I know that some mobile phones have polarized filters on the display glass to improve outdoor viewing. So if you're going to be outside with polarized sunglasses, double check that they don't mess up your carefully selected display.
Otherwise you might see a very dim or black display.
When I was graduating with my computer engineering degree, I considered getting the EIT certification. But the lack of focus on software in the exam suggested to me that it didn't mean anything for companies looking for computer or software engineers. And I was correct.
This was awhile ago, so the EIT exam may have added some software/digital focus since then.
Astronaut explodes in routine MRI scan--film at 11
on
Lunar Dustbusters
·
· Score: 1
Magnetic dust?
So putting someone with heavy lung contamination into an MRI machine will result in a perforated astronaut?
ObMovieReference: Just like what Magneto did to that security guard in X2?
It's been speculated that the universe will reach it's low energy state after 10^1000 years.
I've heard the layman's description that quantum physics suggests that some really remarkable things can happen (my hand passing through a wall), but that the probability of that happening is infinitesmally small.
Maybe I'm mixing my theories, but if the universe reaches heat death and just coasts effectively forever, then wouldn't the probability of a new universe being created be 1? Highly unlikely, but given enough time, anything can happen...
Robert Zubrin in The Case for Mars feels that launching from a lunar base or an orbital hab would just add unnecessary complexity to the mission plan.
If NASA uses the lunar base as the launch site, then we're wasting fuel by putting the vehicle in the Moons gravity well. Granted it's 1/6th the Earth's gravity, but why bother? Since we're not capable of nuclear fusion (less a lightweight fusion reactor, much less nuclear fusion using He3), we're not exactly using the Moon as a refueling stop. There might be ice at the poles, but we're ignoring the exploration, mining, and processing of the ice for fuel. These are non-trivial.
But the article seems to gloss over some serious issues with orbital habitats. To call them "beachheads" is stretching it. If NASA uses the orbital hab as the launch site, then we're adding more weight to the vehicle (either fuel to rendezvous with the station or equipment for docking with it). To keep it sustainable as a habitable depot, there will have to be constant resupply launches to the habitat.
Seems like we're trading terrestrial infrastructure for orbital infrastructure. Instead of a heavy launch vehicle, we'll be making an orbital colony. Instead of assembling the Mars vehicle on Earth, we'll be doing it in space. Instead of one (or a few) very large launches, we'll be making many smaller ones.
It's not just direct sunlight...To rely on solar panels requires you to either:
1) Bring them with you or 2) Make them there
The weight of the solar panels needed to generate sufficient power to maintain a base has to compare with the weight of an equivalently powerful nuclear reactor. Add the attenuation by distance and atmosphere on Mars and a nuclear reactor is likely the most energy-dense form of power for any base of significant size.
Looking at the various fantasy-related MMORPG breaks down party roles into clearly defined responsibilities: tank, healer, DPS. Some variation between different games is inevitable (pets, hybrids), but they appear to rarely break away from these primary roles because they're well established. Does easy = mass market?
When you get some SciFi MMORPGs, they tend to have more open-ended class roles resulting in alot of hybrid classes or their roles are defined but not as clear as a D&D meme that's been around for 30 years.
Here's a pop quiz:
Guess the best tank in Guild Wars--warrior, necromancer, monk, or mesmer? Which one is the best healer?
Guess the best tank in City of Heroes--Blaster, Brute, Defender, or Tanker? Which one is the best healer?
Guess the best tank in Anarchy Online--enforcer, soldier, doctor, or agent? Which one is the best healer?
Guess the best tank in Matrix Online--soldier, patcher, code shaper, or programmer? Which one is the best healer?
Now, folks will say "well this is a complicated answer" and "you can add modules slots to make any Eve ship a better healer". But a game's complexity is usually something to be overcome for mass market acceptance unless there's a built in audience that can understand the concepts (e.g. Star Wars or Tolkein fans).
Actually, the attractive thing about deuterium+helium-3 (D+He3) fusion reactions are that they emit no neutrons. Instead, the reaction produces a helium 4 isotope and a charged proton.
Some suggest that this could reduce the need for massive radiation shielding from neutron bombardment. Since a neutron has no charge, it will pass through matter until it slams into an atomic nucleus likely creating a radioactive isotope.
While ideal D+He3 fusion reactions are "aneutronic", the reality is that D+He3 fusion reactors will still require radiation shielding. Perhaps less than more common deuterium + tritium (D+T) reactions, but some nonetheless.
Oh, and D+He3 fusion reactors won't necessarily bypass tritium. D+He3 reactions require almost 5 times the energy to get started than your traditional D+T fusion reaction. Since a D+He3 reactor will need to be considerably hotter to start the fusion reaction, this will result in pollution D+D reactions before the D+He3 reactions begin. While 50% of the D+D reactions create He3 and a neutron, the other 50% produce _tritum_ which spawn more pollution D+T reactions which release more neutrons. It's these pollution reactions that will necessitate the radiation shielding.
But goto any of the European carrier's websites. Vodafone sells a locked Nokia 8800 phone for 280GBP ($490US). T-mobile sells a locked PDA phone (the MDA III) for $350Euro ($420US).
It's not exactly the best open market, but goto the UK version of ebay and do a completed item search for "mobile unlocked" and then sort by descending price. You'll see unlocked high-end phones like the Sony Ericsson P910i, the Nokia 8800, and even something as mundane as the Motorola RAZR V3 selling with a reasonably high number of bids for over 350GBP (over $600US).
_That_ is why we don't get some of the high-end phones and other countries do. More than a small number are actually willing to pay significant money for them. You'll never find a US carrier waste their time with the marketing, training, and inventory on a complicated, difficult-to-service phone that few will buy. Your shock is Exhibit #1 for the jury.
And no, I wasn't suggesting that we should pay higher for gasoline. I'm saying that the parent poster's concerns about a "phone/console gap" (with apologies to Dwight Eisenhower) are about as relevant as concerns about a "gasoline gap" or an "SUV gap". We're totally different markets with different priorities. Just as we might consider a mobile phone over $500US as excessive or wasteful, a European might shake his head over a soccer mom buying a Hummer to transport her kids to school.
Oh please. The reason we're being treated as a third world country in tech is because the majority of folks in the US won't buy anything until it's at third world prices...
Do you shop at Walmart, Target, Old Navy? Do you scour fatwallet or slickdeals? Do you shop for the cheapest broadband service? Well, why then would a manufacturer waste storeshelf space on really expensive stuff when you only buy cheap crap?
Showing prices after mailin rebates work in the US for a reason...because most people focus on price. Price at any cost. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the majority of Americans, yes. Remember, this is the home of the Big Gulp and Costco. Where more=cheaper=better.
So if you're one of the rare Americans that buy high-quality stuff at high prices, then you shouldn't care that Verizon or Cingular doesn't offer some high-end phones. Go and buy your Bang and Olfsen CD case. Nor should you care that some Japanese import game isn't available in the US. You just buy them from some of the many numerous online vendors that sell them. And you buy your phone without the subsidy lock or your import PS2 without the discounts that come with volume. But since you don't care about price, you'll pay that right?
Until the market starts buying expensive phones (which the manufacturers would love to sell, by the way), the carriers won't waste the effort trying to sell them. When you see regular Americans (not early adopters) routinely pay $400 for a phone, carriers will be happy to offer that model.
You want to know where we beat virtually everyone else in the modern world? Gasoline prices (no taxes), SUV choices (cheap gas), home square footage (suburb living), grain production (subsidized farming). Folks paying $10/gallon find it annoying we complain so loudly about $3/gallon.
Do you really feel that bad that your fellow Americans don't have the option to buy some phone that you like? Or are you really upset that the majority of Americans don't feel as passionate about tech as you do and so you can't get a discount on your niche-market phone?
This reminded me of the April 11, 2004 NYTimes magazine article about DDT and its (lack of) use in Malaria-ridden, developing countries.
According to the article, there are some unintended effects to the West's ban on DDT. By banning DDT (notably after malaria was eradicated in their own territories), the West has forced other countries from using DDT.
For example, Zimbabwean tobacco has been blocked from export into the U.S. because of DDT traces on the tobacco. This tends to cause the Zimbabwe's tobacco farmers (a powerful group in the country) to become an anti-DDT lobby.
While there's no call to ban DDT outside of the West, the need to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy ("use this pesticide that we consider too dangerous") and the plan to "phase out" DDT use entirely (Stockholm Convention) makes it difficult for anyone to argue or justify funding for anything related to DDT.
Some international research agencies will simply not fund any studies related to DDT and malaria control. Who wants to be on the hot seat for spraying cancer?
While insecticide-treated bed nets and house spraying is effective, its apparently cheaper to use DDT (the article uses a $1.70 per person per year figure).
The article also mentions that Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" pretty much brought about the modern environmental movement so debates about DDT get rather polarized. Liberals consider DDT the poster child of runaway technologists ("we can control nature") while conservatives consider the DDT ban a win by Luddites using emotion over science.
What's missing in the article are any questions to the people actually suffering from malaria. The questions were too focused on the hospital manager or the international aid organizer. I wish the journalist would have asked folks suffering from malaria how they would have chose in this Faustian bargain: higher malaria deaths (which kills mostly children under 5) or increased chances of cancer later in life?
Re:Efficient,reliable,cheap - chose any 2 :-)
on
NASA's Shuttle Plans
·
· Score: 1
This implementation trades off on a bit of efficiency.
Instead of using the same module for crew and cargo (the shuttle), there will be two totally separate launch vehicles. In both cases, the only thing that would be reusable is the solid rocket boosters (unless the crew capsule is also reusable). Is it a surprise that ATK Thiokol is the contractor for the SRBs' motors?
In the initial cargo implementations, they'd still have problems with foam debris, but that's a problem only if the cargo module is designed to safely reenter. The final cargo proposal would end up using an external tank with two shuttle engines mated to the bottom, and I doubt the current ET is designed to deal with that kind of stress. So the final cargo design will require some significant redesign by Lockheed Martin.
I'm not entirely certain the reusability of the SRBs save that much money since they have to be closely inspected and recertified between uses. But they are the most powerful in existence--each providing 3.3 mil lb of thrust. Why not reuse the design?
I did find the FAQ on their website a bit disingenuous:
"In the case of Challenger, the SRB did not suffer a catastrophic failure, but the leaking hot gas interacted with the rest of the vehicle, which resulted in the loss of Challenger and her crew."
Not exactly system-level thinking. Certainly the same "leaking hot gas" would have resulted in loss of cargo in their new proposal, but whether it would have caused loss of crew in their CEV is unknown.
The IFP-700 series of players from iRiver can also be used with an waterproof case rated to 10ft. Good enough for doing watersports with it.
The only problem is that it's a tad expensive (about $80) but it is one of the few options for waterproof mp3 players and the only one that allows an FM radio and OGG.
I haven't tried it, but I'm seriously considering it for doing laps. Especially since the 128Mb IFP-780 is $50 after rebate at Staples until the end of the month.
A few weeks ago, Cringely speculated the following:
"I think this episode with Wiley and Apple's earlier legal attacks on people who it accused of leaking product information are part of a campaign to look tough to movie studios and record companies. As I've surmised before, Apple is trying to put together a high definition movie download service that requires content from all the major movie studios. If Steve looks soft on IP theft or unwilling to flex his corporate legal muscles, the studios may think he won't adequately protect their corporate jewels."
Therefore, if this is something that the RIAA doesn't want, Apple may have to close this to pursue their goal of global video domination.
Hmm, you'd think Hormel would be just as aggressive in spiking any mention of this urban legend.
Perhaps they would find it distasteful to say "No--it doesn't taste like human, it tastes like the delicious pig lips and anus that it has always been."
Some of the newer HDTV rear-projection technologies could probably adapt to support this relatively easily. Generally, a color wheel containing red, green, and blue filters spins in front of a lamp aimed at a piece of silicon.
Depending on the technology (small mirrors or liquid crystal), the silicon switches pixels on or off when the color is aimed at it. Intensity of the color is handled by cycling the pixel on or off (only possible at semiconductor speeds). Light is reflected from the small mirror or substrate underneath the liquid crystal pixel and shines on the screen. The combination of the RGB colors together at high speed creates the image.
To add 1-3 colors to the color wheel and add support for that color to the silicon should not be too much of a technology hurdle. All you need is a faster color wheel and faster switching silicon to handle the additional colors without slowing the refresh rate.
No doubt Office Depot and HP are doing this to save money now before recycling becomes more expensive in the future.
I have a considerable amount of broken computer and electronic equipment, but leaving it on the curb for someone to pickup and discard in a landfill runs counter to my goal of eliminating the waste. But Office Depot's legitimate recycling program could ultimately end up polluting some river in China or India with lead, cadmium, etc.
Note that the US is not one of the signatories to the 1989 Basel Convention which establishes guidelines on the export of hazardous waste. Therefore, the US can export hazardous electronic waste to other countries for recycling. While countries which sign the Basel Convention (including China and India) are not permitted to accept hazardous waste from non-signatories, it's a profitable business. Brokers from South and East Asia will happily "recycle" shipfuls of dead monitors at rates cheaper than the estimated $25 per unit.
The problem is that the recycling procedures in China and India pollute more than merely dumping the material in a landfill. This article notes the common procedure of burning piles of wires to collect the metal--releasing dioxins and covering the city in toxic ash.
So forgive me for wondering if "free" means that the cadmium from my cordless telephone or the lead from my dead 27" TV is going to end up eventually in the South China Sea and my tuna fish sandwich.
It appears that Spotcode supports only 42 bits. Obviously, this is to accomodate the low processing power and camera quality of most camera phones on the market. At only 42 bits, the spotcode can't support any meaningful alphanumeric. But as a numeric value, there are enough unique patterns (over 4 trillion) to support almost 700 spotcodes for every human on the planet.
But with cameras and processing power on cell phones getting more sophisticated, other 2d barcode like QR Code or semacode will eventually outpace this technology with their considerably larger data capacity (up to as many as 4000 alphanumeric characters). In fact, semacode is already demonstrated on Series 60 implementations.
The submitter points to an application that uses spotcodes for remote control. In that implmentation, the spotcode translates to a number which the program then uses to send an instruction over Bluetooth.
However, those wishing to skip the tedium of entering URLs from the keypad using Spotcodes should note that BangoSpot (using the Spotcode technology) almost certainly uses a middleware server which performs a Spotcode number-to-URL lookup. So someone will know that you're using the Spotcodes. It's sort of like the CueCat but the implementation _requires_ them to know what you're looking up in order to provide a WAP URL.
It's an interesting approach, but I wonder how fast cellular carriers can adopt Spotcode-to-URL servers in their network before phone technology ends up leapfrogging and reading and entering sophisticated 2d barcode data directly into a phone browser.
While I am impressed with the research, the problem is not really a technical one.
Sure, the devices will be effective with large containers of standing water like lakes and ponds. But most sources of stagnant water come from garbage, old tires, and even plants.
As the tire is the best man-made nursery for mosquito larvae with its stagnant water and ample shade, simply throwing away used tires correctly will do more to eliminate the mosquito threat than these devices. In fact, the Asian Tiger mosquito is suspected to have arrived in the US on a shipment of used tires from Asia in 1985.
Since it appears that the devices require submersion to be effective, it's unlikely to be practical against most mosquito breeding vectors.
Slashdot Mirror
Otherwise you might see a very dim or black display.
In the end, their online notoriety may be more damaging and follow them longer than any punishment from the school system.
When I was graduating with my computer engineering degree, I considered getting the EIT certification. But the lack of focus on software in the exam suggested to me that it didn't mean anything for companies looking for computer or software engineers. And I was correct.
This was awhile ago, so the EIT exam may have added some software/digital focus since then.
Magnetic dust?
So putting someone with heavy lung contamination into an MRI machine will result in a perforated astronaut?
ObMovieReference: Just like what Magneto did to that security guard in X2?
It's been speculated that the universe will reach it's low energy state after 10^1000 years.
I've heard the layman's description that quantum physics suggests that some really remarkable things can happen (my hand passing through a wall), but that the probability of that happening is infinitesmally small.
Maybe I'm mixing my theories, but if the universe reaches heat death and just coasts effectively forever, then wouldn't the probability of a new universe being created be 1? Highly unlikely, but given enough time, anything can happen...
Robert Zubrin in The Case for Mars feels that launching from a lunar base or an orbital hab would just add unnecessary complexity to the mission plan.
If NASA uses the lunar base as the launch site, then we're wasting fuel by putting the vehicle in the Moons gravity well. Granted it's 1/6th the Earth's gravity, but why bother? Since we're not capable of nuclear fusion (less a lightweight fusion reactor, much less nuclear fusion using He3), we're not exactly using the Moon as a refueling stop. There might be ice at the poles, but we're ignoring the exploration, mining, and processing of the ice for fuel. These are non-trivial.
But the article seems to gloss over some serious issues with orbital habitats. To call them "beachheads" is stretching it. If NASA uses the orbital hab as the launch site, then we're adding more weight to the vehicle (either fuel to rendezvous with the station or equipment for docking with it). To keep it sustainable as a habitable depot, there will have to be constant resupply launches to the habitat.
Seems like we're trading terrestrial infrastructure for orbital infrastructure. Instead of a heavy launch vehicle, we'll be making an orbital colony. Instead of assembling the Mars vehicle on Earth, we'll be doing it in space. Instead of one (or a few) very large launches, we'll be making many smaller ones.
It's not just direct sunlight...To rely on solar panels requires you to either:
1) Bring them with you
or
2) Make them there
The weight of the solar panels needed to generate sufficient power to maintain a base has to compare with the weight of an equivalently powerful nuclear reactor. Add the attenuation by distance and atmosphere on Mars and a nuclear reactor is likely the most energy-dense form of power for any base of significant size.
Looking at the various fantasy-related MMORPG breaks down party roles into clearly defined responsibilities: tank, healer, DPS. Some variation between different games is inevitable (pets, hybrids), but they appear to rarely break away from these primary roles because they're well established. Does easy = mass market? When you get some SciFi MMORPGs, they tend to have more open-ended class roles resulting in alot of hybrid classes or their roles are defined but not as clear as a D&D meme that's been around for 30 years. Here's a pop quiz: Guess the best tank in Guild Wars--warrior, necromancer, monk, or mesmer? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in City of Heroes--Blaster, Brute, Defender, or Tanker? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in Anarchy Online--enforcer, soldier, doctor, or agent? Which one is the best healer? Guess the best tank in Matrix Online--soldier, patcher, code shaper, or programmer? Which one is the best healer? Now, folks will say "well this is a complicated answer" and "you can add modules slots to make any Eve ship a better healer". But a game's complexity is usually something to be overcome for mass market acceptance unless there's a built in audience that can understand the concepts (e.g. Star Wars or Tolkein fans).
I presume he has the "I'm So Ronery" song from the Team America: World Police soundtrack in his playlist.
Actually, the attractive thing about deuterium+helium-3 (D+He3) fusion reactions are that they emit no neutrons. Instead, the reaction produces a helium 4 isotope and a charged proton.
Some suggest that this could reduce the need for massive radiation shielding from neutron bombardment. Since a neutron has no charge, it will pass through matter until it slams into an atomic nucleus likely creating a radioactive isotope.
While ideal D+He3 fusion reactions are "aneutronic", the reality is that D+He3 fusion reactors will still require radiation shielding. Perhaps less than more common deuterium + tritium (D+T) reactions, but some nonetheless.
Oh, and D+He3 fusion reactors won't necessarily bypass tritium. D+He3 reactions require almost 5 times the energy to get started than your traditional D+T fusion reaction. Since a D+He3 reactor will need to be considerably hotter to start the fusion reaction, this will result in pollution D+D reactions before the D+He3 reactions begin. While 50% of the D+D reactions create He3 and a neutron, the other 50% produce _tritum_ which spawn more pollution D+T reactions which release more neutrons. It's these pollution reactions that will necessitate the radiation shielding.
But goto any of the European carrier's websites. Vodafone sells a locked Nokia 8800 phone for 280GBP ($490US). T-mobile sells a locked PDA phone (the MDA III) for $350Euro ($420US).
It's not exactly the best open market, but goto the UK version of ebay and do a completed item search for "mobile unlocked" and then sort by descending price. You'll see unlocked high-end phones like the Sony Ericsson P910i, the Nokia 8800, and even something as mundane as the Motorola RAZR V3 selling with a reasonably high number of bids for over 350GBP (over $600US).
_That_ is why we don't get some of the high-end phones and other countries do. More than a small number are actually willing to pay significant money for them. You'll never find a US carrier waste their time with the marketing, training, and inventory on a complicated, difficult-to-service phone that few will buy. Your shock is Exhibit #1 for the jury.
And no, I wasn't suggesting that we should pay higher for gasoline. I'm saying that the parent poster's concerns about a "phone/console gap" (with apologies to Dwight Eisenhower) are about as relevant as concerns about a "gasoline gap" or an "SUV gap". We're totally different markets with different priorities. Just as we might consider a mobile phone over $500US as excessive or wasteful, a European might shake his head over a soccer mom buying a Hummer to transport her kids to school.
Do you shop at Walmart, Target, Old Navy? Do you scour fatwallet or slickdeals? Do you shop for the cheapest broadband service? Well, why then would a manufacturer waste storeshelf space on really expensive stuff when you only buy cheap crap?
Showing prices after mailin rebates work in the US for a reason...because most people focus on price. Price at any cost. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the majority of Americans, yes. Remember, this is the home of the Big Gulp and Costco. Where more=cheaper=better.
So if you're one of the rare Americans that buy high-quality stuff at high prices, then you shouldn't care that Verizon or Cingular doesn't offer some high-end phones. Go and buy your Bang and Olfsen CD case. Nor should you care that some Japanese import game isn't available in the US. You just buy them from some of the many numerous online vendors that sell them. And you buy your phone without the subsidy lock or your import PS2 without the discounts that come with volume. But since you don't care about price, you'll pay that right?
Until the market starts buying expensive phones (which the manufacturers would love to sell, by the way), the carriers won't waste the effort trying to sell them. When you see regular Americans (not early adopters) routinely pay $400 for a phone, carriers will be happy to offer that model.
You want to know where we beat virtually everyone else in the modern world? Gasoline prices (no taxes), SUV choices (cheap gas), home square footage (suburb living), grain production (subsidized farming). Folks paying $10/gallon find it annoying we complain so loudly about $3/gallon.
Do you really feel that bad that your fellow Americans don't have the option to buy some phone that you like? Or are you really upset that the majority of Americans don't feel as passionate about tech as you do and so you can't get a discount on your niche-market phone?
Welcome to slashdot.
According to the article, there are some unintended effects to the West's ban on DDT. By banning DDT (notably after malaria was eradicated in their own territories), the West has forced other countries from using DDT.
For example, Zimbabwean tobacco has been blocked from export into the U.S. because of DDT traces on the tobacco. This tends to cause the Zimbabwe's tobacco farmers (a powerful group in the country) to become an anti-DDT lobby.
While there's no call to ban DDT outside of the West, the need to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy ("use this pesticide that we consider too dangerous") and the plan to "phase out" DDT use entirely (Stockholm Convention) makes it difficult for anyone to argue or justify funding for anything related to DDT.
Some international research agencies will simply not fund any studies related to DDT and malaria control. Who wants to be on the hot seat for spraying cancer?
While insecticide-treated bed nets and house spraying is effective, its apparently cheaper to use DDT (the article uses a $1.70 per person per year figure).
The article also mentions that Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" pretty much brought about the modern environmental movement so debates about DDT get rather polarized. Liberals consider DDT the poster child of runaway technologists ("we can control nature") while conservatives consider the DDT ban a win by Luddites using emotion over science.
What's missing in the article are any questions to the people actually suffering from malaria. The questions were too focused on the hospital manager or the international aid organizer. I wish the journalist would have asked folks suffering from malaria how they would have chose in this Faustian bargain: higher malaria deaths (which kills mostly children under 5) or increased chances of cancer later in life?
Instead of using the same module for crew and cargo (the shuttle), there will be two totally separate launch vehicles. In both cases, the only thing that would be reusable is the solid rocket boosters (unless the crew capsule is also reusable). Is it a surprise that ATK Thiokol is the contractor for the SRBs' motors?
In the initial cargo implementations, they'd still have problems with foam debris, but that's a problem only if the cargo module is designed to safely reenter. The final cargo proposal would end up using an external tank with two shuttle engines mated to the bottom, and I doubt the current ET is designed to deal with that kind of stress. So the final cargo design will require some significant redesign by Lockheed Martin.
I'm not entirely certain the reusability of the SRBs save that much money since they have to be closely inspected and recertified between uses. But they are the most powerful in existence--each providing 3.3 mil lb of thrust. Why not reuse the design?
I did find the FAQ on their website a bit disingenuous:
"In the case of Challenger, the SRB did not suffer a catastrophic failure, but the leaking hot gas interacted with the rest of the vehicle, which resulted in the loss of Challenger and her crew."
Not exactly system-level thinking. Certainly the same "leaking hot gas" would have resulted in loss of cargo in their new proposal, but whether it would have caused loss of crew in their CEV is unknown.
The only problem is that it's a tad expensive (about $80) but it is one of the few options for waterproof mp3 players and the only one that allows an FM radio and OGG.
I haven't tried it, but I'm seriously considering it for doing laps. Especially since the 128Mb IFP-780 is $50 after rebate at Staples until the end of the month.
2. ???? -> Take away WiFi
3. Profit!
A few weeks ago, Cringely speculated the following:
"I think this episode with Wiley and Apple's earlier legal attacks on people who it accused of leaking product information are part of a campaign to look tough to movie studios and record companies. As I've surmised before, Apple is trying to put together a high definition movie download service that requires content from all the major movie studios. If Steve looks soft on IP theft or unwilling to flex his corporate legal muscles, the studios may think he won't adequately protect their corporate jewels."
Therefore, if this is something that the RIAA doesn't want, Apple may have to close this to pursue their goal of global video domination.
Brian: Hola! Um...me, me llamo es Brian. Ahh, uh, um lets see, uh, nosotros queremos ir con ustedes.
Mexican: Hey that was pretty good. But actually when you said, "Me llamo es Brian," you don't need the "es." Just, "Me llamo Brian."
Brian: Oh, you speak English.
Mexican: No just that first speech and this one explaining it.
Brian: You...you're kidding right?
Mexican: Que?
Perhaps they would find it distasteful to say "No--it doesn't taste like human, it tastes like the delicious pig lips and anus that it has always been."
Hmm, a language without "I" or "no". Sounds like Japanese to me...
Depending on the technology (small mirrors or liquid crystal), the silicon switches pixels on or off when the color is aimed at it. Intensity of the color is handled by cycling the pixel on or off (only possible at semiconductor speeds). Light is reflected from the small mirror or substrate underneath the liquid crystal pixel and shines on the screen. The combination of the RGB colors together at high speed creates the image.
To add 1-3 colors to the color wheel and add support for that color to the silicon should not be too much of a technology hurdle. All you need is a faster color wheel and faster switching silicon to handle the additional colors without slowing the refresh rate.
I have a considerable amount of broken computer and electronic equipment, but leaving it on the curb for someone to pickup and discard in a landfill runs counter to my goal of eliminating the waste. But Office Depot's legitimate recycling program could ultimately end up polluting some river in China or India with lead, cadmium, etc.
Note that the US is not one of the signatories to the 1989 Basel Convention which establishes guidelines on the export of hazardous waste. Therefore, the US can export hazardous electronic waste to other countries for recycling. While countries which sign the Basel Convention (including China and India) are not permitted to accept hazardous waste from non-signatories, it's a profitable business. Brokers from South and East Asia will happily "recycle" shipfuls of dead monitors at rates cheaper than the estimated $25 per unit.
The problem is that the recycling procedures in China and India pollute more than merely dumping the material in a landfill. This article notes the common procedure of burning piles of wires to collect the metal--releasing dioxins and covering the city in toxic ash.
So forgive me for wondering if "free" means that the cadmium from my cordless telephone or the lead from my dead 27" TV is going to end up eventually in the South China Sea and my tuna fish sandwich.
But with cameras and processing power on cell phones getting more sophisticated, other 2d barcode like QR Code or semacode will eventually outpace this technology with their considerably larger data capacity (up to as many as 4000 alphanumeric characters). In fact, semacode is already demonstrated on Series 60 implementations.
The submitter points to an application that uses spotcodes for remote control. In that implmentation, the spotcode translates to a number which the program then uses to send an instruction over Bluetooth.
However, those wishing to skip the tedium of entering URLs from the keypad using Spotcodes should note that BangoSpot (using the Spotcode technology) almost certainly uses a middleware server which performs a Spotcode number-to-URL lookup. So someone will know that you're using the Spotcodes. It's sort of like the CueCat but the implementation _requires_ them to know what you're looking up in order to provide a WAP URL.
It's an interesting approach, but I wonder how fast cellular carriers can adopt Spotcode-to-URL servers in their network before phone technology ends up leapfrogging and reading and entering sophisticated 2d barcode data directly into a phone browser.
It has gotten so bad that I can't even watch pirated movies from China without cell phones ruining the recording.
Sure, the devices will be effective with large containers of standing water like lakes and ponds. But most sources of stagnant water come from garbage, old tires, and even plants.
As the tire is the best man-made nursery for mosquito larvae with its stagnant water and ample shade, simply throwing away used tires correctly will do more to eliminate the mosquito threat than these devices. In fact, the Asian Tiger mosquito is suspected to have arrived in the US on a shipment of used tires from Asia in 1985.
Since it appears that the devices require submersion to be effective, it's unlikely to be practical against most mosquito breeding vectors.