D rendered porn (typically using Poser and Photoshop). As human body rendering tools get better, expect to see more of this - plus possibly the melding of anime style with other regular "features".
What we may also see is some kind of live 3D video compression/streaming system built - imagine 2 or more cameras digitizing a live porn scene. The cameras are stationary, but their position is known. Now, using that fact, plus technology similar to what was used during Super Bowl a couple of years ago, which was based on technology used to render the various bullet-time sequences in the Matrix - combine that with a voxel type system - and you basically could come up with a volumized/voxel camera motion capture/digitizing system. Such a system would be a boon to the game industry (basically pixel-perfect 3D motion capture limited only by the res of your cameras) - but I think porn could get there first. You would have to have it all blue screened or something to drop unwanted information (so you aren't voxelizing everything - just the "actors"), then likely compress it (I am wondering if a 3D volume compression system similar to JPEG, using 2x2x2 voxel cubes or larger, could be created?). Maybe the "scene" would be built up digitally, so that the 3D voxels would appear in a 3D rendered world (ie, regular textured polygons).
Alright, so all of this is "pie-in-the-sky", but maybe somebody somewhere can expand on these ideas...
Likely they use standard parts, albeit ECC, likely.
Where they get you, though, is in the service contracts - likely in order to increase space, or repair one (say one had a bad DIMM), their service contract states only authorized people may come out and do it, and only use authorized parts. Otherwise, any warantee is void.
Oh, and the parts are the same as you can get elsewhere, they just jack the price up 10-100x more.
IBM does it, Sun does it, they all do it - for items like these (ie, big expensive computer equipment), it is a niche market, and they charge what the market will bear, not a penny more or less.
The so-called invisible web is indirectly related to the "deep web", with the exception that most of it isn't connected at all to the main web. Slashdot has had some articles regarding these hidden segments of the web - but has any progress been made on finding these "lost networks"?
Current theory on networks explains how and why these networks form and separate from the main web of connections, mainly due to loss of one of the tenuous threads from a supernode to the outlyer nodes. When this loss occurs (an intermediary site goes offline, or popularity wanes, or a large meganode dies or stagnates), the network fragments - and getting back to the pages/sites within is nearly impossible, unless you already have a link to the inside, or a friend provides it to you.
Now, it is a good thing that this phenomena exists - it seems to exist in all robust, evolving networks - whether those networks be electronically connected, socially connected (ie, Friendster, Orkut, or plain-ole social groupings), or bio/chemo connected (ie, the brain, the body, etc).
Even so, I wonder at all the information out there which I *can't* access, because it isn't indexed in some way. Sometimes you come across fragments and echos in other archives (news, mail, irc) that lead to these far-off and displaced "locations" - but it is rare, and tedious to do unless you are looking for very needful information.
So I ask again, has anything been done to further the "searching" within/for the "invisible web"?
Actually, the problem with flipping a monitor in any other direction than what it was meant to be in is two-fold:
First off, the monitor is designed to radiate heat away from the tube and controlling electronics (which typically sit at the "bottom" of the monitor case). Flipping the monitor upside down effectively cooks the electronics, unless you re-orient them, or put in place forced-air cooling (aka, a fan).
Secondly, there is the issue of support - that is, the tube is held in place by various parts with the assumption that it will be in a certain orientation most of the time. Change that orientation, and the supports may fail. So, you would have to re-engineer these as well.
While it is true the monitor may change funky colors due to its new alignment with the earth's magnetic field, this can be corrected in a shop - sometimes you just need to demagnetize the monitor (ie, unplug it and replug it in an hour later). Other times there are internal adjustments to make (look into using a monitor from say the northern hemisphere in Australia, for instance).
Actually, for you to get this projector to work properly, you will likely need to do two things: turn the image upside down, and reverse it. You can do this optically with a mirror, however you will lose light intensity (plus, unless you are using front surface mirrors, you will get abberation issues).
The best way to do both involves flipping wires on the control yoke of the tube - basically you have to reverse the horizontal deflection magnet connections, and either reverse the same on the vertical, or rotate the whole assembly 180 degrees to get it upside down. All of this can be a very hazardous operation - if you have never worked on a monitor before, *** STAY AWAY ***. One screwup and you can easily be killed, or seriously injured if you are lucky. Keep one hand in a pocket at all times. Drain the capacitive voltage off the tube before and during working on it. Even if it has been setting for a while, charge can build up in it (all capacitors can do this) - so always drain them (and don't use the screwdriver trick - not only can you ruin the monitor, but you may also destroy certain drive electronics - drain it through a large resistor instead).
There are several documents on the internet about how to screw with monitors, safety precautions to take, etc. If you are set on doing this, and you feel you have the background to try (ie, you didn't just pick up a soldering iron that afternoon for the first time), study all of them, and follow *every* precaution. Do not take any shortcuts.
I guarantee you - if you have never been, you and your outlook on life will be different.
If you want the least frustrating experience - find some friends to go with, or ones who have gone. Or, find out if you have a regional burn group - and go to the regional burn, or any one of the other events that the group may sponsor or host. Get involved with the art, with the sound, with the sights - get involved with the people!
Believe me, you won't feel too weird anymore afterward - Burning Man introduces whole new levels of strangeness into your life.
My first Burn was last year. My only regret is not going sooner. The people I met, the friends I made, the art I experienced - I was made anew.
As part of this re-making, I learned something that should be common sense, especially for someone my age - but it wasn't. It is something fundamentally important, that I missed all of these years - and learning it led to my final decision to go to Burning Man. If it hadn't been for the wonderful friends I have, I might have missed this simple truth:
A stranger can only become a friend through getting to know them. If they act like they don't like you, or don't want to talk to you, it most likely isn't you. It's them. In other words, if you are being polite and doing everything to be friendly with someone you don't know, and they still shun you - move on. It is they who have the problem, not you.
Teach them that, let them learn it - then take them to Burning Man.
tsp generally means "teaspoon", while "T" or "Tsp" or "TSP" means "tablespoon" - how do you know? Big "T" or little "t" - teaspoon is smaller than a tablespoon.
Regarding the rest of your comments: I have never lived in or visited a country that used metric units exclusively. Here in States, most of our measuring cups have metric units printed alongside the "english" units - do they not do this as well elsewhere?
Something tells me that this might not be the case. Probably the best thing you can do would be to get some english unit measuring utensils (with the metric measurements as well) instead of metric-only utensils. Some utensils may not come in the dual markings - so you would need to get two sets there. Buying both, though, and learning what each "marking" (ie, tsp=teaspoon, lbs=pounds, c=cups, etc) means, would likely be the easiest approach...
While your account definitely would count as SPAM, I think that they are using a tighter definition of SPAM here, that of UCE, or unsolicited commercial email. The Canter & Siegel email would certainly fall into that category (I remember the email - it was selling green cards - and I was a user of Internet Direct long ago - man, has it been 10 years already?) - while the Jesus email wouldn't (as it sounds that it was not attempting to sell anything for a monetary amount)...
They are working on this - crazy thing is, I would think that once you could do this, you could do the opposite - perhaps with other plants as well. BTW - did anybody notice the "geneng" article in the latest 2600 issue? I thought it was interesting, even if it was only the basics. I figure it won't be too many more years before we see real garage-level genetic engineering...
I don't know if it has been mentioned or not...
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Powered Exoskeleton Legs
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I didn't bother reading all 200+ comments so far on this, so I thought I would throw out this:
Servo Magazine (an offshoot of Nuts and Volts - dedicated to robotics) is sponsoring a competition called "Tetsujin 2004" - aka "Iron Man" - a powered exoskeleton competition, October 21-23, in Santa Clara, CA.
From what I can gather, I imagine it to be basically what happens when you take powered exoskeletons, and combine them with allure of battle robotics (aka, BattleBots, Robot Wars, BotBash, etc). Essentially, let's see what "garage-level" robotics engineers can come up with in the spare time.
I think its going to be interesting - seeing how battle robotics have almost single-handedly brought back hobby robotics from the brink...
Check it out - deadline for registration is in June...
I know enough to know when that light goes on in any relatively modern car (ie, one with a real computer), it means "find out what codes it is spitting". Well, on my wife's 97 Neon, that light would come on, and the code it would throw was basically "oxygen sensor bad". No big deal, change one or two sensors, see if it goes away - but I don't want to deal with it right now because they are a bitch to get to.
Ok, so I know that sometime soon we need to change the timing belt - which isn't something I can do on that car (and honestly, I don't know how they do it at the garage - the room to do it in would require you to take a lot off the engine just to get the cover off) - so that was going to be $300.00 that I just didn't have at that moment. We had also figured that we would get the water pump replaced at that time since it would be easy for them to do.
Anyhow, so we know all of this, and I figure that we would get it done sometime in a few months. My wife goes to drive to work, gets on the freeway, but has no power - she can only get up to 40, so she pulls off - and the engine dies when she is at idle. She calls me, I come and look at the car, and I notice a huge puddle of coolant under the car and all in the wheelwell - not a good sign. Hoses look OK - so it can only mean the water pump. I figure - well, it finally went - but why won't the damn car run anymore (can't start it - but it is just a water pump, it should run right?).
We get it towed to our service station, come to find out that the pump is driven by the timing belt, and that it had seized - shredding (the already old) timing belt in the process. Oh, yeah - and the engine is an interference engine.
The numbers are spinning in my head - I am looking at a possible $1500 bill (for valve job, etc) - all because of a failed water pump. Had this happened on my 94 Ranger, or my 79 Bronco, at worst it would have been a weekend job to replace a fan belt and the pump.
We got lucky - no valve damage, only had to pay for the pump and belt, about what it was quoted to us originally when we were looking into this.
What bothers me is that why didn't the engine computer use the camshaft position sensor along with other sensors (including the oxygen sensor) to determine that the timing belt had jumped a notch or something, and tell me to "get the damn timing belt fixed now" (heck, just a "check timing belt" would've helped).
I figure what happened is that the timing belt likely jumped a notch from a starting to seize pump, and was changing the output gases enough to set off the oxy sensor - but because there were no other codes (I had always figured when it got really bad on the timing belt, other codes about emmisions and camshaft sensor would pop) - I didn't know that it needed help soon, until it became too late. Plus, with everything so tight in the engine compartment, there is no way I can even check (or repair/replace) either of those two parts without taking it to a shop.
My Bronco (and to a lesser extent, my Ranger) are dreams to work on in comparison. Everything out in the open, easy to work on, nothing crammed together (esp the Bronco - love that thing). All cars should be like that.
If the answer to that is "yes", then be prepared for a possible long haul. If you have never done this sort of reverse engineer, prepare for a very steep learning curve. Finally, if you have never wielded a soldering iron (though why you would contemplate this sort of project if you haven't is beyond me - it isn't a beginner's project), forget it.
Ok, with that out of the way - take a very good look at the keyboard. If you have to, remove the backplate (if it has one, and you can without damaging or disabling anything - sometimes this is impossible to know before doing it - if in doubt, don't do it). See if anywhere on the keyboard is a controller chip/circuit. If there is, write down all the numbers/info you can about each part, and about the board in general. Find out assembly numbers, revision numbers, part number. Finally, write down the part number/rev/version/assembly numbers for the keyboard itself.
If you didn't see any circuitry (though I would expect maybe some for the trackmouse thingie - maybe not), then you are in luck - it is a keyboard matrix. Now, all you have to do is figure out the matrix.
If it is such a keyboard, the best way is to look up on DigiKey the kind of connector you need for the keyboard ribbon cable (as it is likely to be a simple flexible cable with little or no connector). If you know what the connector looked like on the laptop, it would help. Basically, you are going to need to take some mesurements of the cable/connector and such, and try to find the proper DigiKey part. You may need to take some pics and get in contact with someone at DigiKey for info regarding this.
Regardless of whether it is such a keyboard or not - have you tried contacting IBM and asking them about it? Don't send you email to sales or whatnot - be polite in the email, state you have purchased the item used (or whatever), and are interested in researching the feasibility of using the device in a custom application. State that you are an electronics hobbyist, and that you are looking for pinout information for the keyboard. Ask to be forwarded to an engineer. Go a couple of rounds of email with them (don't be discouraged - but don't get angry, either - you will likely get exasperated easily) - sometimes if you are persistent it pays off. They might actually outsource the keyboards from a foreign manufacturer. It gets tricky if it goes that direction (because of language barriers), but it isn't impossible. Hopefully they can give you an email address.
If they do tell you they outsource from a foreign manufacturer, politely ask if they would refer to you who the manufacturer is - likely it will be an asian source. With that in name in hand, you might try googling on it, or checking out AsianSources.com (I think that is right). Basically, you are going to lead yourself down a strange and difficult path, but not an impossible one.
Hopefully, you will get someone on this end that will know what you are trying to do, and won't try to sell you another product.
Once you determine (however) what kind of interface you have (ie, matrix or on-board controller mediated), and once you figure out its layout (the purpose of finding the proper connector from DigiKey is so you can build the interface and hook it up to experiment easily), you can then work on the interface. You can either hook it up to the standard keyboard connector or USB - USB is more difficult, but it has become easier lately for hobbyists (check out recent back issues of Nuts and Volts magazine for info on USB interfacing). Basically, you are going to need a micro-controller of some sort in between the keyboard and the interface, to translate what comes from the keyboard into what your interface is expecting. I would use either a PIC of some sort or if you want easier development, a BASIC Stamp (essentially a PIC with memory and custom software - there are clones available as well). I suppose you could go with an Atmel uController, but it might be overkill. A simple PIC wo
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Forget trying to run a regular AC unit, unless you want to spend BIG BUCKS on the batteries and solar panels - and you will spend a lot of money on them (though prices have come down a lot). If you ever want to go solar electric, and you can't outright pay for the panels, you might consider rolling them into your home loan (if you get one), or as part of the purchase of your house (think of it as buying the electricity for you homes needs for 20 years up front - then the cost is VERY cheap).
Really, though, you need to work with nature, not against it. So, design, plan, and build your house accordingly.
Choose the right type of house - for most enviroments, a dome-style house is going to be the absolutely most efficient kind of house around. Use 40 foot lengths of rebar set and wired/welded into a 20 or 30 foot diameter concrete "foundation" ring - rebar around that, to make a dome of rebar, cover with wire mesh - dip burlap sacks in concrete and cover the outside and inside - or use shotcrete. Spray with foam insulation, or cover with dirt? Build walls a few feet thick, and you had EXCELLENT insulation (earthen mass).
I like the idea of burying PVC pipe in the ground - great idea. Also, look into the idea of a "solar cooling tower". This is basically two tall towers - one painted black, the other painted white. The black one absorbs heat, and the air inside rises, while the white one stays cooler. Inside the white one, you water mist or evap cool air, so it falls - place on opposite sides of your house, and let the cycle flow the air through! Heck, there has even been a cpu cooler or two built using this principle (shower cooling)!!!
Or, look into how the Romans use to cool their places: Dig a large, deep trench (several hundred feet long, 15-20 feet deep), put a pipe at the bottom, and run air through that - or, bury your house! I have also heard of a "heat pump" whereby in the summertime, hot air in the house was heat-exchanged (just like an AC unit) to a large hole in the ground filled with rock or steel, to store the excess heat in the house in the rock and steel during the summer - when winter came, the reverse was done, to pull the summer heat back out of the rocks/steel. Just keep in mind that you don't have to dig very far down until the earth temperature stabilizes - that is how you do it.
Another thing: in northern New Mexico, there is an old pueblo built by the Acoma indian tribe, where the apartments are passed down the maternal side - anyhow, they are built of adobe, with walls several feet thick. I was there in August, 100 degree temps outside, felt A/C'd on the inside - but there was NO A/C UP THERE - they had to truck in propane and water. Keep in mind "earth mass".
There are other things to keep in mind - with proper orientation, you can line your house up (or the windows), so that maximum sun shines in the wintertime into a greenhouse (south exposure), but with the right angling of the windows, less in the summer (due to the angle of the earth and sun), to help keep the house cool.
Another thing to think about is keeping the coolness in during the day, and letting it in at night - think insulation over all of the windows (there is a system that uses styrofoam beads to fill/evacuavate a dual pane window system with a powerful vacuum system to insulate a solar house).
Also, remember that there are propane powered refrigerators, which use heat to remove heat (sounds counterintuitive, but once you understand refrigeration systems, it isn't) - so, replace the propane flame with a solar concentrator! There are solar refrigerators that do this (or a similar system using solar water heated panels) - so it should be possible to do the same with an A/C unit of sorts.
It takes a lot of creativity to live off-the-grid, and more so to cool a home. But with proper building techniques, coupled with a knowledge of both past and current cooling systems - you can do so very comfortably...
Besides, of course, the end to these squabbles over what format this and that - is the availability of cheap DVD Authoring drives. While regular DVD+/-RW drives are cool and all, why should we settle for the lesser capabilities offerred by them?
There was also a very short lived 3 inch size available (not sure on the PC at the time, but I do remember it being available for the RS Color Computer 2 running OS-9 Level 1)...
Imagine if those same 75% voted with their feet/wallet, and didn't go into the "smoking" restaurants/bars at all, and ate at home (or gone to the few non-smoking places)? Don't you think the business owners would then get the message?
What many of you /.'ers here seem to be missing is that the world protrayed in CC isn't all "bright and shiny" - it is today's world, set only a few years in the future. The show revealed what we should already know: in the future, people will be petty, people will be greedy, and lawyers will still be making tons of money. Oh, and the abortion debate will still be going on (I would even interject something here about religion, but not enough was revealed in the show, yet).
I got a feeling from the show that in the world of CC, everything looks OK - but in reality, it isn't - look a little closer (ie, be more than a prole or a sheep) - and you will see the dystopia - a dystopia that is around us today.
Today, look at how our rights and the way we live are being eroded, seemingly on a day-by-day basis. Maybe it isn't much different from the past, maybe we just have more information sources 24/7 - I don't know - still, it seems to me like the United States is going to hell in a handbasket - and everyone is smiling.
Everyone is buying shiny houses, shiny cars, shiny clothes - and refusing to see the dystopia unfolding right before their eyes.
In our current world, on the surface - it looks all fine and dandy - shiny. But in reality, we are still arguing and prosecuting (and persecuting) thousands, if not millions, of people simply because of viewpoints they hold, or because of who they are biologically. Furthermore, many of us are each saying "F the environment", collectively supporting bad practices instead of embracing renewable methods.
Is today not Century City - just 25-26 years in the "past"? Arguing that it isn't simply exhibits blatent willfulness to ignore what is right in front of one's face...
"Law and Order: Extreme International Emergency Investigation Organization"
They don't have to - what ever happened to voting with one's feet or wallet (ie, for the thick skulled - if you don't like something going on inside - GO SOMEWHERE ELSE)?
Makes you wonder what, if anything, is found in the dark corners of semi-conductor manufacturers cleanrooms...
First, get yourself a copy of Forrest M. Mims III's "Engineer's Mini-Notebook - Op Amp IC Circuits" (RS 276-5011) - probably not very easy to find (I believe it may be out of print - go to ratshack and ask). Alternatively, grab a copy of "The Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook" (ISBN 1-878707-03-5).
Ok, now - if you have the mini-notebook, look on page 12 - if you have the other book, look on page 93. Basically, what you are looking for is the "Inverting Amplifier" (both circuits are nearly identical - though the original booklet shows a resistor R3 hanging off pin 3 of the 741).
So, anyhow, you run your mic input (exercise left for the reader) into the Vin to pin 2 of the 741, and an inverted waveform will show on pin 6. Run that output through an amplifier, then the output of the amp into a speaker - and there is your basic sound cancellation system.
By taking the input sound waveform, inverting it through the 741, amplifying it, then outputing it through a speaker - the valleys and crests of the two waveforms should nearly match each other (with the exception of a slight delay introduced by the circuit/amps).
Want to take it a step further? Tie an A/D and a D/A on each end - and inbetween set up a really fast DSP or microcontroller, and perform on each sample of the waveform a form of amplitude forecasting - so that you can maybe cancel out the effects of the delay in the circuit by adjusting for them dynamically. Probably would be difficult to do homebrew, but if you grok what I am talking about, you can see how it would help, and why it would be fun to try.
Hope this inspires someone - good luck!!!
Riptide Fan Page
From the site:
Welcome aboard the Riptide, home of the world-famous Riptide Detective Agency. Meet, from left to right, Murray Bozinsky, computer expert, inventer of the Roboz, Nick Ryder, pilot of the Screaming Mimi, an old Sikorsky helicopter with a big smile on its 'face', and Cody Allen, owner of the Riptide.
Sadly, this seems to be one of the few (or only?) Riptide fan sites around - most people don't even remember this series (it only lasted a few seasons, IIRC)...
Basically, they have packaged up their search engine into a small server case (1U), which can be used in a single capacity (for small businesses), or networked together in multiples for larger businesses, or as a company grows.
With it, a company can set it up to search their own website, or in a more useful context, search their intranet for cataloging and indexing internal documents.
Now, I know that alone won't keep them afloat after an IPO, but it is an interesting form of their technology that they sell...
If part of the purpose of this race is to help develop an autonomous mobile supply carrier truck, then the strategy you talk about would actually be useful. Think of it as an "electronically coupled off-rail train", and the implications and applications become obvious.
Such technology would be useful for so many purposes - coupled with an actual autonomous navigation system that work, one or the other could be switched out as needed (ie, if the lead is taken out by a mine, perhaps, the next behind could take over "lead", keeping the train moving forward, and around the "dead" lead truck).
"Because the day before you were born I was painting a fencepost and I tripped, the bucket flew up in the sky, and splashed the sky blue. I liked it so much, I didn't change it."
See what their reaction is, then wink and laugh - see if they understand the "joke", that you were "ribbing" them. Then explain why the sky is really blue (translated appropriate for their age and intelectual development level, of course).
I would think playing such a charade on the kid would help stimulate the humor side, as well as help teach the kid not to believe everything they hear as "gospel", so they learn to question more...
Oh, right - they are saying *utility*, not *sport utility*...
Regarding the prior post, points 2 and 4:
Both are related, "in glasses" personal viewers and VR HMD's today are identical, mainly because most users are demanding resolution over field-of-view. Because of this trade off, we see in the current market today more high-res, low FOV HMD's, rather than HMDs which immerse you in the display. Even many of the very high-end HMDs, with insane resolutions - still have small FOVs, which are crap for fully immersive environments. These are exactly the type of environments that would be wanted for porn.
In a way, the boat was already missed. When VR was the "hot thing" in the early 90's, the push was for large FOV - not resolution. Resolutions were known to get better (it was just a matter of time), but something changed in the industry to flip this. At any rate, it was the wrong time. About the mid-90's, VR-for-entertainment (that is, true immersive VR) started to collapse, and the internet took off, and online porn never really had a chance to experiment in this area. I think what was wanted was something akin to the Virtuality Visette technology (approx 60 deg horizontal x 45 deg vert FOV, @ 640x480 res), at a Forte VFX-1 (which had an ok FOV, but crappy res - and it wasn't immersive, though the flip front was cool) or better price-point (the Visette goes for about $1500.00, while the VFX-1 went for around $500.00). Had such a device come to market, I bet gamers would have snapped it up quickly, and today's gaming and porn world would be much different.
What we will likely see grow today, instead, will be something more akin to machinima-meets-porn (perhaps even with the frag-fest - XXX Duke Nukem 3D?) - all "actors" are 3D models, getting the moves on. Move your viewpoint around, check out different "rooms", etc. We don't have fully immersive VR on PC's today, but we do have what was termed "desktop VR" on just about every game console and PC, what with the wealth of FPS-type games. I expect porn to follow this trend. In a way, it is already happenning - there is 3D rendered porn (typically using Poser and Photoshop). As human body rendering tools get better, expect to see more of this - plus possibly the melding of anime style with other regular "features".
What we may also see is some kind of live 3D video compression/streaming system built - imagine 2 or more cameras digitizing a live porn scene. The cameras are stationary, but their position is known. Now, using that fact, plus technology similar to what was used during Super Bowl a couple of years ago, which was based on technology used to render the various bullet-time sequences in the Matrix - combine that with a voxel type system - and you basically could come up with a volumized/voxel camera motion capture/digitizing system. Such a system would be a boon to the game industry (basically pixel-perfect 3D motion capture limited only by the res of your cameras) - but I think porn could get there first. You would have to have it all blue screened or something to drop unwanted information (so you aren't voxelizing everything - just the "actors"), then likely compress it (I am wondering if a 3D volume compression system similar to JPEG, using 2x2x2 voxel cubes or larger, could be created?). Maybe the "scene" would be built up digitally, so that the 3D voxels would appear in a 3D rendered world (ie, regular textured polygons).
Alright, so all of this is "pie-in-the-sky", but maybe somebody somewhere can expand on these ideas...
Where they get you, though, is in the service contracts - likely in order to increase space, or repair one (say one had a bad DIMM), their service contract states only authorized people may come out and do it, and only use authorized parts. Otherwise, any warantee is void.
Oh, and the parts are the same as you can get elsewhere, they just jack the price up 10-100x more.
IBM does it, Sun does it, they all do it - for items like these (ie, big expensive computer equipment), it is a niche market, and they charge what the market will bear, not a penny more or less.
The so-called invisible web is indirectly related to the "deep web", with the exception that most of it isn't connected at all to the main web. Slashdot has had some articles regarding these hidden segments of the web - but has any progress been made on finding these "lost networks"?
Current theory on networks explains how and why these networks form and separate from the main web of connections, mainly due to loss of one of the tenuous threads from a supernode to the outlyer nodes. When this loss occurs (an intermediary site goes offline, or popularity wanes, or a large meganode dies or stagnates), the network fragments - and getting back to the pages/sites within is nearly impossible, unless you already have a link to the inside, or a friend provides it to you.
Now, it is a good thing that this phenomena exists - it seems to exist in all robust, evolving networks - whether those networks be electronically connected, socially connected (ie, Friendster, Orkut, or plain-ole social groupings), or bio/chemo connected (ie, the brain, the body, etc).
Even so, I wonder at all the information out there which I *can't* access, because it isn't indexed in some way. Sometimes you come across fragments and echos in other archives (news, mail, irc) that lead to these far-off and displaced "locations" - but it is rare, and tedious to do unless you are looking for very needful information.
So I ask again, has anything been done to further the "searching" within/for the "invisible web"?
First off, the monitor is designed to radiate heat away from the tube and controlling electronics (which typically sit at the "bottom" of the monitor case). Flipping the monitor upside down effectively cooks the electronics, unless you re-orient them, or put in place forced-air cooling (aka, a fan).
Secondly, there is the issue of support - that is, the tube is held in place by various parts with the assumption that it will be in a certain orientation most of the time. Change that orientation, and the supports may fail. So, you would have to re-engineer these as well.
While it is true the monitor may change funky colors due to its new alignment with the earth's magnetic field, this can be corrected in a shop - sometimes you just need to demagnetize the monitor (ie, unplug it and replug it in an hour later). Other times there are internal adjustments to make (look into using a monitor from say the northern hemisphere in Australia, for instance).
Actually, for you to get this projector to work properly, you will likely need to do two things: turn the image upside down, and reverse it. You can do this optically with a mirror, however you will lose light intensity (plus, unless you are using front surface mirrors, you will get abberation issues).
The best way to do both involves flipping wires on the control yoke of the tube - basically you have to reverse the horizontal deflection magnet connections, and either reverse the same on the vertical, or rotate the whole assembly 180 degrees to get it upside down. All of this can be a very hazardous operation - if you have never worked on a monitor before, *** STAY AWAY ***. One screwup and you can easily be killed, or seriously injured if you are lucky. Keep one hand in a pocket at all times. Drain the capacitive voltage off the tube before and during working on it. Even if it has been setting for a while, charge can build up in it (all capacitors can do this) - so always drain them (and don't use the screwdriver trick - not only can you ruin the monitor, but you may also destroy certain drive electronics - drain it through a large resistor instead).
There are several documents on the internet about how to screw with monitors, safety precautions to take, etc. If you are set on doing this, and you feel you have the background to try (ie, you didn't just pick up a soldering iron that afternoon for the first time), study all of them, and follow *every* precaution. Do not take any shortcuts.
Be safe...
Take them to Burning Man!!!
I guarantee you - if you have never been, you and your outlook on life will be different.
If you want the least frustrating experience - find some friends to go with, or ones who have gone. Or, find out if you have a regional burn group - and go to the regional burn, or any one of the other events that the group may sponsor or host. Get involved with the art, with the sound, with the sights - get involved with the people!
Believe me, you won't feel too weird anymore afterward - Burning Man introduces whole new levels of strangeness into your life.
My first Burn was last year. My only regret is not going sooner. The people I met, the friends I made, the art I experienced - I was made anew.
As part of this re-making, I learned something that should be common sense, especially for someone my age - but it wasn't. It is something fundamentally important, that I missed all of these years - and learning it led to my final decision to go to Burning Man. If it hadn't been for the wonderful friends I have, I might have missed this simple truth:
A stranger can only become a friend through getting to know them. If they act like they don't like you, or don't want to talk to you, it most likely isn't you. It's them. In other words, if you are being polite and doing everything to be friendly with someone you don't know, and they still shun you - move on. It is they who have the problem, not you.
Teach them that, let them learn it - then take them to Burning Man.
Both of your lives will never be the same again.
Regarding the rest of your comments: I have never lived in or visited a country that used metric units exclusively. Here in States, most of our measuring cups have metric units printed alongside the "english" units - do they not do this as well elsewhere?
Something tells me that this might not be the case. Probably the best thing you can do would be to get some english unit measuring utensils (with the metric measurements as well) instead of metric-only utensils. Some utensils may not come in the dual markings - so you would need to get two sets there. Buying both, though, and learning what each "marking" (ie, tsp=teaspoon, lbs=pounds, c=cups, etc) means, would likely be the easiest approach...
While your account definitely would count as SPAM, I think that they are using a tighter definition of SPAM here, that of UCE, or unsolicited commercial email. The Canter & Siegel email would certainly fall into that category (I remember the email - it was selling green cards - and I was a user of Internet Direct long ago - man, has it been 10 years already?) - while the Jesus email wouldn't (as it sounds that it was not attempting to sell anything for a monetary amount)...
They are working on this - crazy thing is, I would think that once you could do this, you could do the opposite - perhaps with other plants as well. BTW - did anybody notice the "geneng" article in the latest 2600 issue? I thought it was interesting, even if it was only the basics. I figure it won't be too many more years before we see real garage-level genetic engineering...
Servo Magazine (an offshoot of Nuts and Volts - dedicated to robotics) is sponsoring a competition called "Tetsujin 2004" - aka "Iron Man" - a powered exoskeleton competition, October 21-23, in Santa Clara, CA.
From what I can gather, I imagine it to be basically what happens when you take powered exoskeletons, and combine them with allure of battle robotics (aka, BattleBots, Robot Wars, BotBash, etc). Essentially, let's see what "garage-level" robotics engineers can come up with in the spare time.
I think its going to be interesting - seeing how battle robotics have almost single-handedly brought back hobby robotics from the brink...
Check it out - deadline for registration is in June...
I know enough to know when that light goes on in any relatively modern car (ie, one with a real computer), it means "find out what codes it is spitting". Well, on my wife's 97 Neon, that light would come on, and the code it would throw was basically "oxygen sensor bad". No big deal, change one or two sensors, see if it goes away - but I don't want to deal with it right now because they are a bitch to get to.
Ok, so I know that sometime soon we need to change the timing belt - which isn't something I can do on that car (and honestly, I don't know how they do it at the garage - the room to do it in would require you to take a lot off the engine just to get the cover off) - so that was going to be $300.00 that I just didn't have at that moment. We had also figured that we would get the water pump replaced at that time since it would be easy for them to do.
Anyhow, so we know all of this, and I figure that we would get it done sometime in a few months. My wife goes to drive to work, gets on the freeway, but has no power - she can only get up to 40, so she pulls off - and the engine dies when she is at idle. She calls me, I come and look at the car, and I notice a huge puddle of coolant under the car and all in the wheelwell - not a good sign. Hoses look OK - so it can only mean the water pump. I figure - well, it finally went - but why won't the damn car run anymore (can't start it - but it is just a water pump, it should run right?).
We get it towed to our service station, come to find out that the pump is driven by the timing belt, and that it had seized - shredding (the already old) timing belt in the process. Oh, yeah - and the engine is an interference engine.
The numbers are spinning in my head - I am looking at a possible $1500 bill (for valve job, etc) - all because of a failed water pump. Had this happened on my 94 Ranger, or my 79 Bronco, at worst it would have been a weekend job to replace a fan belt and the pump.
We got lucky - no valve damage, only had to pay for the pump and belt, about what it was quoted to us originally when we were looking into this.
What bothers me is that why didn't the engine computer use the camshaft position sensor along with other sensors (including the oxygen sensor) to determine that the timing belt had jumped a notch or something, and tell me to "get the damn timing belt fixed now" (heck, just a "check timing belt" would've helped).
I figure what happened is that the timing belt likely jumped a notch from a starting to seize pump, and was changing the output gases enough to set off the oxy sensor - but because there were no other codes (I had always figured when it got really bad on the timing belt, other codes about emmisions and camshaft sensor would pop) - I didn't know that it needed help soon, until it became too late. Plus, with everything so tight in the engine compartment, there is no way I can even check (or repair/replace) either of those two parts without taking it to a shop.
My Bronco (and to a lesser extent, my Ranger) are dreams to work on in comparison. Everything out in the open, easy to work on, nothing crammed together (esp the Bronco - love that thing). All cars should be like that.
If the answer to that is "yes", then be prepared for a possible long haul. If you have never done this sort of reverse engineer, prepare for a very steep learning curve. Finally, if you have never wielded a soldering iron (though why you would contemplate this sort of project if you haven't is beyond me - it isn't a beginner's project), forget it.
Ok, with that out of the way - take a very good look at the keyboard. If you have to, remove the backplate (if it has one, and you can without damaging or disabling anything - sometimes this is impossible to know before doing it - if in doubt, don't do it). See if anywhere on the keyboard is a controller chip/circuit. If there is, write down all the numbers/info you can about each part, and about the board in general. Find out assembly numbers, revision numbers, part number. Finally, write down the part number/rev/version/assembly numbers for the keyboard itself.
If you didn't see any circuitry (though I would expect maybe some for the trackmouse thingie - maybe not), then you are in luck - it is a keyboard matrix. Now, all you have to do is figure out the matrix.
If it is such a keyboard, the best way is to look up on DigiKey the kind of connector you need for the keyboard ribbon cable (as it is likely to be a simple flexible cable with little or no connector). If you know what the connector looked like on the laptop, it would help. Basically, you are going to need to take some mesurements of the cable/connector and such, and try to find the proper DigiKey part. You may need to take some pics and get in contact with someone at DigiKey for info regarding this.
Regardless of whether it is such a keyboard or not - have you tried contacting IBM and asking them about it? Don't send you email to sales or whatnot - be polite in the email, state you have purchased the item used (or whatever), and are interested in researching the feasibility of using the device in a custom application. State that you are an electronics hobbyist, and that you are looking for pinout information for the keyboard. Ask to be forwarded to an engineer. Go a couple of rounds of email with them (don't be discouraged - but don't get angry, either - you will likely get exasperated easily) - sometimes if you are persistent it pays off. They might actually outsource the keyboards from a foreign manufacturer. It gets tricky if it goes that direction (because of language barriers), but it isn't impossible. Hopefully they can give you an email address.
If they do tell you they outsource from a foreign manufacturer, politely ask if they would refer to you who the manufacturer is - likely it will be an asian source. With that in name in hand, you might try googling on it, or checking out AsianSources.com (I think that is right). Basically, you are going to lead yourself down a strange and difficult path, but not an impossible one.
Hopefully, you will get someone on this end that will know what you are trying to do, and won't try to sell you another product.
Once you determine (however) what kind of interface you have (ie, matrix or on-board controller mediated), and once you figure out its layout (the purpose of finding the proper connector from DigiKey is so you can build the interface and hook it up to experiment easily), you can then work on the interface. You can either hook it up to the standard keyboard connector or USB - USB is more difficult, but it has become easier lately for hobbyists (check out recent back issues of Nuts and Volts magazine for info on USB interfacing). Basically, you are going to need a micro-controller of some sort in between the keyboard and the interface, to translate what comes from the keyboard into what your interface is expecting. I would use either a PIC of some sort or if you want easier development, a BASIC Stamp (essentially a PIC with memory and custom software - there are clones available as well). I suppose you could go with an Atmel uController, but it might be overkill. A simple PIC wo