DNA and RNA work together, performing essentially the same function as a Turing machine, where the base pairs form instructions to that machine. You are right in saying that the genome is source code, and that technically, cells can be programmed, but we are a long way away from being able to program them.
The problem to programming cells is that the program being run is likely very simple, but produces extremely complex results (and no, this is not my idea, but the idea of others - its most recent proponent is Stephen Wolfram - read his book "A New Kind of Science" for more info on this).
Now, I know I am going to be flamed or ridiculed by that last statement, but after having read the book, and realizing its implications (while simultaneously realizing that I will have to re-read the book many times over to truely understand it), I honestly believe that what Wolfram has done is original. True, there were many others before him - but he has managed to take the collected works, and work out a verbalized theory of what all of it means (instead of it continuing to be just a collection of individual research papers and such). Many others before him came close to that verbalization (which he acknowledges in the text), but did not continue with the thread of thought, or publish it in some manner.
If this is something that interests you, you owe it to yourself to read the book (as well as other books on such ideas as "emergence" - look up "Out of Control", the title of a good book on this phenomena). Also look up "Matrioshka Brains", "Sanger Institute: C. Elegans Project", "Singularity", and of course, "Nanotech", "Foresight Institute" - also "Hans Moravec".
Google on this information, it is *all* related. If you begin to understand it all, you should become both frightened and excited, all at the same time. You should also begin to question your own sanity, as well as the sanity of the world around you. Much of what is out there seems like it is something that borders on the "lunatic fringe", but once you really start to study it, it doesn't sound that implausible at all (especially the emergence stuff, and the way large corporations appear to act, if looked at as being emergent entity beings).
Have fun, and good luck (oh, btw, keep this in mind - if emergent behavior is a true thing - and everything points to that it is, as long as feedback loops exist - then what would you as a human do if one of your neurons suddenly became sentient, and realized that it made up a "whole" greater than the sum of the parts? Now, look on that as what happens if a human can figure out how a "corporate entity being" is "thinking" - don't you think that being would look to "exterminate" that rogue unit?)...
No it wouldn't, and yes I have. Basically, look into REND386 or AVRIL, things like the Menelli Box interface, Power Glove hacking - heck, just go to my site, tons of links there (btw, if you are looking for a Linux drive, look up pglinux - there was a/. article not too long back).
Anyhow, the PowerGlove, while OK for experimentation, sucks for pretty much anything else. But if you are thinking like "general glove input device" - like a VPL DataGlove or similar, then I would have to say that for keyboard input, it wouldn't be too great. The only way you would get any good speed would be through gesture recognition, and if that was the "wave of the future" - we would already have it, as glove gesture systems have been researched since the early 1990s (both professional and homebrew).
The lockdown on the VPL patent for glove tech notwithstanding, even I think glove based input is only suitable for a small number of niche applications - not for general computing use (in a virtual environment, I could see using a glove, and voice recog software, for general "macro-level" input - but not for standard keyboard input - mainly because of lack of feedback of pressing keys, it would be tiring. Now, maybe for certain task, like on-the-fly editing of voice-recog dictation, or programming-vie-gestures, with an appropriate programming language - these tasks could possibly be done in a virtual environment).
Notice they are using waste silicon from semiconductor manufacturers. I think this is a good thing, because there is a fair amount of waste, and it uses it, rather than dumping it. Even so, I tend to doubt you are going to be able to (any time soon) walk into a Home Depot (or wherever) and order this stuff off a roll by the yard (and when you are able to, it is probably going to be damn expensive initially). But I still wonder about that waste...
Ok, how many of you have heard how to make a copper-oxide solar cell? Pretty easy to do, right? However, it has a couple of large drawbacks: one, they tend to use saltwater for contacts, and two, they are very inefficient.
Now, I have tried to think of how to get around the whole salt-water issue, and I don't think any of them would really work. Basically, you have to use salt water as a contact because you need a relatively "clear" contact to allow the sunlight through. Notice how on this "solar cloth" (yeah, I know it isn't cloth), the aluminum conductors are very thin - well, they are probably "see-through" thin, like very thin mylar or such. That, or simply a gas deposited aluminum surface on the clear plastic - thin enough to see through (like gold anodize on astronaut helmet facesheilds). Anyhow, it is the same thing in a copper-oxide cell with the salt water.
The thing is, you need a conductor with large surface area, which is why salt water is used. Less surface area is less efficient. I thought maybe you could "draw" a grid with "artic silver" type silver paste or whatnot (kinda like the metal grid on standard solar cells), but the contact area would be very low. I don't know if maybe you could spread such a paste VERY thin, and cover it with a piece of glass or whatnot (bond a couple of wires in beforehand). Anybody have ideas on this?
Finally, I wonder about silicon "blanks" - if you have ever shopped around surplus electronics, you run across piles of these all the time - blank silicon wafers (sometime polished, sometimes not). I wonder if there is a way of using those (the problem is that whole "P-N" junction thing - how do you homebrew a "deposit" system - could you get some borax (for boron) and somehow melt it on one side, and some phosphorous, maybe some iron phosphate fertilizer or something, for the other? Or maybe make a solution and let it dry on the sides (precipitate crystals out)? Maybe then put the silver solder/paste lines down, and a silver backing (or attach alluminum foil to the backside). Anybody have ideas here?
Sure, you could simply buy surplus broke solar cells and build panels, but I have found that you tend to find these silicon blanks more easily than the solar cell pieces, and the pieces tend to go for a lot more money than the blanks...
Interesting - I live in a house on a street where the backyards of all the houses face a walking path alongside a drainage canal. There are a lot of houses along this way. One day I was walking along the path, and I noticed this cable laying on the ground next to the back fence. It wasn't CAT anything, as best I could tell just from looking (no markings, and the line was cut - visible wires weren't tp) - but looked to be about 15 or more wires in the bundle. The end I was at was cut, and a dangling piece lay over the fence and into someone's backyard. I didn't look over to see where it went to, but instead followed the rest of the cable - it layed on the ground for a bit, then swooped up on top of the fence where it passed through eye bolts, then was tied to a tree branch, then back down onto the ground - about 4-5 houses down it ended in a cut end, with no other end in sight. Now, I know that at least three people were involved (the guy with the cable hanging over the fence, the guy with the tree in the backyard to which the cable was tied, and the eyebolts on his fence through which the cable was run, and the final dude, wherever it originally terminated). At first, I thought it might be a networking type attempt (people trying to share cox.net broadband), but the cutting, and the lack of one of the ends bothered me - I gave it some thought, and I don't know if my hunch is right - but I tend to wonder if there wasn't some sort of other clandestine networking going on, but for a phone system? I dunno - maybe one of these days I will knock on their door or something, and find out what is happening. A friend and I have talked about doing a neighborhood mesh, but we don't know the geek density in our area (he lives nearby) yet...
Why not? Provided that those 56K linkups didn't all terminate to the same "bank" of modems on the other end (what I mean here is that they all aren't on the same "pipe"), and that most of them stayed up, all should share in the aggregate bandwidth - right? In a way, it is the same kind of pooling of bandwidth as happens in many p2p sharing apps...
Ok, so you mean single-edge blades, but without the metal "protecting" sleeve on the one side, right? Could this be done with double edged blades (which are much thinner - though it would be more dangerous)? I would think it could, then it would be a two sided stack. I can see where solder might be better if used as a heat dump (if you used some high-temp solder - or maybe even brazing the stack, though it would be more difficult). Interesting...
My father used stacks of razor blades as a heat dump for lasers in his fusion research at University of Wisconsin. He showed with pencil and paper how the razor blades successively reflect the light into the gaps between the blades, without turning it around. Thus, they absorb all the light, and make a great blackbody.
Can you explain what you mean by a stack, or give a link to a diagram showing this? I am interested in this process. Thanks!
Actually, by far the best way to do a "countertop video display" is a recessed LCD - get an old laptop, extend the wires to the LCD, mount the CPU out of the way somewhere (in the cabinet, or on the rear wall - just make sure you can get to it), and put the LCD in a hole cut in the countertop. Rabbet the edge of the hole with a router so you can recess a piece of glass or similar material over the LCD. Add gasket material to seal out moisture (clear or custom-colored silicone would probably be best). Want to make it truely sweet? Add "pointer" capability - put pressure sensitive resistive strain gauges at the corners of the recess, and in the middle of the edges, prior to gluing the glass down. Run wires from these to the computer (think voltage divider connected to A/D converter - you could probably hack something up that connects to the serial port). Now, when you press on the glass, resistance of the strain gauges change, indicating where your finger is (because each has a different pressure registered). Custom software would have to be written to convert these eight values into X/Y coordinates (probably some simple averaging routine, along with a noise reduction algorithm). Finally, add code to detect single and double taps for selection use, then interface all of that with your GUI or text display.
But, if what you *really* want is a projector...
First, think about the color of the surface you are projecting on - notice that in the image you provided, the surface was dark, and the image was *very* bright. In fact, just from the picture I think it was too bright, it would probably dazzle you to actually use it in real life. A projector may or may not work well on such a surface, unless the image it was projecting had mostly light colors (whitish). Otherwise, you would want your surface to be something lighter (like a tan or grey color) - which may mean changing your countertop.
Once that issue is out of the way, all you have to do is build the projector (easier said than done, BTW). A simple projector is nothing more than an image source, and a convex (magnifying) lens. Simple "project-a-picture" projectors found at arts/crafts supply stores use this system. It works OK, but isn't the best (see numerous examples online and on ebay about 100 inch TV plans) - but may work well for your application. If you really want to do this right, look up information and discussion about "triplet projection lenses" - these are lens systems that are designed for projection, and tend to have everything set up to make the image projected clear and undistorted. Unfortunately, you will tend to find new triplet assemblies to be rather pricey - which is where surplus comes in. There are people out there building such projectors (for TV projection mainly) - the projectors thus built tend to be big, but in a theater-type setting, it doesn't matter as much (other than asthetics). But this is because the builders are trying to get a huge picture, and so need a lens with a large focal length, which increases the size of the projector (unless you are adept with mirrors and folding the light path - which is outside the scope of most builders). However, since you would be projecting a much shorter distance, you can get away with a smaller lens, and hence a smaller enclosure for the projector you build.
The first one is a guy who sells triplet lenses on eBay, but provides the plans and such for free. The second is a source I found for surplus lenses, and they have a few low focal length lenses that might fit the bill for what you are wanting to do. It also might be possible to build your own custom triplet assembly from lenses picked out of an Edmund Scientific catalog, but it will be pricey.
For an LCD, to keep the size down, use something like a smaller 5 or 6 inch LCD - these can be found surplus, or you can use something like that used for "in-dash" auto video systems. You will have to disassemble the LCD in order to add a bright backlight system (which is a whole discussion in and of itself - look at the sites off of Alan's links and you will see what has been tried, and how well it works - don't forget about heat issues and the LCD, too!). Hook up a VGA to TV converter, stick to a low-res display with larger fonts, and you are set.
Mouse pointer issues can be a problem here, but I would suggest a variation on what I described first, except instead of a clear glass inset in the counter, get a white or light color porcelain (ok, I I think I mangled that word) cutting "board", make the rabbets wider to hold the board better, and install a stainless steel "splash guard" around the seam, and seal it. Project down onto this. It can act as a "screen", and serve as a useful cutting board for cooking (ok, I am thinking "kitchen computer" here - where it seems the picture you provided was aimed at). Otherwise, inset a light panel of similar countertop or desk material instead.
I hope this helps - sometimes I wonder why I am not paid for this...
A lot of reporting centering around damage that may have been done to the tiles by the foam seems to be distorted in some way (whether intentional or not, I don't know). Mainly that falling foam during launch can damage the tiles, yet the tiles survive the process of launch (and all the stresses involved therein), and are designed to.
I have heard that the foam used on the external tank is nothing more than a slightly different form of the "expanding insulation foam" available at any hardware store. I tend to believe this accessment, since the foam is only there for insulation of the fuel tank (to insulate the liquid fuels used, which are extremely cold). I have also read that what really fell wasn't only foam, but foam and ice (because it was raining a lot, and even with insulation, the tank/foam surface still gets freezing cold - forming ice on/around the foam). Now, a large ball of ice/foam is going to be dense and heavy, and potentially damaging. I tend to think that if any damage occurred to the tiles, this was the reason, and not just foam alone (the foam alone should be very lightweight, and not only that, but very difficult to break off, even under launch conditions - have you ever played with that stuff after it has solidified?)...
While it might be difficult (maybe even impossible) to field replace them, I still think having the optional ability to at least try should be something the astronauts have. I think my caulk-tube like idea (I am thinking something like "cement in a tube", maybe made with ground space-shuttle tile material mixed into a quick-setting epoxy) would be the best best, rather than cutable tiles - because it would allow repair as well as replacement, it would be easier to store, and you wouldn't need a cutting machine (though you would need some kind of application "gun").
Of course, maybe some other material should be found/used for the heat shield. I think the idea of tiles is a good one (if it was a shell-type shield, or a coating over the tiles, a part of it could come off, and take off a lot of tiles - this was probably why tiles were chosen, because the sheilds used in Apollo and Mercury were simple "one-piece" type ablative systems, that were one-use only - if such a thing were used on the shuttle, it would be super-expensive, because the entire undersurface of the wing would have to be stripped and recoated for every flight).
Lastly, I tend to wonder if maybe (perhaps not with the shuttle, but with a different vehicle design) there is a better way to re-enter the atmosphere after a flight? Maybe a helicopter-blade style parachute recovery system? Maybe some kind of powered descent (like that McDonald-Douglas vertical liftoff/touchdown vehicle that was destroyed in a test flight)? Maybe something else?
I wondered about the spare tile issue, and now that you mention it - yeah, each tile is shaped uniquely. But that got me wondering - why not carry a few oversize tiles, which could be trimmed down with some kind of tool (a saw or something). Sure, it would be dirty as hell, but in an emergency, does it really matter?
Look at Apollo 13 - duct tape and scavenged parts to get home safely. Why not some form of "shuttle tile paste" in a caulk gun form factor, which can cure in the absence of air and pressure - apply the paste, and trowl smooth - simply fill in the gaps as needed!
I am surprised (or maybe they did - I don't keep up on the NASA channel) they didn't do a space walk and check the underside of the shuttle (ie, by using the EVA pack units?), to determine if there was an issue? Didn't NASA know there was a possible problem at/after launch - which is why they didn't dock with ISS? If so, wouldn't they have checked it out (in orbit)? Was it simply a matter of them not having anything to fix it with (and thus NASA or the astronauts deciding to just "give it a shot and pray")? If there was an issue - why not make it public and have EVERYONE in the world attempting to come up with a workable solution?
A lot of questions, not a lot of answers right now...
I recall the legend that "with a really big heatsink/fan", you could run a 5x86/133 at 200MHz.
I am not sure that is so much a legend as maybe a fact - many of the AMD 5x86/133's could be pushed to 166MHz, with little in the way of a temperature increase, and no problems with stability. I have done this to a few of them myself. I wouldn't be surprised if you could push one to 200MHz with a good heatsink and fan (though I wonder if stability would be an issue)...
I agree with you on this - something I have always wished you could have on Linux (and there is nothing really stopping this) is an "InstallShield"-like installation process for software.
Even if all the thing did was automate the "./configure, make, make install" - it would go a long way to solving the problem (of course, there are number of pitfalls to all of this - namely security issues - many time you do the first two steps as a user, and the last as root - because typically the software gets installed into a path accessible only by root - although I know there is a way to pass path information to make). Being able to choose where to install the software easily, see how much space it needs vs. how much it is taking up, etc - plus having a way to easily uninstall - this would go a long way toward making things better.
Building such an app should be relatively easy - make it useable at the console and under X. Make it scriptable (so that developers can build the install scripts). Something makes me think that this should be fairly easy to implement.
There would be pitfalls (mainly issues involving library compatibilities and versions, and should the installer be a self-contained executable - and if so, how do you ensure that it always works regardless of the system). It is a hairy problem, but one that definitely needs to be solved.
He imagined a system, described in his book Mind Children, called the Moravec Transfer, which is a form of mind uploading.
Now, I realize this isn't the same as what you are worried about here with teleportation - but the ideas behind the Moravec Transfer really causes one to think about what is MIND and the "I" of an individual - where does it begin, and where does it end. I think the way it is spelled out and discussed in the above link on the Singularity makes the case clear that it *is* possible (not with today's tech, of course) to transfer the mind to a computer, and there would be no difference in the experience - you wouldn't "die" with the method.
I wouldn't worry about it for a while - at least not until we get fusion reactors or something. Remember nuclear bombs? They take a small chunk of matter and turn it into a *VERY HUGE* release of energy. So, all you have to do is be able to create *that much energy* first, then find a way to stuff it back into and create matter (fyi - they have been able to do this in high-energy particle accelleration experiments - IIRC, some of the very short lived elements in the periodic table are created this way - but it takes a huge amount of energy, and you get very little out of it - at least currently)...
Damn - what does that make - I am (2 or 3?) degrees of separation away from an original TMRC hacker (not sure that it matters after you not hearing from him in 25 years)?
Damn, the more I learn about you, meso, the more I realize that I have a *lot* to learn *from* you (it's only too bad you don't come into the office more often and stop by to talk)...
I was thinking of that, actually - and if you notice I did say not to go to 0 volts, but somewhere around 1-2 volts (plus, I was also thinking in NiCd terms, not NiMH - not that it is much better).
Also note that I didn't give a particular resistance value for the power resistor (mainly because I didn't know one off the top of my head - my bad). A small motor wouldn't draw that much current (now, I am not saying like a larger racing motor, just some cheapo lil' 6-12 volt motor).
Also, as far as damaging the battery, that also assumes the battery overheats - which is why I reccommended the fan as well.
This isn't to say I disagree with you, and anyone who wants to do this, should proabably visit the link that you provided to build this thing properly...
Most require the user to click to open something (ie, via outlook or whatnot). They are trojans as well, just like this software (with the misnomer of "virus")...
I had an idea to make a little device which will draw a steady current from the battery until it's really empty
This is pretty simple to do - the battery should have four (maybe three) terminals, and as someone else noted above, if you cover a couple, that isolates the power meter check function from the laptop. Now, you could just continue to run the laptop until the battery is dead, but this could be bad for data/memory/etc (computers do odd things when voltage gets low - sometimes odd and *bad* things).
So, pull out the battery, find the terminals that supply the power, and hook something up to them - a smallish DC motor with a piece of tape wrapped on the shaft (for air drag) will draw enough current, but if you really wanted to do it quickly, drop a 10-watt sand power resistor across the terminals, and point a fan at it (it will get DAMN hot, hot enough to burn if you don't cool it down with something - if you want to be extra careful, clamp a heatsink/fan combo onto the resistor - power the fan with the battery, too!)...
I would also monitor the voltage level with a meter as well, you probably don't want to drain it all the way to zero, just close to it (1-2 volts). Finally, realize that the quicker you discharge the battery, the more it will heat up, and it could also become damaged in the process. Cool the battery down, and watch it carefully (don't hook this up and go to bed/the store/etc).
After it is discharged, let it cool down, check the voltage (and if it is too high, discharge again), then once the voltage is low enough, put it in the laptop and recharge it...
I also agree with those that say "start with a software renderer, then port".
But really, that is just the tip of the iceberg, and let me tell you, it is a HUGE chunk of ice!
If you really want to learn the math behind 3D graphics, you really need to start with 2D rotations and transforms. Start out first learning to plot a square, that you can rotate, transform and scale. The vertices can be plotted using a simple SIN/COS rotational transform, same as for drawing a circle (ie, X=CX+SIN(A)*R, Y=CY+COS(A)*R - I think that is right).
Once you know how to rotate, transform (simple addition) and scale (scaling is simple multiplication by a scaling factor) using basic equations - then learn matrix math - in order to do the same kind of manipulations. For a 2D system, you will use a 3x3 matrix. The operations are the same as the equation method, but are simply expressed in a different form.
You want to get used to matrix math representations, because that is how most 3D stuff is represented in books, and whatnot. Once you know the matrix stuff for 2D - you will want to move to clipping the lines that make up the 2D square to the viewport.
After learning clipping in 2D - you should then probably try your hand at a simple vector game of Asteroids, with spinning ships, asteroids, explosions, etc - all drawn with lines. If you can do this, you are well on your way to going 3D.
First, attempt to do the same 2D square as a 3D wireframe cube, using equation rotations/transforms/scaling math - for 3D, it gets much harder, but if you do the studying right (I did it once, it was a bitch), you will see how it is just an extension of 2D, done three times (more or less). Then, convert that to matrix math (4x4 matrices, now). You will also need to learn how to project the object from 3D space to 2D space (not that hard - a little simple geometry and trig).
Once you can do a 3D cube, you then need to learn about clipping in 3D (ie, clipping the object to the viewport, as well as to the view frustum). At this point, you can go down two road: 3D world database building and display, or solid modeling.
I would suggest the former over the latter, because if you can't show multiple models from a database, making them solid won't help any - plus you need to learn about how the pipelines go together to get the model from the database through the calcs and onto the display, and how to make them fast - in order to have a fast world.
So, you want to first build a world database, in probably a hierarchical fashion - to store the world coordinates of objects. You will also need to learn object culling (ie, getting rid of objects not likely to be viewed - simple object culling involves calculating distances from the viewpoint, and culling those outside a certain range, or "behind" the viewpoint - more complex versions involve BSP and Quad Trees, then there is such things as portal technology, like was used in Descent - complex stuff), as well as sorting of objects, so objects further away are drawn first (which will be useful later for solid modeling).
Once you know this, try to make a Battlezone clone - vector tanks, bullets, enemies, etc.
The last step is learning to solid model, which at the simple level is triangle rasterization. So, the cube become 2 triangles per face, for 12 triangles. Rasterization involves learning how to draw triangles of arbitrary size and shape, and position, using only horizontal lines (hint, certain triangles are composed of two triangles, one with a flat bottom, then one with a flat top - so you would have three routines). You will also need to learn how to sort faces (ie, planes - the triangles that make up the cube) by distance from the viewpoint, and draw those further off first, so that nearer ones obscure the further off ones, so that hidden surfaces remain hidden (oh, and also investigate how to speed up this process, so that you aren't constantly repainting pixels - first it is best to simply cull those planes never seen in the first place, but you can also learn about Z buffers - and the mysterious S buffer system). Once you can do this, take your Battlezone clone and make it solid.
Now, to give you a level of understanding of where you will be at this step - think around 1993-1994 3D 6DOF graphics. You can, at this point, learn about affine and perspective correct texture mapping (not too difficult to add), simple flat-shading, Gouraud shading, Phong shading, fake versions of these, and others - to make things more realistic. There is also learning how to cast shadows (basically computing the vectors from the light source through the objects vertices to where they intersect the ground, and getting the vertices for a flat "object" from that - that is simple shadow casting). If you can do all of this, and quickly - you may have the basis for a simple game or something.
Now, you are ready to convert you code to OpenGL - most of which will simply translate right over, and some which can be discarded almost completely, because the hardware will handle the most of the issues for you (like projection and culling - though you can do this by hand as well - and simply use OpenGL to render the triangles and texture mapping).
I hope you can see how much work this is - I am not trying to scare you away - in fact, I want to encourage you in what you are doing. You will come away with a new appreciation that is 3D graphics coding and development, and the amount of hard work it takes to develop these engines. Now, knowing how to code an engine, and developing that into a game, are two different things - but it sounds like you are more interested in the 3D stuff.
I hope this helps, and provides you with a little direction. There are a ton of tutorials out there, plenty of source code for both hardware and software engines (I do have to reccommend GLUT as well, plus the 3D Graphics Engine List), in just about EVERY language you can imagine (ok, I haven't seen a BrainF*ck engine yet, but I am sure someone is developing it - anyhow, some of the BASIC engines manage to cause the same amount of trauma)...
I find this rather interesting (though I know this post is late). If you find this interesting as well, and want to know the long and sordid history behind chess playing machines, where it all seems to come from, and how the issues and ideas brought forth by such "performances" have been talked about for a very long time - you owe it to yourself to read this book:
Ah, but what if you posted an image on your website of that desk? And I looked at it, and using a computer, I was able to figure out the needed dimensions to build that self-same desk? I now have a copy of that desk, right? Where during this process have I deprived you the use or ownership of *your* desk?
Remember, copyright exists to create scarcity where none naturally should exist. If you copy bits, your copy is still just as functional and just as accessible as my copy (in theory, one would think a network effect would set in, whereby more copies would make the data more valuable - if left to natural courses, this would be the case - but copyright imposes unnatural restrictions on information - at one time, this could be seen as acceptable, when the only main way to spread information was via books, so that the information was tied to a physical form - but in today's world, that necessity is no longer the case)...
Whoever this AC is, he is RIGHT, damnit! I remember when he posted this, several months back - and he WAS modded down. I thought maybe he was a crackpot, though what he said could possibly be true - so I looked, yeah - I googled on the info, and...
IT IS REAL - EVERYTHING HE POSTED WAS REAL - damnit, mod this up, as informative!
I can't believe how many people here are saying "what is the big deal", "this won't affect you", and "think of how this could help the children (eh, words to that effect)" - WE KNOW THIS WON'T BE THE CASE, THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY WILL BE USED *AGAINST* THE CITIZENS!!!
How loud must I say it? How many times must this be repeated? How much more will people take? Why do you (for some reason) enjoy being ass-raped by corporate and governmental PIGS? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING?
I am so SICK of hearing about this abuse, and that abuse, and corporate scandals - yet not seeing any action, not seeing any resolution - when we all know if any one of *US* pulled the same shit at our job or in our personal lives, the shaft would be so long and go so deep we would speared and sliding FOREVER - yet we nary give pause, and in some case, hearty slaps on the backs - to those who hold positions of power and prestige.
Sometimes I pray for one good sized asteroid to hit, just to stop the insanity we have come to live with every day...
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The problem to programming cells is that the program being run is likely very simple, but produces extremely complex results (and no, this is not my idea, but the idea of others - its most recent proponent is Stephen Wolfram - read his book "A New Kind of Science" for more info on this).
Now, I know I am going to be flamed or ridiculed by that last statement, but after having read the book, and realizing its implications (while simultaneously realizing that I will have to re-read the book many times over to truely understand it), I honestly believe that what Wolfram has done is original. True, there were many others before him - but he has managed to take the collected works, and work out a verbalized theory of what all of it means (instead of it continuing to be just a collection of individual research papers and such). Many others before him came close to that verbalization (which he acknowledges in the text), but did not continue with the thread of thought, or publish it in some manner.
If this is something that interests you, you owe it to yourself to read the book (as well as other books on such ideas as "emergence" - look up "Out of Control", the title of a good book on this phenomena). Also look up "Matrioshka Brains", "Sanger Institute: C. Elegans Project", "Singularity", and of course, "Nanotech", "Foresight Institute" - also "Hans Moravec".
Google on this information, it is *all* related. If you begin to understand it all, you should become both frightened and excited, all at the same time. You should also begin to question your own sanity, as well as the sanity of the world around you. Much of what is out there seems like it is something that borders on the "lunatic fringe", but once you really start to study it, it doesn't sound that implausible at all (especially the emergence stuff, and the way large corporations appear to act, if looked at as being emergent entity beings).
Have fun, and good luck (oh, btw, keep this in mind - if emergent behavior is a true thing - and everything points to that it is, as long as feedback loops exist - then what would you as a human do if one of your neurons suddenly became sentient, and realized that it made up a "whole" greater than the sum of the parts? Now, look on that as what happens if a human can figure out how a "corporate entity being" is "thinking" - don't you think that being would look to "exterminate" that rogue unit?)...
Anyhow, the PowerGlove, while OK for experimentation, sucks for pretty much anything else. But if you are thinking like "general glove input device" - like a VPL DataGlove or similar, then I would have to say that for keyboard input, it wouldn't be too great. The only way you would get any good speed would be through gesture recognition, and if that was the "wave of the future" - we would already have it, as glove gesture systems have been researched since the early 1990s (both professional and homebrew).
The lockdown on the VPL patent for glove tech notwithstanding, even I think glove based input is only suitable for a small number of niche applications - not for general computing use (in a virtual environment, I could see using a glove, and voice recog software, for general "macro-level" input - but not for standard keyboard input - mainly because of lack of feedback of pressing keys, it would be tiring. Now, maybe for certain task, like on-the-fly editing of voice-recog dictation, or programming-vie-gestures, with an appropriate programming language - these tasks could possibly be done in a virtual environment).
Ok, how many of you have heard how to make a copper-oxide solar cell? Pretty easy to do, right? However, it has a couple of large drawbacks: one, they tend to use saltwater for contacts, and two, they are very inefficient.
Now, I have tried to think of how to get around the whole salt-water issue, and I don't think any of them would really work. Basically, you have to use salt water as a contact because you need a relatively "clear" contact to allow the sunlight through. Notice how on this "solar cloth" (yeah, I know it isn't cloth), the aluminum conductors are very thin - well, they are probably "see-through" thin, like very thin mylar or such. That, or simply a gas deposited aluminum surface on the clear plastic - thin enough to see through (like gold anodize on astronaut helmet facesheilds). Anyhow, it is the same thing in a copper-oxide cell with the salt water.
The thing is, you need a conductor with large surface area, which is why salt water is used. Less surface area is less efficient. I thought maybe you could "draw" a grid with "artic silver" type silver paste or whatnot (kinda like the metal grid on standard solar cells), but the contact area would be very low. I don't know if maybe you could spread such a paste VERY thin, and cover it with a piece of glass or whatnot (bond a couple of wires in beforehand). Anybody have ideas on this?
Finally, I wonder about silicon "blanks" - if you have ever shopped around surplus electronics, you run across piles of these all the time - blank silicon wafers (sometime polished, sometimes not). I wonder if there is a way of using those (the problem is that whole "P-N" junction thing - how do you homebrew a "deposit" system - could you get some borax (for boron) and somehow melt it on one side, and some phosphorous, maybe some iron phosphate fertilizer or something, for the other? Or maybe make a solution and let it dry on the sides (precipitate crystals out)? Maybe then put the silver solder/paste lines down, and a silver backing (or attach alluminum foil to the backside). Anybody have ideas here?
Sure, you could simply buy surplus broke solar cells and build panels, but I have found that you tend to find these silicon blanks more easily than the solar cell pieces, and the pieces tend to go for a lot more money than the blanks...
Anyone - ideas?
Interesting - I live in a house on a street where the backyards of all the houses face a walking path alongside a drainage canal. There are a lot of houses along this way. One day I was walking along the path, and I noticed this cable laying on the ground next to the back fence. It wasn't CAT anything, as best I could tell just from looking (no markings, and the line was cut - visible wires weren't tp) - but looked to be about 15 or more wires in the bundle. The end I was at was cut, and a dangling piece lay over the fence and into someone's backyard. I didn't look over to see where it went to, but instead followed the rest of the cable - it layed on the ground for a bit, then swooped up on top of the fence where it passed through eye bolts, then was tied to a tree branch, then back down onto the ground - about 4-5 houses down it ended in a cut end, with no other end in sight. Now, I know that at least three people were involved (the guy with the cable hanging over the fence, the guy with the tree in the backyard to which the cable was tied, and the eyebolts on his fence through which the cable was run, and the final dude, wherever it originally terminated). At first, I thought it might be a networking type attempt (people trying to share cox.net broadband), but the cutting, and the lack of one of the ends bothered me - I gave it some thought, and I don't know if my hunch is right - but I tend to wonder if there wasn't some sort of other clandestine networking going on, but for a phone system? I dunno - maybe one of these days I will knock on their door or something, and find out what is happening. A friend and I have talked about doing a neighborhood mesh, but we don't know the geek density in our area (he lives nearby) yet...
Why not? Provided that those 56K linkups didn't all terminate to the same "bank" of modems on the other end (what I mean here is that they all aren't on the same "pipe"), and that most of them stayed up, all should share in the aggregate bandwidth - right? In a way, it is the same kind of pooling of bandwidth as happens in many p2p sharing apps...
Ok, so you mean single-edge blades, but without the metal "protecting" sleeve on the one side, right? Could this be done with double edged blades (which are much thinner - though it would be more dangerous)? I would think it could, then it would be a two sided stack. I can see where solder might be better if used as a heat dump (if you used some high-temp solder - or maybe even brazing the stack, though it would be more difficult). Interesting...
Can you explain what you mean by a stack, or give a link to a diagram showing this? I am interested in this process. Thanks!
But, if what you *really* want is a projector...
First, think about the color of the surface you are projecting on - notice that in the image you provided, the surface was dark, and the image was *very* bright. In fact, just from the picture I think it was too bright, it would probably dazzle you to actually use it in real life. A projector may or may not work well on such a surface, unless the image it was projecting had mostly light colors (whitish). Otherwise, you would want your surface to be something lighter (like a tan or grey color) - which may mean changing your countertop.
Once that issue is out of the way, all you have to do is build the projector (easier said than done, BTW). A simple projector is nothing more than an image source, and a convex (magnifying) lens. Simple "project-a-picture" projectors found at arts/crafts supply stores use this system. It works OK, but isn't the best (see numerous examples online and on ebay about 100 inch TV plans) - but may work well for your application. If you really want to do this right, look up information and discussion about "triplet projection lenses" - these are lens systems that are designed for projection, and tend to have everything set up to make the image projected clear and undistorted. Unfortunately, you will tend to find new triplet assemblies to be rather pricey - which is where surplus comes in. There are people out there building such projectors (for TV projection mainly) - the projectors thus built tend to be big, but in a theater-type setting, it doesn't matter as much (other than asthetics). But this is because the builders are trying to get a huge picture, and so need a lens with a large focal length, which increases the size of the projector (unless you are adept with mirrors and folding the light path - which is outside the scope of most builders). However, since you would be projecting a much shorter distance, you can get away with a smaller lens, and hence a smaller enclosure for the projector you build.
Here are a couple of sites to get you started:
Alan's DIY Projector
Apogee, Inc.
The first one is a guy who sells triplet lenses on eBay, but provides the plans and such for free. The second is a source I found for surplus lenses, and they have a few low focal length lenses that might fit the bill for what you are wanting to do. It also might be possible to build your own custom triplet assembly from lenses picked out of an Edmund Scientific catalog, but it will be pricey.
For an LCD, to keep the size down, use something like a smaller 5 or 6 inch LCD - these can be found surplus, or you can use something like that used for "in-dash" auto video systems. You will have to disassemble the LCD in order to add a bright backlight system (which is a whole discussion in and of itself - look at the sites off of Alan's links and you will see what has been tried, and how well it works - don't forget about heat issues and the LCD, too!). Hook up a VGA to TV converter, stick to a low-res display with larger fonts, and you are set.
Mouse pointer issues can be a problem here, but I would suggest a variation on what I described first, except instead of a clear glass inset in the counter, get a white or light color porcelain (ok, I I think I mangled that word) cutting "board", make the rabbets wider to hold the board better, and install a stainless steel "splash guard" around the seam, and seal it. Project down onto this. It can act as a "screen", and serve as a useful cutting board for cooking (ok, I am thinking "kitchen computer" here - where it seems the picture you provided was aimed at). Otherwise, inset a light panel of similar countertop or desk material instead.
I hope this helps - sometimes I wonder why I am not paid for this...
I have heard that the foam used on the external tank is nothing more than a slightly different form of the "expanding insulation foam" available at any hardware store. I tend to believe this accessment, since the foam is only there for insulation of the fuel tank (to insulate the liquid fuels used, which are extremely cold). I have also read that what really fell wasn't only foam, but foam and ice (because it was raining a lot, and even with insulation, the tank/foam surface still gets freezing cold - forming ice on/around the foam). Now, a large ball of ice/foam is going to be dense and heavy, and potentially damaging. I tend to think that if any damage occurred to the tiles, this was the reason, and not just foam alone (the foam alone should be very lightweight, and not only that, but very difficult to break off, even under launch conditions - have you ever played with that stuff after it has solidified?)...
While it might be difficult (maybe even impossible) to field replace them, I still think having the optional ability to at least try should be something the astronauts have. I think my caulk-tube like idea (I am thinking something like "cement in a tube", maybe made with ground space-shuttle tile material mixed into a quick-setting epoxy) would be the best best, rather than cutable tiles - because it would allow repair as well as replacement, it would be easier to store, and you wouldn't need a cutting machine (though you would need some kind of application "gun").
Of course, maybe some other material should be found/used for the heat shield. I think the idea of tiles is a good one (if it was a shell-type shield, or a coating over the tiles, a part of it could come off, and take off a lot of tiles - this was probably why tiles were chosen, because the sheilds used in Apollo and Mercury were simple "one-piece" type ablative systems, that were one-use only - if such a thing were used on the shuttle, it would be super-expensive, because the entire undersurface of the wing would have to be stripped and recoated for every flight).
Lastly, I tend to wonder if maybe (perhaps not with the shuttle, but with a different vehicle design) there is a better way to re-enter the atmosphere after a flight? Maybe a helicopter-blade style parachute recovery system? Maybe some kind of powered descent (like that McDonald-Douglas vertical liftoff/touchdown vehicle that was destroyed in a test flight)? Maybe something else?
Look at Apollo 13 - duct tape and scavenged parts to get home safely. Why not some form of "shuttle tile paste" in a caulk gun form factor, which can cure in the absence of air and pressure - apply the paste, and trowl smooth - simply fill in the gaps as needed!
I am surprised (or maybe they did - I don't keep up on the NASA channel) they didn't do a space walk and check the underside of the shuttle (ie, by using the EVA pack units?), to determine if there was an issue? Didn't NASA know there was a possible problem at/after launch - which is why they didn't dock with ISS? If so, wouldn't they have checked it out (in orbit)? Was it simply a matter of them not having anything to fix it with (and thus NASA or the astronauts deciding to just "give it a shot and pray")? If there was an issue - why not make it public and have EVERYONE in the world attempting to come up with a workable solution?
A lot of questions, not a lot of answers right now...
I am not sure that is so much a legend as maybe a fact - many of the AMD 5x86/133's could be pushed to 166MHz, with little in the way of a temperature increase, and no problems with stability. I have done this to a few of them myself. I wouldn't be surprised if you could push one to 200MHz with a good heatsink and fan (though I wonder if stability would be an issue)...
Even if all the thing did was automate the "./configure, make, make install" - it would go a long way to solving the problem (of course, there are number of pitfalls to all of this - namely security issues - many time you do the first two steps as a user, and the last as root - because typically the software gets installed into a path accessible only by root - although I know there is a way to pass path information to make). Being able to choose where to install the software easily, see how much space it needs vs. how much it is taking up, etc - plus having a way to easily uninstall - this would go a long way toward making things better.
Building such an app should be relatively easy - make it useable at the console and under X. Make it scriptable (so that developers can build the install scripts). Something makes me think that this should be fairly easy to implement.
There would be pitfalls (mainly issues involving library compatibilities and versions, and should the installer be a self-contained executable - and if so, how do you ensure that it always works regardless of the system). It is a hairy problem, but one that definitely needs to be solved.
He imagined a system, described in his book Mind Children, called the Moravec Transfer, which is a form of mind uploading.
Now, I realize this isn't the same as what you are worried about here with teleportation - but the ideas behind the Moravec Transfer really causes one to think about what is MIND and the "I" of an individual - where does it begin, and where does it end. I think the way it is spelled out and discussed in the above link on the Singularity makes the case clear that it *is* possible (not with today's tech, of course) to transfer the mind to a computer, and there would be no difference in the experience - you wouldn't "die" with the method.
Interesting ideas, at the very least...
I wouldn't worry about it for a while - at least not until we get fusion reactors or something. Remember nuclear bombs? They take a small chunk of matter and turn it into a *VERY HUGE* release of energy. So, all you have to do is be able to create *that much energy* first, then find a way to stuff it back into and create matter (fyi - they have been able to do this in high-energy particle accelleration experiments - IIRC, some of the very short lived elements in the periodic table are created this way - but it takes a huge amount of energy, and you get very little out of it - at least currently)...
;)
Damn, the more I learn about you, meso, the more I realize that I have a *lot* to learn *from* you (it's only too bad you don't come into the office more often and stop by to talk)...
Also note that I didn't give a particular resistance value for the power resistor (mainly because I didn't know one off the top of my head - my bad). A small motor wouldn't draw that much current (now, I am not saying like a larger racing motor, just some cheapo lil' 6-12 volt motor).
Also, as far as damaging the battery, that also assumes the battery overheats - which is why I reccommended the fan as well.
This isn't to say I disagree with you, and anyone who wants to do this, should proabably visit the link that you provided to build this thing properly...
Most require the user to click to open something (ie, via outlook or whatnot). They are trojans as well, just like this software (with the misnomer of "virus")...
This is pretty simple to do - the battery should have four (maybe three) terminals, and as someone else noted above, if you cover a couple, that isolates the power meter check function from the laptop. Now, you could just continue to run the laptop until the battery is dead, but this could be bad for data/memory/etc (computers do odd things when voltage gets low - sometimes odd and *bad* things).
So, pull out the battery, find the terminals that supply the power, and hook something up to them - a smallish DC motor with a piece of tape wrapped on the shaft (for air drag) will draw enough current, but if you really wanted to do it quickly, drop a 10-watt sand power resistor across the terminals, and point a fan at it (it will get DAMN hot, hot enough to burn if you don't cool it down with something - if you want to be extra careful, clamp a heatsink/fan combo onto the resistor - power the fan with the battery, too!)...
I would also monitor the voltage level with a meter as well, you probably don't want to drain it all the way to zero, just close to it (1-2 volts). Finally, realize that the quicker you discharge the battery, the more it will heat up, and it could also become damaged in the process. Cool the battery down, and watch it carefully (don't hook this up and go to bed/the store/etc).
After it is discharged, let it cool down, check the voltage (and if it is too high, discharge again), then once the voltage is low enough, put it in the laptop and recharge it...
...yet they are villified with vengence and put onto anti-virus lists...
But really, that is just the tip of the iceberg, and let me tell you, it is a HUGE chunk of ice!
If you really want to learn the math behind 3D graphics, you really need to start with 2D rotations and transforms. Start out first learning to plot a square, that you can rotate, transform and scale. The vertices can be plotted using a simple SIN/COS rotational transform, same as for drawing a circle (ie, X=CX+SIN(A)*R, Y=CY+COS(A)*R - I think that is right).
Once you know how to rotate, transform (simple addition) and scale (scaling is simple multiplication by a scaling factor) using basic equations - then learn matrix math - in order to do the same kind of manipulations. For a 2D system, you will use a 3x3 matrix. The operations are the same as the equation method, but are simply expressed in a different form.
You want to get used to matrix math representations, because that is how most 3D stuff is represented in books, and whatnot. Once you know the matrix stuff for 2D - you will want to move to clipping the lines that make up the 2D square to the viewport.
After learning clipping in 2D - you should then probably try your hand at a simple vector game of Asteroids, with spinning ships, asteroids, explosions, etc - all drawn with lines. If you can do this, you are well on your way to going 3D.
First, attempt to do the same 2D square as a 3D wireframe cube, using equation rotations/transforms/scaling math - for 3D, it gets much harder, but if you do the studying right (I did it once, it was a bitch), you will see how it is just an extension of 2D, done three times (more or less). Then, convert that to matrix math (4x4 matrices, now). You will also need to learn how to project the object from 3D space to 2D space (not that hard - a little simple geometry and trig).
Once you can do a 3D cube, you then need to learn about clipping in 3D (ie, clipping the object to the viewport, as well as to the view frustum). At this point, you can go down two road: 3D world database building and display, or solid modeling.
I would suggest the former over the latter, because if you can't show multiple models from a database, making them solid won't help any - plus you need to learn about how the pipelines go together to get the model from the database through the calcs and onto the display, and how to make them fast - in order to have a fast world.
So, you want to first build a world database, in probably a hierarchical fashion - to store the world coordinates of objects. You will also need to learn object culling (ie, getting rid of objects not likely to be viewed - simple object culling involves calculating distances from the viewpoint, and culling those outside a certain range, or "behind" the viewpoint - more complex versions involve BSP and Quad Trees, then there is such things as portal technology, like was used in Descent - complex stuff), as well as sorting of objects, so objects further away are drawn first (which will be useful later for solid modeling).
Once you know this, try to make a Battlezone clone - vector tanks, bullets, enemies, etc.
The last step is learning to solid model, which at the simple level is triangle rasterization. So, the cube become 2 triangles per face, for 12 triangles. Rasterization involves learning how to draw triangles of arbitrary size and shape, and position, using only horizontal lines (hint, certain triangles are composed of two triangles, one with a flat bottom, then one with a flat top - so you would have three routines). You will also need to learn how to sort faces (ie, planes - the triangles that make up the cube) by distance from the viewpoint, and draw those further off first, so that nearer ones obscure the further off ones, so that hidden surfaces remain hidden (oh, and also investigate how to speed up this process, so that you aren't constantly repainting pixels - first it is best to simply cull those planes never seen in the first place, but you can also learn about Z buffers - and the mysterious S buffer system). Once you can do this, take your Battlezone clone and make it solid.
Now, to give you a level of understanding of where you will be at this step - think around 1993-1994 3D 6DOF graphics. You can, at this point, learn about affine and perspective correct texture mapping (not too difficult to add), simple flat-shading, Gouraud shading, Phong shading, fake versions of these, and others - to make things more realistic. There is also learning how to cast shadows (basically computing the vectors from the light source through the objects vertices to where they intersect the ground, and getting the vertices for a flat "object" from that - that is simple shadow casting). If you can do all of this, and quickly - you may have the basis for a simple game or something.
Now, you are ready to convert you code to OpenGL - most of which will simply translate right over, and some which can be discarded almost completely, because the hardware will handle the most of the issues for you (like projection and culling - though you can do this by hand as well - and simply use OpenGL to render the triangles and texture mapping).
I hope you can see how much work this is - I am not trying to scare you away - in fact, I want to encourage you in what you are doing. You will come away with a new appreciation that is 3D graphics coding and development, and the amount of hard work it takes to develop these engines. Now, knowing how to code an engine, and developing that into a game, are two different things - but it sounds like you are more interested in the 3D stuff.
I hope this helps, and provides you with a little direction. There are a ton of tutorials out there, plenty of source code for both hardware and software engines (I do have to reccommend GLUT as well, plus the 3D Graphics Engine List), in just about EVERY language you can imagine (ok, I haven't seen a BrainF*ck engine yet, but I am sure someone is developing it - anyhow, some of the BASIC engines manage to cause the same amount of trauma)...
The Turk by Tom Standage
A very enjoyable, and informative read, I must say...
...Does that mean they explicitly gave permission to the users to download those songs? I can see how this could make someone's head hurt...
Remember, copyright exists to create scarcity where none naturally should exist. If you copy bits, your copy is still just as functional and just as accessible as my copy (in theory, one would think a network effect would set in, whereby more copies would make the data more valuable - if left to natural courses, this would be the case - but copyright imposes unnatural restrictions on information - at one time, this could be seen as acceptable, when the only main way to spread information was via books, so that the information was tied to a physical form - but in today's world, that necessity is no longer the case)...
IT IS REAL - EVERYTHING HE POSTED WAS REAL - damnit, mod this up, as informative!
I can't believe how many people here are saying "what is the big deal", "this won't affect you", and "think of how this could help the children (eh, words to that effect)" - WE KNOW THIS WON'T BE THE CASE, THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY WILL BE USED *AGAINST* THE CITIZENS!!!
How loud must I say it? How many times must this be repeated? How much more will people take? Why do you (for some reason) enjoy being ass-raped by corporate and governmental PIGS? BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING?
I am so SICK of hearing about this abuse, and that abuse, and corporate scandals - yet not seeing any action, not seeing any resolution - when we all know if any one of *US* pulled the same shit at our job or in our personal lives, the shaft would be so long and go so deep we would speared and sliding FOREVER - yet we nary give pause, and in some case, hearty slaps on the backs - to those who hold positions of power and prestige.
Sometimes I pray for one good sized asteroid to hit, just to stop the insanity we have come to live with every day...