I wonder how long it will take them to go to a socketed design for the GPU and memory - so you can do the ole' upgrade dance with that (unless the rest of the card is so cheap already, which the case may be)?
I wish they would just go to a backplane design for PC hardware and get it over with - one card for CPU, another card for memory, another for sound - each card with upgradable memory and processing units, so that you could build a dual or quad machine easily, with as many graphics/sound/memory boards as needed. Make the bus AGP or something faster.
This isn't a new idea, mainframes and mini computers have used this design since, like, forever - so why hasn't the PC done this (actually, the first hobbiest computers were like this as well - Altair, Sol - with the S100 bus - then the Apple came along and changed all of that)...
Somehow I think these are the kind of engines we should really be looking into. At one time, back in the 1940's or 50's, one of the "Big 3" built a Stirling cycle engine vehicle as a test bed for the engine. From what I remember, it ran well, but what ultimately doomed it was the "startup" time of the car - it took about 20 seconds from the time the switch was turned on to pulling away from the curb. Such long times were deemed unacceptable.
Fast forward many years: Stirling cycle engines are much more efficient (actually, Stirling cycle engines have always been very efficient - some say they have the best efficiency - but they typically had a low hp/big size ratio), smaller - overall just better. There is also a growing awareness of them - look around on the internet and you will find a bunch of sites detailing construction of simple Stirling cycle engines. There is also a company that creates Stirling cycle generators that run on propane.
Basically, what a Stirling cycle engine needs is a "hot" and and "cold" side - it works off of the temperature differential. Most of the test vehicles used a propane burner or something similar to raise the hot plate above ambient temperature. This worked, but was slow to start (because the burner had to fire up and bring the hot plate up to temperature before the engine could turn over). I wonder if maybe there is a different way....
What I am going to describe is something maybe those of you out there with mechanical experience and "gumption" can use to jump start a new project - a "free idea" invention, if you will. If you actually get this thing to work, post it on/. or somewhere, and give me some credit - that's all I ask. Or, perhaps this has already been tried - in that case, don't. I hope at least one person tries, though:
Basically, make your hot plate be a solar collection panel, heating up brine or oil or something, and the cold plate be a "multi-finned" panel on the bottom of the vehicle (think of it as a large heat sink). Put the Stirling engine between them, and use the power of the Sun! The engine could be directly connected to the back wheels, through a transmission, or you could have it drive a generator to run electric motors (with associated regen braking, etc via a capacitor/battery bank). At night, allow it to plug into the wall (or gas line), which drives a heater to keep the engine spinning at low-RPM, thus eliminating the "cold start" startup time.
Another idea, not using Stirling cycle engines, but that same energy differential (hot/cold plates with tubing circulating between) is to use some kind of phase change gas, at pressure - which could drive the engine, plus a compressor. The hot plate would heat the liquid, turn it into gas, which would drive the engine, circulate it through the cold plate, then through a compressor to turn it back into a liquid. I am thinking ammonia, freon, or propane as the working gas, though there may be other safer gasses out there which could be used. The key is the phase change (think of it like a refrigerator running backwards). The engine could then drive the wheels or a generator/motor set like above.
I hope this gets people's brains spinning - such vehicles would be nearly polution free, and would have few moving parts. I would also bet that a prototype could be built using off-the-shelf components, or junk.
I could see it was a "different" car - looked kinda like an Echo from the rear, but still better looking. When I saw it was a Prius, I was surprised. It actually didn't look that bad. Then the light turned green, and its acceleration was actually pretty good. I have seen regular automobiles move slower off the start. Of course, none of this is scientific or anything - just my observation. Still, if Toyota is going to all hybrids in the future, I might just know what truck to buy to replace my Ranger in the future.
I like that chess game - pretty neat. I once started writing a Ultima-style game in Javascript, complete with level loading off the hosting server. However, I stopped writing it when I realized I would need to set up a CGI back end for implementing save game features and such.
I remember seeing a version of "California Racin'" or such done completely in Javascript - took forever to load the graphics (there was a lot of graphics to load for all the sprite 3D scaling effects). Also, who could forget Frag Island, a Quake-like game written in Java?
I once pushed VB hard and made a perspective-correct texture mapped 3D spinning cube - no DirectX used, either.
Then there was the time in highschool I wrote a mandelbrot display engine in Applesoft Basic, and displayed it via an assembler hi-color display hack (allowed you to get 16 colors at a good resolution if you had an 80x24 display card). Then I repeated it using PICK Basic, and a Wyse 370 set to emulate a Tectronix (sp?) graphics plotter terminal (eeeek!!!).
I think my favorite, though, has to be a game I remember coded by some Japanese guy in QBasic - it was in the ABC Archive - anyhow, this game was a 640x480 monochrome side-scrolling shooter with an UNBELIEVABLE amount of sprites on-screen, complete with end-level bosses - all in QBasic.
Then there is the code a friend of mine gave me that he never released that used QuickBasic 4.5, some custom assembler routines, etc - to make a side-scrolling platformer robo-anime style game, with full sound-blaster effects - but it isn't as relevant because the graphics scrolling/sprite routines were coded in x86 Assembler - of course, he wrote this back in 1992 or so...
You know, this is funny - because when I read your post and his response, I thought to myself, "Duh - can't you see that English isn't this guy's native language...?"
It is strange, but in my years of surfing the net, I can pretty much tell when someone is a non-native English speaker, versus just being ignorant or incoherent. I guess there is some kind of inate coherence to the thoughts, even if the English is somewhat mangled (and I don't say this to be mean - it was a bit mangled, but your English will beat my Dutch - heh - any hour of any day)...
Well, it does seem like a perfectly reasonable solution - unless you really are a "computer geek" - then you know about such things as how tipping the monitor sideways may cause stress to be placed on the CRT (if it isn't designed to be tilted 90 degrees) and other components of the monitor, leading to a potentially dangerous situation. Not to mention that large monitors gain interesting visual artifacts when rotated due to the Earth's magnetic field interacting/distorting the electron beam (though hitting the degaussing function will typically take care of it).
He doesn't say, but it might be the case that he is in a "one-party state" - ie, a state which has laws that only one party to the conversation needs to be aware that the communications are being recorded, and in most cases, that only means the party doing the recording...
You might want to reconsider asking your legal counsel - because here in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually, I think) a company got busted hard core by the RIAA for doing the exact same thing (I think they were a software publishing house - not sure) - they were taken to court, and IIRC, they were found guilty...
If only politics, government and the internet were compatible - if only...
As I see it, the problem is that the internet and the web represent a problem to politics and government - it isn't something they can control, though they try harder every year to do so. Here is a system that they cannot master, cannot bend to serve them how they need to be served, namely to be able to control the populace and tell them how to think. The internet isn't TV, no matter how hard they try. I fear if they are successful, somehow, and manage to put the net under thier thumb, they will likely see a backlash so huge that it will make the day the internet went black look like a party.
What would be my vision for a good political/governmental web site? It would mainly allow the participation of the people - I can easilty envision a slash/scoop web site where users could log in, and DISCUSS issues related to government - a central area where one could see all the legislation passed, all that is on the table or "coming up", all the text of everything, so that it can be seen by the people and discussed - and they (the govt/politicians/congressmen/etc) would take the peoples reaction into account and allow the process to refine the bill properly. I know you can't please all of the people - it would have to be compromise. But by doing so, it is better than the secrecy and hidden gotchas/riders we have now. Furthermore, it would keep people informed as to what is going on in their government, and would possible help keep corruption down by being an open forum. Constituents could communicate better with their representatives, and know that what they are saying is being heard.
One thing I wish was out there was a list of "who voted for what" - ie, wouldn't it be great to know what congresspersons/senators vote for what bills, on a per state basis - so you can see at a glance, based on a search, what your reps for your state voted for what legislation, so you can more easily make a decision to support them or not come next election? Especially things that limit our freedom, etc (think PATRIOT act, DMCA, UCITA, CCDBTA) - then be able to discuss this with other people in your area, in a moderated, threaded discussion forum? It would be true government by the people - true representation.
Instead, we have at best a "mismash" of segregated and separated forums and sites - there are some govt sites that allow you to find out the information (on some things, but not all), then discussion sites like/. and k5 that allow for the political discussion - but nothing that relates to each community/state - so no way to organise with fellow constituents.
You will never see this though, they will likely openly oppose such ability, if anyone tried to set such a thing up. If anyone know of such a thing (I can't be the only one who has thought about this), please let me know. I would love to know who to vote out (as it is, I am thinking about simply voting a straight ticket for one of the alternate parties - but I don't like the idea of doing that as it isn't a good informed decision).
Here, hear! I would gladly pay for my bandwidth too, just like they do their upstream providers - which is how the internet was supposed to work! But I too agree that they shouldn't tell me how to use it - if I want to run an MP3 streaming radio station, a major porn server, or simply sell my bandwidth to my neighbors, I should be allowed to do that - they can do it when they pay their upstream providers - why am I limited? Just because I don't have "Inc." after my name?
To hell with what they expect - if I am using my access to the full capacity, and I am abiding by thier TOS, and the TOS doesn't say I can't (which I signed) - they would be in breach of contract to charge me extra. Of course, most TOS contracts have clauses stating they can change them at any time - grumble...
If they didn't want us to have an "always-on, 24/7 high-speed internet connection 100x faster than a modem", why in they hell did they give us that? What, did they expect us to keep doing modem like things over a broadband connection? LISTEN UP ASSHATS: THAT IS WHY I BOUGHT INTO THE WHOLE BROADBAND THING - IF I WANTED MODEM CAPS, I WOULD HAVE STAYED WITH A MODEM.
Now, don't get me wrong, I would gladly pay what it is worth - but I too don't understand why it should cost so much - there are literally thousands of miles of DARK FIBER laying in the ground, going completely unused, just waiting. It will probably rot before it gets used though, if this kind of "price-fixing" for bandwidth keeps going on...
Especially if you digital cable - one would think that since a digital cable box is nothing more than a glorified computer streaming data from the head-end, at ultra-extreme rates, that it would be the same deal (watch more TV, pay more - boy, they would see subscribers dropping off like flies then)...
Last night I finally got around to setting up a burn in test of a dual-celeron 466 machine I am building (yeah, I am cheap - my current system is good enough for me - a celeron 333 - and I managed to find a dual slot-one motherboard with on-board SCSI used for $20.00 - some cheap ebay 370 adaptors, and a couple of celerons I got for $25.00/both - and I now will have a dual-cpu debian box ultra-cheap - at some point I will upgrade it to dual-PII 450s when I get around to buying them - not sure if it can take PIIIs) - I had to fix the fan on the test power supply I was using, then I attached the coolermaster heatsinks, and fired it up - it was pretty loud, outside of the case, but it works (both CPUs recognised) - of course, the case I will be installing this in is an old 28 bay CDNet box that has dual 120mm fans blowing out the back, so CPU fan noise doesn't really matter here...
Maybe I should put up a page for the LOUDEST PC on the planet? Ok, I know truthfully I would never get anywhere near some designs, but I bet I could get things pretty loud by installing some heavy-duty, chop-off-your-fingers steel 120V axial cooling fans (15,000cfm baby!)... heh...
Whether you got some or not aside, I know what you mean. When I think of things like this, the fact that we humans actually have the tech to perform such feats - probes to other planets, men on other worlds - it causes within me the same kind of reaction.
Then tears come to my eyes...
For I know that despite all of this, despite the facts, despite the wonder, despite the possibilities - the majority of humans do not care one way or the other about it. They would rather war, rape, pillage, and plunder to death a world which currently is the only one we have - yet they seem unable to grasp this simple concept. These same humans continue to believe in the idea of an invisible being "in the sky", a being who apparently hates other invisible beings, who insists that those invisible beings be destroyed, along with those who believe in that being, or don't believe in his being. Yet these same humans consider such concepts as the "easter bunny" and "santa claus" to be fantasy imaginings of children's fairytales.
These people continually fight, some for their invisible men, most for more space - when with a little solidarity, and the realization that humans really do only get one life, and that death shouldn't be feared (do those who fear the consequences of a fictional afterlife wonder what came before their birth - also, if they don't remember what came before, what logic says they will know what comes after?), and that by there only being one life per each living thing, makes that life ALL THE MORE PRECIOUS. This logic doesn't destroy morality, but affirms it in a great way. With this realisation, working together to explore all of these other worlds would expand the space available for mankind, while furthering our wonder and the workings of the universe. Why does it seem so few can get these rather simple concepts?
Perhaps we really are nothing more than "advanced animals", and really don't deserve all of what is out there..
I love these old articles from SciAm - I remember the rocket, it was also published in a book - your made your own propellant, and they published how to build a strobe light, setting up a far away camera and leaving the shutter open to see the arc (parabola) made by the rocket, and also how to measure height (via the apogee and some trig - simple stuff).
I miss this kind of spirit of experimentation - if I have kids I hope to be able to pass on such experiments, and show my kids that while things may be dangerous, if you aproach the problem and experiment with respect, you generally won't have a problem - but even so, sometimes accidents happen - and that is the price we humans should be prepared to face in the search for knowledge and truth.
No, they do seem "easy" to build - what you saw is what I think is normally called a "cloud particle trail chamber" - I have seen plans for these type chambers in older SciAm issues (Amature Scientist column), as well as in old (ie, pre-1970) "science fair" experiment books aimed at kids. They aren't super difficult to build, I believe they involve using mainly oil droplets (rather than water). It has been a while since I have seen plans for these things - go to the largest, and oldest library (ie, the "central" library) in your nearest city (you want a library with lots of old books, that still keeps them on the shelves), and look in the 620.x-630.x (Dewey Decimal - mainly applied science/technology) area for these books.
My favorite machine erroring and dying has to be an Amiga - aside from the standard "Guru meditation error", Amigas die spectacularly when faced with a non-AmigaDOS program running. Typically, when such a program dies (I would suspect a buffer overflow from what happens), rather than an error, you get a sound and light show. Because of the way the custom sound and video processors are tied into the system, such an error gives snow, funky sound, etc until the system either freezes or (rarely) reboots.
He showed me an error he got when he was upgrading a reporting package on an NT server - the error message came back as a standard Windows modal dialog box that said "Error", and an OK button. No error number, no extra text, didn't even have a proper caption - just the word "Error".
Needless to say, he was pissed, and I was laughing...
How long are you going to be living there - and does your landlord/FIL/fiance care about outside runs?
Run the cable through windows, let it hang loose and drape it over the roof - maybe put it inside some PVC pipe to protect it a bit on the roof from the elements - leave a "droop" at the point where it comes in the window so that rain will drop off and not into the house.
I would advise against trying to run the cable via the electrical conduit and getting new plates as others have suggested. While this sounds like a good idea, running 120VAC next to Cat5 would almost have to introduce noise into the line. Furthermore, if the lines are in flexible conduit, there likely won't be enough room for both - the little room there is would make moving the Cat5 a bear, perhaps even dangerous. If it isn't in conduit, navigating the holes in the firebreak crossbeams in the wall will be a nightmare, to say the least.
Keep these problems in mind when you buy a house, though - because it WILL influence your decision on what to buy. The house I bought earlier this year was perfect for wiring anything. It was built in the early 1970's with block construction. The interior walls are drywall set off from the brick by vertical 1x2 furring strips - there isn't any insulation between the strips and the wall, and no horizontal furring strips - so running cable is as simple as getting into the attic, drilling a hole in the baseplate 2x4 at the top of the brick, and dropping the cable down the hole!
I know I am super late on this, but what the hell...
This is cool technology, and does have obvious practical uses as outlined in the article. But it will never replace the potentials offered by HMDs (Head Mounted Displays).
HMDs offer the the one thing you can't get from a 3rd person perspective - immersion. Unfortunately, HMDs still have some serious drawbacks, the greatest of which is the fixed focus. Some HMDs are supposedly focused at "infinity", but they are still fixed focus in that there is no way to create the different levels of focus that the real world offers the eyes - everything is at the same distance. Thus, your eyes do not change focus as they do in the real world, which leads to eye strain. Once this issue is overcome, and issues relating to FOV (field of view) vs. resolution (namely you can't get a big FOV with high resolution yet for any reasonable amount of money - it is always a trade off) are surmounted, the ability to work and play in simulated VEs (virtuals environments) for long periods of time will become a reality.
I didn't think you were, I knew you were merely pointing out the funny way it looked. Still, I wanted to clarify things a bit for others who might not understand - and sometimes, even metalworkers get wonky with thier tools...
What kind of voltage and amp-hours these things will put out, and how cheap they are...
You see, I am in the slow process of building an electric vehicle, made from bicycle parts and a half-horsepower electric motor. I am not even sure it is going to work when I get it done, but for the time being, I am considering using gel-cells that would need to be recharged - I am figuring on 24-48 volts @ 14 AH - and even that will probably not be enough (I am planning on using muliple 12V gel-cells wired series/parallel style to get the volta/amps I need).
So, imagine if I could use such fuel cells instead, and have a fuel tank of methanol to run them. Maybe they might even run on other types of alcohol? Whatever, but this would allow me to get the range I want for my EV (provided they were cheap enough, which they probably won't be initially)...
Please read the book "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" by Katie Hafner. This book goes into great detail about the origins of the internet. Yeah, DARPA funded it, but from the book I got the impression that they didn't really know quite what they were funding.
They basically knew that it was to become a robust, distributed network for communications, and that universities were to be involved to share computer processing time. But I really think it was one of those "Heh, heh, give this to new guy!" type projects, which they gave to a DARPA guy (can't remember his name) to lead, not realizing he was basically a "hands off, let's see what happens" type of dude. How he got into the military with that type of attitude is beyond me.
Without him, DARPA funding, plus hooking up to freedom loving universities - the internet as we know it today would never have come into being In a way, the internet was a fluke, perhaps one of the "last harrahs" of the 60's - I mean, DARPA could have given it to a guy to have IBM work with AT&T and other large communications giants, coupled with businesses that used large computers, maybe a few R&D labs and think tanks (RAND, LANL, etc), and come up with a similar system - but it would be nothing like today's internet, not in the least.
That isn't to day big business or the government didn't have their hand in the current offering - but with luck and a little hands-off, we have recieved the legacy of a generation knew what freedom and liberty are about, and for this we need to protect it for the future.
But actually, if you look at the pictures, you can see the first shows it on the stools, and the pedestal is in the foreground, the second shows it on the pedestal (and is dated a day ahead). The next image showing one of the guys using the lathe, you can see one of the stools is being used to support a box of tools or something.
Believe me, while it may look like they could use it on the stools, any metalworker with any kind of experience would tell you that would be a bad thing...
Slashdot Mirror
I wish they would just go to a backplane design for PC hardware and get it over with - one card for CPU, another card for memory, another for sound - each card with upgradable memory and processing units, so that you could build a dual or quad machine easily, with as many graphics/sound/memory boards as needed. Make the bus AGP or something faster.
This isn't a new idea, mainframes and mini computers have used this design since, like, forever - so why hasn't the PC done this (actually, the first hobbiest computers were like this as well - Altair, Sol - with the S100 bus - then the Apple came along and changed all of that)...
Fast forward many years: Stirling cycle engines are much more efficient (actually, Stirling cycle engines have always been very efficient - some say they have the best efficiency - but they typically had a low hp/big size ratio), smaller - overall just better. There is also a growing awareness of them - look around on the internet and you will find a bunch of sites detailing construction of simple Stirling cycle engines. There is also a company that creates Stirling cycle generators that run on propane.
Basically, what a Stirling cycle engine needs is a "hot" and and "cold" side - it works off of the temperature differential. Most of the test vehicles used a propane burner or something similar to raise the hot plate above ambient temperature. This worked, but was slow to start (because the burner had to fire up and bring the hot plate up to temperature before the engine could turn over). I wonder if maybe there is a different way....
What I am going to describe is something maybe those of you out there with mechanical experience and "gumption" can use to jump start a new project - a "free idea" invention, if you will. If you actually get this thing to work, post it on /. or somewhere, and give me some credit - that's all I ask. Or, perhaps this has already been tried - in that case, don't. I hope at least one person tries, though:
Basically, make your hot plate be a solar collection panel, heating up brine or oil or something, and the cold plate be a "multi-finned" panel on the bottom of the vehicle (think of it as a large heat sink). Put the Stirling engine between them, and use the power of the Sun! The engine could be directly connected to the back wheels, through a transmission, or you could have it drive a generator to run electric motors (with associated regen braking, etc via a capacitor/battery bank). At night, allow it to plug into the wall (or gas line), which drives a heater to keep the engine spinning at low-RPM, thus eliminating the "cold start" startup time.
Another idea, not using Stirling cycle engines, but that same energy differential (hot/cold plates with tubing circulating between) is to use some kind of phase change gas, at pressure - which could drive the engine, plus a compressor. The hot plate would heat the liquid, turn it into gas, which would drive the engine, circulate it through the cold plate, then through a compressor to turn it back into a liquid. I am thinking ammonia, freon, or propane as the working gas, though there may be other safer gasses out there which could be used. The key is the phase change (think of it like a refrigerator running backwards). The engine could then drive the wheels or a generator/motor set like above.
I hope this gets people's brains spinning - such vehicles would be nearly polution free, and would have few moving parts. I would also bet that a prototype could be built using off-the-shelf components, or junk.
I could see it was a "different" car - looked kinda like an Echo from the rear, but still better looking. When I saw it was a Prius, I was surprised. It actually didn't look that bad. Then the light turned green, and its acceleration was actually pretty good. I have seen regular automobiles move slower off the start. Of course, none of this is scientific or anything - just my observation. Still, if Toyota is going to all hybrids in the future, I might just know what truck to buy to replace my Ranger in the future.
I remember seeing a version of "California Racin'" or such done completely in Javascript - took forever to load the graphics (there was a lot of graphics to load for all the sprite 3D scaling effects). Also, who could forget Frag Island, a Quake-like game written in Java?
I once pushed VB hard and made a perspective-correct texture mapped 3D spinning cube - no DirectX used, either.
Then there was the time in highschool I wrote a mandelbrot display engine in Applesoft Basic, and displayed it via an assembler hi-color display hack (allowed you to get 16 colors at a good resolution if you had an 80x24 display card). Then I repeated it using PICK Basic, and a Wyse 370 set to emulate a Tectronix (sp?) graphics plotter terminal (eeeek!!!).
I think my favorite, though, has to be a game I remember coded by some Japanese guy in QBasic - it was in the ABC Archive - anyhow, this game was a 640x480 monochrome side-scrolling shooter with an UNBELIEVABLE amount of sprites on-screen, complete with end-level bosses - all in QBasic.
Then there is the code a friend of mine gave me that he never released that used QuickBasic 4.5, some custom assembler routines, etc - to make a side-scrolling platformer robo-anime style game, with full sound-blaster effects - but it isn't as relevant because the graphics scrolling/sprite routines were coded in x86 Assembler - of course, he wrote this back in 1992 or so...
It is strange, but in my years of surfing the net, I can pretty much tell when someone is a non-native English speaker, versus just being ignorant or incoherent. I guess there is some kind of inate coherence to the thoughts, even if the English is somewhat mangled (and I don't say this to be mean - it was a bit mangled, but your English will beat my Dutch - heh - any hour of any day)...
Well, it does seem like a perfectly reasonable solution - unless you really are a "computer geek" - then you know about such things as how tipping the monitor sideways may cause stress to be placed on the CRT (if it isn't designed to be tilted 90 degrees) and other components of the monitor, leading to a potentially dangerous situation. Not to mention that large monitors gain interesting visual artifacts when rotated due to the Earth's magnetic field interacting/distorting the electron beam (though hitting the degaussing function will typically take care of it).
He doesn't say, but it might be the case that he is in a "one-party state" - ie, a state which has laws that only one party to the conversation needs to be aware that the communications are being recorded, and in most cases, that only means the party doing the recording...
You got a point there - shoulda looked closer... thx
You might want to reconsider asking your legal counsel - because here in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually, I think) a company got busted hard core by the RIAA for doing the exact same thing (I think they were a software publishing house - not sure) - they were taken to court, and IIRC, they were found guilty...
As I see it, the problem is that the internet and the web represent a problem to politics and government - it isn't something they can control, though they try harder every year to do so. Here is a system that they cannot master, cannot bend to serve them how they need to be served, namely to be able to control the populace and tell them how to think. The internet isn't TV, no matter how hard they try. I fear if they are successful, somehow, and manage to put the net under thier thumb, they will likely see a backlash so huge that it will make the day the internet went black look like a party.
What would be my vision for a good political/governmental web site? It would mainly allow the participation of the people - I can easilty envision a slash/scoop web site where users could log in, and DISCUSS issues related to government - a central area where one could see all the legislation passed, all that is on the table or "coming up", all the text of everything, so that it can be seen by the people and discussed - and they (the govt/politicians/congressmen/etc) would take the peoples reaction into account and allow the process to refine the bill properly. I know you can't please all of the people - it would have to be compromise. But by doing so, it is better than the secrecy and hidden gotchas/riders we have now. Furthermore, it would keep people informed as to what is going on in their government, and would possible help keep corruption down by being an open forum. Constituents could communicate better with their representatives, and know that what they are saying is being heard.
One thing I wish was out there was a list of "who voted for what" - ie, wouldn't it be great to know what congresspersons/senators vote for what bills, on a per state basis - so you can see at a glance, based on a search, what your reps for your state voted for what legislation, so you can more easily make a decision to support them or not come next election? Especially things that limit our freedom, etc (think PATRIOT act, DMCA, UCITA, CCDBTA) - then be able to discuss this with other people in your area, in a moderated, threaded discussion forum? It would be true government by the people - true representation.
Instead, we have at best a "mismash" of segregated and separated forums and sites - there are some govt sites that allow you to find out the information (on some things, but not all), then discussion sites like /. and k5 that allow for the political discussion - but nothing that relates to each community/state - so no way to organise with fellow constituents.
You will never see this though, they will likely openly oppose such ability, if anyone tried to set such a thing up. If anyone know of such a thing (I can't be the only one who has thought about this), please let me know. I would love to know who to vote out (as it is, I am thinking about simply voting a straight ticket for one of the alternate parties - but I don't like the idea of doing that as it isn't a good informed decision).
Here, hear! I would gladly pay for my bandwidth too, just like they do their upstream providers - which is how the internet was supposed to work! But I too agree that they shouldn't tell me how to use it - if I want to run an MP3 streaming radio station, a major porn server, or simply sell my bandwidth to my neighbors, I should be allowed to do that - they can do it when they pay their upstream providers - why am I limited? Just because I don't have "Inc." after my name?
If they didn't want us to have an "always-on, 24/7 high-speed internet connection 100x faster than a modem", why in they hell did they give us that? What, did they expect us to keep doing modem like things over a broadband connection? LISTEN UP ASSHATS: THAT IS WHY I BOUGHT INTO THE WHOLE BROADBAND THING - IF I WANTED MODEM CAPS, I WOULD HAVE STAYED WITH A MODEM.
Now, don't get me wrong, I would gladly pay what it is worth - but I too don't understand why it should cost so much - there are literally thousands of miles of DARK FIBER laying in the ground, going completely unused, just waiting. It will probably rot before it gets used though, if this kind of "price-fixing" for bandwidth keeps going on...
Especially if you digital cable - one would think that since a digital cable box is nothing more than a glorified computer streaming data from the head-end, at ultra-extreme rates, that it would be the same deal (watch more TV, pay more - boy, they would see subscribers dropping off like flies then)...
Maybe I should put up a page for the LOUDEST PC on the planet? Ok, I know truthfully I would never get anywhere near some designs, but I bet I could get things pretty loud by installing some heavy-duty, chop-off-your-fingers steel 120V axial cooling fans (15,000cfm baby!)... heh...
Then tears come to my eyes...
For I know that despite all of this, despite the facts, despite the wonder, despite the possibilities - the majority of humans do not care one way or the other about it. They would rather war, rape, pillage, and plunder to death a world which currently is the only one we have - yet they seem unable to grasp this simple concept. These same humans continue to believe in the idea of an invisible being "in the sky", a being who apparently hates other invisible beings, who insists that those invisible beings be destroyed, along with those who believe in that being, or don't believe in his being. Yet these same humans consider such concepts as the "easter bunny" and "santa claus" to be fantasy imaginings of children's fairytales.
These people continually fight, some for their invisible men, most for more space - when with a little solidarity, and the realization that humans really do only get one life, and that death shouldn't be feared (do those who fear the consequences of a fictional afterlife wonder what came before their birth - also, if they don't remember what came before, what logic says they will know what comes after?), and that by there only being one life per each living thing, makes that life ALL THE MORE PRECIOUS. This logic doesn't destroy morality, but affirms it in a great way. With this realisation, working together to explore all of these other worlds would expand the space available for mankind, while furthering our wonder and the workings of the universe. Why does it seem so few can get these rather simple concepts?
Perhaps we really are nothing more than "advanced animals", and really don't deserve all of what is out there..
I miss this kind of spirit of experimentation - if I have kids I hope to be able to pass on such experiments, and show my kids that while things may be dangerous, if you aproach the problem and experiment with respect, you generally won't have a problem - but even so, sometimes accidents happen - and that is the price we humans should be prepared to face in the search for knowledge and truth.
No, they do seem "easy" to build - what you saw is what I think is normally called a "cloud particle trail chamber" - I have seen plans for these type chambers in older SciAm issues (Amature Scientist column), as well as in old (ie, pre-1970) "science fair" experiment books aimed at kids. They aren't super difficult to build, I believe they involve using mainly oil droplets (rather than water). It has been a while since I have seen plans for these things - go to the largest, and oldest library (ie, the "central" library) in your nearest city (you want a library with lots of old books, that still keeps them on the shelves), and look in the 620.x-630.x (Dewey Decimal - mainly applied science/technology) area for these books.
My favorite machine erroring and dying has to be an Amiga - aside from the standard "Guru meditation error", Amigas die spectacularly when faced with a non-AmigaDOS program running. Typically, when such a program dies (I would suspect a buffer overflow from what happens), rather than an error, you get a sound and light show. Because of the way the custom sound and video processors are tied into the system, such an error gives snow, funky sound, etc until the system either freezes or (rarely) reboots.
Needless to say, he was pissed, and I was laughing...
Run the cable through windows, let it hang loose and drape it over the roof - maybe put it inside some PVC pipe to protect it a bit on the roof from the elements - leave a "droop" at the point where it comes in the window so that rain will drop off and not into the house.
I would advise against trying to run the cable via the electrical conduit and getting new plates as others have suggested. While this sounds like a good idea, running 120VAC next to Cat5 would almost have to introduce noise into the line. Furthermore, if the lines are in flexible conduit, there likely won't be enough room for both - the little room there is would make moving the Cat5 a bear, perhaps even dangerous. If it isn't in conduit, navigating the holes in the firebreak crossbeams in the wall will be a nightmare, to say the least.
Keep these problems in mind when you buy a house, though - because it WILL influence your decision on what to buy. The house I bought earlier this year was perfect for wiring anything. It was built in the early 1970's with block construction. The interior walls are drywall set off from the brick by vertical 1x2 furring strips - there isn't any insulation between the strips and the wall, and no horizontal furring strips - so running cable is as simple as getting into the attic, drilling a hole in the baseplate 2x4 at the top of the brick, and dropping the cable down the hole!
All that and no damn HOA!!!
This is cool technology, and does have obvious practical uses as outlined in the article. But it will never replace the potentials offered by HMDs (Head Mounted Displays).
HMDs offer the the one thing you can't get from a 3rd person perspective - immersion. Unfortunately, HMDs still have some serious drawbacks, the greatest of which is the fixed focus. Some HMDs are supposedly focused at "infinity", but they are still fixed focus in that there is no way to create the different levels of focus that the real world offers the eyes - everything is at the same distance. Thus, your eyes do not change focus as they do in the real world, which leads to eye strain. Once this issue is overcome, and issues relating to FOV (field of view) vs. resolution (namely you can't get a big FOV with high resolution yet for any reasonable amount of money - it is always a trade off) are surmounted, the ability to work and play in simulated VEs (virtuals environments) for long periods of time will become a reality.
That is what I am waiting for...
I didn't think you were, I knew you were merely pointing out the funny way it looked. Still, I wanted to clarify things a bit for others who might not understand - and sometimes, even metalworkers get wonky with thier tools...
You see, I am in the slow process of building an electric vehicle, made from bicycle parts and a half-horsepower electric motor. I am not even sure it is going to work when I get it done, but for the time being, I am considering using gel-cells that would need to be recharged - I am figuring on 24-48 volts @ 14 AH - and even that will probably not be enough (I am planning on using muliple 12V gel-cells wired series/parallel style to get the volta/amps I need).
So, imagine if I could use such fuel cells instead, and have a fuel tank of methanol to run them. Maybe they might even run on other types of alcohol? Whatever, but this would allow me to get the range I want for my EV (provided they were cheap enough, which they probably won't be initially)...
They basically knew that it was to become a robust, distributed network for communications, and that universities were to be involved to share computer processing time. But I really think it was one of those "Heh, heh, give this to new guy!" type projects, which they gave to a DARPA guy (can't remember his name) to lead, not realizing he was basically a "hands off, let's see what happens" type of dude. How he got into the military with that type of attitude is beyond me.
Without him, DARPA funding, plus hooking up to freedom loving universities - the internet as we know it today would never have come into being In a way, the internet was a fluke, perhaps one of the "last harrahs" of the 60's - I mean, DARPA could have given it to a guy to have IBM work with AT&T and other large communications giants, coupled with businesses that used large computers, maybe a few R&D labs and think tanks (RAND, LANL, etc), and come up with a similar system - but it would be nothing like today's internet, not in the least.
That isn't to day big business or the government didn't have their hand in the current offering - but with luck and a little hands-off, we have recieved the legacy of a generation knew what freedom and liberty are about, and for this we need to protect it for the future.
But actually, if you look at the pictures, you can see the first shows it on the stools, and the pedestal is in the foreground, the second shows it on the pedestal (and is dated a day ahead). The next image showing one of the guys using the lathe, you can see one of the stools is being used to support a box of tools or something.
Believe me, while it may look like they could use it on the stools, any metalworker with any kind of experience would tell you that would be a bad thing...