Nobody read the article and noticed this? People keep posting that they're wondering how long it will take for the Army to put weapons on these.
The typical geek response to a robot is "Oh...HOW CUTE!" and run up to it to find out how it works. I think that a flotilla of shotgun-toting robots would change that response pretty quickly.
So they're already armed. How long before we see lines of robots armed with shotguns and tear gas herding protestors, or quashing riots? Good or bad, you decide.
Re:I'm inclined to think this is bullcrap.
on
Voices in Your Head
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Ok...I'm inclined to think you were born yesterday.
Ever been to even the most basic children's museum? Then you've seen the two parabolic reflectors that transmit a whisper clearly across a crowded, noisy room.
Ever cupped your hands around your mouth to shout to someone far away? You must have looked pretty stupid, if, as everyone knows, you can't focus sound.
Ever seen an amphitheatre? They're designed specifically to focus sound to the listening audience.
Those great big flaps of flesh that stick out of your head, that just happen to be rougly cone-shaped and connected to your auditory canal? What do you think those are there for? For that matter, ever seen a horse, dog, or cat when it's listening to something?
Sound is a wave, and can be focused. Everything exhibits both wave and particle properties, light can be focused because of its wave properties, not its particle properties.
You obviously skipped 1st grade physics.
The !Zone
on
Gaming Zone?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
In my experience, yes there is a "zone" when everything seems to work and I totally wipe the walls with anyone nearby.
However, what about the losing streaks? There seems to be another level where everything seems to go wrong, and I have to quit and try later.
I find it hard to believe anyone would be surprised by this article, though; it's the same for any activity that involves quick thinking and hand-eye coordination. Sometimes the neurotransmitters are extra zippy:-)
This is a really delicious pizza, not like anything you've tasted before. Most people eat it and ask how to make it, before even realizing it's meatless. You could probably throw some boiled, cubed chicken on there if you want to.
Here goes:
Fresh Salsa: 1 large tomato 1 can chopped green chiles (it's a small can) 1 large white onion 1 can sliced black olives 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro (it's really cheap and available at any store) Salt and pepper
Chop everything up and mix it in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for as long as you can before making the pizza. A couple hours would be best, but it's still ok made right before.
Preheat oven to 400.
Pizza Crust (a good crust for any pizza, even sliced into breadsticks) For a thick crust, double everything. 1 cup warm water 1 tbsp. yeast powder (1 packet) 1 tsp. salt 1 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp. vegetable oil All-purpose flour (NOT self-rising!)
Mix everything except the flour into a large bowl. Begin stirring in flour until it reaches dough consistency, it's going to be somewhere around four cups, more or less. For non-bread-makers, it's going to be squishy and sticky, kind of stretchy. Knead the dough (squish and fold on a floured surface, throw some flour on top) until you have a smooth ball of dough. Roll this out into the size of your pizza pan, fold over the edges so it doesn't hang over.
The Pizza: Fresh Salsa (above) Pizza Crust (above) 2 cups grated Montery Jack cheese 1 cubed avocado Cumin
Put down the pizza crust on the pan, cover the bottom with cheese, then spread the salsa and avocados on top. Lightly dust with cumin right from the shaker. Bake the pizza for about 18-22 minutes, or as long as it takes for the crust to turn a light brown.
One of the best pizzas I have ever eaten. It's not as hard as it sounds, you really spend a total of 30 minutes in the kitchen, max.
The speed of the chip will still be limited by certain factors, which can be changed by increasing voltage and cooling.
Communication interfaces will still need clocks for the time being, including peripheral busses. Unless, of course, a clockless computer has a redesigned peripheral base as well.
I see asynchronous processors making their first mainstream appearance in high-performance graphics cards. This is an application where specialized functions will benefit vastly, as well as the ability to pack in more processing power without heating up. The graphics processing will get done as fast as possible, and the chips will be designed to process in a massively parallel fashion.
The previous memo failed to mention another warning sign of hacker social engineering attempts. If you hear the song "Halcyon-On and On" by the music group Orbital, hang up the telephone immediately. We will be holding information sessions at all regional offices for telephone support personnel, where you will be trained to recognize this music within several seconds. DO NOT confuse this warning sign with the last five minutes of Mortal Kombat! It is better to be safe than sorry. Thank you for your cooperation, and stay Hacker-Free(tm) during this period of "l337n355".
We'll do the jobs no one else will do! Give us an old Space Shuttle, some suits and jetpacks, and some extra-large Hefty garbage bags. We'll take care of that for ya!
Another idea: have organizations "Adopt-an-Orbit" and keep our skyways clean. Unfortunately all the brag signs they put up will cause the same problem....
Why is NASA so scared about rocks hitting their spacecraft? All they need to do is sit in the middle and shoot the biggest pieces, then shoot the small fragments one at a time. Never shoot another big one until you've cleaned up all the tiny pieces, and you'll be fine.
Ever see an old steam engine? Notice that big angular piece of metal just above the track in front? It's called a cowcatcher. The premise is, whatever is in your way (be it a cow or some girl tied to the tracks) will either be pushed to one side or split to either side. Depending on how tough your metal is, it'll deflect a lot of lesser junk too. That's the way to deal with it. Even the Enterprise had a deflector shield; you can't avoid or clean up every little piece of material in space.
And finally: who says all that junk isn't worth something? It's just a treasure waiting to be discovered! Put Martha Stewart in a spacesuit and provdide her with gold rickrack and glitter glue, and we'll be able to provide even the poorest third-world peasant with a stunning centerpiece on their dining room table.
We are continually bombarded with stories of how someone put a in their car.
How much time does this take? In other words, do you want an MP3 player in your car, or work out a little and get a tan, thereby installing a gorgeous babe in your car?
Ok, I didn't do it last night, but I put a quick one together just now. Should have a cd with this stuff on it with me at all times:-)
This doesn't look as good as other stuff, but you can see how it works. You can make it look a lot better by tweaking, for example change to pigment ratios to make the spots smaller as they get to the end.
It still takes quite a while to do, and you should have a decent/modern computer to try it. If you try doing this and it looks black, increase the max_trace_level.
stupid slashdot, the code won't go past the "lameness filter" !!!
You just use the method that realtime designers use for 3D hardware: transparent shells.
How to make a hairy sphere in POV-Ray: 1. Make a sphere. 2. Make a while loop, which makes more spheres, each one a tiny bit bigger than the last. 3. These spheres have a pigment map with a spot pattern. Scale the pattern way down, tweak the color thresholds until the spots are small enough. Your spheres are going to be transparent with the spot pigment being the desired hair color. 4. The spheres are stacked on each other close together, and the spots on the spheres line up and look like hairs.
The results can really be quite striking. By shifting the surface while scaling it, you can slant the hairs. Throw in gradual amounts of turbulence, and you can introduce irregularities like messy fur. This method works very well for making carpet, too. Have fun!
It's really difficult to think of another freeware program that has the longevity and success of POV-Ray.
There are some really powerful tools in this new version. I still find it hard to believe the results possible with POV-Ray...with this and GIMP, you can make great graphics for web pages or excellent digital art. All without spending thousands of dollars on expensive software.
It's also a great tool for teaching kids programming concepts. While you're not creating a program, the syntax is very C-like. You can create macros, apply properties to objects...a few years back I introduced POV-Ray to one of my younger sisters. With absolutely no previous experience in programming, she was creating very interesting scenes in a few hours. It's easy to get kids involved when there are such immediate, and often beautiful, results. You can't get them excited about writing a "Hello, World" dialog box function.
That was my original idea, but I thought "byte" would be too different from "drop"....thought about using "packet" or something, but then I mangled the Foldgers slogan instead.
What was with the "if Handsprings aren't ideal..." comment. Obviously the Handsprings are going to be used because the school doesn't have to buy them. You don't have to throw in your own comment every time someone asks a question. Especially if it makes no sense.
Now, for the question: I think the most important use of the Handsprings will be their intended purpose. These aren't all-purpose computers, there really is a limit to how much you can do. They are excellent for setting up appointments, keeping track of tasks, jotting down small notes, and useful little utilities like the calculator. I've only found a few useful apps other than the ones included. Most of those are games, which probably will have the effect of kids not paying attention in class; but drawing and mapping programs can be pretty useful.
I think there isn't much you can do with a Handspring that will directly correlate to increased intelligence, but you can get them used to keeping their lives organized and laying out plans for the future. That alone could help immensely for kids who'll have to fight to get anywhere in life.
Well said, the existence of eBay doesn't actively prevent others from doing the same thing. As far as I know, eBay keeps its share of the market through keeping the buyers and sellers happy.
Microsoft hasn't prevented other operating systems from meeting some success, but they actively try to set up barriers for competition. Not by improving product quality, but by subsidizing proprietary hardware and commandeering standards.
This is an interesting development. I really don't think we should be worried about some kind of monopoly appearing here, since the success of eBay depends on hundreds of thousands of sellers.
We've seen a few moves like this on eBay's part. This is another way that eBay is trying to shield itself from being slaughtered in the current economy.
First, you have eBay beginning to offer benefits for sellers over a certain income margin, which should encourage sellers to stay with eBay, which increases eBay's financial security. Then, you have eBay buying PayPal. PayPal is one of the most influential external factors to the success of eBay; if PayPal went under, many sellers and buyers would have more difficulty making transactions.
This also allows eBay to begin attacking the single factor that keeps many people from buying at online auctions: fraud. Before now, eBay did not have any ability to track fraudulent users, or take any action against them if they used PayPal. Now, they have the ability to go after and probably halt fraud for the most part.
Overall, this looks like a very intelligent business move, and one that should help continue eBay's pattern of success.
Diode lasers can easily pulse at 10MHz. The problems start when you want to use laser pointers.
Laser diodes are very finicky components. It only takes a tiny bit of overcurrent to ruin one; this is because laser diodes are operated close to the physical limits of the material. Some of the first LEDS would lase if you ran just enough overcurrent through them, but it was next to impossible to control the current precisely enough to avoid frying them. Laser diodes have a detector integrated directly into the laser, which allows control circuitry to lock in the diode to a current level that allows it to lase but doesn't fry it.
Laser pointers became cheap and popular once the method for integrating a detector was perfected, and laser current controllers became widely available. The problem with modulating one of these is the controller; they were designed to hold the laser at a continuous level. It is possible that whipping the controllers with a 10MHz signal will keep them from being able to handle the current properly, and either fry the diode or not allow it to light at all.
This is why tranceivers have their own current controllers embedded in the modulation circuitry. Some diode lasers (not laser pointers) have modulation inputs for communication purposes. I'm not aware of what the most popular laser is for these experiments.
No one is actually answering this guys's question, which is "why can't we modify a commercial fiber transceiver to work in freespace."
I'd say that it isn't impossible, but the work/yield ratio would be too high. Fiber tranceivers are designed to output into the end of a fiber, and everything in them is designed to do that as efficiently as possible. The optics are so tiny, and to get a beam in or out might require some microscope work.
Even if you did this, the odds are it would only work for a short distance. Fiber lasers only have to project onto the end of an optical fiber, which is naturally a very small area. In order to achieve a high enough power density across the end of the fiber, the lasers don't have be very powerful at all. You'd end up with a beam so tiny it would be nearly impossible to aim. And if you tried to use collimating lenses, the laser isn't powerful enough to begin with, and most of the power would probably be lost in the optics.
Most freespace lasercomm projects involve something a bit more powerful, which allows the laser to punch through smoke and fog a little better. I guess if you made the laser powerful enough, it could punch through interference such as pigeons too....:-)
I think that off-the-shelf optical transceivers could have a use in freespace comm, but I think the most useful work would involve somehow using the tranceivers as modulators for a more powerful laser. Perhaps you could have an optical fiber running to the big laser and receiver optics, like a repeater?
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody read the article and noticed this? People keep posting that they're wondering how long it will take for the Army to put weapons on these.
The typical geek response to a robot is "Oh...HOW CUTE!" and run up to it to find out how it works. I think that a flotilla of shotgun-toting robots would change that response pretty quickly.
So they're already armed. How long before we see lines of robots armed with shotguns and tear gas herding protestors, or quashing riots? Good or bad, you decide.
Ok...I'm inclined to think you were born yesterday.
Ever been to even the most basic children's museum? Then you've seen the two parabolic reflectors that transmit a whisper clearly across a crowded, noisy room.
Ever cupped your hands around your mouth to shout to someone far away? You must have looked pretty stupid, if, as everyone knows, you can't focus sound.
Ever seen an amphitheatre? They're designed specifically to focus sound to the listening audience.
Those great big flaps of flesh that stick out of your head, that just happen to be rougly cone-shaped and connected to your auditory canal? What do you think those are there for? For that matter, ever seen a horse, dog, or cat when it's listening to something?
Sound is a wave, and can be focused. Everything exhibits both wave and particle properties, light can be focused because of its wave properties, not its particle properties.
You obviously skipped 1st grade physics.
In my experience, yes there is a "zone" when everything seems to work and I totally wipe the walls with anyone nearby.
:-)
However, what about the losing streaks? There seems to be another level where everything seems to go wrong, and I have to quit and try later.
I find it hard to believe anyone would be surprised by this article, though; it's the same for any activity that involves quick thinking and hand-eye coordination. Sometimes the neurotransmitters are extra zippy
This is a really delicious pizza, not like anything you've tasted before. Most people eat it and ask how to make it, before even realizing it's meatless. You could probably throw some boiled, cubed chicken on there if you want to.
Here goes:
Fresh Salsa:
1 large tomato
1 can chopped green chiles (it's a small can)
1 large white onion
1 can sliced black olives
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro (it's really cheap and available at any store)
Salt and pepper
Chop everything up and mix it in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for as long as you can before making the pizza. A couple hours would be best, but it's still ok made right before.
Preheat oven to 400.
Pizza Crust (a good crust for any pizza, even sliced into breadsticks)
For a thick crust, double everything.
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp. yeast powder (1 packet)
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
All-purpose flour (NOT self-rising!)
Mix everything except the flour into a large bowl. Begin stirring in flour until it reaches dough consistency, it's going to be somewhere around four cups, more or less. For non-bread-makers, it's going to be squishy and sticky, kind of stretchy. Knead the dough (squish and fold on a floured surface, throw some flour on top) until you have a smooth ball of dough. Roll this out into the size of your pizza pan, fold over the edges so it doesn't hang over.
The Pizza:
Fresh Salsa (above)
Pizza Crust (above)
2 cups grated Montery Jack cheese
1 cubed avocado
Cumin
Put down the pizza crust on the pan, cover the bottom with cheese, then spread the salsa and avocados on top. Lightly dust with cumin right from the shaker. Bake the pizza for about 18-22 minutes, or as long as it takes for the crust to turn a light brown.
One of the best pizzas I have ever eaten. It's not as hard as it sounds, you really spend a total of 30 minutes in the kitchen, max.
"a palm sixed computer"
The person who typed this needs a BIGGER keyboard, not a smaller one!
Not impossible.
The speed of the chip will still be limited by certain factors, which can be changed by increasing voltage and cooling.
Communication interfaces will still need clocks for the time being, including peripheral busses. Unless, of course, a clockless computer has a redesigned peripheral base as well.
I see asynchronous processors making their first mainstream appearance in high-performance graphics cards. This is an application where specialized functions will benefit vastly, as well as the ability to pack in more processing power without heating up. The graphics processing will get done as fast as possible, and the chips will be designed to process in a massively parallel fashion.
I know.
Grrr...how often has this happened to me!!!
I post something that's non-offensive, certainly not worth the mod point to mod down...someone mods it down to 0.
And then someone else posts in response and gets a nice 3 or 4!!!
At least I usually get modded up by those that have a clue.
Dear Employees:
The previous memo failed to mention another warning sign of hacker social engineering attempts. If you hear the song "Halcyon-On and On" by the music group Orbital, hang up the telephone immediately. We will be holding information sessions at all regional offices for telephone support personnel, where you will be trained to recognize this music within several seconds. DO NOT confuse this warning sign with the last five minutes of Mortal Kombat! It is better to be safe than sorry. Thank you for your cooperation, and stay Hacker-Free(tm) during this period of "l337n355".
We'll do the jobs no one else will do! Give us an old Space Shuttle, some suits and jetpacks, and some extra-large Hefty garbage bags. We'll take care of that for ya!
Another idea: have organizations "Adopt-an-Orbit" and keep our skyways clean. Unfortunately all the brag signs they put up will cause the same problem....
Why is NASA so scared about rocks hitting their spacecraft? All they need to do is sit in the middle and shoot the biggest pieces, then shoot the small fragments one at a time. Never shoot another big one until you've cleaned up all the tiny pieces, and you'll be fine.
Ever see an old steam engine? Notice that big angular piece of metal just above the track in front? It's called a cowcatcher. The premise is, whatever is in your way (be it a cow or some girl tied to the tracks) will either be pushed to one side or split to either side. Depending on how tough your metal is, it'll deflect a lot of lesser junk too. That's the way to deal with it. Even the Enterprise had a deflector shield; you can't avoid or clean up every little piece of material in space.
And finally: who says all that junk isn't worth something? It's just a treasure waiting to be discovered! Put Martha Stewart in a spacesuit and provdide her with gold rickrack and glitter glue, and we'll be able to provide even the poorest third-world peasant with a stunning centerpiece on their dining room table.
We are continually bombarded with stories of how someone put a in their car.
How much time does this take? In other words, do you want an MP3 player in your car, or work out a little and get a tan, thereby installing a gorgeous babe in your car?
Ok, I didn't do it last night, but I put a quick one together just now. Should have a cd with this stuff on it with me at all times :-)
This doesn't look as good as other stuff, but you can see how it works. You can make it look a lot better by tweaking, for example change to pigment ratios to make the spots smaller as they get to the end.
It still takes quite a while to do, and you should have a decent/modern computer to try it. If you try doing this and it looks black, increase the max_trace_level.
stupid slashdot, the code won't go past the "lameness filter" !!!
I will when I get back home tonight, where my scene files are stored :-)
You can make hair easily.
You just use the method that realtime designers use for 3D hardware: transparent shells.
How to make a hairy sphere in POV-Ray:
1. Make a sphere.
2. Make a while loop, which makes more spheres, each one a tiny bit bigger than the last.
3. These spheres have a pigment map with a spot pattern. Scale the pattern way down, tweak the color thresholds until the spots are small enough. Your spheres are going to be transparent with the spot pigment being the desired hair color.
4. The spheres are stacked on each other close together, and the spots on the spheres line up and look like hairs.
The results can really be quite striking. By shifting the surface while scaling it, you can slant the hairs. Throw in gradual amounts of turbulence, and you can introduce irregularities like messy fur. This method works very well for making carpet, too. Have fun!
It's really difficult to think of another freeware program that has the longevity and success of POV-Ray.
There are some really powerful tools in this new version. I still find it hard to believe the results possible with POV-Ray...with this and GIMP, you can make great graphics for web pages or excellent digital art. All without spending thousands of dollars on expensive software.
It's also a great tool for teaching kids programming concepts. While you're not creating a program, the syntax is very C-like. You can create macros, apply properties to objects...a few years back I introduced POV-Ray to one of my younger sisters. With absolutely no previous experience in programming, she was creating very interesting scenes in a few hours. It's easy to get kids involved when there are such immediate, and often beautiful, results. You can't get them excited about writing a "Hello, World" dialog box function.
Get out there and start rendering!
The article was completely meaningless. Every other word I was like "what the heck are they talking about?"
Unfortunately my coffeepot takes five minutes boot up, or maybe it would make more sense....
At least all my coworkers have enough survival instincts to stay away until I've had my coffee.
WHAT KIND OF ERROR IS THIS?!? BEAN PANIC?!?
I wonder...if doing this to my office box would be grounds for dismissal?
[rimshot]
That was my original idea, but I thought "byte" would be too different from "drop"....thought about using "packet" or something, but then I mangled the Foldgers slogan instead.
What was with the "if Handsprings aren't ideal..." comment. Obviously the Handsprings are going to be used because the school doesn't have to buy them. You don't have to throw in your own comment every time someone asks a question. Especially if it makes no sense.
Now, for the question: I think the most important use of the Handsprings will be their intended purpose. These aren't all-purpose computers, there really is a limit to how much you can do. They are excellent for setting up appointments, keeping track of tasks, jotting down small notes, and useful little utilities like the calculator. I've only found a few useful apps other than the ones included. Most of those are games, which probably will have the effect of kids not paying attention in class; but drawing and mapping programs can be pretty useful.
I think there isn't much you can do with a Handspring that will directly correlate to increased intelligence, but you can get them used to keeping their lives organized and laying out plans for the future. That alone could help immensely for kids who'll have to fight to get anywhere in life.
"The best part of booting up is Foldgers in your cup."
Well said, the existence of eBay doesn't actively prevent others from doing the same thing. As far as I know, eBay keeps its share of the market through keeping the buyers and sellers happy.
Microsoft hasn't prevented other operating systems from meeting some success, but they actively try to set up barriers for competition. Not by improving product quality, but by subsidizing proprietary hardware and commandeering standards.
This is an interesting development. I really don't think we should be worried about some kind of monopoly appearing here, since the success of eBay depends on hundreds of thousands of sellers.
We've seen a few moves like this on eBay's part. This is another way that eBay is trying to shield itself from being slaughtered in the current economy.
First, you have eBay beginning to offer benefits for sellers over a certain income margin, which should encourage sellers to stay with eBay, which increases eBay's financial security. Then, you have eBay buying PayPal. PayPal is one of the most influential external factors to the success of eBay; if PayPal went under, many sellers and buyers would have more difficulty making transactions.
This also allows eBay to begin attacking the single factor that keeps many people from buying at online auctions: fraud. Before now, eBay did not have any ability to track fraudulent users, or take any action against them if they used PayPal. Now, they have the ability to go after and probably halt fraud for the most part.
Overall, this looks like a very intelligent business move, and one that should help continue eBay's pattern of success.
Diode lasers can easily pulse at 10MHz. The problems start when you want to use laser pointers.
Laser diodes are very finicky components. It only takes a tiny bit of overcurrent to ruin one; this is because laser diodes are operated close to the physical limits of the material. Some of the first LEDS would lase if you ran just enough overcurrent through them, but it was next to impossible to control the current precisely enough to avoid frying them. Laser diodes have a detector integrated directly into the laser, which allows control circuitry to lock in the diode to a current level that allows it to lase but doesn't fry it.
Laser pointers became cheap and popular once the method for integrating a detector was perfected, and laser current controllers became widely available. The problem with modulating one of these is the controller; they were designed to hold the laser at a continuous level. It is possible that whipping the controllers with a 10MHz signal will keep them from being able to handle the current properly, and either fry the diode or not allow it to light at all.
This is why tranceivers have their own current controllers embedded in the modulation circuitry. Some diode lasers (not laser pointers) have modulation inputs for communication purposes. I'm not aware of what the most popular laser is for these experiments.
No one is actually answering this guys's question, which is "why can't we modify a commercial fiber transceiver to work in freespace."
:-)
I'd say that it isn't impossible, but the work/yield ratio would be too high. Fiber tranceivers are designed to output into the end of a fiber, and everything in them is designed to do that as efficiently as possible. The optics are so tiny, and to get a beam in or out might require some microscope work.
Even if you did this, the odds are it would only work for a short distance. Fiber lasers only have to project onto the end of an optical fiber, which is naturally a very small area. In order to achieve a high enough power density across the end of the fiber, the lasers don't have be very powerful at all. You'd end up with a beam so tiny it would be nearly impossible to aim. And if you tried to use collimating lenses, the laser isn't powerful enough to begin with, and most of the power would probably be lost in the optics.
Most freespace lasercomm projects involve something a bit more powerful, which allows the laser to punch through smoke and fog a little better. I guess if you made the laser powerful enough, it could punch through interference such as pigeons too....
I think that off-the-shelf optical transceivers could have a use in freespace comm, but I think the most useful work would involve somehow using the tranceivers as modulators for a more powerful laser. Perhaps you could have an optical fiber running to the big laser and receiver optics, like a repeater?
Even better, and more of a Star Trek theme, would be Magic Carpet Ride, of course.