I guess I have a higher set of standards for what constitutes a robot. To me, a robot must be able to sense its environment and make decisions between alternatives, and not be merely some sort of clockwork style mechanism. A record player that sensed whether it had a 45, or LP, or any record at all loaded, and adjusted where to drop the tone arm, and what speed to spin the platter, I might class as a robot. But not your average, run of the mill, record player. A printer will, at least, stop printing when there is no paper, or will switch to an alternative paper source.
...you need a lot of batteries to keep a full packet rig running for two days.
I'm sure it would, but is that because it is digital, or because the circuitry was not designed for power economy? The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm sure that there are many examples of "straight" rigs that would drain a gel cell if left on for two days. The software rigs are still in their infancy. When the demand for long life comes around, the crack design teams will whip up the necessary hardware.
But power isn't the point. The point is this: can you have more software radios operating in a frequency band in a particular area, or more "straight" ones? I think you could get more software ones.
It would be fairly easy to reserve a bunch of emergency bands, just as is done now. Besides, one reason that cell nets and phones go down is that they both rely on physical wires. Once a wire breaks, it cannot carry a signal. Also, telcos tend to base equipment deployment based on probable usage models, not on "everyone at once" models. When everyone starts calling on a system that is designed for 40-60% peak usage, it is bound to fall over.
Software radios on the other hand would just seek out a clear frequency, squirt out a few bytes, and look for the next clear frequency. I would think that that would be more robust than everyone jumping onto channel 9 (or whatever) and getting into all sorts of crosstalk problems.
As far as power goes, why would you think that these things couldn't be powered by 12-volt gel cells?
You can actually drop quite a bit of packets before vocal communication becomes garbled. There was a demonstration at a local science centre about that. Vocal communication has a lot of built in error correction.
The Minnesota case involved a search warrant that was issued on Yahoo! in connection with a child pornography investigation. The warrant was faxed from Minnesota to Yahoo's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, where employees pulled up the requested information and sent it back to local prosecutors
So, apparently all you have to do is fax over a "warrant" and Yahoo will send you everything you ask for...
Of course, we all know that high tech spy computers have monitors that throw a readable image onto the user's face. You see it all the time in the movies. They're reconstructing the image by analyzing the glow bouncing off of your walls and face.
Windows has another meaining: A "window" is a piece of glass set into a wall to allow light to pass through. It can be used to look outside while remaining inside. Some windows can be opened to allow the exterior atmosphere into the interior. "She looked out the window and, seeing that it was a beautiful spring day, she opened it to get some fresh air."
Cool. I've always wanted a power ring of some sort. Now I can have one. Put a sensor on the monitor, and have a voice recognition system, and voila! a system you hold your ring to and say "By the power of Linux" to log in.
Perhaps I am not reading the descriptions of the ion pump process properly. I am not a molecular biochemist, after all, and some of the terminology is making my head spin. However, the descriptions I've read talk about the protonation and deprotonation of substructures of the protein, which sounds to me like the ion becomes part of protein. To my mind, this makes it a chemical process. (Actually, from what I've been able to piece together, the ions are passed from substructure to substructure within the protein like buckets in a bucket brigade.)
I think that the point of the article is that this is the first time we have built a photomechanical nanotech device, rather than isolating and utilizing something that mother nature had already put there.
I disagree. Chemistry is about how molecules bond together, how their electron shells intermingle, and how the constituent atoms behave. Physics is about how molecules bump each other about. It is entirely possible for two molecules to collide and rebound off of each other without either molecule changing form. There is no chemical interaction, but there is a physical interaction.
Granted much of it is the same thing, but some of it is not. What we're talking about is one molecule getting shorter, and dragging a chunk of silicon with it, as opposed to a protein which absorbs one H+ ion at one end, and ejects another (different) H+ ion out the other end.
Interesting article, but it seems to me like this is more of a photochemical process than a photomechanical one. Shine a light on the protein, and it absorbs a H+ ion. Remove the light, and an H+ ion comes out the other side.
Besides, I get the impression that this is a naturally occurring substance rather than an artificial mechanical construct.
So... No, I'm not going to count it. (He said confidently, ignoring the fact that he has no say in the matter in the first place.)
The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the ether was not detectable by the Michelson-Morley experiment.
That's a great line! I'll have to use it somewhere. "The failure of the X-detector to detect X shows that X is not detectable by the X-detector." I love it!
Or better yet visit the father of wearable computers at http://eyetap.org/mann/ (I think he's involved in our local linux group, but I'm not entirely sure.)
Yes, but a resistive load (such as an incandescent filament) does not care about the direction of current flow. In a single cycle, there is a current flow in the positive half cycle, and a current flow in the negative half cycle. In other words, there are two current flows per cycle, or 120 current flows per second. (or more important to our discussion, there are two points of no current flow per second, or 120 hz rate of no current flow.)
Slashdot Mirror
Who are these sickos that don't have their beer fridge within arms reach of the couch? A robot to get your beer. Sheesh! How lazy can you get?
I guess I have a higher set of standards for what constitutes a robot. To me, a robot must be able to sense its environment and make decisions between alternatives, and not be merely some sort of clockwork style mechanism. A record player that sensed whether it had a 45, or LP, or any record at all loaded, and adjusted where to drop the tone arm, and what speed to spin the platter, I might class as a robot. But not your average, run of the mill, record player. A printer will, at least, stop printing when there is no paper, or will switch to an alternative paper source.
I'm sure it would, but is that because it is digital, or because the circuitry was not designed for power economy? The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm sure that there are many examples of "straight" rigs that would drain a gel cell if left on for two days. The software rigs are still in their infancy. When the demand for long life comes around, the crack design teams will whip up the necessary hardware.
But power isn't the point. The point is this: can you have more software radios operating in a frequency band in a particular area, or more "straight" ones? I think you could get more software ones.
Actually, it reminds me of the Last Starfighter more than anything else. Recruiting those with a high score...
Software radios on the other hand would just seek out a clear frequency, squirt out a few bytes, and look for the next clear frequency. I would think that that would be more robust than everyone jumping onto channel 9 (or whatever) and getting into all sorts of crosstalk problems.
As far as power goes, why would you think that these things couldn't be powered by 12-volt gel cells?
You can actually drop quite a bit of packets before vocal communication becomes garbled. There was a demonstration at a local science centre about that. Vocal communication has a lot of built in error correction.
So, apparently all you have to do is fax over a "warrant" and Yahoo will send you everything you ask for...
"Oh! What a world! What a world!"
Real crypto wouldn't have word breaks. It gives too much away.
Of course, we all know that high tech spy computers have monitors that throw a readable image onto the user's face. You see it all the time in the movies. They're reconstructing the image by analyzing the glow bouncing off of your walls and face.
Man, I should get one of those bumper stickers for my van... The moving one... The one about moving.
She popped a Celine Dion CD into her Mac, and now she can't post.
Windows has another meaining: A "window" is a piece of glass set into a wall to allow light to pass through. It can be used to look outside while remaining inside. Some windows can be opened to allow the exterior atmosphere into the interior. "She looked out the window and, seeing that it was a beautiful spring day, she opened it to get some fresh air."
They're criminals. Why wouldn't they just steal one?
Cool. I've always wanted a power ring of some sort. Now I can have one. Put a sensor on the monitor, and have a voice recognition system, and voila! a system you hold your ring to and say "By the power of Linux" to log in.
I think that the point of the article is that this is the first time we have built a photomechanical nanotech device, rather than isolating and utilizing something that mother nature had already put there.
Granted much of it is the same thing, but some of it is not. What we're talking about is one molecule getting shorter, and dragging a chunk of silicon with it, as opposed to a protein which absorbs one H+ ion at one end, and ejects another (different) H+ ion out the other end.
Besides, I get the impression that this is a naturally occurring substance rather than an artificial mechanical construct.
So... No, I'm not going to count it. (He said confidently, ignoring the fact that he has no say in the matter in the first place.)
Read the article. This is the first time we have converted light directly into mechanical energy at the microscopic level.
That's a great line! I'll have to use it somewhere. "The failure of the X-detector to detect X shows that X is not detectable by the X-detector." I love it!
Or better yet visit the father of wearable computers at http://eyetap.org/mann/ (I think he's involved in our local linux group, but I'm not entirely sure.)
$100 bills have a little foil square on them that doesn't copy. (At least in this country)
Yes, but a resistive load (such as an incandescent filament) does not care about the direction of current flow. In a single cycle, there is a current flow in the positive half cycle, and a current flow in the negative half cycle. In other words, there are two current flows per cycle, or 120 current flows per second. (or more important to our discussion, there are two points of no current flow per second, or 120 hz rate of no current flow.)
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty".
But the Michelson-Morley experiment showed that there is no ether.
The light from an incandescent bulb varies at 120Hz. It doesn't turn off, but it does vary.