I had read that the some of the later Voodoo cards used a BT848 to switch the TV output on/off - I have ran across references to a driver that allows this.
You are the second to mention using modelines only. Can you post the modeline you are using here (when you get a chance to look it up)?
I was in the coop, and still follow the list. When the poll came around, I updated my database entry to be zero units - what with the holidays and other obligations, I just really couldn't afford to participate (at least I backed out graciously - I know there will be some who said "yah", and will back out after he receives the units - not good).
Anyhow, I am in the "middle" of "hacking" my own box - an Acer NT-150. Full details can be found here. Both Acer and Liberate seem to be stonewalling me for information. That and the fact that it is only me working on it doesn't help matters...
However, you may still find one on Ebay from the guy I bought from! Search under "N/C Network Computer" - you are sure to find one. They tend to go real cheap - 15->20 dollars. I am certain they can be made to do some interesting stuff, we just need more people on it...
I don't have AGP - but any suggestions on new cards are well appreciated.
I purchased the HiEncoder off of Ebay, and didn't get any documentation on it. It has a variable cap that I don't know the use of (it doesn't seem to affect anything, color wise) - I have heard that some older converters could only do 640x480 in black and white, and at a lower res (320x240?), one could do color. But without the documentation, I don't know if this is the case.
Finally, I have purchased another VGA->TV converter from an individual off of Ebay (an AverKey 3), as a sanity check, in case the color output on the HiEncoder is hosed. When I receive it, I should have at least some kind of answer.
I have given thought to tracing the R, G, B and sync lines on the HMD, then setting up a custom connector for it, and just run straight from the card. I still would like to use video out, only because I have a cheap video projector I want to view with as well...
Not trying to start a flame war or anything, just wanted to let the AC know it wasn't a rumor...
Commodore had a CD "console" (ok, it was more akin to a set top box than anything) back when the NES was still an infant (around 1987?) - the CDTV. A full 16 bit game playing machine, it could be outfitted with a hard drive, a keyboard, and a monitor - if you wanted. Had a CD-ROM drive that allowed you to load a few games, and enjoy VCDs and such (waaaay ahead of its time!)...
As far as the 90s are concerned - in 1992 (or was it 1993? Can't remember...), the CD32 came out - a full fledged 32 bit CD-ROM drive based gaming console (and this one looked like a game console), joypads, etc - had either a 2x or 4x drive, and the ability to play back MPEG-2 streams from CDs (no DVD then). Shared a lot of hardware with the Amiga 1200 (AGA Graphics, etc), as well as had a bit of custom hardware not on the Amiga AGA computer line (vector chip? Can't remember). The blitter was faster, too. A full CD based 32 bit gaming platform - long before all the others...
Nice to see everyone play catchup...
I remember being in a shop here in Phoenix, and seeing a CD-based game on the thing, and was very impressed. I asked the salesman what CD32 title it was - he told me "It isn't a CD32 game - it is a CDTV game we had lying around, we just wanted to see if it would work!" - amazing...
Actually, he was right in blaming *nix, at the time - since there wasn't any good form of a real time *nix available then (mid-late 80's).
I agree with your sentiment that he should get off his butt and do something - but his VR ideas are not terminally flawed - immersive VR is a different interface for a computer, one no better or worse than, say, a CLI - both have their purposes and applications.
Q3A could easily be imagined as a desktop-based VE (virtual environment) - where the principle use is to run around, have fun shooting at others, and maybe - between frags - talk to another player. Wrap an HMD on your head, allow the software to detect you looking around and aiming your gun with the 6DOF tracked wand - think about it now...
I don't think JL had much of anything to do with a-life - besides, much of a-life can trace its origins back to John Conway's LIFE "game" (a ruleset based primitive a-life).
Did JL bring us VR? Well, he wasn't the inventor of it - like many "inventions", VR was developed by a long series of independant inventors and inventions - ranging way back to the Victorian-era stereoscopes and panopticons, possibly even further, as people tried to bring and recreate an artificial or real world, via an external interface.
Prior to JL, was Sutherland and his "Sword of Damocles" (sp?), years later NASA and thier pilot training and simulation HMDs (big ugly things, but all off the shelf). JL saw this, and thought that he could do it too, and became the first to popularize and market HMDs, Datagloves, and Virtual Reality in general. In the end, his venture failed, and most (or all?) of the patents were bought up by Thompson - and sat on. Someday (actually, it should be someday soon - maybe in 10 years), those patents will expire, and alternate interfaces may take off then (VPL, JL's company - had patents that virtually blocked off all alternate implementations of the glove interface, at least the ones that were most flexible, easiest to use, and easiest to wear and adjust)...
I believe you are thinking about the Virtuality system from W Industries, Ltd. Lanier had nothing to do with this system directly (ie, he didn't develop it - he probably only inspired the developers). On another note, W Industries became Virtuality, Inc (or Ltd?), they are now known as CyberMind, Ltd.
Lanier developed high-end VR systems (ie, the VPL dataglove was a very expensive piece, on the order of $8000 US - they were also instrumentive in the design of the Mattel Powerglove for the Nintendo), with gloves, bodysuits, HMDs, and software, running on SGI workstations (IIRC - someone correct me if I am wrong). High res, high speed (for the time), and highly immersive.
Jaron Lanier is far from an idiot - though his latest views have me a little stumped. Why he doesn't like *nix and such - he kinda clears it up in this article, but I still get the feeling he hasn't really played with it much. Back when he was doing his VR stuff, there wasn't any form of real-time *nix (real-time OS's are nearly mandatory for immersive VR work), now there are several available, many free.
I don't think we should discount everything he has to say just yet - it might just be a case of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"...
When I saw this question, I went "WTF?!" - then I started thinking...
I first imagined a drawing program - one hand controls the rotation of the paper, the other controls the brush or pen (could make some wacky designs)...
Then (of course) my thoughts turned to VR apps - imagine one hand controlling a "virtual" hand pointer in space (left button to control left/right/zoom, right to control "grabbing" - no buttons for X/Y positioning). The other hand could control (in a similar manner) avatar positioning in the world - so one could move around, and grab things.
A similar scheme could be done for games - it is a little awkward, but it might be something fun to play with...
Does anyone know of alternative OS's for the TRS-80 CoCo, other than OS-9 (actually, if anyone knows of an "abandonware" site for OS-9, that would be great, too)?
I just want to try something different on my CoCo, away from the TRS DOS (m$ basic, etc), on it...
You could control the robot in Robot Odyssey "internally" - sometimes this was needed to "disguise" yourself. Other times you had to program it by "wiring" logic circuits (using chips, logic circuits, wires and a "soldering iron") to control it, as well as signal other robots along the way, to overcome obstacles - in certain areas, you couldn't be inside when this happened, as sentries or some other thing would detect you, and drag you away (I had Robot Odyssey on my CoCo 2 - great game!)...
ChipWits may either be a renamed version of RO, or it may have been another's version of it, or maybe it was a prior version (RO, if I remember right, was actually a sequel or something)...
Some time back, I was wearing glasses, and decided to "update" my look, and get contacts. When I went in to the doctor, I told him the after working all day on the computer, my eyes would start to itch and burn.
He checked my eyes, did the lens-flippy thing, and said I had astigmatism in one eye (my left), that wasn't being corrected by my glasses. So, he gave me a toric lens prescript for my left eye (very expensive).
You know what? Pain and itching are now gone!
So, the moral is, if you wear glasses or contacts, make sure they are the right prescription - or if you are having problems, see the eye doctor - you may need a new prescription, or you might find out it is something else...
I think it most likely could have. From what I have read about Wardeclyff, it wasn't going to be a giant Tesla coil as we think of it - throwing off lightning and such. There might have been small streamers, but nothing of great proportion.
Look at his work - the majority involved resonance (heh - though there was the "flying bedframe" patent - Tesla definitely wasn't an aviation pioneer). He once remarked that he knew how to split the earth, using timed dynamite charges to cause the earth to "ring", and crack like a wine glass. Whether this was possible with the tech of the day is questionable (ie, TNT) - but in theory it could be done given strong enough explosives (H-Bombs?). He used to make a variety of mechanical oscillators that could shake entire buildings (causing him to be kicked out of more than one apartment complex), merely by "tapping" them at the proper resonant frequency of the structure (similar to how you can get a pendulum to swing by tapping it at its resonant period). Those who experienced it thought it was an earthquake.
One poster nearly got it right - a ground wave station. Tesla's idea was to pump energy into the earth at resonant frequency, then tap that back out anywhere along the point (probably via one of those aerial earth/sky antenna things - that used the atmosphere as a giant capacitor - he has several patents on these).
Would there have been noise - yeah, there would have. It probably wouldn't have been good for today's electronics. However, if he had suceeded in his plans, and made such wireless power distribution a reality, we may not have gone down the same roads we have since gone down - and probably would have developed our current tech differently to deal with the noise.
This is what should've been posted in place of that article. Here is something that really shows home automation, and how it can be done by anybody, not just the "rich and famous".
And damn! Talk about features! This is one heck of a software package! Voice control and feedback! Event handling, remote control, GPS - damn!
Double damn!
Makes me want to break down and buy a ton of X-10 and play, play, play - too bad I already have more projects going on than - what's that old saying? - "than Carter has pills!"
But considering that affronts to our (American - but hey, all this can apply to other countries as well) Constitutionally protected rights - rights that the authorities and legislators seem willing to dismiss - rights that most people have forgotten they even have...
Considering all this - we should be more paranoid - not less. It seems every day I hear or read about something that convinces me further that we are falling into a police state form of government. Something has to be done. Today it wasn't me, tommorow it probably won't be either.
Someday it might be - better to be prepared now than wait until it is too late...
Does anyone know if this GLV tech is what is being used in the fancy "monitor menus" at McDonalds*?
* For those that don't know - here in the Phoenix area (and I guess they are cropping up elsewhere), certain McDonalds have menus displays, instead of the "standard" light up menu - behind the counter. The "menus" can display animations and movies. The resolution seems OK - on par with an 800x600 LCD - maybe better. These displays, though, are much larger (approximately 24 inches diagonally). They aren't that deep - but deeper than what an LCD display would need, but less deep than what a projection system would use (I suppose).
Does anyone know what these displays are and/or who makes them?
Anyhow, I managed to snag a 15 inch Trinitron monitor from my apartment complex a couple of years back - someone had left it in the laundry room as a "give away" item. I took it home, plugged it in - screen is completely white - but nothing else seemed wrong. So, I took a gamble:
I took it down to a guy who has a shop repairing small monitors at a flat rate ($100 - larger monitors are a bit more). A week and $100 later, it was fixed (some control ICs were blown).
That has been two years ago - it is a great monitor. I just recently replaced it with a 19 inch Trinitron (KDS monitor) - I will never go with anything else...
*note - side bitch*
Just realized I have "helped" a small portion of the MPAA, since Sony is a member. God I hate how these bastards are EVERYWHERE!
I give a hearty round of applause to the winners - they clearly took a lot of time on their projects (especially the clock - damn - clocks are HARD to make).
I would suppose I lost points on the relatively small numbers of AOL CDs used (2), and the fact that I used LEGO for the rest (it was easiest for me to build with).
Actually, I had fun entering this competition - I have always liked "here's-an-idea-this-is-what-you-can-use-GO!" type contests...
Want to know how to defeat this "logging" for your "surepticious" behavior? Simple - don't use a keyboard.
At least not in the normal sense...
First off, since they are doing a B&E to set it all up (heck, even with a warrant you should do this), first make sure you set up some kind of ultra-secret hidden cam recording movement (hide it in the ceiling or wall - use a pinhole type camera, mount it to NEW wallboard right over a pinhole, then mount the new wallboard. Break up the wall with pictures, wall hangings, carpet). Don't tell anyone about it. This will let you know if something hinky is going on.
Next, since they are likely tapping one or more of four spots (the keyboard, the interconnecting cable, the motherboard connection, or OS hooks with a software logger), you need a way to bypass these. A good way would be to build a simple encrypting keyboard (or even a complex one), and a special card for the PC, and drivers to read it.
Another way would be to set up a serial console to do everything from - use a funky terminal not in great production anymore (a real VT100 or ADDS, or something similar - Olliveti?). Perhaps you can encrypt the serial comms as well. Maybe set up UltraTerm on a CoCo 3, serialized over the RS-232 pack to the console serial port on the box (that should confound them!).
Use an optical keyboard, with custom "encryption", perhaps. Mark your keyboard with an identifying mark. Put a seal on the keyboard, or over screw holes to detect "modification". Same with the case. Add locks to the case. Add an alarm.
Here is a funky idea - set up the "computer" to be a dummy with an alarm (or other nastiness), into which the keyboard is plugged into. Using cat-5 and a "dummy" network card, route that out to another "dummy" network card in the real computer, with that dummy card hooked up to the keyboard header of the real machine (thus the actual machine looks like it hasn't got a keyboard attached). Set up a current monitor to notice drops in current on the keyboard "port", with alarms and such to notify you.
Here is one - rewire the keyboard port and keyboard (and any interconnecting devices - keyboard switchers/extenders might need to be taken into account). Swap the wires and connections around (might be a pain at the motherboard end). Done clean and right, it would be a mess for them to sort out *on site* - heck, they might not even notice it (think they do wire tracing to make sure the keyboard is standard - perhaps, perhaps not). Maybe even use completely non-standard connectors. Maybe go so far as installing a non-standard (keyboard wise) microcontroller in the keyboard, with custom coding (combine this with the other tips, like "encryption" and such - one hell of a hack).
Do I really think any of these would stop the FBI? Naw - but it would make their lives at least a bit more miserable. Perhaps it would confound them enough to make them come back later - given enough covert surveillance on your part, you could destroy the machine (or change it!) in the meantime...
I entered this contest - I doubt I will even be mentioned in the "other entries" catagory (ie, all those who _didn't win), when they put it up (have they? Haven't checked in a while). My entry was a laser lissajous pattern maker, using the AOL CDs as the mirrors on a LEGO frame...
Anyhow - what I should've done, had I known that lamps were going to be the popular thing (and this was actually an idea I was going to do, but I thought that the laser maker was a more "geek" thing - stupid me):
The light-up AOL CD coaster - take an AOL CD, nuke it properly (to get the crackle effect), laminate the label side (to prevent future flaking?), and on the silver side, glue some EL thin-film backlighting material. Maybe make a half-inch stack, cored out, and house the step-up system and 9 volt battery to power it. Mount a switch somewhere else.
The light would shine/glow out through the top crackled surface, surrounding your can... Would look pretty neat...
Back in 1992 I was poor, and I wanted to set up a way to control my VCR (in the living room) from my bedroom in the back of my apartment. Lacking the funds to buy a remote extender, I built a cheesy circuit composed of a matched IR NPN phototransistor/LED pair from RatShack, a resistor (1K? Can't remember), a 9 volt battery and some speaker wire.
Basically, the positive terminal of the battery was hooked to the resistor, then the resistor to the collector of the IR transistor, the emmitter to one side of one end of the speaker wire, the other side to ground. The LED was connected to the other end.
What I had then was a circuit that given the input on one side, would "flash" the LED on the other side at the same rate. It didn't work very well - I had to place the remote nearly against the phototransistor, and the LED next to the TV's detector.
However, something similar could be built for a laptop, and housed inside a 25 pin D-Sub connector for the parallel port. Both the phototransistor and the LED would have to be housed in the connector, facing out - with a baffle between them. Code could then be written to allow polling of the port, to "sample" the IR data stream from the remote, analyse it, and store it. More code could be used to "play back" the samples through the LED to activate the TV or whatnot.
There are kits out there just for this, but rolling your own should be a lot cheaper, and maybe more fun.
NOT OT - Call for volunteers?
on
Open Networking
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· Score: 2
This is something I have wanted to try to do for quite awhile.
I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area - specifically north of the east/west portion of Loop 101. My actual location makes it difficult to impossible to reach anything south and west (due to some mountains being in the way), but if anyone would like to help me set up a wireless (preferably optical!) net between houses - contact me or post to this thread. With enough nodes, dispersed properly, we could get around any obstacles of the nature...
While I understand your reasoning (and I also have seen another poster's reply on this topic - the gist of which is that of trust and levels of education in users), it wouldn't matter if the creator of the original was blamed (though it would suck). Why?
Because the creator of said benign virus should develop and release it in UTMOST secrecy, with NO WAY to trace it back to him (after release, he should destroy all notes and such, as well as his copy of source, to the trojan as well - maybe he should even physically destroy the hard drive as well). He should take the knowledge to his grave. With proper precautions, no one could trace it back to him.
Note that I won't be the one developing this "trojan" - though I am certain I could, given a little time. My simply posting here in this forum has tainted me from doing it (because I would be a suspect).
Part of the DMCA deals with "circumvention of content copyright controls" (or some such legal garbage). In other words, bypassing said "controls" becomes illegal - in theory if bypassed by anyone (outside of very strict reverse engineering - and I think they are working to close that "hole" as well). So...
If you encrypt the thing, then place the proper "notices" on the front and in the code, any virus checker (and/or creators of such software) would be in violation of the DMCA - creating a very interesting conundrum (though one I think they - meaning the creators of anti-virus software - would easily weasel out of - remember the DMCA only applies to the proles, not big brother)...
Slashdot Mirror
Can you post the modeline you are using - that might help me...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I had read that the some of the later Voodoo cards used a BT848 to switch the TV output on/off - I have ran across references to a driver that allows this.
You are the second to mention using modelines only. Can you post the modeline you are using here (when you get a chance to look it up)?
Thanks...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Making too many assumptions here, I appologize.
I am located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA (hence my URL) - so that would be NTSC standard.
Thanks for pointing that out...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I was in the coop, and still follow the list. When the poll came around, I updated my database entry to be zero units - what with the holidays and other obligations, I just really couldn't afford to participate (at least I backed out graciously - I know there will be some who said "yah", and will back out after he receives the units - not good).
Anyhow, I am in the "middle" of "hacking" my own box - an Acer NT-150. Full details can be found here. Both Acer and Liberate seem to be stonewalling me for information. That and the fact that it is only me working on it doesn't help matters...
However, you may still find one on Ebay from the guy I bought from! Search under "N/C Network Computer" - you are sure to find one. They tend to go real cheap - 15->20 dollars. I am certain they can be made to do some interesting stuff, we just need more people on it...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I don't have AGP - but any suggestions on new cards are well appreciated.
I purchased the HiEncoder off of Ebay, and didn't get any documentation on it. It has a variable cap that I don't know the use of (it doesn't seem to affect anything, color wise) - I have heard that some older converters could only do 640x480 in black and white, and at a lower res (320x240?), one could do color. But without the documentation, I don't know if this is the case.
Finally, I have purchased another VGA->TV converter from an individual off of Ebay (an AverKey 3), as a sanity check, in case the color output on the HiEncoder is hosed. When I receive it, I should have at least some kind of answer.
I have given thought to tracing the R, G, B and sync lines on the HMD, then setting up a custom connector for it, and just run straight from the card. I still would like to use video out, only because I have a cheap video projector I want to view with as well...
Thank you all for any help...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Not trying to start a flame war or anything, just wanted to let the AC know it wasn't a rumor...
Commodore had a CD "console" (ok, it was more akin to a set top box than anything) back when the NES was still an infant (around 1987?) - the CDTV. A full 16 bit game playing machine, it could be outfitted with a hard drive, a keyboard, and a monitor - if you wanted. Had a CD-ROM drive that allowed you to load a few games, and enjoy VCDs and such (waaaay ahead of its time!)...
As far as the 90s are concerned - in 1992 (or was it 1993? Can't remember...), the CD32 came out - a full fledged 32 bit CD-ROM drive based gaming console (and this one looked like a game console), joypads, etc - had either a 2x or 4x drive, and the ability to play back MPEG-2 streams from CDs (no DVD then). Shared a lot of hardware with the Amiga 1200 (AGA Graphics, etc), as well as had a bit of custom hardware not on the Amiga AGA computer line (vector chip? Can't remember). The blitter was faster, too. A full CD based 32 bit gaming platform - long before all the others...
Nice to see everyone play catchup...
I remember being in a shop here in Phoenix, and seeing a CD-based game on the thing, and was very impressed. I asked the salesman what CD32 title it was - he told me "It isn't a CD32 game - it is a CDTV game we had lying around, we just wanted to see if it would work!" - amazing...
Memories...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Actually, he was right in blaming *nix, at the time - since there wasn't any good form of a real time *nix available then (mid-late 80's).
I agree with your sentiment that he should get off his butt and do something - but his VR ideas are not terminally flawed - immersive VR is a different interface for a computer, one no better or worse than, say, a CLI - both have their purposes and applications.
Q3A could easily be imagined as a desktop-based VE (virtual environment) - where the principle use is to run around, have fun shooting at others, and maybe - between frags - talk to another player. Wrap an HMD on your head, allow the software to detect you looking around and aiming your gun with the 6DOF tracked wand - think about it now...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I don't think JL had much of anything to do with a-life - besides, much of a-life can trace its origins back to John Conway's LIFE "game" (a ruleset based primitive a-life).
Did JL bring us VR? Well, he wasn't the inventor of it - like many "inventions", VR was developed by a long series of independant inventors and inventions - ranging way back to the Victorian-era stereoscopes and panopticons, possibly even further, as people tried to bring and recreate an artificial or real world, via an external interface.
Prior to JL, was Sutherland and his "Sword of Damocles" (sp?), years later NASA and thier pilot training and simulation HMDs (big ugly things, but all off the shelf). JL saw this, and thought that he could do it too, and became the first to popularize and market HMDs, Datagloves, and Virtual Reality in general. In the end, his venture failed, and most (or all?) of the patents were bought up by Thompson - and sat on. Someday (actually, it should be someday soon - maybe in 10 years), those patents will expire, and alternate interfaces may take off then (VPL, JL's company - had patents that virtually blocked off all alternate implementations of the glove interface, at least the ones that were most flexible, easiest to use, and easiest to wear and adjust)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I believe you are thinking about the Virtuality system from W Industries, Ltd. Lanier had nothing to do with this system directly (ie, he didn't develop it - he probably only inspired the developers). On another note, W Industries became Virtuality, Inc (or Ltd?), they are now known as CyberMind, Ltd.
Lanier developed high-end VR systems (ie, the VPL dataglove was a very expensive piece, on the order of $8000 US - they were also instrumentive in the design of the Mattel Powerglove for the Nintendo), with gloves, bodysuits, HMDs, and software, running on SGI workstations (IIRC - someone correct me if I am wrong). High res, high speed (for the time), and highly immersive.
Jaron Lanier is far from an idiot - though his latest views have me a little stumped. Why he doesn't like *nix and such - he kinda clears it up in this article, but I still get the feeling he hasn't really played with it much. Back when he was doing his VR stuff, there wasn't any form of real-time *nix (real-time OS's are nearly mandatory for immersive VR work), now there are several available, many free.
I don't think we should discount everything he has to say just yet - it might just be a case of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
When I saw this question, I went "WTF?!" - then I started thinking...
I first imagined a drawing program - one hand controls the rotation of the paper, the other controls the brush or pen (could make some wacky designs)...
Then (of course) my thoughts turned to VR apps - imagine one hand controlling a "virtual" hand pointer in space (left button to control left/right/zoom, right to control "grabbing" - no buttons for X/Y positioning). The other hand could control (in a similar manner) avatar positioning in the world - so one could move around, and grab things.
A similar scheme could be done for games - it is a little awkward, but it might be something fun to play with...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Does anyone know of alternative OS's for the TRS-80 CoCo, other than OS-9 (actually, if anyone knows of an "abandonware" site for OS-9, that would be great, too)?
I just want to try something different on my CoCo, away from the TRS DOS (m$ basic, etc), on it...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
You could control the robot in Robot Odyssey "internally" - sometimes this was needed to "disguise" yourself. Other times you had to program it by "wiring" logic circuits (using chips, logic circuits, wires and a "soldering iron") to control it, as well as signal other robots along the way, to overcome obstacles - in certain areas, you couldn't be inside when this happened, as sentries or some other thing would detect you, and drag you away (I had Robot Odyssey on my CoCo 2 - great game!)...
ChipWits may either be a renamed version of RO, or it may have been another's version of it, or maybe it was a prior version (RO, if I remember right, was actually a sequel or something)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Some time back, I was wearing glasses, and decided to "update" my look, and get contacts. When I went in to the doctor, I told him the after working all day on the computer, my eyes would start to itch and burn.
He checked my eyes, did the lens-flippy thing, and said I had astigmatism in one eye (my left), that wasn't being corrected by my glasses. So, he gave me a toric lens prescript for my left eye (very expensive).
You know what? Pain and itching are now gone!
So, the moral is, if you wear glasses or contacts, make sure they are the right prescription - or if you are having problems, see the eye doctor - you may need a new prescription, or you might find out it is something else...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I think it most likely could have. From what I have read about Wardeclyff, it wasn't going to be a giant Tesla coil as we think of it - throwing off lightning and such. There might have been small streamers, but nothing of great proportion.
Look at his work - the majority involved resonance (heh - though there was the "flying bedframe" patent - Tesla definitely wasn't an aviation pioneer). He once remarked that he knew how to split the earth, using timed dynamite charges to cause the earth to "ring", and crack like a wine glass. Whether this was possible with the tech of the day is questionable (ie, TNT) - but in theory it could be done given strong enough explosives (H-Bombs?). He used to make a variety of mechanical oscillators that could shake entire buildings (causing him to be kicked out of more than one apartment complex), merely by "tapping" them at the proper resonant frequency of the structure (similar to how you can get a pendulum to swing by tapping it at its resonant period). Those who experienced it thought it was an earthquake.
One poster nearly got it right - a ground wave station. Tesla's idea was to pump energy into the earth at resonant frequency, then tap that back out anywhere along the point (probably via one of those aerial earth/sky antenna things - that used the atmosphere as a giant capacitor - he has several patents on these).
Would there have been noise - yeah, there would have. It probably wouldn't have been good for today's electronics. However, if he had suceeded in his plans, and made such wireless power distribution a reality, we may not have gone down the same roads we have since gone down - and probably would have developed our current tech differently to deal with the noise.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
This is what should've been posted in place of that article. Here is something that really shows home automation, and how it can be done by anybody, not just the "rich and famous".
And damn! Talk about features! This is one heck of a software package! Voice control and feedback! Event handling, remote control, GPS - damn!
Double damn!
Makes me want to break down and buy a ton of X-10 and play, play, play - too bad I already have more projects going on than - what's that old saying? - "than Carter has pills!"
There ya go!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
But considering that affronts to our (American - but hey, all this can apply to other countries as well) Constitutionally protected rights - rights that the authorities and legislators seem willing to dismiss - rights that most people have forgotten they even have...
Considering all this - we should be more paranoid - not less. It seems every day I hear or read about something that convinces me further that we are falling into a police state form of government. Something has to be done. Today it wasn't me, tommorow it probably won't be either.
Someday it might be - better to be prepared now than wait until it is too late...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Does anyone know if this GLV tech is what is being used in the fancy "monitor menus" at McDonalds*?
* For those that don't know - here in the Phoenix area (and I guess they are cropping up elsewhere), certain McDonalds have menus displays, instead of the "standard" light up menu - behind the counter. The "menus" can display animations and movies. The resolution seems OK - on par with an 800x600 LCD - maybe better. These displays, though, are much larger (approximately 24 inches diagonally). They aren't that deep - but deeper than what an LCD display would need, but less deep than what a projection system would use (I suppose).
Does anyone know what these displays are and/or who makes them?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Ok, maybe third!
Anyhow, I managed to snag a 15 inch Trinitron monitor from my apartment complex a couple of years back - someone had left it in the laundry room as a "give away" item. I took it home, plugged it in - screen is completely white - but nothing else seemed wrong. So, I took a gamble:
I took it down to a guy who has a shop repairing small monitors at a flat rate ($100 - larger monitors are a bit more). A week and $100 later, it was fixed (some control ICs were blown).
That has been two years ago - it is a great monitor. I just recently replaced it with a 19 inch Trinitron (KDS monitor) - I will never go with anything else...
*note - side bitch*
Just realized I have "helped" a small portion of the MPAA, since Sony is a member. God I hate how these bastards are EVERYWHERE!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Heh...
I give a hearty round of applause to the winners - they clearly took a lot of time on their projects (especially the clock - damn - clocks are HARD to make).
I would suppose I lost points on the relatively small numbers of AOL CDs used (2), and the fact that I used LEGO for the rest (it was easiest for me to build with).
Actually, I had fun entering this competition - I have always liked "here's-an-idea-this-is-what-you-can-use-GO!" type contests...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Want to know how to defeat this "logging" for your "surepticious" behavior? Simple - don't use a keyboard.
At least not in the normal sense...
First off, since they are doing a B&E to set it all up (heck, even with a warrant you should do this), first make sure you set up some kind of ultra-secret hidden cam recording movement (hide it in the ceiling or wall - use a pinhole type camera, mount it to NEW wallboard right over a pinhole, then mount the new wallboard. Break up the wall with pictures, wall hangings, carpet). Don't tell anyone about it. This will let you know if something hinky is going on.
Next, since they are likely tapping one or more of four spots (the keyboard, the interconnecting cable, the motherboard connection, or OS hooks with a software logger), you need a way to bypass these. A good way would be to build a simple encrypting keyboard (or even a complex one), and a special card for the PC, and drivers to read it.
Another way would be to set up a serial console to do everything from - use a funky terminal not in great production anymore (a real VT100 or ADDS, or something similar - Olliveti?). Perhaps you can encrypt the serial comms as well. Maybe set up UltraTerm on a CoCo 3, serialized over the RS-232 pack to the console serial port on the box (that should confound them!).
Use an optical keyboard, with custom "encryption", perhaps. Mark your keyboard with an identifying mark. Put a seal on the keyboard, or over screw holes to detect "modification". Same with the case. Add locks to the case. Add an alarm.
Here is a funky idea - set up the "computer" to be a dummy with an alarm (or other nastiness), into which the keyboard is plugged into. Using cat-5 and a "dummy" network card, route that out to another "dummy" network card in the real computer, with that dummy card hooked up to the keyboard header of the real machine (thus the actual machine looks like it hasn't got a keyboard attached). Set up a current monitor to notice drops in current on the keyboard "port", with alarms and such to notify you.
Here is one - rewire the keyboard port and keyboard (and any interconnecting devices - keyboard switchers/extenders might need to be taken into account). Swap the wires and connections around (might be a pain at the motherboard end). Done clean and right, it would be a mess for them to sort out *on site* - heck, they might not even notice it (think they do wire tracing to make sure the keyboard is standard - perhaps, perhaps not). Maybe even use completely non-standard connectors. Maybe go so far as installing a non-standard (keyboard wise) microcontroller in the keyboard, with custom coding (combine this with the other tips, like "encryption" and such - one hell of a hack).
Do I really think any of these would stop the FBI? Naw - but it would make their lives at least a bit more miserable. Perhaps it would confound them enough to make them come back later - given enough covert surveillance on your part, you could destroy the machine (or change it!) in the meantime...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I entered this contest - I doubt I will even be mentioned in the "other entries" catagory (ie, all those who _didn't win), when they put it up (have they? Haven't checked in a while). My entry was a laser lissajous pattern maker, using the AOL CDs as the mirrors on a LEGO frame...
Anyhow - what I should've done, had I known that lamps were going to be the popular thing (and this was actually an idea I was going to do, but I thought that the laser maker was a more "geek" thing - stupid me):
The light-up AOL CD coaster - take an AOL CD, nuke it properly (to get the crackle effect), laminate the label side (to prevent future flaking?), and on the silver side, glue some EL thin-film backlighting material. Maybe make a half-inch stack, cored out, and house the step-up system and 9 volt battery to power it. Mount a switch somewhere else.
The light would shine/glow out through the top crackled surface, surrounding your can... Would look pretty neat...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Back in 1992 I was poor, and I wanted to set up a way to control my VCR (in the living room) from my bedroom in the back of my apartment. Lacking the funds to buy a remote extender, I built a cheesy circuit composed of a matched IR NPN phototransistor/LED pair from RatShack, a resistor (1K? Can't remember), a 9 volt battery and some speaker wire.
Basically, the positive terminal of the battery was hooked to the resistor, then the resistor to the collector of the IR transistor, the emmitter to one side of one end of the speaker wire, the other side to ground. The LED was connected to the other end.
What I had then was a circuit that given the input on one side, would "flash" the LED on the other side at the same rate. It didn't work very well - I had to place the remote nearly against the phototransistor, and the LED next to the TV's detector.
However, something similar could be built for a laptop, and housed inside a 25 pin D-Sub connector for the parallel port. Both the phototransistor and the LED would have to be housed in the connector, facing out - with a baffle between them. Code could then be written to allow polling of the port, to "sample" the IR data stream from the remote, analyse it, and store it. More code could be used to "play back" the samples through the LED to activate the TV or whatnot.
There are kits out there just for this, but rolling your own should be a lot cheaper, and maybe more fun.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
This is something I have wanted to try to do for quite awhile.
I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area - specifically north of the east/west portion of Loop 101. My actual location makes it difficult to impossible to reach anything south and west (due to some mountains being in the way), but if anyone would like to help me set up a wireless (preferably optical!) net between houses - contact me or post to this thread. With enough nodes, dispersed properly, we could get around any obstacles of the nature...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
While I understand your reasoning (and I also have seen another poster's reply on this topic - the gist of which is that of trust and levels of education in users), it wouldn't matter if the creator of the original was blamed (though it would suck). Why?
Because the creator of said benign virus should develop and release it in UTMOST secrecy, with NO WAY to trace it back to him (after release, he should destroy all notes and such, as well as his copy of source, to the trojan as well - maybe he should even physically destroy the hard drive as well). He should take the knowledge to his grave. With proper precautions, no one could trace it back to him.
Note that I won't be the one developing this "trojan" - though I am certain I could, given a little time. My simply posting here in this forum has tainted me from doing it (because I would be a suspect).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Part of the DMCA deals with "circumvention of content copyright controls" (or some such legal garbage). In other words, bypassing said "controls" becomes illegal - in theory if bypassed by anyone (outside of very strict reverse engineering - and I think they are working to close that "hole" as well). So...
If you encrypt the thing, then place the proper "notices" on the front and in the code, any virus checker (and/or creators of such software) would be in violation of the DMCA - creating a very interesting conundrum (though one I think they - meaning the creators of anti-virus software - would easily weasel out of - remember the DMCA only applies to the proles, not big brother)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!