I have a LaserJet 6M I purchased about 3 years ago after getting fed up with an inkjet printer I had. I bought it used for $120.00, and purchased a refilled toner cartridge for another $70.00 - I still haven't run out of toner. Not too long back I found a LaserJet 5MP at Goodwill (with paper, toner and postscript SIMM!) that I purchased for $15.00 (!!) - it works great, too. I added a postscript SIMM to my 6 along with some spare RAM SIMMs to beef up the cache, and it hums away perfectly.
It currently sits on the parallel port of my wife's machine, which runs Mandrake with CUPS (she uses it the most). I can easily print to it over the network from my Linux box. At some point in the future, I have a network printer buffer (similar to a JetDirect) I am going to attach it to, then it will be truely independent.
I love this printer and I encourage anyone who needs to get work done (and doesn't need color) to go out and get one of these workhorses. You won't be sorry, and you won't be shelling out wads of cash for printer ink ever again!
I have digital cable, and more often than not my wife and I are questioning whether to keep it - there just doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile to watch anymore. What we do watch, we could likely get from other sources (DVD and the internet), and those programs we can't - oh well, it won't kill us.
What I have been planning to do for a while is to build a media box - a simple Linux box (maybe a MythTV-like system) with media players for common stuff (DVDs, VCDs, mpeg and avi video, others, and MP3s, etc), a DVD reader and a network card. Movies and other media would be stored on the fileserver (we have a wired Cat5e 100BaseT network). We could also surf the internet from the box. Maybe have the frontend be an RSS feed selector or something.
What I am getting at is that with sites like Google Video and YouTube, plus the plethora of DVDs and other entertainment (ripped MP3s from CDs, VCDs, etc), plus all that is the internet - there is more than enough entertainment out there already. Which would you rather watch: a rerun of Law and Order or some guy thinking he can launch a bottle rocket from his butt? I can already tell you which has more entertainment value (of course, that entertainment comes at the cost of realizing just how crappy and degenerate a country the USA has become).
We plan on getting a new TV soon - hopefully something bigger than the 27" we currently have (it is slowly dying) - maybe at that point we'll drop the digital cable and move on to InternetInfotainment (or whatever you want to call it) - of course, we will probably always be beholden in some fashion to that cableco, as that is what I have to get my broadband through - but I don't have to watch the television.
Avoiding the common cold is fairly easy - what makes it difficult for most of us is the fact that most people have rug rats and go to work. Basically, to avoid the common cold - stay away from others who have it, wash your hands regularly (and use one of those anti-germ hand sanitizers after touching common surfaces, like doorknobs, if you are really paranoid), keep your environment clean (you wouldn't believe how crappy some people live - absolute squaller, I have seen - yet they don't understand why they still get sick), and eat good meals (ie, cut back on the fast/convenience foods and make a good meal). Eat a multi-vitamin every day (most people are undernourished in the vitamin dept). Stay away from small kids as well. For most of the year, you won't get sick (I am only sick maybe once or twice a year with the cold, and I can't remember the last time I had the flu). When you do, it will be short (In my case, I tend to get better after a day or two).
Hmm - seems you're right - I was trying this at work, I just tried it now at home (cox.net) and it worked find - saved the info, might look at it sometime in the future when I have more time. Thanks for the "heads up"...
Do you (or anybody else) know of a similar way to find large files easily under Linux? I have a feeling that some combo of find, grep, and maybe du could be used - maybe some custom Perl/Bash scripting. I could really use a tool like this - something that I could point at a directory and it would spit out a tree'd recursive listing of sub-dirs and their sizes. Then, when you find something interesting, pass it a different argument set and get a listing of the files and sizes instead. Right now I am simply using du and some grep, but I don't have the time yet to spend hacking something together...
This solution wouldn't work as well as you think. However, I think if laptop manufacturers would just try to come up with a standard battery pack, it would go a long way toward the issue of "getting the right pack at the right price". Unfortunately, they tend to all make different packs for a variety of reasons. One is "vendor lock-in". Another is simply the design of the laptop (which leads to the question of why laptops can't be designed to a standard format, like most desktops currently are). At one time, one battery manufacturer (Duracell, IIRC) tried to come up with a "standard" laptop battery - it ended up being used in only one or two laptops at the time (mid-1990's or so)...
I recently went on an interview for a PHP/MySQL position. The company was very small, and I have lots of experience (15 years) in a variety of areas, that I thought I might be perfect for the position. Unfortunately, I don't have any real world PHP/MySQL experience - most of this area has been done at home using a Mandrake box I set up for the purpose of recoding my website (I wish I had it done and up - I could have shown them what I have been working on). My most current experience has been using ASP and MSSQL - I also have experience with a variety of other languages (Perl, VB, Python, various assembler, etc) and DB platforms (MSSQL, Access, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc).
As part of the interview process they asked me a variety of questions relating to both PHP and MySQL. All of the questions I had past experiences with, but unfortunately for me since I didn't have much past experiences with the problems they described, I know I flubbed on them badly. When I didn't know the answer, I told them "I don't know". When I knew the answer, or had an idea, I tried to articulate it as best as possible. I know that some of the answers I got were 100% correct, but others I honestly had no clue, and I told them that.
I then tried to tell them what I would do in such a situation - ie, not knowing the answer, or not knowing the answer fully. I told them I would likely use Google to find the solution. I don't know if they liked this answer or not (it seems likely they didn't) - but it is the truth. When I don't know the answer to something, I consult books (if I have them) or Google around until I find a solution. I don't just cut and paste code, either - I try to understand the solution and the why for it, and then keep it in my mind for future use. Unfortunately, if I only run into something once from six months ago, I am likely to forget it. However, rare has been a problem that somebody else has had and it isn't answered on Google or any other of the methods I know to research. My personal library is pretty large, and the public library is much larger still. If I couldn't find something in PHP, I would search for the general problem area in all languages - if all I could find was something in ALGOL from 30 years ago, then so be it - I will convert the code and understand it.
Like I said, I don't think they liked my answer, as I have yet to hear anything from them, and it has been a few weeks since that interview. I sent a follow-up thank-you email. I also called to ask if the selection process was still occurring, and they said "yes, can we call you back tommorow?" - but tommorow never came...
To me, this is what irks me the most, and makes me question if I really want to work there: if the company can't even take the small amount of time to tell you on the phone "Sorry, we have selected another candidate", even after repeated requests - if they don't have the courage to say "no" to an interviewee who has failed the selection process - then will they have the fortitude to question other decisions made by their vendors or clients? In the end, I think I might have just failed because of lack of significant exposure to PHP and MySQL. Maybe I will have better luck in the future. I do think, however, that I deserve at least a "Thank you, but no thanks"...
It's good to remember that Minds are really groups of neurons, they have no moral body or cognitive center which is the "real" way they think as opposed to how they behave. They are their behavior.
So - are you really certain that all corporations are non-sentient? How would we, the individual acting units which make up a corporation, ever be able to tell? Can a neuron know the mind? If so, what would the mind do if it found out?
I never owned a PowerGlove for my Nintendo, so I never tried "GloveBall" or whatever game came with it. However, I did purchase a few PowerGloves for VR experimentation - I first hooked it up to my Amiga (using info from that old Byte magazine article), and played around with it using AMOS and Blitz Basic. Later on after I got my first PC-compatible (an Acer 486), I got it working under REND386, and later AVRIL.
Recently (as in, within the last 3 years or so), an individual wrote a "glove driver" module for Linux - I got it compiled, hooked my PowerGlove up - and it worked perfectly (though the driver was crap, as the author noted - it uses a ton of CPU).
While I don't think the PowerGlove is perfect, and from what I have heard, the "GloveBall" game stank, I do think the PowerGlove offerred a cheap (then and now) way of getting a "glove-based" VR solution for homebrew VR hackers. For that purpose, it wasn't bad. Indeed, the worst feature of it for that purpose was the shoddy tracking system - had it been more stable and higher resolution (particularly for the hand/wrist orientation), it would have made a perfect system. Alas, the rush to market as well as just practical reasons gave us what we got...
Why wait? Such devices already exist (or at least at one time they did, think 640x480 LCD VGA projectors), and are fairly cheap in large enough quantities.
The whole concept of home-based VR doesn't suffer because of content - FPS games practically beg for HMDs. The reason why you don't see such devices in the home market can be summed up in one word: Liability.
See, the problem is that no matter how good you make your HMD, some percentage of users are going to experience simulator sickness, even if they don't use the device for extended periods of time (I am assumming a "perfect" HMD - infinite focus, large FOV, say 60-70 degrees horizontal/40-50 degrees vertical per eye, and huge resolution to combat a low pixel per degree ratio). These people will get nausea at best (think of the number of people who got sick just looking at the game Descent, let alone playing it - ever wonder why there aren't more of these 6DOF FPS games?). Those who play longer (even those who aren't nauseous), say longer than 30 minutes, there will be a percentage who develop eye strain and headaches. All of this adds up to potential lawsuits.
This doesn't even bring in the fact that in order to create a real "treat" of a VR world, you need to become completely immersed. Once you have the HMD with the right specs, you have only begun. You need to develop 3D tracking systems (that are inexpensive) for tracking at minimum one hand, and the head/body position. This would bring only more possibilities of liabilty to the manufacturer, as people could easily trip and fall, bang their head, etc.
This doesn't mean you can't roll your own system - there are plenty of devices out there with high resolution LCD's for the hacking (PS2 displays, portable DVD players, maybe even Gameboys and such). Couple them with some lenses and stick it on a headband. You can do sourceless head tracking fairly cheaply using electronic accelerometers and compasses, or hook up a mechanical arm head tracker and hook the potentiometers to a joystick interface. Full 6DOF tracking for hand/body movement is near impossible for the homebrewer (even today), without spending a ton of money or time (there was a guy in Brazil, IIRC, who created his own "open source" 6DOF magnetic tracker, and published it in an issue of Circuit Cellar. I corresponded with him via email, and he noted it was very difficult to callibrate and noisy).
So - it is possible, just go for it if you want it!
Hmm, once again they screw up what could've been a great design...
First off, having the numbers in a circle is not a bad thing. True, it isn't anything like current touch-tone phones, but it does evoke the simplicity of a rotary dial phone (depending on your age, you may or may not remember them), with the speed of push buttons. Not "intuitive" by the definition of "what we are used to", but definitely a good alternative.
With that said, where they screwed up is where they placed this new configuration. Imaging holding the phone. Imagine hitting the buttons with your thumb. See the problem?
The "dial pad" is too low! Your thumb, at natural "rest state", would be resting closer to the middle of what is the screen in your image. Had they simply swapped the position of the screen and buttons (so that the buttons were above the screen), it would have been perfect. The buttons would now be in a similar position as the "jog wheel" device on the older I-Pods. It would be comfortable to use, easy to dial without looking at it (even in the dark, likely), and comfortable to use.
I've seen auctions like what you describe, and on many of them it is a definite scam of some sort (probably to get their listing at the top of the pack when someone sorts by lowest price first or something). However, on other items it can be useful.
One kind of item in particular that I see often is the $30.00 wireless sugarcube camera. Now, before you get your knickers in a knot, I purchase these devices for ROV (remote operated vehicle) usage (I am certain others purchase them for security purposes, and a few for more nefarious purposes - but for ROV and robotics, they can't be beat). They are small, lightweight, and have excellent distance coverage. These things are made in Hong Kong by a few companies, and in most cases, the companies that make these el-cheapo devices also run an Ebay seller. So, you "buy it now" and they drop ship it to your door.
In most of these auctions, the auction is for a penny ($.01) or some small amount, then $29.95 for shipping. Now, I don't know about you, but I have ordered my fair share of overseas items (books, electronics, etc), and for what you get when you buy one of these cameras, the shipping is more than reasonable. I figure the regular shipping is like $15.00-20.00, so they are making only $10-15.00 profit on the sale. These same cameras (IDENTICAL) being sold down at my local Fry's Electronics sell for over $80.00! Same manufacturer, same product - just a shiny package (instead of bubble wrap and a box). I can't get it cheaper locally, nor can I get it cheaper online from a regular retailer (like NewEgg or something).
In fact, there are a ton of Hong Kong/Chinese products sold just like this - in many cases, the big box stores here in the USA just buy a bunch, have them specially packaged (in that terrible anti-theft plastic, I might add), then sell them for an insane markup. Many times, you can get these same products direct from the manufacturer in lots of 1 unit for about the cost of shipping, plus a little. You just have to know what you are buying and what they are selling, and who the manufacturer is (and whether you can use Global Sources Direct to get a better deal on small lots).
Checking the seller out on Ebay, then checking Global Sources for the company is a great way to get excellent deals. It doesn't always work this way, but in many cases it does. You just have to know what is going on...
Lots of people in the U.S. government are quite insightful and intelligent. It's just that the insane ones get all the press.
I agree with your statement that there are lots of insightful and intelligent people (on both sides of the aisle, so to speak) in the U.S. government. I also agree that the "insane" ones get a lot of press time. However, I don't think that is the whole picture.
Regardless of the large-scale bureaucracy, whether it is a government or a corporation, it seems that at a certain size-point there comes a time that the bureaucracy as a whole begins to exhibit various forms of emergent behavior that can't be explained by examining the individual parts. No more than one can recognize the concepts of sentience and reason the human mind brings forth, by examining a single neuron, we should not be surprised that a bureaucracy works in the same manner, and that we can't surmise how it will act by singling out individual employee contributions to the organization.
Inevitably, in most large bureaucracies this emergent behavior tends toward baser outputs, what we humans perceive as harmful, beligerent, corrupted, insane, and in some cases, "evil" behavior. The greater the size of the bureaucracy, the more likely this is to be the case. Interestingly, we seem to see this behavior mainly in bureaucracies where the accumulation of wealth is a goal of the organization. In instances where that goal is not the prime motivator for the organization (say, for instance, a non-profit), these emergent behaviors tend not to manifest themselves (I will admit this is baseless conjecture on my part - I have not seen any study regarding this idea - but anecdotal evidence seems to bear this out).
For governments, it would seem that to prevent this from occurring, the proper thing to do would be to limit the government's ability to accumulate wealth (whether through taxes or warfare). Ideally, it should be able to function optimally without such accumulation, however, for most of the developed world, the economic engine driving the society is capitalism, which is at odds with this idea. Furthermore, large corporate bureaucracies have their hands in the development and guidance of the government - something that was warned against after WW2 as the rise of the "military-industrial complex".
I tend to wonder if these emergent behaviors we see aren't actually intelligent (if not necessarily rational), and that this manipulation isn't actually purposeful, perhaps to ultimately eliminate or marginalize humans? If so, is there anything we can do to detect it, or even stop it? Can a neuron ever know about the mind? Furthermore, if such a neuron did, what would the mind do if it found out?
This is actually what is strange about all of these alternative fuel methods, like biofuels and TPD, and I have yet to see an answer for it.
Back when the TPD plant that "runs on turkey guts" that we are discussing was being built and first began operating, oil was at about $40-50.00 a barrel. At the time it was said that if oil got to around $60.00 a barrel (or thereabouts), it would be competative with oil.
Yet, here we are, still. One would think that with oil being $70-80.00 a barrel, these things would be springing up all over, or at least we would be hearing more about them. Same with biofuel production, and heck, even oil sands or shale oil production. All of the proponents of these methods (including myself) have said the same thing: oil needs to get more expensive for these method to become more viable. Yet, here we are with expensive oil, and they still aren't viable. Why?
Maybe it is because fossil fuels are supporting more in these processes than we think? Maybe the energy output of these process aren't great enough to overcome the energy input costs of construction and running the plant? Maybe it is something else? I don't know for sure, but I do know that nobody seems to be discussing it...
Collecting roof runoff is a good idea for a lot of uses, but it does have some drawbacks.
My wife and I decided to try out collecting roof runoff from our house in Phoenix, Arizona - we purchased a small storage "tank" (about 40 gallons) for this purpose, which was designed to collect runoff from the downspout, and hook up a hose to irrigate a garden. We figured we could use it for this purpose. We quickly found a problem with this method.
The biggest problem was mosquito production. While the unit we used had screens and a top to prevent debris from collecting, the holes in the screen are big enough to let in bugs, which can breed in the water. Furthermore, the screening was big enough to let in "leaves" from our mesquite tree in our backyard (the "leaves" on a mesquite tree are very tiny things), which would get in the water and provide food for the insects. Then there is the stagnation of the water to contend with.
I ended up putting in screening with smaller holes, which helped with the mosquito issue, but the leaves clog it worse, so it has to be cleaned periodically. I am thinking about removing the whole system, it just isn't worth it overall due to the way our backyard is set up and with all the problems.
That doesn't mean I don't think it is a good idea - just that our implementation of it is bad. If we had an underground cistern, or an above ground tank with proper screens and traps (a U-trap would keep out insects, and limit their breeding to the trap), and didn't have a mesquite tree clogging it up - it would work out. I know, because I have seen similar installations elsewhere in Arizona. It takes some planning and thought, but the results could be very beneficial, even if the water is only used for "greywater" usage.
If I remember the movie correctly (I don't remember how closely it follows the book), didn't a bunch (like a large cloud encircling the planer) of monoliths descend into Jupiter's atmosphere before it turned into a star? If so, the mass to cause that to occur came from the monoliths. Since we don't know what the mass of a monolith is, it could be quite large...
Read the article at my current sig line - I bet that is where the Register got started. Even if you took the time to pre-mix the binary beforehand (the pirannah solution - which is difficult and dangerous to do in a lab, even when you know what you are doing), it is still a very dangerous liquid to carry around. If you mix the binary together, what you end up with is a very unstable explosive. I would be willing to bet that in the situation of trying to carry this stuff around, you would be more apt to darwinize yourself more than anything else.
...is the most important thing. First off, I want to give kudos to everyone who has responded to these - just about everyone here has given great ideas and suggestions to the problem. These ideas should be listened to and evaluated. I myself have been researching the idea of sourceless and sourced motion capture and position tracking for a long time now, as it relates to virtual reality applications, simply because there is nothing commercial for the task that comes down to homebrew pricing. Personally, I only want to track two things - the position and orientation of my hand, and the orientation of my head. The second I (and anyone else) can easily do today with a cheap 3-axis accelerometer/compass system. The first, though, is not easy at all. Position is one thing, but the orientation is a completely different beast.
With that said, your ideas on using webcams is spot on, but you are going to need more than three, mainly for occlusion handling. For the rig I was contemplating (using webcams much the same as you), I was thinking of at least four cameras. The main problem I ran into (just in thinking about it, no actual implementation), and as others have described, was timing issues. For best results, you need all the frames captured from the cameras to happen at the exact same time. Since with USB webcams this isn't possible, you either need to come up with another solution (people here have mentioned some "high end" cameras that have syncing systems), or deal with it in software (very difficult to do, in addition to dealing with everything else, and still getting a high frame rate).
Another problem you are going to run into (and has been mentioned by others, but not much on the reason) is webcamera resolution. Most webcams that capture at decent framerates do so at QVGA (320x240). Even those that capture at a real 640x480 typically do so at only around 15fps, instead of 24 or 30. Rare (and more expensive) is the webcam that will capture at 24-30fps with VGA resolution. Even at VGA resolution, though, you are going to have to deal with the angular vs pixel resolution of the camera. What I mean by this is that as an object moves throught the FOV of the camera, it is going to only be imaged by certain pixels of the CCD imaging device. Depending on the distance away from the camera, the object may move say a foot, and only move (on camera) a pixel or so. The further away the moving object, the fewer pixels covered due to parallax. This translates into a lower resolution of pixels (on camera) to inches/cm (in real motion). In fact, this is almost the inverse problem of HMDs, where you can have high resolution, and low FOV, or vice-versa. In order to have both (in either cameras or HMDs), you have to pay a lot of money. In optical camera-based mocap, this means HDTV or better resolution cameras. I hope you understand what I mean here, because it is important for motion capture where you may be capturing large amounts of motion over a lot of area. For close-ups (like facial capture) it is less important - but remember, the higher the resolution of the camera, the finer the motion you can capture at all distances from the person/object to the camera. Higher resolution cameras translate into higher prices for the system, because you have to deal with more data, all in realtime. Not easy, not cheap.
You might best be able to deal with this by going the custom camera route. What you would want to do is build a custom frame capturing system, using 640x480 (or better) b&w CCD cameras (you don't need color, you just need IR sensitivity - even with B/W cameras, you are going to filter the final image down so far that it is mostly only a true b&w 2bpp image - so the closer you can do that in hardware, the less you have to do in software). This won't be easy, but many people have done similar systems for homebrew robotic vision systems, so look there. Realize that this kind of a project will likely dwarf your game development project in both hardware and software needs, and you might end up with a system
From my research, doing this with a single RFID chip "marker" is possible, if you can deal with the low resolution of the device (+/- 1 foot or so - may be better with more transmitters) and the lag time (second or so delay). For realtime mocap, this isn't usable, but for "realtime" inventory tracking, perfectly acceptable. With more markers, things just get worse - and for mocap, you will need more markers, typically one per major joint, depending on what you are modelling.
Unless things have come a long way since I last researched this (a couple of years ago, so who knows - please correct me if I am wrong), RFID just isn't ready for the mocap market. Now, what could be used (and might be helpful for the poster, if he can find a higher framerate capture system) is active IR markers - basically an LED blinking in a set pattern (use a small custom programmed 8-pin SMT PIC, epoxy blobbed to a small PCB - basically PIC and other parts on one side, SMT IR LEDs on the other). The software can then detect this "fairly easily" (not going to mince words - active or passive IR marker tracking is tricky software-wise), and it is easier to deal with occlusion of the markers (passing in/out of tracking range due to being hidden by other body parts), since you know which marker is which (with passive markers, you have to add motion prediction to the software to "guess" where the marker is going to be in the next frame, within a certain spherical range, once you know where all the markers are in the first - and dealing with occlusion isn't easy).
...over a road to the house he bought. Eventually, the courts found for my brother. The guy involved was one of these a-holes like you described, who had successfully caused the former owners (a small investor group) of the house to sell due to this guy's tactics (and other circumstances). The guy had basically blocked the road, and since the investors were never around (and couldn't get a buyer because the road was blocked), they couldn't sell the house for what it was worth. He blocked it for so long, that the road was in danger of reverting to him as his property (similar to squatting, in a way). Until my brother-in-law came around, that is.
Even after the lawsuit was decided, the guy continued to be a prick to my brother-in-law (I haven't even described half the crap that happenned, let's just say this guy was a frade-A a-hole who had everybody in the neighborhood cowed out of fearing to be the next in line for a lawsuit, and who was the most sue-happy person on the planet (I looked up the number of court cases this guy had filed in the state over the past five years when this was happenning, and it was crazy!). When my brother-in-law won his battle, he became the "hero" of the neighborhood. The house they bought is now valued at its full value, which is about 8-10 times what my brother-in-law paid for it. Talk about a great investment!
In the end, this guy got what was coming to him. About a year and a half after the case was over, he died of a heart attack. Needless to say, none of our family grieved at his passing, nor did any of the neighborhood. Kharma's a bitch...
I also know why they do it, because f*ckwit elements of our society seem to deem it better to steal than to "do without" (or make do with what you got, or buy used) like normal people would. Thus, this packaging. One a-hole ruining it for the rest of us, and all that.
I don't have to tell you how many times I have cut myself open on such packaging. What I have found works best for most packages like this is a set of heavy-duty kitchen shears. Pick up some made out of steel if you can find them (they won't be cheap new, so you may want to look through an antique or junk store's kitchenware selection), but the cheapo dollar-store plastic (with metal blades) seem to work OK too for most tasks. These things look like heavy duty scissors with serrated blades. They are mainly meant to allow you to cut through chicken carcasses (rib cage) and crab/lobster shells (to remove the meat), as well a variety of other kitchen tasks. I bought a pair and stuck 'em in my shop for this very reason (as well as cutting cardboard and the occasional piece of wire - though I have wire dikes for that).
An alternative measure is a pair of medium-sized straight-angle sheetmetal shears (they also make left and right hand curved shears, so be aware of that if you cut a lot of round things), but since they are meant for sheetmetal, they sometimes don't work as well. Plus, they tend to be much more expensive than kitchen shears...
I realize that Die Hard isn't real, but the concept in the second movie prompted me to look into it. I would look into it again today if it weren't for the fact that such searches might be tracked.
What I remember finding in the past (might have found something from the Colorado School of Mines) was that such explosives DO EXIST, but that nobody messes with them because the component liquids that you need to combine are themselves highly unstable. As such, while such explosives are very compact and high velocity, etc (ie, an ideal explosive of sorts), they are too dangerous to handle outside of small scale lab experiments...
I am 33. I have been doing professional software development (as a career) for 15 years. Prior to that, I was doing personal projects through high school. I started programming computers in BASIC when I was 11. My first "code" (akin to LOGO) was done on a Milton Bradley Big Trak when I was 8.
One could say I have been coding in some form or another for the past 25 years - I am no where ready to stop, either.
So many unanswered questions, so little time. If there is one question that remains unanswered, though, in all of computers and robotics, it is the question that drives me (and I suspect many others) forward: Will one day there be a machine that has hopes and dreams?
I strongly suspect that one day that will be the case. It is why computers and robotics is so compelling amongst mankind. The question of creation of sentience, and maybe emotion, in a machine - the quest for creation in our own image. It is one of the oldest of dreams and quests of mankind...
When I code, I help in a very miniscule way to push the species onward toward conquering this goal - how could I ever stop?
...this morning on NPR, my first thought was "WTF! Liquid explosives?". Why?
After watching Die Hard 2 one evening quite a while back, I decided to research liquid explosives - because it was a movie, and it seemed plausible to have a 2-part mixed explosive (just like 2-part epoxy), and I did know about nitroglycerin...
What I remember finding was yes, there were such things as one part and two part liquid explosives - but nobody seriously considered them useful because while they were very powerful, they were also very unstable - mixed or unmixed! That is, even the components of a two part explosive were seriously unstable - not something you would want to play around with.
Heck - just last night I saw the Mythbusters episode where they try to make a homemade smokebomb using saltpeter and sugar, cooking it on a stove. Adam was mixing a batch, and was using what I think was a metal spoon (bad idea) and it caught on fire pretty quick (this particular "stunt" they were real stupid to pull inside a building - between it and the methane bubble column they made I am surprise they didn't burn the place down - you don't make homemade explosives indoors without taking any and all precautions, especially if you are new to the task!) - and that wasn't even a particularly unstable mixture (well, more unstable heated, I suppose).
Unless I am mis-remembering what I found about liquid explosives (which is always possible) - it makes a great plot device for a movie, but there is a reason we don't see these explosives used much anymore (we don't even see much use of nitroglycerin or nitrocellulose - aka guncotton - either).
So am I wrong (wouldn't be the first time)? Or am I right, and that this whole "liquid explosives going to be used by terruhists" is nothing more than maybe some cooked up FUD (or at worst, an actual plot in which the perpetrators weren't using liquid explosives, or if they were, would have killed themselves on the way to the airport)?
While methamphetimine is not a plant, the roots of it do come from plants. I don't remember when it was synthesized (and if I wasn't a lazy bugger I could look it up), but what started the whole "meth thing" was a drug called "methedrine", synthesized from the drug ephedrine (used for counteracting sleepiness and as a cold med), which comes from the ephedra plant (which, surprise surprise, is illegal). This was recognized early in the "war on drugs", and the solution was to create a new form of ephedrine which didn't come from a plant, in the (heh) hopes that it would stop the manufacture of methedrine - this new drug (which worked really well) was a synthesized form of ephedrine, called - ding! - pseudoephedrine!
Of course, after a bit of time, what can be created can be distilled and all that jazz - illicit drug makers learned to use pseudoephedrine to create what we now term "methamphetimine" - or "meth" for short. But at one time "meth" was "methedrine", not "methamphetimine". So now what has happenned? That's right, they have made it nigh impossible for ordinary people to get ahold of regular pseudoephedrine to help their colds with tracking you all over hell and highwater in many states, while ignoring the fact that most meth nowadays is made in Mexico and smuggled in (pseudoephedrine is easy to get down there, and is way cheaper that the stuff you can buy here in the states). So, most manufacture takes place down here, and up here in the states, our state representatives get big talking points and picture opportunities by "taking a tough stance on drugs" by signing bills to allow them to track ordinary buyers of pseudoephedrine - even though most manufacture doesn't even take place here.
Furthermore, just waiting in the wings from the legit drug companies is a "new" (albeit crappy at what it does) cold medication, called phenylephrine, to replace the old pseudoephedrine. Now, I am not a chemist, but if you look at the structure of both of those drugs, you will see a striking similarity between them. I would be willing to bet that there is some method that could be used to create yet another new "illicit drug" from this "new" (I don't think it is new) substance phenylephrine. I would be willing to bet that method is probably real similar to what is currently used to synthesize methamphetimine from pseudoephedrine.
Should pseudoephedrine ever be fully classified as a drug precursor in our lovely war, expect to see a rollout really quick of this new illegal drug, and it will likely be worse than meth if history is any indicator...
I hate the irrationality, ignorance, and willful arrogance that abounds on this planet among humanity - it will end up ultimately being the death of the species, I am almost certain of it...
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I have a LaserJet 6M I purchased about 3 years ago after getting fed up with an inkjet printer I had. I bought it used for $120.00, and purchased a refilled toner cartridge for another $70.00 - I still haven't run out of toner. Not too long back I found a LaserJet 5MP at Goodwill (with paper, toner and postscript SIMM!) that I purchased for $15.00 (!!) - it works great, too. I added a postscript SIMM to my 6 along with some spare RAM SIMMs to beef up the cache, and it hums away perfectly.
It currently sits on the parallel port of my wife's machine, which runs Mandrake with CUPS (she uses it the most). I can easily print to it over the network from my Linux box. At some point in the future, I have a network printer buffer (similar to a JetDirect) I am going to attach it to, then it will be truely independent.
I love this printer and I encourage anyone who needs to get work done (and doesn't need color) to go out and get one of these workhorses. You won't be sorry, and you won't be shelling out wads of cash for printer ink ever again!
What I have been planning to do for a while is to build a media box - a simple Linux box (maybe a MythTV-like system) with media players for common stuff (DVDs, VCDs, mpeg and avi video, others, and MP3s, etc), a DVD reader and a network card. Movies and other media would be stored on the fileserver (we have a wired Cat5e 100BaseT network). We could also surf the internet from the box. Maybe have the frontend be an RSS feed selector or something.
What I am getting at is that with sites like Google Video and YouTube, plus the plethora of DVDs and other entertainment (ripped MP3s from CDs, VCDs, etc), plus all that is the internet - there is more than enough entertainment out there already. Which would you rather watch: a rerun of Law and Order or some guy thinking he can launch a bottle rocket from his butt? I can already tell you which has more entertainment value (of course, that entertainment comes at the cost of realizing just how crappy and degenerate a country the USA has become).
We plan on getting a new TV soon - hopefully something bigger than the 27" we currently have (it is slowly dying) - maybe at that point we'll drop the digital cable and move on to InternetInfotainment (or whatever you want to call it) - of course, we will probably always be beholden in some fashion to that cableco, as that is what I have to get my broadband through - but I don't have to watch the television.
Avoiding the common cold is fairly easy - what makes it difficult for most of us is the fact that most people have rug rats and go to work. Basically, to avoid the common cold - stay away from others who have it, wash your hands regularly (and use one of those anti-germ hand sanitizers after touching common surfaces, like doorknobs, if you are really paranoid), keep your environment clean (you wouldn't believe how crappy some people live - absolute squaller, I have seen - yet they don't understand why they still get sick), and eat good meals (ie, cut back on the fast/convenience foods and make a good meal). Eat a multi-vitamin every day (most people are undernourished in the vitamin dept). Stay away from small kids as well. For most of the year, you won't get sick (I am only sick maybe once or twice a year with the cold, and I can't remember the last time I had the flu). When you do, it will be short (In my case, I tend to get better after a day or two).
Hmm - seems you're right - I was trying this at work, I just tried it now at home (cox.net) and it worked find - saved the info, might look at it sometime in the future when I have more time. Thanks for the "heads up"...
Do you (or anybody else) know of a similar way to find large files easily under Linux? I have a feeling that some combo of find, grep, and maybe du could be used - maybe some custom Perl/Bash scripting. I could really use a tool like this - something that I could point at a directory and it would spit out a tree'd recursive listing of sub-dirs and their sizes. Then, when you find something interesting, pass it a different argument set and get a listing of the files and sizes instead. Right now I am simply using du and some grep, but I don't have the time yet to spend hacking something together...
This solution wouldn't work as well as you think. However, I think if laptop manufacturers would just try to come up with a standard battery pack, it would go a long way toward the issue of "getting the right pack at the right price". Unfortunately, they tend to all make different packs for a variety of reasons. One is "vendor lock-in". Another is simply the design of the laptop (which leads to the question of why laptops can't be designed to a standard format, like most desktops currently are). At one time, one battery manufacturer (Duracell, IIRC) tried to come up with a "standard" laptop battery - it ended up being used in only one or two laptops at the time (mid-1990's or so)...
I recently went on an interview for a PHP/MySQL position. The company was very small, and I have lots of experience (15 years) in a variety of areas, that I thought I might be perfect for the position. Unfortunately, I don't have any real world PHP/MySQL experience - most of this area has been done at home using a Mandrake box I set up for the purpose of recoding my website (I wish I had it done and up - I could have shown them what I have been working on). My most current experience has been using ASP and MSSQL - I also have experience with a variety of other languages (Perl, VB, Python, various assembler, etc) and DB platforms (MSSQL, Access, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc).
As part of the interview process they asked me a variety of questions relating to both PHP and MySQL. All of the questions I had past experiences with, but unfortunately for me since I didn't have much past experiences with the problems they described, I know I flubbed on them badly. When I didn't know the answer, I told them "I don't know". When I knew the answer, or had an idea, I tried to articulate it as best as possible. I know that some of the answers I got were 100% correct, but others I honestly had no clue, and I told them that.
I then tried to tell them what I would do in such a situation - ie, not knowing the answer, or not knowing the answer fully. I told them I would likely use Google to find the solution. I don't know if they liked this answer or not (it seems likely they didn't) - but it is the truth. When I don't know the answer to something, I consult books (if I have them) or Google around until I find a solution. I don't just cut and paste code, either - I try to understand the solution and the why for it, and then keep it in my mind for future use. Unfortunately, if I only run into something once from six months ago, I am likely to forget it. However, rare has been a problem that somebody else has had and it isn't answered on Google or any other of the methods I know to research. My personal library is pretty large, and the public library is much larger still. If I couldn't find something in PHP, I would search for the general problem area in all languages - if all I could find was something in ALGOL from 30 years ago, then so be it - I will convert the code and understand it.
Like I said, I don't think they liked my answer, as I have yet to hear anything from them, and it has been a few weeks since that interview. I sent a follow-up thank-you email. I also called to ask if the selection process was still occurring, and they said "yes, can we call you back tommorow?" - but tommorow never came...
To me, this is what irks me the most, and makes me question if I really want to work there: if the company can't even take the small amount of time to tell you on the phone "Sorry, we have selected another candidate", even after repeated requests - if they don't have the courage to say "no" to an interviewee who has failed the selection process - then will they have the fortitude to question other decisions made by their vendors or clients? In the end, I think I might have just failed because of lack of significant exposure to PHP and MySQL. Maybe I will have better luck in the future. I do think, however, that I deserve at least a "Thank you, but no thanks"...
So - are you really certain that all corporations are non-sentient? How would we, the individual acting units which make up a corporation, ever be able to tell? Can a neuron know the mind? If so, what would the mind do if it found out?
Recently (as in, within the last 3 years or so), an individual wrote a "glove driver" module for Linux - I got it compiled, hooked my PowerGlove up - and it worked perfectly (though the driver was crap, as the author noted - it uses a ton of CPU).
While I don't think the PowerGlove is perfect, and from what I have heard, the "GloveBall" game stank, I do think the PowerGlove offerred a cheap (then and now) way of getting a "glove-based" VR solution for homebrew VR hackers. For that purpose, it wasn't bad. Indeed, the worst feature of it for that purpose was the shoddy tracking system - had it been more stable and higher resolution (particularly for the hand/wrist orientation), it would have made a perfect system. Alas, the rush to market as well as just practical reasons gave us what we got...
The whole concept of home-based VR doesn't suffer because of content - FPS games practically beg for HMDs. The reason why you don't see such devices in the home market can be summed up in one word: Liability.
See, the problem is that no matter how good you make your HMD, some percentage of users are going to experience simulator sickness, even if they don't use the device for extended periods of time (I am assumming a "perfect" HMD - infinite focus, large FOV, say 60-70 degrees horizontal/40-50 degrees vertical per eye, and huge resolution to combat a low pixel per degree ratio). These people will get nausea at best (think of the number of people who got sick just looking at the game Descent, let alone playing it - ever wonder why there aren't more of these 6DOF FPS games?). Those who play longer (even those who aren't nauseous), say longer than 30 minutes, there will be a percentage who develop eye strain and headaches. All of this adds up to potential lawsuits.
This doesn't even bring in the fact that in order to create a real "treat" of a VR world, you need to become completely immersed. Once you have the HMD with the right specs, you have only begun. You need to develop 3D tracking systems (that are inexpensive) for tracking at minimum one hand, and the head/body position. This would bring only more possibilities of liabilty to the manufacturer, as people could easily trip and fall, bang their head, etc.
This doesn't mean you can't roll your own system - there are plenty of devices out there with high resolution LCD's for the hacking (PS2 displays, portable DVD players, maybe even Gameboys and such). Couple them with some lenses and stick it on a headband. You can do sourceless head tracking fairly cheaply using electronic accelerometers and compasses, or hook up a mechanical arm head tracker and hook the potentiometers to a joystick interface. Full 6DOF tracking for hand/body movement is near impossible for the homebrewer (even today), without spending a ton of money or time (there was a guy in Brazil, IIRC, who created his own "open source" 6DOF magnetic tracker, and published it in an issue of Circuit Cellar. I corresponded with him via email, and he noted it was very difficult to callibrate and noisy).
So - it is possible, just go for it if you want it!
First off, having the numbers in a circle is not a bad thing. True, it isn't anything like current touch-tone phones, but it does evoke the simplicity of a rotary dial phone (depending on your age, you may or may not remember them), with the speed of push buttons. Not "intuitive" by the definition of "what we are used to", but definitely a good alternative.
With that said, where they screwed up is where they placed this new configuration. Imaging holding the phone. Imagine hitting the buttons with your thumb. See the problem?
The "dial pad" is too low! Your thumb, at natural "rest state", would be resting closer to the middle of what is the screen in your image. Had they simply swapped the position of the screen and buttons (so that the buttons were above the screen), it would have been perfect. The buttons would now be in a similar position as the "jog wheel" device on the older I-Pods. It would be comfortable to use, easy to dial without looking at it (even in the dark, likely), and comfortable to use.
Oh, well...
One kind of item in particular that I see often is the $30.00 wireless sugarcube camera. Now, before you get your knickers in a knot, I purchase these devices for ROV (remote operated vehicle) usage (I am certain others purchase them for security purposes, and a few for more nefarious purposes - but for ROV and robotics, they can't be beat). They are small, lightweight, and have excellent distance coverage. These things are made in Hong Kong by a few companies, and in most cases, the companies that make these el-cheapo devices also run an Ebay seller. So, you "buy it now" and they drop ship it to your door.
In most of these auctions, the auction is for a penny ($.01) or some small amount, then $29.95 for shipping. Now, I don't know about you, but I have ordered my fair share of overseas items (books, electronics, etc), and for what you get when you buy one of these cameras, the shipping is more than reasonable. I figure the regular shipping is like $15.00-20.00, so they are making only $10-15.00 profit on the sale. These same cameras (IDENTICAL) being sold down at my local Fry's Electronics sell for over $80.00! Same manufacturer, same product - just a shiny package (instead of bubble wrap and a box). I can't get it cheaper locally, nor can I get it cheaper online from a regular retailer (like NewEgg or something).
In fact, there are a ton of Hong Kong/Chinese products sold just like this - in many cases, the big box stores here in the USA just buy a bunch, have them specially packaged (in that terrible anti-theft plastic, I might add), then sell them for an insane markup. Many times, you can get these same products direct from the manufacturer in lots of 1 unit for about the cost of shipping, plus a little. You just have to know what you are buying and what they are selling, and who the manufacturer is (and whether you can use Global Sources Direct to get a better deal on small lots).
Checking the seller out on Ebay, then checking Global Sources for the company is a great way to get excellent deals. It doesn't always work this way, but in many cases it does. You just have to know what is going on...
I agree with your statement that there are lots of insightful and intelligent people (on both sides of the aisle, so to speak) in the U.S. government. I also agree that the "insane" ones get a lot of press time. However, I don't think that is the whole picture.
Regardless of the large-scale bureaucracy, whether it is a government or a corporation, it seems that at a certain size-point there comes a time that the bureaucracy as a whole begins to exhibit various forms of emergent behavior that can't be explained by examining the individual parts. No more than one can recognize the concepts of sentience and reason the human mind brings forth, by examining a single neuron, we should not be surprised that a bureaucracy works in the same manner, and that we can't surmise how it will act by singling out individual employee contributions to the organization.
Inevitably, in most large bureaucracies this emergent behavior tends toward baser outputs, what we humans perceive as harmful, beligerent, corrupted, insane, and in some cases, "evil" behavior. The greater the size of the bureaucracy, the more likely this is to be the case. Interestingly, we seem to see this behavior mainly in bureaucracies where the accumulation of wealth is a goal of the organization. In instances where that goal is not the prime motivator for the organization (say, for instance, a non-profit), these emergent behaviors tend not to manifest themselves (I will admit this is baseless conjecture on my part - I have not seen any study regarding this idea - but anecdotal evidence seems to bear this out).
For governments, it would seem that to prevent this from occurring, the proper thing to do would be to limit the government's ability to accumulate wealth (whether through taxes or warfare). Ideally, it should be able to function optimally without such accumulation, however, for most of the developed world, the economic engine driving the society is capitalism, which is at odds with this idea. Furthermore, large corporate bureaucracies have their hands in the development and guidance of the government - something that was warned against after WW2 as the rise of the "military-industrial complex".
I tend to wonder if these emergent behaviors we see aren't actually intelligent (if not necessarily rational), and that this manipulation isn't actually purposeful, perhaps to ultimately eliminate or marginalize humans? If so, is there anything we can do to detect it, or even stop it? Can a neuron ever know about the mind? Furthermore, if such a neuron did, what would the mind do if it found out?
Back when the TPD plant that "runs on turkey guts" that we are discussing was being built and first began operating, oil was at about $40-50.00 a barrel. At the time it was said that if oil got to around $60.00 a barrel (or thereabouts), it would be competative with oil.
Yet, here we are, still. One would think that with oil being $70-80.00 a barrel, these things would be springing up all over, or at least we would be hearing more about them. Same with biofuel production, and heck, even oil sands or shale oil production. All of the proponents of these methods (including myself) have said the same thing: oil needs to get more expensive for these method to become more viable. Yet, here we are with expensive oil, and they still aren't viable. Why?
Maybe it is because fossil fuels are supporting more in these processes than we think? Maybe the energy output of these process aren't great enough to overcome the energy input costs of construction and running the plant? Maybe it is something else? I don't know for sure, but I do know that nobody seems to be discussing it...
My wife and I decided to try out collecting roof runoff from our house in Phoenix, Arizona - we purchased a small storage "tank" (about 40 gallons) for this purpose, which was designed to collect runoff from the downspout, and hook up a hose to irrigate a garden. We figured we could use it for this purpose. We quickly found a problem with this method.
The biggest problem was mosquito production. While the unit we used had screens and a top to prevent debris from collecting, the holes in the screen are big enough to let in bugs, which can breed in the water. Furthermore, the screening was big enough to let in "leaves" from our mesquite tree in our backyard (the "leaves" on a mesquite tree are very tiny things), which would get in the water and provide food for the insects. Then there is the stagnation of the water to contend with.
I ended up putting in screening with smaller holes, which helped with the mosquito issue, but the leaves clog it worse, so it has to be cleaned periodically. I am thinking about removing the whole system, it just isn't worth it overall due to the way our backyard is set up and with all the problems.
That doesn't mean I don't think it is a good idea - just that our implementation of it is bad. If we had an underground cistern, or an above ground tank with proper screens and traps (a U-trap would keep out insects, and limit their breeding to the trap), and didn't have a mesquite tree clogging it up - it would work out. I know, because I have seen similar installations elsewhere in Arizona. It takes some planning and thought, but the results could be very beneficial, even if the water is only used for "greywater" usage.
If I remember the movie correctly (I don't remember how closely it follows the book), didn't a bunch (like a large cloud encircling the planer) of monoliths descend into Jupiter's atmosphere before it turned into a star? If so, the mass to cause that to occur came from the monoliths. Since we don't know what the mass of a monolith is, it could be quite large...
Read the article at my current sig line - I bet that is where the Register got started. Even if you took the time to pre-mix the binary beforehand (the pirannah solution - which is difficult and dangerous to do in a lab, even when you know what you are doing), it is still a very dangerous liquid to carry around. If you mix the binary together, what you end up with is a very unstable explosive. I would be willing to bet that in the situation of trying to carry this stuff around, you would be more apt to darwinize yourself more than anything else.
With that said, your ideas on using webcams is spot on, but you are going to need more than three, mainly for occlusion handling. For the rig I was contemplating (using webcams much the same as you), I was thinking of at least four cameras. The main problem I ran into (just in thinking about it, no actual implementation), and as others have described, was timing issues. For best results, you need all the frames captured from the cameras to happen at the exact same time. Since with USB webcams this isn't possible, you either need to come up with another solution (people here have mentioned some "high end" cameras that have syncing systems), or deal with it in software (very difficult to do, in addition to dealing with everything else, and still getting a high frame rate).
Another problem you are going to run into (and has been mentioned by others, but not much on the reason) is webcamera resolution. Most webcams that capture at decent framerates do so at QVGA (320x240). Even those that capture at a real 640x480 typically do so at only around 15fps, instead of 24 or 30. Rare (and more expensive) is the webcam that will capture at 24-30fps with VGA resolution. Even at VGA resolution, though, you are going to have to deal with the angular vs pixel resolution of the camera. What I mean by this is that as an object moves throught the FOV of the camera, it is going to only be imaged by certain pixels of the CCD imaging device. Depending on the distance away from the camera, the object may move say a foot, and only move (on camera) a pixel or so. The further away the moving object, the fewer pixels covered due to parallax. This translates into a lower resolution of pixels (on camera) to inches/cm (in real motion). In fact, this is almost the inverse problem of HMDs, where you can have high resolution, and low FOV, or vice-versa. In order to have both (in either cameras or HMDs), you have to pay a lot of money. In optical camera-based mocap, this means HDTV or better resolution cameras. I hope you understand what I mean here, because it is important for motion capture where you may be capturing large amounts of motion over a lot of area. For close-ups (like facial capture) it is less important - but remember, the higher the resolution of the camera, the finer the motion you can capture at all distances from the person/object to the camera. Higher resolution cameras translate into higher prices for the system, because you have to deal with more data, all in realtime. Not easy, not cheap.
You might best be able to deal with this by going the custom camera route. What you would want to do is build a custom frame capturing system, using 640x480 (or better) b&w CCD cameras (you don't need color, you just need IR sensitivity - even with B/W cameras, you are going to filter the final image down so far that it is mostly only a true b&w 2bpp image - so the closer you can do that in hardware, the less you have to do in software). This won't be easy, but many people have done similar systems for homebrew robotic vision systems, so look there. Realize that this kind of a project will likely dwarf your game development project in both hardware and software needs, and you might end up with a system
Unless things have come a long way since I last researched this (a couple of years ago, so who knows - please correct me if I am wrong), RFID just isn't ready for the mocap market. Now, what could be used (and might be helpful for the poster, if he can find a higher framerate capture system) is active IR markers - basically an LED blinking in a set pattern (use a small custom programmed 8-pin SMT PIC, epoxy blobbed to a small PCB - basically PIC and other parts on one side, SMT IR LEDs on the other). The software can then detect this "fairly easily" (not going to mince words - active or passive IR marker tracking is tricky software-wise), and it is easier to deal with occlusion of the markers (passing in/out of tracking range due to being hidden by other body parts), since you know which marker is which (with passive markers, you have to add motion prediction to the software to "guess" where the marker is going to be in the next frame, within a certain spherical range, once you know where all the markers are in the first - and dealing with occlusion isn't easy).
Even after the lawsuit was decided, the guy continued to be a prick to my brother-in-law (I haven't even described half the crap that happenned, let's just say this guy was a frade-A a-hole who had everybody in the neighborhood cowed out of fearing to be the next in line for a lawsuit, and who was the most sue-happy person on the planet (I looked up the number of court cases this guy had filed in the state over the past five years when this was happenning, and it was crazy!). When my brother-in-law won his battle, he became the "hero" of the neighborhood. The house they bought is now valued at its full value, which is about 8-10 times what my brother-in-law paid for it. Talk about a great investment!
In the end, this guy got what was coming to him. About a year and a half after the case was over, he died of a heart attack. Needless to say, none of our family grieved at his passing, nor did any of the neighborhood. Kharma's a bitch...
I don't have to tell you how many times I have cut myself open on such packaging. What I have found works best for most packages like this is a set of heavy-duty kitchen shears. Pick up some made out of steel if you can find them (they won't be cheap new, so you may want to look through an antique or junk store's kitchenware selection), but the cheapo dollar-store plastic (with metal blades) seem to work OK too for most tasks. These things look like heavy duty scissors with serrated blades. They are mainly meant to allow you to cut through chicken carcasses (rib cage) and crab/lobster shells (to remove the meat), as well a variety of other kitchen tasks. I bought a pair and stuck 'em in my shop for this very reason (as well as cutting cardboard and the occasional piece of wire - though I have wire dikes for that).
An alternative measure is a pair of medium-sized straight-angle sheetmetal shears (they also make left and right hand curved shears, so be aware of that if you cut a lot of round things), but since they are meant for sheetmetal, they sometimes don't work as well. Plus, they tend to be much more expensive than kitchen shears...
What I remember finding in the past (might have found something from the Colorado School of Mines) was that such explosives DO EXIST, but that nobody messes with them because the component liquids that you need to combine are themselves highly unstable. As such, while such explosives are very compact and high velocity, etc (ie, an ideal explosive of sorts), they are too dangerous to handle outside of small scale lab experiments...
One could say I have been coding in some form or another for the past 25 years - I am no where ready to stop, either.
So many unanswered questions, so little time. If there is one question that remains unanswered, though, in all of computers and robotics, it is the question that drives me (and I suspect many others) forward: Will one day there be a machine that has hopes and dreams?
I strongly suspect that one day that will be the case. It is why computers and robotics is so compelling amongst mankind. The question of creation of sentience, and maybe emotion, in a machine - the quest for creation in our own image. It is one of the oldest of dreams and quests of mankind...
When I code, I help in a very miniscule way to push the species onward toward conquering this goal - how could I ever stop?
After watching Die Hard 2 one evening quite a while back, I decided to research liquid explosives - because it was a movie, and it seemed plausible to have a 2-part mixed explosive (just like 2-part epoxy), and I did know about nitroglycerin...
What I remember finding was yes, there were such things as one part and two part liquid explosives - but nobody seriously considered them useful because while they were very powerful, they were also very unstable - mixed or unmixed! That is, even the components of a two part explosive were seriously unstable - not something you would want to play around with.
Heck - just last night I saw the Mythbusters episode where they try to make a homemade smokebomb using saltpeter and sugar, cooking it on a stove. Adam was mixing a batch, and was using what I think was a metal spoon (bad idea) and it caught on fire pretty quick (this particular "stunt" they were real stupid to pull inside a building - between it and the methane bubble column they made I am surprise they didn't burn the place down - you don't make homemade explosives indoors without taking any and all precautions, especially if you are new to the task!) - and that wasn't even a particularly unstable mixture (well, more unstable heated, I suppose).
Unless I am mis-remembering what I found about liquid explosives (which is always possible) - it makes a great plot device for a movie, but there is a reason we don't see these explosives used much anymore (we don't even see much use of nitroglycerin or nitrocellulose - aka guncotton - either).
So am I wrong (wouldn't be the first time)? Or am I right, and that this whole "liquid explosives going to be used by terruhists" is nothing more than maybe some cooked up FUD (or at worst, an actual plot in which the perpetrators weren't using liquid explosives, or if they were, would have killed themselves on the way to the airport)?
While methamphetimine is not a plant, the roots of it do come from plants. I don't remember when it was synthesized (and if I wasn't a lazy bugger I could look it up), but what started the whole "meth thing" was a drug called "methedrine", synthesized from the drug ephedrine (used for counteracting sleepiness and as a cold med), which comes from the ephedra plant (which, surprise surprise, is illegal). This was recognized early in the "war on drugs", and the solution was to create a new form of ephedrine which didn't come from a plant, in the (heh) hopes that it would stop the manufacture of methedrine - this new drug (which worked really well) was a synthesized form of ephedrine, called - ding! - pseudoephedrine!
Of course, after a bit of time, what can be created can be distilled and all that jazz - illicit drug makers learned to use pseudoephedrine to create what we now term "methamphetimine" - or "meth" for short. But at one time "meth" was "methedrine", not "methamphetimine". So now what has happenned? That's right, they have made it nigh impossible for ordinary people to get ahold of regular pseudoephedrine to help their colds with tracking you all over hell and highwater in many states, while ignoring the fact that most meth nowadays is made in Mexico and smuggled in (pseudoephedrine is easy to get down there, and is way cheaper that the stuff you can buy here in the states). So, most manufacture takes place down here, and up here in the states, our state representatives get big talking points and picture opportunities by "taking a tough stance on drugs" by signing bills to allow them to track ordinary buyers of pseudoephedrine - even though most manufacture doesn't even take place here.
Furthermore, just waiting in the wings from the legit drug companies is a "new" (albeit crappy at what it does) cold medication, called phenylephrine, to replace the old pseudoephedrine. Now, I am not a chemist, but if you look at the structure of both of those drugs, you will see a striking similarity between them. I would be willing to bet that there is some method that could be used to create yet another new "illicit drug" from this "new" (I don't think it is new) substance phenylephrine. I would be willing to bet that method is probably real similar to what is currently used to synthesize methamphetimine from pseudoephedrine.
Should pseudoephedrine ever be fully classified as a drug precursor in our lovely war, expect to see a rollout really quick of this new illegal drug, and it will likely be worse than meth if history is any indicator...
I hate the irrationality, ignorance, and willful arrogance that abounds on this planet among humanity - it will end up ultimately being the death of the species, I am almost certain of it...