I'm confused. Are you saying that I either should shelter my kids, or feed them crap? Or are you saying that they are the same, and you disrecommend both?
Actually, I guess I'm just confused as to how this applies to my comments. Are you trying to disprove, prove, or add to what I said? Did I say something ambiguous which you wanted to disambiguate?
Are you saying that there's nothing so "evil" that any child of any age should not be restricted from viewing, participating, enabling? Of course, I don't recall saying anything about evil - that's fairly subjective stuff.
Perhaps you're just saying that there's a fine balance between too much and too little sheltering?
The report simply says that a frame is global to all browser windows, so if I open a site with a frame named "fraRightWindow" and then click on a link in another window that tragets that frame name it'll change that frame even if the sites are completely unrelated.
The obvious vulnerability is that the page exploiting this needs to know the frame name.
If you use dynamic frame names (even just change them statically every day or every few hours) then you have little to worry about.
Unless, of course, your particular browser's DOM allows any window to look at resources in another window. This is something I don't know about, but I suspect that's the only other way to exploit this if you don't already know the name of the frame.
You have a very interesting style of discussing a very common belief. I'm assume you are not using particular language to offend - perhaps this is how you really talk about this subject.
There is some good in the idea that one should expose children to many variants of disease and illness to build a healthy immune system while they are young and physically able to handle the ravages of such bacteria and virus.
But that doesn't prove your point.
Subjecting a child's body to alcohol, nicotine, polio, etc is provably detrimental to their physical health. To say that there are no mental or emotional equivilants to these compounds is to dismiss decades and centuries of behavioral studies and observation.
"The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act." -Orison Swett Marden
While you and I may disagree on what specific emotional and intellectual activites are worth restricting to adults I suspect you may agree that there are such limits you wouldn't want your children to pass. I could come up with a million hypotheticals, and many (many!) actual examples - but I'm sure you are equally imaginative.
Actually I doubt this will make much of a difference at all.
Even if they are always around to protect their kids parents still demand that 'public' places be free of anything that could harm their children. The internet is often seen as a public place. Unless the 'magazine racks' are covered and the 'bars' are closed to anyone under a certian age they will feel that the government should step in an ensure that these steps are taken. This doesn't even touch problems with identity, stalking, etc.
This is not a terrible thing. It is a new responsibility that parents have had to adjust to in the last decade. Any reasonable step that can be enacted with little cost that does not prevent another's right to use the internet should be enacted.
The 'internet' is still in a state of tremendous change. There is no way that a reasonable response can be created that will stand the test of time. Any response now will fall far short of the ideal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though. As we develop new techniques to match the internet's development we'll learn valuable lessens.
It's not much different than spam. Techniques come, are honed, changed, and then go. We all expect (and know) that eventually the tide will turn and spam will be managed effectively. Similarily, we all know and expect that certian regulations will be set in place that will make it difficult for minors to open themselves to crimes of opportunity or exposure to things which the law currently says should be restricted to adults (or to minors only under adult supervision).
This article is good for the tech savvy parent, but it certianly will not affect the majority opinion.
All I've seen is a message NAC posted to a message board and very little else. Chances are NAC submitted it to Slashdot as well.
Unless there's a gag order (not mentioned, and if there was they probably couldn't publicize it as much as they have) there's no reason not to link to the actual court order and other details.
For all we know someone set us up the bomb by giving very specific, but obviously lacking breadth, information and letting us come to the obvious conclusion.
This is basic marketting (astroturfing) to try and get the outcome changed by technical people (who think they know what's going on) who the court might listen to.
It's in our best interest to completely vet out the case before running off half cocked. I wish I knew enough to find the TRO or the customer's side of the story.
The facts seem clear enough, but the presentation is muddy at best.
If your product isn't selling like it used to you need to make certian everyone buys it for the price they are willing to pay, rather than setting a fixed price and letting everyone who can afford it buy it.
For instance:
Take product X at $200
Remove 'enterprise', 'professional', and 'commercial' features. Sell as cheap hobbyist or student edition.
Remove 'enterprise' and 'professional' features. Sell as low end (shareware, small developer) edition.
Remove 'enterprise' features. Sell as high end developer edition.
Sell original software at 2-3x the original cost.
By taking the original product, splitting it further than it already was and spreading the price curve they reach more smaller buyers while milking the bigger buyers for more since they are willing to pay it.
It does give good PR (apparantly - it got on slashdot and many seem to think this is a 'good thing') It further gives cheaper tools for home hobbyists. Lastly, it removes some of the incentive for pirate software - if the average user can buy and download a fully supported working version for $50 and an hour of time they may be more likely to do so than searching, installing, troubleshooting, and wondering if the errors they keep getting are their fault or the fault of the pirated software.
But in the end it's simply an old method to extract maximum cash from a larger target audience, while encouraging current users to upgrade.
I remember when lawsuits were settled with money, not monopoly propogation.
I doubt it. Pithy comments are all well and good, but I'd like you to point out one such case against a monopolist that you remember where money (and nothing else) was paid in restitution.
Perhaps I just missed the "I'm pretending I'm an old timer" or "sarcasm" tag...?
Shopkeeper: You've got a pet database?
Customer: Yes. I chose him out of thousands. I didn't like the others, they were all too flat.
Shopkeeper: You must be a looney.
PS: No, I won't actually be donating because I'm broke and cheap.
Typical response - "I'm more likely to donate to X than Y but I'm not donating to either because of Z"
You could be infinitely more likely to donate to one than the other and still have the same result if you didn't plan on donating to either in the first place.
It's always easier said than done, isn't it?
Not to pick on you personally, but it is disheartening to see this lack of action that is so common on message boards such as slashdot.
-Adam
Re:Cheaper digital cameras for aerial photography
on
Build Your Own KiteCam
·
· Score: 1
Computer geeks has cheap megapixel digital cameras for under $100. Kreep an eye out - they had a refurbished 3.3MP (which I purchased and am happy with) a few weeks ago for under $60 - used compactflash too, which these days seems to be less common.
It charges according to current, there is no configuration for pack size. You can charge a single cell, or you can charge many cells.
You'll find that the vast majority of chargers put batteries in series for charging anyway. You'll have a hard time finding a charger that has four single cell chargers - it'll have one charger and either parallel four batteries into two sets of two series, or put all four in series. Either situation doesn't provide a great charge.
The trickle charge at the end of the full charge should equalize the individual cells in series.
So put them in parallel, set the capacity limit to the least discharged battery (ie, if one is still 3/4 full then set the limit to charge up to 500mAH) and then let it trickle charge for another few hours.
Either way, there is no consumer charger out there which will charge each cell individually - it doesn't make economic sense to sell high qaulity chargers because in the end the consumer isn't willing to pay 2-3 times the cost of a similar cheap charger - especially when you consider that they are buying rechargeables to save money.
Buy a good intelligent charger if you want your cells to last. If you want to be really anal about it, charge each cell individually. You won't find a cheap charger that will do that for you.
If we are talking about different areas of battery technology then it's probably because you don't understand battery technology. I can see why you're asking slashdot for battery charger recomendations - you don't understand battery charging so you hope to purchase a device that will do all the work for you. But then you state you have all these 'special needs.' Until you understand how batteries and packs work and how charging works then you won't be able to determine what a good charger is, or how to correctly use one if you happened to buy the right one for your needs. We can't help you any more than you can because you haven't really defined your needs.
For this reason I suspect you'll be best served by a simple intelligent charger such as one sold by radio shack, sam's club, or batteries plus. You don't have to understand how the cells work, how charging works, or anything more difficult than plug-n-chug.
If you want the batteries to get a full charge, if you want them to be conditioned so you can use the full capacity, if you want them to last through hundreds of charges, if you want them to be well matched, if you want them to charge quickly, and if you want to charge them without observation and not worry about leaving them on for 'too long' - learn more about how an intelligent charger works, and then buy a good intelligent charger. Those higher end models made for radio controlled cars are good for this because they follow one of the 'ideal' charging algorithm and are fairly configurable and feature complete.
But that's kind of like setting up a Linux firewall when what you really want is to buy a linksys router with built in sort of decent firewall. In the end you need to decide whether your time and energy in going over the learning curve is worth the benefit. If you aren't going to learn, then you'll not only find the linux solution more confusing, you also risk doing it wrong and making the situation worse than it is.
-Adam
Re:Field Day in Ann Arbor, Michigan
on
Field Day 2004
·
· Score: 1
Sweet. I'll be there sometime today - show it off to my toddlers. Something I've wanted to get into for a long time, but I already have too many 'hobbies'.
Buy another antenna, but this time it should be omnidirectional. The yagi is already positioned, so just attach the omni to the other end of the cable.
Tada! Instant passive repeater. Now you can keep the phone with you and wireless. The signal strength won't be as good as a direct connection to the yagi, but it should still work well.
I got a very nice intelligent charger from my local hobby shop. It'll do ni-cd and nimh, and has 10 user defined programs. I got it for speedy charging of bicycle headlight battery packs for a 24 hour race and a full-duplex wireless intercom system, but it works great for any pack up to 8 cells.
It stops on delta v or capacity - you program in that your packs are 2AH and it'll stop after delivering that much capacity if delta v doesn't stop it first. You can program the charging current and the delta v trigger. After the charge it complete it'll perform a trickle charge as long as the cells are connected so you know they won't self discharge and you don't have to worry about leaving them on for too long.
And it has reverse polarity and short circuit detection and protection.
I've been very pleased with it. It was about $50, though, but for such a useful charger it was well work it. You can certianly find less expensive models that will automatically charge the cells you have. I like the configurability, but I have lots of different packs in lots of different configurations.
Perfectly safe? Sorry bubble boy, but even a padded chamber isn't perfectly safe.
These are reasonably safe, though. For any oxygen combustable fuel to flame you need the fuel in a gaseous or vaporized form within a sufficiently (but not too high) oxygen rich environment.
The small amount of fuel that's in this device would have to turn to gas and flame in the air. You wouldn't be able to fit enough air inside the canister and enable the methanol to turn to gas to cause an explosion. However the space is small enough that it isn't feasable until the canister is empty (only vapor remains). Even then oxygen isn't allowed in the canister. Even then they have overpressure vents which would, at most, cause this device to "vent with flame," as most manufacturers claim LI-ION device may due in the worst cases.
So - reasonably safe yes, perfectly safe, no. Safe enough to prevent multi-mullion dollar liability suits? You bet.
My father did this with my help. Use a 6x6 piece of lumber (about 2 feet long) and round it (he used a jig and a table saw). Then pound two stakes into it so you can stake it to the ground when needed.
Take a self propelled motor. Attach a stiff rod to one side of the deck so that it extends past the front about 2-3 feet. Tie a rope to the rear of the mower and then to the front of this rod with some slack in the middle.
Experimentally determine a good spot along that rope to attach another rope such that when you are holding it the mower tends to turn slightly towards you. Attach that rope to the (now staked) 6x6 post in the middle of the yard. Start mower, defeat the dead man's switch (usually a bar you have to hold to keep the mower going) and let it go.
Tricky problem (left as an exercise for the reader): The rope tends to self wind up past the top of the post. Especially when mowing large tracts of land.
And yes, the neighbor kids did make fun of me at school. Saved me from mowing an extra acre though, so I didn't much care what they said.
They used two spinning plates with tiny hinged blades on the edge (three blades per plate) so they would swing back if hitting somwthing hard instead of robbing the motor of power (also the plates acted as flywheels).
It used one or two lead acid batteries and had a drive motor and a cutting motor. It used the rake leds to determine if it was still on the cutting line - it would try and keep one side of the LEDs clear, and the other side blocked by grass. I believe the author guided it with a remote to go around the perimeter and any obstacles at first, then let it do its thing.
It could only handle a tiny amount of grass, though, so you'd have it cut daily when the grass was growing fast.
It would probably be easier now to use some location algorithms.
We've got the Kaminsky protocol connected to the
DNS protocol
the DNS protocol's connected to the
UDP protocol
The UDP protocol's connected to the
IP protocol
Oh hear the word of the inefficient!
The second verse is left as an exercise for the reader. Please keep in mind that writing another verse is somewhat more productive than implementing the aforementioned Kaminsky protocol.
XADS is developing two longer-ranged systems, one of which will have a range of 20 feet and the other 50 feet. The 20-foot range system will be able to be towed by a car and set up for mobile operations.
If you think 20 feet is long range, then the first prototype is likely to be about 10 feet or so, or has extremely limited power/time. It likely doesn't carry its own power supply.
But that doesn't mean the technology isn't viable, it just means that it needs a ton of development work and will probably be very limited in its capabilities.
Rubber bullets, tear gas, fire hoses, etc will probably still have a broader applicability to most situations. Either that or the other alternative weapons such as the sonic or light weapons that cause dizziness and nausea.
Power is always an issue, though. Anything that doesn't focus its power on a spot the size of a dime at 300 feet is, due the the laws of physics, going to require immense amounts of power - not hand carryable. Possibly backpack for short sessions.
If the University cannot find anything wrong with his work for his graduate program and doctorate research, then I don't believe they should take away something he earned.
I suspect the university is simply grandstanding. "We are ethically pure, so much so that we rescind doctorates from people who later on turn to the dark side."
On the other hand, it probably feels good to pull the rug out from under this guy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm confused. Are you saying that I either should shelter my kids, or feed them crap? Or are you saying that they are the same, and you disrecommend both?
Actually, I guess I'm just confused as to how this applies to my comments. Are you trying to disprove, prove, or add to what I said? Did I say something ambiguous which you wanted to disambiguate?
Are you saying that there's nothing so "evil" that any child of any age should not be restricted from viewing, participating, enabling? Of course, I don't recall saying anything about evil - that's fairly subjective stuff.
Perhaps you're just saying that there's a fine balance between too much and too little sheltering?
Please help, I'm lost.
Sincerely,
-Adam
The report simply says that a frame is global to all browser windows, so if I open a site with a frame named "fraRightWindow" and then click on a link in another window that tragets that frame name it'll change that frame even if the sites are completely unrelated.
The obvious vulnerability is that the page exploiting this needs to know the frame name.
If you use dynamic frame names (even just change them statically every day or every few hours) then you have little to worry about.
Unless, of course, your particular browser's DOM allows any window to look at resources in another window. This is something I don't know about, but I suspect that's the only other way to exploit this if you don't already know the name of the frame.
-Adam
It worked on my Mozilla 1.7
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040514
-Adam
You have a very interesting style of discussing a very common belief. I'm assume you are not using particular language to offend - perhaps this is how you really talk about this subject.
There is some good in the idea that one should expose children to many variants of disease and illness to build a healthy immune system while they are young and physically able to handle the ravages of such bacteria and virus.
But that doesn't prove your point.
Subjecting a child's body to alcohol, nicotine, polio, etc is provably detrimental to their physical health. To say that there are no mental or emotional equivilants to these compounds is to dismiss decades and centuries of behavioral studies and observation.
"The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act." -Orison Swett Marden
While you and I may disagree on what specific emotional and intellectual activites are worth restricting to adults I suspect you may agree that there are such limits you wouldn't want your children to pass. I could come up with a million hypotheticals, and many (many!) actual examples - but I'm sure you are equally imaginative.
-Adam
Actually I doubt this will make much of a difference at all.
Even if they are always around to protect their kids parents still demand that 'public' places be free of anything that could harm their children. The internet is often seen as a public place. Unless the 'magazine racks' are covered and the 'bars' are closed to anyone under a certian age they will feel that the government should step in an ensure that these steps are taken. This doesn't even touch problems with identity, stalking, etc.
This is not a terrible thing. It is a new responsibility that parents have had to adjust to in the last decade. Any reasonable step that can be enacted with little cost that does not prevent another's right to use the internet should be enacted.
The 'internet' is still in a state of tremendous change. There is no way that a reasonable response can be created that will stand the test of time. Any response now will fall far short of the ideal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though. As we develop new techniques to match the internet's development we'll learn valuable lessens.
It's not much different than spam. Techniques come, are honed, changed, and then go. We all expect (and know) that eventually the tide will turn and spam will be managed effectively. Similarily, we all know and expect that certian regulations will be set in place that will make it difficult for minors to open themselves to crimes of opportunity or exposure to things which the law currently says should be restricted to adults (or to minors only under adult supervision).
This article is good for the tech savvy parent, but it certianly will not affect the majority opinion.
-Adam
"Virus tested on router on satellite in space"
-Adam
All I've seen is a message NAC posted to a message board and very little else. Chances are NAC submitted it to Slashdot as well.
Unless there's a gag order (not mentioned, and if there was they probably couldn't publicize it as much as they have) there's no reason not to link to the actual court order and other details.
For all we know someone set us up the bomb by giving very specific, but obviously lacking breadth, information and letting us come to the obvious conclusion.
This is basic marketting (astroturfing) to try and get the outcome changed by technical people (who think they know what's going on) who the court might listen to.
It's in our best interest to completely vet out the case before running off half cocked. I wish I knew enough to find the TRO or the customer's side of the story.
The facts seem clear enough, but the presentation is muddy at best.
-Adam
If your product isn't selling like it used to you need to make certian everyone buys it for the price they are willing to pay, rather than setting a fixed price and letting everyone who can afford it buy it.
For instance:
Take product X at $200
Remove 'enterprise', 'professional', and 'commercial' features. Sell as cheap hobbyist or student edition.
Remove 'enterprise' and 'professional' features. Sell as low end (shareware, small developer) edition.
Remove 'enterprise' features. Sell as high end developer edition.
Sell original software at 2-3x the original cost.
By taking the original product, splitting it further than it already was and spreading the price curve they reach more smaller buyers while milking the bigger buyers for more since they are willing to pay it.
It does give good PR (apparantly - it got on slashdot and many seem to think this is a 'good thing') It further gives cheaper tools for home hobbyists. Lastly, it removes some of the incentive for pirate software - if the average user can buy and download a fully supported working version for $50 and an hour of time they may be more likely to do so than searching, installing, troubleshooting, and wondering if the errors they keep getting are their fault or the fault of the pirated software.
But in the end it's simply an old method to extract maximum cash from a larger target audience, while encouraging current users to upgrade.
-Adam
I remember when lawsuits were settled with money, not monopoly propogation.
I doubt it. Pithy comments are all well and good, but I'd like you to point out one such case against a monopolist that you remember where money (and nothing else) was paid in restitution.
Perhaps I just missed the "I'm pretending I'm an old timer" or "sarcasm" tag...?
-Adam
Shopkeeper: You've got a pet database?
Customer: Yes. I chose him out of thousands. I didn't like the others, they were all too flat.
Shopkeeper: You must be a looney.
-Adam
Fortunately they also announced these products to the development teams today.
In other news, starbucks stores around the Apple campus are open 24 hours a day over this summer...
-Adam
I could give him one or two.
PS: No, I won't actually be donating because I'm broke and cheap.
Typical response - "I'm more likely to donate to X than Y but I'm not donating to either because of Z"
You could be infinitely more likely to donate to one than the other and still have the same result if you didn't plan on donating to either in the first place.
It's always easier said than done, isn't it?
Not to pick on you personally, but it is disheartening to see this lack of action that is so common on message boards such as slashdot.
-Adam
Computer geeks has cheap megapixel digital cameras for under $100. Kreep an eye out - they had a refurbished 3.3MP (which I purchased and am happy with) a few weeks ago for under $60 - used compactflash too, which these days seems to be less common.
-Adam
It charges according to current, there is no configuration for pack size. You can charge a single cell, or you can charge many cells.
You'll find that the vast majority of chargers put batteries in series for charging anyway. You'll have a hard time finding a charger that has four single cell chargers - it'll have one charger and either parallel four batteries into two sets of two series, or put all four in series. Either situation doesn't provide a great charge.
The trickle charge at the end of the full charge should equalize the individual cells in series.
So put them in parallel, set the capacity limit to the least discharged battery (ie, if one is still 3/4 full then set the limit to charge up to 500mAH) and then let it trickle charge for another few hours.
Either way, there is no consumer charger out there which will charge each cell individually - it doesn't make economic sense to sell high qaulity chargers because in the end the consumer isn't willing to pay 2-3 times the cost of a similar cheap charger - especially when you consider that they are buying rechargeables to save money.
Buy a good intelligent charger if you want your cells to last. If you want to be really anal about it, charge each cell individually. You won't find a cheap charger that will do that for you.
If we are talking about different areas of battery technology then it's probably because you don't understand battery technology. I can see why you're asking slashdot for battery charger recomendations - you don't understand battery charging so you hope to purchase a device that will do all the work for you. But then you state you have all these 'special needs.' Until you understand how batteries and packs work and how charging works then you won't be able to determine what a good charger is, or how to correctly use one if you happened to buy the right one for your needs. We can't help you any more than you can because you haven't really defined your needs.
For this reason I suspect you'll be best served by a simple intelligent charger such as one sold by radio shack, sam's club, or batteries plus. You don't have to understand how the cells work, how charging works, or anything more difficult than plug-n-chug.
If you want the batteries to get a full charge, if you want them to be conditioned so you can use the full capacity, if you want them to last through hundreds of charges, if you want them to be well matched, if you want them to charge quickly, and if you want to charge them without observation and not worry about leaving them on for 'too long' - learn more about how an intelligent charger works, and then buy a good intelligent charger. Those higher end models made for radio controlled cars are good for this because they follow one of the 'ideal' charging algorithm and are fairly configurable and feature complete.
But that's kind of like setting up a Linux firewall when what you really want is to buy a linksys router with built in sort of decent firewall. In the end you need to decide whether your time and energy in going over the learning curve is worth the benefit. If you aren't going to learn, then you'll not only find the linux solution more confusing, you also risk doing it wrong and making the situation worse than it is.
-Adam
Sweet. I'll be there sometime today - show it off to my toddlers. Something I've wanted to get into for a long time, but I already have too many 'hobbies'.
-Adam
Buy another antenna, but this time it should be omnidirectional. The yagi is already positioned, so just attach the omni to the other end of the cable.
Tada! Instant passive repeater. Now you can keep the phone with you and wireless. The signal strength won't be as good as a direct connection to the yagi, but it should still work well.
-Adam
I got a very nice intelligent charger from my local hobby shop. It'll do ni-cd and nimh, and has 10 user defined programs. I got it for speedy charging of bicycle headlight battery packs for a 24 hour race and a full-duplex wireless intercom system, but it works great for any pack up to 8 cells.
It stops on delta v or capacity - you program in that your packs are 2AH and it'll stop after delivering that much capacity if delta v doesn't stop it first. You can program the charging current and the delta v trigger. After the charge it complete it'll perform a trickle charge as long as the cells are connected so you know they won't self discharge and you don't have to worry about leaving them on for too long.
And it has reverse polarity and short circuit detection and protection.
I've been very pleased with it. It was about $50, though, but for such a useful charger it was well work it. You can certianly find less expensive models that will automatically charge the cells you have. I like the configurability, but I have lots of different packs in lots of different configurations.
-Adam
You can't smell CO2, which is why it's so deadly in concentration. CO is a poison - it's not just the lack of oxygen that will kill you.
Of course, pretty soon every laptop will also contain a micro-bonsai tree to cleanse the CO2.
And my micro bonsai will be overclocked.
-Adam
I assume these things are perfectly safe to use?
Perfectly safe? Sorry bubble boy, but even a padded chamber isn't perfectly safe.
These are reasonably safe, though. For any oxygen combustable fuel to flame you need the fuel in a gaseous or vaporized form within a sufficiently (but not too high) oxygen rich environment.
The small amount of fuel that's in this device would have to turn to gas and flame in the air. You wouldn't be able to fit enough air inside the canister and enable the methanol to turn to gas to cause an explosion. However the space is small enough that it isn't feasable until the canister is empty (only vapor remains). Even then oxygen isn't allowed in the canister. Even then they have overpressure vents which would, at most, cause this device to "vent with flame," as most manufacturers claim LI-ION device may due in the worst cases.
So - reasonably safe yes, perfectly safe, no. Safe enough to prevent multi-mullion dollar liability suits? You bet.
It's all about the bottom line.... Heh, heh, heh.
-Adam
"Sure, we can fix your satellite for ya, eh, but it'll cost ya two cases and season box seats for hockey."
-Adam
My father did this with my help. Use a 6x6 piece of lumber (about 2 feet long) and round it (he used a jig and a table saw). Then pound two stakes into it so you can stake it to the ground when needed.
Take a self propelled motor. Attach a stiff rod to one side of the deck so that it extends past the front about 2-3 feet. Tie a rope to the rear of the mower and then to the front of this rod with some slack in the middle.
Experimentally determine a good spot along that rope to attach another rope such that when you are holding it the mower tends to turn slightly towards you. Attach that rope to the (now staked) 6x6 post in the middle of the yard. Start mower, defeat the dead man's switch (usually a bar you have to hold to keep the mower going) and let it go.
Tricky problem (left as an exercise for the reader): The rope tends to self wind up past the top of the post. Especially when mowing large tracts of land.
And yes, the neighbor kids did make fun of me at school. Saved me from mowing an extra acre though, so I didn't much care what they said.
-Adam
I have the article. Somewhere...
They used two spinning plates with tiny hinged blades on the edge (three blades per plate) so they would swing back if hitting somwthing hard instead of robbing the motor of power (also the plates acted as flywheels).
It used one or two lead acid batteries and had a drive motor and a cutting motor. It used the rake leds to determine if it was still on the cutting line - it would try and keep one side of the LEDs clear, and the other side blocked by grass. I believe the author guided it with a remote to go around the perimeter and any obstacles at first, then let it do its thing.
It could only handle a tiny amount of grass, though, so you'd have it cut daily when the grass was growing fast.
It would probably be easier now to use some location algorithms.
-Adam
Ok, so let's do this:
We've got the Kaminsky protocol connected to the
DNS protocol
the DNS protocol's connected to the
UDP protocol
The UDP protocol's connected to the
IP protocol
Oh hear the word of the inefficient!
The second verse is left as an exercise for the reader. Please keep in mind that writing another verse is somewhat more productive than implementing the aforementioned Kaminsky protocol.
-Adam
XADS is developing two longer-ranged systems, one of which will have a range of 20 feet and the other 50 feet. The 20-foot range system will be able to be towed by a car and set up for mobile operations.
If you think 20 feet is long range, then the first prototype is likely to be about 10 feet or so, or has extremely limited power/time. It likely doesn't carry its own power supply.
But that doesn't mean the technology isn't viable, it just means that it needs a ton of development work and will probably be very limited in its capabilities.
Rubber bullets, tear gas, fire hoses, etc will probably still have a broader applicability to most situations. Either that or the other alternative weapons such as the sonic or light weapons that cause dizziness and nausea.
Power is always an issue, though. Anything that doesn't focus its power on a spot the size of a dime at 300 feet is, due the the laws of physics, going to require immense amounts of power - not hand carryable. Possibly backpack for short sessions.
-Adam
If the University cannot find anything wrong with his work for his graduate program and doctorate research, then I don't believe they should take away something he earned.
I suspect the university is simply grandstanding. "We are ethically pure, so much so that we rescind doctorates from people who later on turn to the dark side."
On the other hand, it probably feels good to pull the rug out from under this guy.
-Adam