Woops, sorry, I just checked, you know how these surplus places are, they're sold out of the Lithium-6's, all they have left are the common quartz crystals.
Re:funny...but how far are we until somebody build
on
How Lightsabers Work
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· Score: 1
I've read a couple of stories on the net a few years ago...some physic guys saying it's impossible to create a beam of energy that abruptly finishes (disappears, deflects, etc) in thin year like a light saber.
Whoever said that was lying through his dentures. Physicts have done these things.
There's a particle accelerator that creates short-lived particles with consistent speed and lifetime, which then had a medical application of going through a skull and decaying right inside a tumor in the head, killing it without operating. A sufficiently powerful beam of these particles will glow fluorescent, uh, no, phosphoresent green when passing through the air, and create an invisible but highly radioactive point at the end of the beam.
I know this isn't the explanation in the article, that's a more advanced tech. This method was used for most '60's and low-budget '70's sci-fi. This is why Dr. Who looks so cheesy.
Shhhh..... seriously, we don't want the terrorists to know how to make these. The site is incomplete because of Homeland Security. Surely you understand...
Can someone (Mr. Howstuffworks?) explain to me...
on
How Lightsabers Work
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· Score: 1
What Mr. Schwartz' child radius is? Why would one want to know the radius of a child?
People still want buggy-whips [commercial music], they just aren't willing to pay for them anymore [copying and distributing commercial music as mp3's without paying royalties is now MUCH cheaper, faster and easier than buying CD's].
The strong-arm tactics of the RIAA don't justify the stealing of commercial music. If you don't like what the RIAA is doing, don't listen to the music controlled by them. Go to the local bar, and if you like the band's music, buy their locally-produced independent CD. At least you'll know most of the money actually goes to the band.
That a mini cluster is way easy to sneak out of the office... heck one janitor, one night, one car. and boom big fat take. makes laptops seem pretty smalltime.
I bet this thing phones home when it finds itself suddenly on the Internet or finds its IP address has changed, or anything. Heck, for the price it ought to have a GPS receiver and cellphone built-in that alerts authorities/owners/ClusterJack Central as soon as it detects itself going out the door.
Wasn't there a slashdot article on that sort of stuff (GPS/cellphone antitheft alert when an 'unauthorized location' is detected) being the next thing in laptops?
Lego robotics (by roboticists of any age), especially attempts at self-replication, should be well within the spirit of this thread, but I'll push the OT envelope with this link:
Yes, that's right, it's made of LEGO's (except for the wire strings) and plays. The mp3 of it sounds just dreadful, but it's like the waltzing bear, it's amazing that it waltzes at all...
The Vex programming system is coming out in August-September, along with chain-sprockets, better sensors, pneumatics, and other goodies.
Drool-drool.
The programming system will feature Lego-style drag-and-drop, pure C, and a side-by-side mode that shows both at the same time. The current release is version.5, probably rushed to be available to teams for the FIRST challenge competition a couple of weeks ago.
I'd head the programming kits would not be available to the teams, that they got only the same off-the-shelf kits that Radio Shack is selling (they only got their kits about a month ago, about a week before Radio Shack started selling them). I saw TWO of the teams (three members of one, two members of another) and their VEX robots yesterday at the AHRC meeting. They clearly had used no programming package, and ran the robots only with the R/C controls.
I see nothing about processors for brains (aside from the Lego Mindstorms).
I'm told there are two Microchip PIC microcontrollers, one fixed-function with a mask ROM, the other with FLASH memory for program space, and there's a connector on the VEX to download code direcly to the FLASH.
There's a lot available for the PIC, eval kits as well as both commercial and freeware C compilers for the PIC.
If you want to program the VEX, I suggest getting up to speed on the PIC now (especially if you've not programmed 8-bit microcontrollers) so you'll be ahead of the game when the programming kit (which presumably will document what port cotrols what thing) comes out.
Officially in September when the programming kit is supposed to be released, but that's a while. I have little doubt someone's going to hack a a Vex and put online documents of what PIC I/O port/bit controls what device way before then. Get your PIC C computers ready, I have no doubt you'll find your "Naked VEX" pics online in no time.
That is, unless you're like some slashdot readers and can't manage, can't communicate, and all you want to do is sit in a cave and code.
If the latter is your choice, I suggest you major in Chinese or one of the many Indian languages. Since you'll be moving there to continue your coding job.
Both telescopes and lasers are inherently limited by diffraction, could some of this negative refraction be used to cancel it out?
Earth-based telescopes are much more limited by diffraction in the air between the Earth's surface and the top of the atmosphere (this is what makes stars twinkle as seen by the unaided eye), though ISTR that the latest ones can compensate for air diffraction in real time(!).
This thing might have great application in a telescope based in Outer Space.
As we drive toward 50 million downloads, do something so cool, so unusual and so spectacular to spread Firefox that we can't help but scurry around the Mozilla Foundation to tell every one.'
What if I put a link to mozilla.org in my Slashdot sig! Then Millions of Nerds (who have already DL'ed Firefox) will see it!
Seriously though, after reading the article and the miscellaneous links. The numbers were astounding! In comparison to my own broadband, I can get 5 or 6 gigs downloaded in a VERY good day at most. Whereas this network enabled traffic of up to 50 terabytes a DAY! Woot woot! When can I hook up for it?
Where can I buy cheap, and I mean CHEAP, hard disk drives to save all this good stuff? I can't afford Pricewatch prices at that data rate.
"The Shuttle Enterprise rolls out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities with Star Trek television cast members. From left to right they are: Dr. James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, DeForest Kelley (Dr. "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Mr. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Leonard Nimoy (the indefatigable Mr. Spock), Gene Rodenberry (The Great Bird of the Galaxy), and Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Checkov)"
This is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which is not usually counted among the shuttles. It's not spaceworthy, and was made to test Shuttle landings from the air (among other non-space tests), and was releasted from atop a (large) airplane for its flights, as shown here: url:http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/art ifacts/ HS-Enterprise.htm
There's tons more on the (Space Shuttle) Enterprise, it's supposedly in the Smithsonian and you can see it in person - just google.
But looking back historically, that photo has a lot more class (even without Shatner - was he making another record? Okay, ESPECIALLY without Shatner!) than this thing with the series Enterprise (I haven't even seen it - the video doesn't play for me on Firefox 1.0.3 - NASA's not down with Firefox?) and the heroic but failed attempt at saving it.
Of course, at my high school, one of my friends told the guidance counseler that he wanted to be a beach philosopher. (You know, sit on the beach, play bongo drums, occassional say pot-inspired wisdom. Not a bad job if you can get it.)
From one of his popular books, or Nova episodes, or something:
Average Person, not recognizing to whom he's speaking: "Excuse me, sir, but why do you have Feynman diagrams drawn on the side of your VW Microbus?"
Slashdot Mirror
Woops, sorry, I just checked, you know how these surplus places are, they're sold out of the Lithium-6's, all they have left are the common quartz
crystals.
I've read a couple of stories on the net a few years ago...some physic guys saying it's impossible to create a beam of energy that abruptly finishes (disappears, deflects, etc) in thin year like a light saber.
Whoever said that was lying through his dentures. Physicts have done these things.
There's a particle accelerator that creates short-lived particles with consistent speed and lifetime, which then had a medical application of going through a skull and decaying right inside a tumor in the head, killing it without operating. A sufficiently powerful beam of these particles will glow fluorescent, uh, no, phosphoresent green when passing through the air, and create an invisible but highly radioactive point at the end of the beam.
I know this isn't the explanation in the article, that's a more advanced tech. This method was used for most '60's and low-budget '70's sci-fi. This is why Dr. Who looks so cheesy.
Shhhh..... seriously, we don't want the terrorists to know how to make these. The site is incomplete because of Homeland Security. Surely you understand...
What Mr. Schwartz' child radius is? Why would one want to know the radius of a child?
People still want buggy-whips [commercial music], they just aren't willing to pay for them anymore [copying and distributing commercial music as mp3's without paying royalties is now MUCH cheaper, faster and easier than buying CD's].
The strong-arm tactics of the RIAA don't justify the stealing of commercial music. If you don't like what the RIAA is doing, don't listen to the music controlled by them. Go to the local bar, and if you like the band's music, buy their locally-produced independent CD. At least you'll know most of the money actually goes to the band.
That a mini cluster is way easy to sneak out of the office... heck one janitor, one night, one car. and boom big fat take. makes laptops seem pretty smalltime.
I bet this thing phones home when it finds itself suddenly on the Internet or finds its IP address has changed, or anything. Heck, for the price it ought to have a GPS receiver and cellphone built-in that alerts authorities/owners/ClusterJack Central as soon as it detects itself going out the door.
Wasn't there a slashdot article on that sort of stuff (GPS/cellphone antitheft alert when an 'unauthorized location' is detected) being the next thing in laptops?
"New Awards To Compete With Nobel Prizes"0 3/1712250
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/
Are these two stories, Nobel Prizes/Noble Piece Prize, appearing the same day a coincidence? I think not.
The Biggest Lie Of Science:
"The Piece Prize will be waiting for you backstage after you give your conference paper."
The Vulcan Science Directorate has concluded that time travel is impossible.
I presume that no Vulcans will be attending The Convention.
Lego robotics (by roboticists of any age), especially attempts at self-replication, should be well within the spirit of this thread, but I'll push the OT envelope with this link:
http://www.henrylim.org/Harpsichord.html
Yes, that's right, it's made of LEGO's (except for the wire strings) and plays. The mp3 of it sounds just dreadful, but it's like the waltzing bear, it's amazing that it waltzes at all...
The Vex programming system is coming out in August-September, along with chain-sprockets, better sensors, pneumatics, and other goodies.
.5, probably rushed to be available to teams for the FIRST challenge competition a couple of weeks ago.
Drool-drool.
The programming system will feature Lego-style drag-and-drop, pure C, and a side-by-side mode that shows both at the same time. The current release is version
I'd head the programming kits would not be available to the teams, that they got only the same off-the-shelf kits that Radio Shack is selling (they only got their kits about a month ago, about a week before Radio Shack started selling them). I saw TWO of the teams (three members of one, two members of another) and their VEX robots yesterday at the AHRC meeting. They clearly had used no programming package, and ran the robots only with the R/C controls.
I see nothing about processors for brains (aside from the Lego Mindstorms).
I'm told there are two Microchip PIC microcontrollers, one fixed-function with a mask ROM, the other with FLASH memory for program space, and there's a connector on the VEX to download code direcly to the FLASH.
There's a lot available for the PIC, eval kits as well as both commercial and freeware C compilers for the PIC.
If you want to program the VEX, I suggest getting up to speed on the PIC now (especially if you've not programmed 8-bit microcontrollers) so you'll be ahead of the game when the programming kit (which presumably will document what port cotrols what thing) comes out.
And Vex offers autonomy when?
Officially in September when the programming kit is supposed to be released, but that's a while. I have little doubt someone's going to hack a a Vex and put online documents of what PIC I/O port/bit controls what device way before then. Get your PIC C computers ready, I have no doubt you'll find your "Naked VEX" pics online in no time.
Should have gone with the "OnStar" option!
Not to be confused with StarJack.
That is, unless you're like some slashdot readers and can't manage, can't communicate, and all you want to do is sit in a cave and code.
If the latter is your choice, I suggest you major in Chinese or one of the many Indian languages. Since you'll be moving there to continue your coding job.
http://slashdot.cn/
Lots of good robopr0n, though only of Vex, no Lego or other FIRST robots:
http://www.vexlabs.com/vex-robot-photos.shtml
Both telescopes and lasers are inherently limited by diffraction, could some of this negative refraction be used to cancel it out?
Earth-based telescopes are much more limited by diffraction in the air between the Earth's surface and the top of the atmosphere (this is what makes stars twinkle as seen by the unaided eye), though ISTR that the latest ones can compensate for air diffraction in real time(!).
This thing might have great application in a telescope based in Outer Space.
As we drive toward 50 million downloads, do something so cool, so unusual and so spectacular to spread Firefox that we can't help but scurry around the Mozilla Foundation to tell every one.'
What if I put a link to mozilla.org in my Slashdot sig! Then Millions of Nerds (who have already DL'ed Firefox) will see it!
Taco Bell food causes flames to emanate from your ass? Are you from like, Massachusetts or something?
What a wimp! You'd never make it here in New Mexico.
AOL: The Taco Bell of Internet Access.
Surprise, surprise!
Seriously though, after reading the article and the miscellaneous links. The numbers were astounding! In comparison to my own broadband, I can get 5 or 6 gigs downloaded in a VERY good day at most. Whereas this network enabled traffic of up to 50 terabytes a DAY! Woot woot! When can I hook up for it?
Where can I buy cheap, and I mean CHEAP, hard disk drives to save all this good stuff? I can't afford Pricewatch prices at that data rate.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." --Bill Gates, 1981
/., 2005
/., 2005
"640MB/sec ought to be enough for anybody." --Me,
"It's never enough...for anybody." -- Me,
"Too much is never enough." MTV, 1983
FM Radio didn't make AM go away, why should digital TV make analog go away?
Perhaps AM was still considered useful.
I think they should set a minimum price for that spectrum that will cover buying a new HDTV for everyone who has to replace their analog TV.
Maybe so, but they don't have to buy a new TV, just a converter box.
First we had the Homestead Act, then we had the GI Bill, and now we should have the Great Couch Potato Giveaway!
This could be a good deal! To whom are we giving these Great Couch Potatoes?
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/HS-E nterprise.htm
Yes, I had used the preview button with parent, I just didn't READ it carefully.
http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/GPN-2000-0 01363.jpg
. html
t ifacts/ HS-Enterprise.htm
"The Shuttle Enterprise rolls out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities with Star Trek television cast members. From left to right they are: Dr. James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, DeForest Kelley (Dr. "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Mr. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Leonard Nimoy (the indefatigable Mr. Spock), Gene Rodenberry (The Great Bird of the Galaxy), and Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Checkov)"
taken from http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001363
This is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which is not usually counted among the shuttles. It's not spaceworthy, and was made to test Shuttle landings from the air (among other non-space tests), and was releasted from atop a (large) airplane for its flights, as shown here:
url:http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/ar
There's tons more on the (Space Shuttle) Enterprise, it's supposedly in the Smithsonian and you can see it in person - just google.
But looking back historically, that photo has a lot more class (even without Shatner - was he making another record? Okay, ESPECIALLY without Shatner!) than this thing with the series Enterprise (I haven't even seen it - the video doesn't play for me on Firefox 1.0.3 - NASA's not down with Firefox?) and the heroic but failed attempt at saving it.
Of course, at my high school, one of my friends told the guidance counseler that he wanted to be a beach philosopher. (You know, sit on the beach, play bongo drums, occassional say pot-inspired wisdom. Not a bad job if you can get it.)
From one of his popular books, or Nova episodes, or something:
Average Person, not recognizing to whom he's speaking: "Excuse me, sir, but why do you have Feynman diagrams drawn on the side of your VW Microbus?"
RF: "Why not? I'm Richard Feynman."