A couple of those devices look AMAZINGLY like the old Cidco MailStations. Anyone have any idea if these are repurposed Cidco IP or vice versa?
Re:"hazards and risks are poorly understood"
on
Buckyballs Kill Fish
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Well, the structure and shape of things at these scales sometimes has an effect. Any one of a thousand possibilities. For example, diatomaceous earth is very finely crushed shells of fossilized microscopic creatures. It's used as an effective poison to many insect pests. There's nothing really poisonous about the substance chemically, but the nanoscale fractured edges will cut into the insects and draw out moisture, killing them. Not necessarily the same thing happening here, but it's an example of how the shape or structure of something can change its effect.
Another example: say you had a thousand lumps of metal. If you form them into cubes and throw them on the ground, they can be walked over relatively easily. If you form them into balls, it may be difficult to walk over them without stumbling. If you form them into caltrops, walking on them will cause injury. These properties are all independent of the raw effect of the metal itself.
Right on. I'm pretty sure that long before we ever get the technical ability to terraform a planet, we'll have hundreds or thousands of years of in-person Mars study anyway. Seriously, look at the logistics of terraforming Mars...it's not happening anytime soon. I think that anyone seriously considering it at this point could be called a crackpot. The resources required, and the resources required to get them there, would turn Earth into a wasteland.
Until we meet a species with bigger guns, we own the place. No need to wipe out anything we find, but there's no need to devote a whole planet to a single species of microbe, if it exists.
Yeah, so, chunks of methane from comets hit Mars and got covered up with dirt due to the windstorms, and are gradually melting without being exposed to ultraviolet light.
Doesn't have to be life
on
Methane on Mars?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Methane is already pretty common in the universe. Given the amount of craters on Mars, the simplest explanation is probably that a methane-laden asteroid or comet hit Mars at some point.
I also thought this would be neat, except for AutoCAD...make a line, and each mouse controls the endpoint of a line so you can just snap in there, or stretch something, or use one mouse to rotate as you were copying, or control both rotation and scale. Still, it would be tough to get used to, and possibly not worth the trouble.
But for Photoshop, what's the point? Unlike AutoCAD, Photoshop has single-letter hotkeys for practically all of the toolbox buttons. You can put one hand on the keyboard, the other on your mouse or tablet, and switch like a maniac between paintbrush(B), eraser(E), marquee(M), flood fill(K), lasso(L), airbrush(L), switch the active colors(X), plus many more. That should be at least as fast as stopping what you're doing, looking over at the other pointer, and moving it to click a tool.
It is pretty amazing, and a horrifying reminder. The most striking group of photos is here. As Elena said, these photos don't need any explanation, they speak for themselves.
That's pretty messy. Lots and lots of layers, slow update process. Why not simply make two versions of the map: covered and uncovered? Then slice it up into chunks and throw them into an HTML table. Simply replace an image to make it visible. You could set a META refresh so no one gets left behind.
Plus, this is very extensible with PHP and MySQL, so that you could use the same system for different maps, and even generate the HTML page from stored map chunks in a database, and set up a web-based interface for the administrator to uncover areas.
If you can't live with square chunks, it's always possible to use PHP to draw custom masks and then use convert to slap the mask on. The database would then hold coordinates for room corners...that could even be used to draw the map in the first place.
But the HTML table solution above is still very simple and much easier to update.
I was pretty sure that "TUI" for "(Text/Textual) User Interface" was the correct term...at least, I've seen it used many times, and never seen "CHUI" used.
Re:Oooh! Add it to the list
on
TiVo Will Die
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· Score: 3, Funny
Right, and when you want the devices to communicate but they are too far apart, you can get a "touch extender" which is an insulated length of flexible drawn copper.
He was trying to make a statement about his perception of the rest of us, not about Arabs. Because, you know, we're all rednecks who want to just nuke the "dirty A-Rabs" and get it done with. And we'd spread weapons-grade biological sludge on our toast, if we thought it'd go well with a beer.
Wow, this review had so many copy/paste trolls it was insane. In any case, remember this: if you can Google up something to copy, we can Google up the original source just as easily. It's not really a good tactic to get karma, they typically get smacked down to -1 before reaching 4.
Suprnova is pretty much the major culprit in associating Bittorrent with illegal file trading. Full movies, warez, etc make up the bulk of their content. It's making things difficult for legit uses of Bittorrent, of there are many. Beware if you download anything off Suprnova, the RIAA and MPAA are watching those torrents and gathering some nice logs of IP addresses and times. Remember that by participating in a Bittorrent you are uploading.
Too many good uses for Bittorrent to let the warez kiddies spoil it for us.
Nothing to it, really. The 20" box fan and 20" square filter are both easily found anywhere, even Wal-Mart. I put the filter on the intake side, no real reason other than it keeps dust from building up inside the fan itself. It's a pretty close fit. Run a strip of duct tape along each edge. You might need to cut a little notch if the feet of the fan get in the way.
I'm not saying the allergy furnace air filters capture everything a HEPA filter does, but it pretty much eliminates my symptoms during hay fever season.
You could actually get sort of a similar effect with a decent-sized decorative fountain. And just think how swanky a rock waterfall and goldfish pool will look over in the corner of the indoor patio....
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of those devices look AMAZINGLY like the old Cidco MailStations. Anyone have any idea if these are repurposed Cidco IP or vice versa?
Well, the structure and shape of things at these scales sometimes has an effect. Any one of a thousand possibilities. For example, diatomaceous earth is very finely crushed shells of fossilized microscopic creatures. It's used as an effective poison to many insect pests. There's nothing really poisonous about the substance chemically, but the nanoscale fractured edges will cut into the insects and draw out moisture, killing them. Not necessarily the same thing happening here, but it's an example of how the shape or structure of something can change its effect.
Another example: say you had a thousand lumps of metal. If you form them into cubes and throw them on the ground, they can be walked over relatively easily. If you form them into balls, it may be difficult to walk over them without stumbling. If you form them into caltrops, walking on them will cause injury. These properties are all independent of the raw effect of the metal itself.
Or, like peanut butter. "Choosy mothers choose NIF!"
Right on. I'm pretty sure that long before we ever get the technical ability to terraform a planet, we'll have hundreds or thousands of years of in-person Mars study anyway. Seriously, look at the logistics of terraforming Mars...it's not happening anytime soon. I think that anyone seriously considering it at this point could be called a crackpot. The resources required, and the resources required to get them there, would turn Earth into a wasteland.
Until we meet a species with bigger guns, we own the place. No need to wipe out anything we find, but there's no need to devote a whole planet to a single species of microbe, if it exists.
Yeah, so, chunks of methane from comets hit Mars and got covered up with dirt due to the windstorms, and are gradually melting without being exposed to ultraviolet light.
Methane is already pretty common in the universe. Given the amount of craters on Mars, the simplest explanation is probably that a methane-laden asteroid or comet hit Mars at some point.
I also thought this would be neat, except for AutoCAD...make a line, and each mouse controls the endpoint of a line so you can just snap in there, or stretch something, or use one mouse to rotate as you were copying, or control both rotation and scale. Still, it would be tough to get used to, and possibly not worth the trouble.
But for Photoshop, what's the point? Unlike AutoCAD, Photoshop has single-letter hotkeys for practically all of the toolbox buttons. You can put one hand on the keyboard, the other on your mouse or tablet, and switch like a maniac between paintbrush(B), eraser(E), marquee(M), flood fill(K), lasso(L), airbrush(L), switch the active colors(X), plus many more. That should be at least as fast as stopping what you're doing, looking over at the other pointer, and moving it to click a tool.
It is pretty amazing, and a horrifying reminder. The most striking group of photos is here. As Elena said, these photos don't need any explanation, they speak for themselves.
That's pretty messy. Lots and lots of layers, slow update process. Why not simply make two versions of the map: covered and uncovered? Then slice it up into chunks and throw them into an HTML table. Simply replace an image to make it visible. You could set a META refresh so no one gets left behind.
Plus, this is very extensible with PHP and MySQL, so that you could use the same system for different maps, and even generate the HTML page from stored map chunks in a database, and set up a web-based interface for the administrator to uncover areas.
If you can't live with square chunks, it's always possible to use PHP to draw custom masks and then use convert to slap the mask on. The database would then hold coordinates for room corners...that could even be used to draw the map in the first place.
But the HTML table solution above is still very simple and much easier to update.
Holly Gates is a man. Proof: http://positron.org/people/hgates/index.shtml
I was pretty sure that "TUI" for "(Text/Textual) User Interface" was the correct term...at least, I've seen it used many times, and never seen "CHUI" used.
Don't be absurd, "foo" will never die!
Ah I see now, they're counting all of the Linux developers as SCO employees, since SCO owns Linux....
Right, and when you want the devices to communicate but they are too far apart, you can get a "touch extender" which is an insulated length of flexible drawn copper.
He was trying to make a statement about his perception of the rest of us, not about Arabs. Because, you know, we're all rednecks who want to just nuke the "dirty A-Rabs" and get it done with. And we'd spread weapons-grade biological sludge on our toast, if we thought it'd go well with a beer.
We had that switch installed so you could turn the light on and off, NOT so you could throw lightswitch raves!
Wow, this review had so many copy/paste trolls it was insane. In any case, remember this: if you can Google up something to copy, we can Google up the original source just as easily. It's not really a good tactic to get karma, they typically get smacked down to -1 before reaching 4.
Broadband communication blimp, anyone?
No thanks, I already ate.
Suprnova is pretty much the major culprit in associating Bittorrent with illegal file trading. Full movies, warez, etc make up the bulk of their content. It's making things difficult for legit uses of Bittorrent, of there are many. Beware if you download anything off Suprnova, the RIAA and MPAA are watching those torrents and gathering some nice logs of IP addresses and times. Remember that by participating in a Bittorrent you are uploading.
Too many good uses for Bittorrent to let the warez kiddies spoil it for us.
Be careful what you wish for.
I would like to buy some Funny futures on this one.
You'll find that when they ban water and legalize marijuana, they're actually on crack.
provided no one publishes what they actually put in their product.
Pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrate.
Though no one's really sure that's all they put in it. As one of thousands of haikus on Spamhaiku goes:
A worker threatened
to tell what's in SPAM; now he
sleeps with the fishes.
Nothing to it, really. The 20" box fan and 20" square filter are both easily found anywhere, even Wal-Mart. I put the filter on the intake side, no real reason other than it keeps dust from building up inside the fan itself. It's a pretty close fit. Run a strip of duct tape along each edge. You might need to cut a little notch if the feet of the fan get in the way.
I'm not saying the allergy furnace air filters capture everything a HEPA filter does, but it pretty much eliminates my symptoms during hay fever season.
You could actually get sort of a similar effect with a decent-sized decorative fountain. And just think how swanky a rock waterfall and goldfish pool will look over in the corner of the indoor patio....