sc2.sourceforge.net is where you will find Star Control 2, restored to its original glory for Linux PCs. It even has voices, which the original PC version did not. I play it altogether too much.
You know, that sounds like a fun project. Why hadn't I thought of that?
PS/2 serial protocol is low-speed enough that it shouldn't be difficult to use it to modulate an IR or RF signal.... in theory, it could lead to the creation of a non-system-specific keyboard wireless adapter.
I can't tell how old this Honeywell keyboard is... the label on the bottom is completely yellowed from age. I have four of these things, which are one of the nicest keyboards ever produced. They have the full feel of an IBM M-series (of which I also have two, which I use occaionally on my laptop), but with mufflers to make them quieter and texturized key surfaces.
Keyboards nowadays are aweful. They are made exclusively for show, with hardly any value in quality (evil membrane keyboards). About the only manufacturer around that still makes a good quality buckling-spring keyboard anymore is Keytronic. While you may end up paying $30US for what looks like a bland OEM keyboard, it's the first keyboard with Windows keys that I have ever used that feels nice (and Windows keys are far more useful in Linux than Windows... an extra buckey key is always welcome. I wish I could get another couple).
And besides, such tricks still come in handy for those of us who do a lot of embedded development. A C64 is a relatively powerful machine by comparison to a microcontroller (although a modern microcontroller is a *LOT* faster).
The difference between retrocomputing and programming modern 8-bit micros isn't as much as most people would have you believe.
I started programming on the C128 when I was five years old. The idea of just being able to start typing in BASIC commands into the computer became so firmly ingrained in me that when I went to DOS and found no programming languages (and then later, when QBASIC came out, no compiled programming languages) available for it, I literally went back to the C128 for several years.
After finally migrating over, I pirated copies of VB3, QB45, and got a relative to give me MSVC 1.52C and 4.0. Each one was a mess, for reasons of its own (QB45 was arguably the best of the lot, but it was too slow for much). Eventually I just started using DJGPP, and once you go GNU, you're hooked. I eventually left my bash-shelled MSDOS behind and switched over entirely to linux.
While I do miss the feeling of being able to know the *entire* system, even in Linux, at least I'm actually able to look (and tinker).
Well, it's all a matter of scale... one mutated cell will be eaten by your immune system. A modern TV puts out so few X-Rays that the amount of mutation that you'd receive is negligable.
Generally, unless you are overcharging it at a very high charge current, it is very difficult to make a NiCd explode. The things are very tough to that sort of abuse.
The one you really don't want to mess with is Lithium Ion. The chemistry inside the battery is so volatile that even slight overcharging can lead to rapid disassembly.
Interestingly, shorting NiCD's isn't especially harmful to the battery. Assuming you didn't melt the case, the batteries were almost certainly still good.
I assure you, modern CRTs still use high-voltage tubes. There is really no escaping that while expecting to still maintain a respectable picture quality.
What has changed is that modern CRTs (especially monitors, which use higher tube voltages) have a substantial amount of lead in the glass. The lead absorbs the xray emissions, allowing it to pass government regulations.
Considering how many kilometers of wire the average clock distribution net contains, it easily might be a design factor. The real issue is still one of poor termination, though, because even without resonance you can still radiate quite a bit of power.
Well, technically speaking, if all the wires in the CPU are treated like transmission lines and properly terminated, the emission should be negligable. It's only when you have traces resonating at the clock rate that problems occur.
That said, modern clock distribution nets look more like big grid antennai with massive amplifiers (several watts of the 70W that an average CPU uses goes to clock distribution) powering it. So it does radiate quite substantially.
... might be useless against alien mindprobes or whatever it is that conspiracy theorists keep ranting about, but they do work pretty nicely to block radio waves, especially at higher frequencies.
So just have the paranoid parents send their kids to school wrapped up like a baked potato. Sure, the resulting bullying might be unhealthy, but the kid won't be exposed to the evil 2.4GHz radiation.
Actually, compared to the amount of RF energy travelling through most homes, WiFi *IS* background radiation. You don't need a fancy source for that. All you need is a little technical data.
WiFi is limited to 80mW or less of power output. The leakage alone from a 900W microwave oven is considerably higher than this, and in the exact same frequency spectra. The power output of radar of various types dwarfs either, although the distance normally provides some protection (inverse squares and all). And don't even ask about the output from a 20,000W AM radio station.
The X-Rays from an average CRT (including that television set) are much more harmful, since, unlike the microwave radiation used by the above, X-Rays are ionizing radiation and *DO* cause cellular mutations (basically, anything longer wave than UV, including visible light and microwaves, doesn't have the energy to ionize the cells in a human body (photoelectric effect), anything shorter wave (including the deadly UVC, X-rays, and Gamma rays) will ionize cells, break down DNA, and other wonderful things).
Personally, I wouldn't. Wifi has outrageous power demands (as is seen by how quickly it drains my laptop batteries), and increases the requirements of the host processor. For big robots that can afford an onboard laptop, this might be fine. For smaller ones running on PC104, you might manage. For microcontroller-based robots, forget it.
It has been proven (rather conclusively) that pot has a detrimental effect on memory and cognitive processes while the person is still under the influence of it (the same can be said of flu remedies though...). Considering that the compound often stays in the body for as much as a week, this will certainly cause effects much as you describe (blocking pathways associated with long-term memory and cognitive processes) in a regular user.
The real issue is that there is no proof of chronic effects. While the compound blocks these parts of the brain, and intoxicates the person while the substance is in their bloodstream, the parts are not destroyed (unlike, say, alcohol, which kills the cells).
This means that a person giving up pot, or merely discontinuing it for a span of weeks, will recover quite quickly with little or no long-term damage.
I'm Canadian. Marijuana is so common up here that they're slowly decriminalizing it. Most of my friends (I'm allergic, so I don't do it myself) smoke a little pot once in a while.
I've seen lives ruined from the criminal charges associated with marijuana. As for the substance itself, well... I do know a few people who abuse it, but in the long run, it's doing less damage to them than the alcohol they would have used in place of it. The lack of addiction or especially bad long-term effects means that when they "go clean", they recover.
It's really no different from alcohol, except that it's not addictive and doesn't cause brain and liver damage (it does cause lung cancer, but like that ever stopped people from smoking tobacco). Some people abuse it, some use it responsibly.
How about building an Internet as a sovereign nation? Then imposing these sorts of sanctions (copyrights, patents, etc) could be considered an act of war.
(and for the moderators: while I think the idea has at least an iota of merit, I *am* joking)
What do you make of the report by Farnsworth's wife, in her memoirs, about the fusor going self-sustaining? If it's true, it would really turn the fusion world on its head.
Philo Farnsworth, along with (well, in competition to) Vladimir Zyorkin, invented television as we know it. Farnsworth himself invented the image dissector tube (video camera), and the CRT, as well as many of the high-power, high-frequency amplifier tubes required for television.
Farnsworth was also the first to build a working electronic television, although Zyorkin had a larger corporate backing. (The legal fight between the two is quite interesting reading).
Actually, from the patents and picture records I have seen, Farnsworth actually *did* build a reactor with virtual electrodes, which also overcame the problems of injecting matter into the core.
From what I have read of the patents, the fusor does work on the electric field, which can be directly extracted as electricity (assuming you break even, of course...) or used to reinforce the field.
It never ceases to amaze me that, with all the people interested in IEC fusion, nobody has tried to reproduce Farnsworth's more advanced reactors, staying with this dual-grid contraption instead.
Well, the tunes are still substantially different... I like both, personally. And besides, what part is derivative? There is none of the original copyrighted recording in the song, and in many ways it is an original tune in its own right. That goes back to my original comment about TV sets.
The real problem I have with 'Intellectual Property' as it stands today is the stifling of our economic system. As more and more ideas become owned and licensed, the barrier to entry rises in more and more industries. This has a negative effect on consumers (because prices will rise due to lack of competition) and creators (because it becomes more expensive to create, due to either license fees for ideas, or a requirement to do every stage of creation alone, without the help of the existing body of ideas/support/etc). The only beneficiaries are the owners of the ideas, which often are not even the people who created them. The narrowing of the pool of innovators acts to stifle innovation.
Sure, many of the "innovators" being prevented from entry are just cheap knock-offs (like the myriad of Harry Potter clones that are being sued now). But sometimes one of them rivals the popularity of the originals (Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, arguably, is entirely derivative of a combination of Lord of the Rings and Dune).
What does this have to do with music swapping? The RIAA and affiliates have made it much harder to get started in the music business. Radio stations are no longer independant. Music distribution is, in general, closed to non-RIAA members. The alternative to the RIAA isn't much of an alternative at all, having neither the quality, the quantity, nor the community that their affiliates possess.
This is, thankfully, improving thanks to the internet and places like mp3.com. It still has a ways to go, though. But there is another problem.
Unlike a TV set, music is not a commodity, but a creative work (well, except for the latest boy-band... they're commodities.) If I don't want to buy from the RIAA, I have no option to get songs I like. With court actions like the one I mentioned above, independant recordings of the same song become impossible.
Which leaves the "alternative" of lesser-known, non-RIAA-affiliated bands in the same category as buying a microwave oven instead of a TV. It might be a great microwave oven. But it's not a TV.
No, you missed my point. I personally think it's an *aweful* solution. I'm just pointing out that it *does* set up a dangerous situation for the recording companies by establishing a compulsory licensing system. Something like this levy makes it a lot harder to prosecute music swapping.
Slashdot Mirror
sc2.sourceforge.net is where you will find Star Control 2, restored to its original glory for Linux PCs. It even has voices, which the original PC version did not. I play it altogether too much.
PS/2 serial protocol is low-speed enough that it shouldn't be difficult to use it to modulate an IR or RF signal.... in theory, it could lead to the creation of a non-system-specific keyboard wireless adapter.
Keyboards nowadays are aweful. They are made exclusively for show, with hardly any value in quality (evil membrane keyboards). About the only manufacturer around that still makes a good quality buckling-spring keyboard anymore is Keytronic. While you may end up paying $30US for what looks like a bland OEM keyboard, it's the first keyboard with Windows keys that I have ever used that feels nice (and Windows keys are far more useful in Linux than Windows... an extra buckey key is always welcome. I wish I could get another couple).
Ooooh, a room full of lonely C64 geeks? Sheesh, I wish I had heard of this. These odds are only bad for the guys :P
The difference between retrocomputing and programming modern 8-bit micros isn't as much as most people would have you believe.
After finally migrating over, I pirated copies of VB3, QB45, and got a relative to give me MSVC 1.52C and 4.0. Each one was a mess, for reasons of its own (QB45 was arguably the best of the lot, but it was too slow for much). Eventually I just started using DJGPP, and once you go GNU, you're hooked. I eventually left my bash-shelled MSDOS behind and switched over entirely to linux.
While I do miss the feeling of being able to know the *entire* system, even in Linux, at least I'm actually able to look (and tinker).
Well, it's all a matter of scale... one mutated cell will be eaten by your immune system. A modern TV puts out so few X-Rays that the amount of mutation that you'd receive is negligable.
The one you really don't want to mess with is Lithium Ion. The chemistry inside the battery is so volatile that even slight overcharging can lead to rapid disassembly.
Interestingly, shorting NiCD's isn't especially harmful to the battery. Assuming you didn't melt the case, the batteries were almost certainly still good.
What has changed is that modern CRTs (especially monitors, which use higher tube voltages) have a substantial amount of lead in the glass. The lead absorbs the xray emissions, allowing it to pass government regulations.
Considering how many kilometers of wire the average clock distribution net contains, it easily might be a design factor. The real issue is still one of poor termination, though, because even without resonance you can still radiate quite a bit of power.
Some hardware supports much higher than the mandated limit. It usually requires driver hacks to enable, though.
That said, modern clock distribution nets look more like big grid antennai with massive amplifiers (several watts of the 70W that an average CPU uses goes to clock distribution) powering it. So it does radiate quite substantially.
So just have the paranoid parents send their kids to school wrapped up like a baked potato. Sure, the resulting bullying might be unhealthy, but the kid won't be exposed to the evil 2.4GHz radiation.
WiFi is limited to 80mW or less of power output. The leakage alone from a 900W microwave oven is considerably higher than this, and in the exact same frequency spectra. The power output of radar of various types dwarfs either, although the distance normally provides some protection (inverse squares and all). And don't even ask about the output from a 20,000W AM radio station.
The X-Rays from an average CRT (including that television set) are much more harmful, since, unlike the microwave radiation used by the above, X-Rays are ionizing radiation and *DO* cause cellular mutations (basically, anything longer wave than UV, including visible light and microwaves, doesn't have the energy to ionize the cells in a human body (photoelectric effect), anything shorter wave (including the deadly UVC, X-rays, and Gamma rays) will ionize cells, break down DNA, and other wonderful things).
Thank goodness for finger :P
Personally, I wouldn't. Wifi has outrageous power demands (as is seen by how quickly it drains my laptop batteries), and increases the requirements of the host processor. For big robots that can afford an onboard laptop, this might be fine. For smaller ones running on PC104, you might manage. For microcontroller-based robots, forget it.
The real issue is that there is no proof of chronic effects. While the compound blocks these parts of the brain, and intoxicates the person while the substance is in their bloodstream, the parts are not destroyed (unlike, say, alcohol, which kills the cells).
This means that a person giving up pot, or merely discontinuing it for a span of weeks, will recover quite quickly with little or no long-term damage.
I've seen lives ruined from the criminal charges associated with marijuana. As for the substance itself, well... I do know a few people who abuse it, but in the long run, it's doing less damage to them than the alcohol they would have used in place of it. The lack of addiction or especially bad long-term effects means that when they "go clean", they recover.
It's really no different from alcohol, except that it's not addictive and doesn't cause brain and liver damage (it does cause lung cancer, but like that ever stopped people from smoking tobacco). Some people abuse it, some use it responsibly.
(and for the moderators: while I think the idea has at least an iota of merit, I *am* joking)
What do you make of the report by Farnsworth's wife, in her memoirs, about the fusor going self-sustaining? If it's true, it would really turn the fusion world on its head.
Farnsworth was also the first to build a working electronic television, although Zyorkin had a larger corporate backing. (The legal fight between the two is quite interesting reading).
From what I have read of the patents, the fusor does work on the electric field, which can be directly extracted as electricity (assuming you break even, of course...) or used to reinforce the field.
It never ceases to amaze me that, with all the people interested in IEC fusion, nobody has tried to reproduce Farnsworth's more advanced reactors, staying with this dual-grid contraption instead.
The real problem I have with 'Intellectual Property' as it stands today is the stifling of our economic system. As more and more ideas become owned and licensed, the barrier to entry rises in more and more industries. This has a negative effect on consumers (because prices will rise due to lack of competition) and creators (because it becomes more expensive to create, due to either license fees for ideas, or a requirement to do every stage of creation alone, without the help of the existing body of ideas/support/etc). The only beneficiaries are the owners of the ideas, which often are not even the people who created them. The narrowing of the pool of innovators acts to stifle innovation.
Sure, many of the "innovators" being prevented from entry are just cheap knock-offs (like the myriad of Harry Potter clones that are being sued now). But sometimes one of them rivals the popularity of the originals (Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, arguably, is entirely derivative of a combination of Lord of the Rings and Dune).
What does this have to do with music swapping? The RIAA and affiliates have made it much harder to get started in the music business. Radio stations are no longer independant. Music distribution is, in general, closed to non-RIAA members. The alternative to the RIAA isn't much of an alternative at all, having neither the quality, the quantity, nor the community that their affiliates possess.
This is, thankfully, improving thanks to the internet and places like mp3.com. It still has a ways to go, though. But there is another problem.
Unlike a TV set, music is not a commodity, but a creative work (well, except for the latest boy-band... they're commodities.) If I don't want to buy from the RIAA, I have no option to get songs I like. With court actions like the one I mentioned above, independant recordings of the same song become impossible.
Which leaves the "alternative" of lesser-known, non-RIAA-affiliated bands in the same category as buying a microwave oven instead of a TV. It might be a great microwave oven. But it's not a TV.
No, you missed my point. I personally think it's an *aweful* solution. I'm just pointing out that it *does* set up a dangerous situation for the recording companies by establishing a compulsory licensing system. Something like this levy makes it a lot harder to prosecute music swapping.