Build a telescope. There are many links to plans, here's one: http://www.telescopemaking.org/
There are lots of opportunities for electronics with a telescope: motor mount, autoguider, goto integration, etc.
I got my PhD last year in a similar field, and I made the leap into video game development. Best decision I ever made. Besides the fun factor, the biggest issue in a science career (well, in academia at least), is just how freakin long it takes to get your career going. After grad school, 6 years in my case, you have to do a post-doc for a few years, then get (hopefully) get a tenure-track faculty position, then work your ass off to actually get tenure. Then, if everything goes right, your career starts. For me, that time commitment was simply not worth it.
Honestly, how in the hell can a graphics upgrade be innovative?
Because, in addition to updating the rendering engine, they also re-modeled and re-textured nearly every object in the game, including every spaceship, starbase (exterior & interior), and stargate. That's almost everything in the game that a player would care about. I don't know of any other MMO that has attempted anything that ambitious.
I read the entire article (which was excellent and well-reasoned), and nowhere did the author say space colonization was impossible. His argument is that it would be prohibitively expensive and technically impractical, but certainly not impossible. Colonization, especially of extrasolar planets, is extremely unlikely, but it is definitely physically possible, given the economic and and political will to do so.
While I have no love for the RIAA, I also have absolutely no sympathy for the views expressed in your post. Basically your "argument" goes like this:
1) You were poor in the 1990s, buying CDs at retail price, but discovering cheaper used CD prices.
2) You soon refuse to pay higher retail prices, but are still willing to buy used CDs.
3) You, for unspecified reasons, develop a taste for software piracy.
4) Morally comfortable with piracy in general, you move on to music piracy.
5) You would be willing to pay up to $4 per CD at 256kbs VBR.
6) ???
7) The RIAA is to blame!
At no point in there did you make an argument that the RIAA has done anything wrong, except place CDs at a price point you were not comfortable with. You demand that the RIAA allow digital copies of CDs at $4, but will remain a music pirate until that day comes. You admit to being able to easily afford your monthly quota for music on CDs (from which you yourself could generate MP3s fitting your personal requirements), but yet "the labels alienated you", an assertion you never justified or backed up in your post. Am I missing something here?
Weird. Is the sound card on the mobo or is it a PCI card? Re: my Firefox problems, they only started when I upgraded to 64-bit Vista. I had no issues with that in 32-bit.
I upgraded because I'm an enthusiast(*) and I like having the latest products. I'm also a heavy PC gamer, and I knew I would need to upgrade eventually for DX10 games, so why wait? While the most visible changes to Vista are cosmetic, the OS as a whole is easier to use than XP. Little things like the reorganized Start Menu and pull-down menus in the address bar make for a system that's easier to navigate. None of the most apparent changes are all that revolutionary, but Vista as a whole is an improvement over XP.
I read your blog entry and it sounds like you have a hardware problem. I have Vista and a Realtech 97 and have had no problems. (Note my Realtech is the motherboard sound chip, not an add-in card. I also have a SoundBlaster X-Fi, which also works fine with Creative's beta drivers.) The only Vista problem I've had so far is some sort of bug in Firefox that causes the webpage to jitter rapidly up and down by a few pixels. Other than that, no problems of any kind.
The Home premium upgrade refuses to install over an XP pro installation,
That's simply not true. I upgraded Vista Home Premium over XP Pro last week, without any problems whatsoever (well, iTunes got hosed, but whatever). Now I did have problems related to product keys and activation when I installed 64-bit Vista HP over my 32-bit install, but regular 32-bit Home Premium will upgrade on top of XP Pro.
Where was Far Cry? In my opinion it was significantly better than the other FPSs on the list, with the possible exception of HL2. Doom 3 above Far Cry? I don't think so.
if all the folks who were in the same music school where I was would spend as much time playing guitar as they did playing games, they'd be playing quite well after two months AT MOST.
Bullshit. Nobody is going to be nailing Dimebag Darrell or Randy Rhoads or Stevie Ray Vaughn solos after 2 months of guitar practice. And anyway, you're talking about music school kids, but guess what, Guitar Hero is for everybody!
It was me and a gruff, humorless customs official. He unpacked my luggage entirely, ran the contents of my wallet through a bomb sweep, and carefully examined all of my belongings. He then asked me to turn on my laptop. I did, and he began using it. I saw him open Spotlight and begin searching.
Uh, you complain about the article, but apparently failed to read it. The article is not about bad technology (who could deny that pop-up ads and DRM are terrible), but about bad technology products, i.e. discrete items and/or services produced and marketed by individual companies. The article discusses specific products, not general trends in broad sectors of industry.
I'm always a bit surprised that my viewpoint on this topic is in such a minority around Slashdot, but apparently it is. I'm an avid gamer, and I certainly appreciate innovative gameplay, well-crafted stories, solid level design, etc., but graphics and sound are very important considerations for me. Now I won't necessarily buy a new game solely on the basis of graphics, but graphics do factor very highly in my decision-making process. I'm going to buy a PS3 because I believe it will be able to deliver more impressive graphics, physics, and sound than the other systems (and Sony has historically had the game franchises I'm most interested in), and I probably won't buy a Wii unless I hear that the gameplay is truly outstanding.
For all those people on Slashdot who argue that graphics don't matter to gamers anymore, I'd like to offer myself as a counterexample. Graphics do matter to me, in a big way. And I know that there are others out there like me, because otherwise ATI and NVIDIA wouldn't be able to sell high-end graphics boards. Maybe we aren't the majority, but we do exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Build a telescope. There are many links to plans, here's one: http://www.telescopemaking.org/
There are lots of opportunities for electronics with a telescope: motor mount, autoguider, goto integration, etc.
Americans might not have been laughing, but Icelanders sure as shit were!
I got my PhD last year in a similar field, and I made the leap into video game development. Best decision I ever made. Besides the fun factor, the biggest issue in a science career (well, in academia at least), is just how freakin long it takes to get your career going. After grad school, 6 years in my case, you have to do a post-doc for a few years, then get (hopefully) get a tenure-track faculty position, then work your ass off to actually get tenure. Then, if everything goes right, your career starts. For me, that time commitment was simply not worth it.
Honestly, how in the hell can a graphics upgrade be innovative?
Because, in addition to updating the rendering engine, they also re-modeled and re-textured nearly every object in the game, including every spaceship, starbase (exterior & interior), and stargate. That's almost everything in the game that a player would care about. I don't know of any other MMO that has attempted anything that ambitious.
we are the alien life forms we're looking for...
I'm not the droid I'm looking for.
No.
Force = mass * acceleration
Love, high school physics.
Very bad summary, subbie.
While I have no love for the RIAA, I also have absolutely no sympathy for the views expressed in your post. Basically your "argument" goes like this:
1) You were poor in the 1990s, buying CDs at retail price, but discovering cheaper used CD prices.
2) You soon refuse to pay higher retail prices, but are still willing to buy used CDs.
3) You, for unspecified reasons, develop a taste for software piracy.
4) Morally comfortable with piracy in general, you move on to music piracy.
5) You would be willing to pay up to $4 per CD at 256kbs VBR.
6) ???
7) The RIAA is to blame!
At no point in there did you make an argument that the RIAA has done anything wrong, except place CDs at a price point you were not comfortable with. You demand that the RIAA allow digital copies of CDs at $4, but will remain a music pirate until that day comes. You admit to being able to easily afford your monthly quota for music on CDs (from which you yourself could generate MP3s fitting your personal requirements), but yet "the labels alienated you", an assertion you never justified or backed up in your post. Am I missing something here?
Just a point of clarification: H&H used a squid giant axon, not a giant squid axon. Common misconception.
Weird. Is the sound card on the mobo or is it a PCI card? Re: my Firefox problems, they only started when I upgraded to 64-bit Vista. I had no issues with that in 32-bit.
I upgraded because I'm an enthusiast(*) and I like having the latest products. I'm also a heavy PC gamer, and I knew I would need to upgrade eventually for DX10 games, so why wait? While the most visible changes to Vista are cosmetic, the OS as a whole is easier to use than XP. Little things like the reorganized Start Menu and pull-down menus in the address bar make for a system that's easier to navigate. None of the most apparent changes are all that revolutionary, but Vista as a whole is an improvement over XP.
(*) Not an apologist.
I read your blog entry and it sounds like you have a hardware problem. I have Vista and a Realtech 97 and have had no problems. (Note my Realtech is the motherboard sound chip, not an add-in card. I also have a SoundBlaster X-Fi, which also works fine with Creative's beta drivers.) The only Vista problem I've had so far is some sort of bug in Firefox that causes the webpage to jitter rapidly up and down by a few pixels. Other than that, no problems of any kind.
The Home premium upgrade refuses to install over an XP pro installation,
That's simply not true. I upgraded Vista Home Premium over XP Pro last week, without any problems whatsoever (well, iTunes got hosed, but whatever). Now I did have problems related to product keys and activation when I installed 64-bit Vista HP over my 32-bit install, but regular 32-bit Home Premium will upgrade on top of XP Pro.
Where was Far Cry? In my opinion it was significantly better than the other FPSs on the list, with the possible exception of HL2. Doom 3 above Far Cry? I don't think so.
Uhhhh... Run that by me again.
Shut up, Kerry!
Sincerly,
The Democratic Party
Hey Democrats, learn to spell!
Sincerely,
The American Spelling Nazi Party
Bullshit. Nobody is going to be nailing Dimebag Darrell or Randy Rhoads or Stevie Ray Vaughn solos after 2 months of guitar practice. And anyway, you're talking about music school kids, but guess what, Guitar Hero is for everybody!
You're new here, aren't you?
I don't consider almost $5 per track a "micro" payment.
1. Far Cry
2. Half-Life 2
3. Guitar Hero
4. Resident Evil 4
5. F.E.A.R. (my favorite multiplayer)
From TFA:
It was me and a gruff, humorless customs official. He unpacked my luggage entirely, ran the contents of my wallet through a bomb sweep, and carefully examined all of my belongings. He then asked me to turn on my laptop. I did, and he began using it. I saw him open Spotlight and begin searching.
1) The original Portal Engine sucked; thank god they canned it.
2) It's amazing the game works at all without the Portal Engine.
Am I missing something here?
No. At least, not any more than cell phones are radios today enable "telepathy".
Uh, you complain about the article, but apparently failed to read it. The article is not about bad technology (who could deny that pop-up ads and DRM are terrible), but about bad technology products, i.e. discrete items and/or services produced and marketed by individual companies. The article discusses specific products, not general trends in broad sectors of industry.
For all those people on Slashdot who argue that graphics don't matter to gamers anymore, I'd like to offer myself as a counterexample. Graphics do matter to me, in a big way. And I know that there are others out there like me, because otherwise ATI and NVIDIA wouldn't be able to sell high-end graphics boards. Maybe we aren't the majority, but we do exist.