Those background checks have been done, accuracy double-checks need to be done only if there is a problem (ie. conviction of different person/same name)
ChoicePoint has already has combined all those federal/state/credit databases into one product.
I once read "somewhere" that it is possible to "beam" sound into the brain via microwaves using an AM carrier though it was believed that the effect was due to resonant mechanical coupling between the bulk tissues of the head and the microwave signal to generate sound in the skull. (Seems like a good mad scientist Wi-Fi experiment!)
Epoxys and super glues don't widthstand high temperatures well.
I've read that space capsules and other vehicles including the X-23a have used an abalative silicone compound.
A two-part high-temp RTV silicone is used to attach the shuttle tiles so they may be using a similar compound for the patch (maybe utilizing fiberglass cloth reinforcement).
As a matter of fact, the heat shield tiles are glued on with RTV silicone. I suspect that the formulation is very similar to the RTV High-Temp (700+ deg F)silicone used for engine gaskets available at auto parts stores. The difference is that heat shield RTV is a two part silicone which utilizes a different cure method.
The stuff that you buy in the caulking isle has similar properties. Silicone compounds can widthstand surprisingly high temperatures.
Here's a low cost alternative: The old MICROSOFT F90 Fortran Developer Studio (Fortran PowerStation 4.0) makes an EXCELLENT development platform for Fortran on WIN32. MS sold the product line to Digital/Compaq several years ago. The compiler is very robust and seems to be the most compatible with external source libraries compared with other Win32 F90/F95 compilers that I've tried.
You should be able to locate a copy of the developer suite from ~1995 on Ebay for very cheap. I typically write/debug my F90 code on the MS compiler amd then recompile it on a UNIX workstation for problems that require a large memory domain.(Computational fluids problems)
Intel's Fortran compiler for Linux is FREE for non-commerical use (not open-source). I'm told that it is very good. Its about time that there was a free F90/F95 compiler available.
Intel F90 Compiler.
I think that this will go a long way in promoting LINUX as a base for advanced scientific computing.
Fortran is used in science and engineering because of the vast # of free numeric libraries available. These libraries are often of very high quality written for meteorology, fluid dynamics, etc. See: GAMS. The number of available libraries makes it easier to solve problems without having to repeatedly "reinvent the wheel". Object oriented F90/F95 is a very good language for scientific problems.
Actually WYSIWYG latex is the best approach. Raw latex is highly error prone and difficult to edit.
The best editor for publishing is
TCI Scientific Workplace which is similar to sticking an "MS Word" front end onto Latex. I use it for writing scientific papers and its the best publishing system that I've ever used. Highly configurable by adding latex scripts. Equations,etc can entered directly as latex if one desired.
Its a surprise that it isn't well know outside scientific circles. Not exactly cheap, but its worth the money. (Its MUCH better than LyX, BTW)
One of the more interesting processor designs would be the FORTH based
25xC18 using 25 C18 cpu cores which could achieve up to
60,000 (!!!) MIPS using a very low power design. The 25xC18 was designed by Chuck Moore. The interesting thing about the FORTH
processors is that they use an extremely small instruction set (~24
instructions) and require only ~10K transistors per CPU allowing for very fast
and low power operation. It also allows one to add on-chip DRAM right next to
the core allowing 1ns memory access to a small cache. I think stack based
processors are the way to go when it comes to multiprocessor designs since
stacks allow easy pipelining of instructions and data between processors.
You can learn more about FORTH based processors here.
Here's additional information about the 25xC18.
The FORTH based processors have never become mainstream, I'm not sure why
that is? If this thing ever gets into production, it will be pretty
revolutionary.
On ebay its a free-for-all regarding copyrighed works. If its not software, they won't shut down the auction unless the actual copyright holder of the work complains.
I know some shrewd people who bought-up the most expensive/high demand service manual books on ebay (for backhoes believe-it-or-not!). Scanned them to PDF and resold copies of the books on CD-R on ebay for ~$100 apiece. They made $1000's on those auctions. It made me sick.
A very good money-making idea if you aren't bothered by piracy.
Good advice. In my experience exercise enables you to get "in shape" but you have to diet to lose weight. You can lose weight through dieting faster than through exercise.
3500 cal/lb fat = ~35 miles of running or 10 days of careful dieting.
At least for me, once you start gaining weight, its very hard to lose weight from exercise alone. I'd walk (winter)/run(summer) 8 miles a day for several YEARS and couldn't lose the gut until I started paying attention to nutrition. Running will burn ~500 cal/hour. Walking: ~200 cal/hour. Problem is that you will want to eat more to compensate. Also, daily workouts tend to wear you down so you tend to be less active the rest of the day, also an improved cardiovascular system will require less calories to function during standby.
Read the labels on everything you eat and you'll be surprised how many calories some things have compared to others.
Stay away from Bread/Pasta/ Cereals (200+ cal/serving, Mayo/Salad Dressings (100+ calories / tablespoon), Nuts, and anything else high in Carbs/fat. Low cal bread (40 cal/slice) can substitute for plain (120 cal/slice) and tastes the same.
You need to avoid drinking soda (180 cal/can),Beer (250 cal/can), and juice (~130 cal/serving) Get used to drinking water or tea with every meal.
Eat things like lean meat (Usually low in calories, ~100 cal/serving), Tuna Fish from the can(~100 cal/serving), and Egg Beaters ~30 cal/ 1/4cup. Too many vegetables tend to give you gas, so you need to moderate. String Beans (~60 calories/serving won't give you gas).
You'll find that you can probably cut 350+ calories a day through moderate diet changes, eating the same portions, and will lose weight, even without exercise.
Surprised no one has mentioned this..
MP3 (audio) and especially MPEG-4 (divX video) codec development is pushing the edge of what was thought even possible 5 years ago.
OK, enough with the lame "Tin Foil" hat joke, there's a real point concerning privacy here.
If you buy chemicals, exotic electronics, avionics, biotech equipment, centrifuges, radio controlled airplanes, HAZMAT suits, welding tanks, or even a pallet load of aluminum tubes, you are raising flags by doing something "out of the ordinary".
I would be EXTREMELY surprised if the CIA, NSA, and FBI all were NOT automatically trolling the listings and keeping list of who was bidding on unusual items. ("Carnivore" sound familiar?) Its just too easy to do these days and you don't need Ebay's help or permission to do that. Its freely available information to collect and data-mine. A central data base containing a good percentage of the uncommon/unusual purchases people have made within the US and abroad. Its very easy to build profiles of people by what they buy and sell.
These agencies would be TOTALLY STUPID not to do so in the name of "homeland security". I would not be surprised if they even plant particular items to see who's interested, afterall its perfectly legal to re-sell "government surplus"!
I think people do have a reason to worry about that. Its uncomfortable to do business if "big brother" is looking over your shoulder. So yes, you DO need to wear a "tin foil hat" figuratively speaking and be careful about how you conduct yourself and what you buy, or else you might find it necessary to explain yourself to some large men in black suits one day. It stifles creativity, ingenuity, and freedom.
>The effect is right, but the explanation is not. >The diffraction effect has nothing to do with >photons interfering with each other (not >even "loosely speaking"). It is something that >happens to each photon, and that would happen >even if you send a single photon through.
Sounds like there are MANY confused people out there. (Or I don't know what I am talking about, so help me)
Radio waves are long wave light that exhibit quantum effects on a large scale because they have a long wavelength. For radio at 100Mhz, the wavelength is 3 Meters. For light its ~0.4e-6 Meters. The quantum effects scale with the wavelength. Diffraction of light at microscopic scales is EXACTLY the same phenomenon as diffraction of radio waves at larger scales which have to do with loss of information concerning postion and momentum of the photon. Its a quantum effect. Quantum mechanics NEVER actually describes particles. Everything is a wave/field. Radio waves are really an example of quantum wave effects on large scales.
The photon can be best thought of as a thing that appears randomly within the electromagnetic field wich appears with a rapidness proportional to the intensity of the field. Quantum mechanics describes the nature of the field and thus where we most likely will observe particles. No one understands exactly why the fields manifest themselves as particles (and vice versa).
I'll admit to being an "armchair physicist". Posting this troubles me. Either I am total wrong or 90% of the people posting don't understand this basic physics.
I've thought about this myself and can think of many aspects that are solved by such a senario. The sticking point is that black holes have a fixed surface area. The universe is closed (it has no suface area) Anybody see a way around this?
I've wondered if the supposed acceleration of the universe may be the result of pressure (Enegy/volume)induced by a slight anisotropy of the quantum vacuum fluctuation, implying some type of surface that we can't detect. (More stuff enters our universe from somewhere else than leaves)
I remember that thing well. It was a VERY convincing effect... It was just what you'd want from a true 3d display though the characters were slightly transparent. Kind of spooky actually... it seemed so alien the first time I saw it.
I hear that the the game itself was dull, but everyone kept comming up to it and trying to pass their hands "through" the characters since they appeared to actually hover above the screen.
I've always wondered what happened to that technology.
I've been told that the problem actually has a lot to do with employees and graduate students with too much time on their hands... streaming audio is also a big thing. Still $4 for each 2Gb/month seems VERY restrictive, especially for people who utilize the campus net for making backups and such. I think that they should regulate usage according to time of day since you can actually use up that much bandwidth in under two hours if connected through a decent port.
Re Tensile Strength of Fiber Optic Cable?
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 1
I once looked into the tensile strength of spider silk and its about 1Gpa (depends upons species) and 2/3 weight of kevlar.
I am not a materials scientist but it seems that the closest production material available for this application may be "single mode" fiber optic cable. (~3.9Gpa) Its currently quite close to kevlar in strength/weight. I once read that the strength is limited to microcrack imperfections and that the theoretical stength may be 5..10x of the tensile strength available today.... Currently it is not really considered to be a "structural material" (fiberglass is low grade fiber) so there is little emphasis on improving tensile performance though it would seem to be a great material for use in cables.
Also Diamond films can be extremely strong (>8GPa typical today). Perhaps coating optical fibers with diamond film or some other technology might improve the perfomance to make a large taper space elevator viable. The advantage is that materials are cheap and very refined manufacturing capability exists.
Fiber optic cable:
Tensile Strength:~3.9 Gpa (From manufacturer's data sheet)
Density: 2.0g/cm^3
Self Support height: 198km
I've been rather suspicious of Ozone and its potential links to cancer and/or aging. The scheme above seems similar to chemotherapy or radiation therapy in that it slows tumor growth, neither of which you want to be exposed to unless you are undergoing treatment.
At the same time there seems to be compelling evidence of free-radicals being one of the fundamental processes involved in ageing.
Could excessive ozone exposure result in shorter lifespans or the faster onset of chronic disease and/or systemic tissue damage? I've never heard of conclusive evidence either way.
As a side note, it was recently uncovered that welders have shorter lifespans and a MUCH high incidence of Parkinson's disease than the general population. Could ozone exposure be a factor?.. along with the other fumes?
Is is possible for spammers to obtain email ID's from the URL obtained from a banner ad's "referal" data? Or perhaps they can harvest emails ID's if you click on a banner ad. Isn't there some sort of HTML mechanisms to do this?... I don't know, thats why I'm asking.
What about if they serve flash animations? Can flash code be made to spit back the complete refering URL?
Not really. The film is what seals the metal from the air so and so thats what you want. WD-40 is basically Korosene and Fragrance. Hydrocarbons are pretty good insulators. (thats partly why oil is used to dissipate heat in those large transformers you see on power lines) You could probably spray the entire circuit board with WD-40 and it would work just fine (unless it catches fire!... so please don't experiment) You could certainly submerge the ciruit board into a tub of clean silicone oil and it would work fine. (Maybe computers will be cooled using this method some day?)
Its not so commonly known that lubricants improve electrical contact between conductive surfaces by preventing oxidation but at the same time do not themselves interfere with the resistance of the metal/metal contacts (proven my many informal experiments that people have done)
I personally wonder if there may be some unexplored physics at work? You'd think that the oil film between the contacts would increase the resistance, but it does not. Maybe the molecularly thin-film between the contacts becomes conductive or perhaps even tunneling effects come into play? (wild speculation...)
In any case, this method works. WD-40 tends to pick up dust which could be a problem later and so there are better lubricants to use. Thats really the only drawback to using WD40. This is something that people have been doing to restore older electronics for many years.
I think that the truth is that there are SEVERAL things that you need to do to get a reliable system:
Bend back the connectors, clean contacts with Brasso polish (and DONT use Sandpaper since it will scratch through any plating!) and then clean with alcohol, and then apply lubricant (WD40 or Radio Shack "Tuner Cleaner") to the contacts.
My suspicion is that bending back the contacts is probably least important in these situations, I think it just applies more force to break through the thin oxidation layer. A few inserts will quickly remove the oxidation layer, but you need lubrication to keep it from re-forming. Once oxidation starts, its little like rust in that it accelerates its own formation.
Connectors work much better with a small amount of lubrication. Try swabbing a tiny bit of WD-40 on the contacts. This prevents microscopic surface oxidation and significantly reduces the wear on the contacts. The contacts will operate MUCH better and more reliably than if they were perfectly clean. (It has nothing to do with the conductivity of WD-40.) Similar lubrication is commonly applied to the tracks of potentiometers and switches when they are manufactured.
This is not B.S., It works. This is commonly done by antique radio restorers to fix faulty switches and controls. It was also a trick used in the days of "slot cars". A similar thing is done by using di-electric grease on light bulb sockets and spark plug contacts.
Radio-shack TV tuner cleaner (which leaves behind a lubricant) is another thing you can use if you want to get fancy. Craig Labs "DE-OXIT" (available on the web) is what the pro's use.
WD-40 attracts dust so you can use the fancier stuff if you believe your gaming system is collectible.
This is from someone who does a lot of repair of high-end test instrumentation...
I agree, this is very exciting news. Anybody who has worked with embedded systems for robotics, avionics, machine control, medical systems, digital cameras, and even printers will tell you that running linux on a single chip has been viewed as the holy grail of the past few years in this field.
AFAIK, Currently, only multiple chip linux based around the such processors as the 68000, i386/i486, etc have been avaiable and once you start using multiple chip sets, its often overkill for most quick-and-dirty embedded sytems applications and so you often sacrifice by using lesser perfomance embedded processors and less robust/more difficult to learn development tools.
This linux based system will be nice since developers will be able to work with all latest standard file systems, networking protocols, and port interfaces, etc without re-inventing the wheel. Running a dedicated OS like this also simplifies development since you can make write driver code for your system and test/debug in real time.
This is going to be very popular and probably lead to some very feature rich products. My hat's off to these guys!
My Point #5 Was poorly very worded. I didn't mean for all the user files to lump into a
single level directory. (though that was actually the case in the first version of the Mac
OS)
To clarify, I simply meant that user data should be forced separate from the OS and
Application binaries such that the user can easily distinguish their own work (files and
directories) from everything else. Yes, its done in unix to an extent but could be
implemented better. When I open Windows explorer, 99% of the time, I don't need to see the
entire harddrive structure, usually I just want to find out where MY files/directories
are. (Afterall, windows lets me put them anywhere in the first place)
An extension would be objects (larger projects) that envelop smaller projects. (ie website
project encumpasses various graphics projects) Ultimately I might like to see objects
replace directories and have the OS automatically monitor the dependancies, making file
moves and re-organization easier than it is now. On the other hand, an OOP based file
system might make things too confusing.
Important thing to focus on is the need for Task/Project centric OS architecture. The OS
should be designed to keep projects organized and make it easy to switch between projects
rather than just between individual applications. Right now the user has do quite a bit of
unnecessary leg work to keep things properly organized.
Slashdot Mirror
ChoicePoint has already has combined all those federal/state/credit databases into one product.
I once read "somewhere" that it is possible to "beam" sound into the brain via microwaves using an AM carrier though it was believed that the effect was due to resonant mechanical coupling between the bulk tissues of the head and the microwave signal to generate sound in the skull. (Seems like a good mad scientist Wi-Fi experiment!)
I've read that space capsules and other vehicles including the X-23a have used an abalative silicone compound.
A two-part high-temp RTV silicone is used to attach the shuttle tiles so they may be using a similar compound for the patch (maybe utilizing fiberglass cloth reinforcement).
The stuff that you buy in the caulking isle has similar properties. Silicone compounds can widthstand surprisingly high temperatures.
You should be able to locate a copy of the developer suite from ~1995 on Ebay for very cheap. I typically write/debug my F90 code on the MS compiler amd then recompile it on a UNIX workstation for problems that require a large memory domain.(Computational fluids problems)
Intel's Fortran compiler for Linux is FREE for non-commerical use (not open-source). I'm told that it is very good. Its about time that there was a free F90/F95 compiler available. Intel F90 Compiler. I think that this will go a long way in promoting LINUX as a base for advanced scientific computing.
Fortran is used in science and engineering because of the vast # of free numeric libraries available. These libraries are often of very high quality written for meteorology, fluid dynamics, etc. See: GAMS.
The number of available libraries makes it easier to solve problems without having to repeatedly "reinvent the wheel". Object oriented F90/F95 is a very good language for scientific problems.
The best editor for publishing is TCI Scientific Workplace which is similar to sticking an "MS Word" front end onto Latex. I use it for writing scientific papers and its the best publishing system that I've ever used. Highly configurable by adding latex scripts. Equations,etc can entered directly as latex if one desired.
Its a surprise that it isn't well know outside scientific circles. Not exactly cheap, but its worth the money. (Its MUCH better than LyX, BTW)
Its only for Windows/Mac (unfortunately).
One of the more interesting processor designs would be the FORTH based 25xC18 using 25 C18 cpu cores which could achieve up to 60,000 (!!!) MIPS using a very low power design. The 25xC18 was designed by Chuck Moore. The interesting thing about the FORTH processors is that they use an extremely small instruction set (~24 instructions) and require only ~10K transistors per CPU allowing for very fast and low power operation. It also allows one to add on-chip DRAM right next to the core allowing 1ns memory access to a small cache. I think stack based processors are the way to go when it comes to multiprocessor designs since stacks allow easy pipelining of instructions and data between processors.
You can learn more about FORTH based processors here. Here's additional information about the 25xC18.
The FORTH based processors have never become mainstream, I'm not sure why that is? If this thing ever gets into production, it will be pretty revolutionary.
I know some shrewd people who bought-up the most expensive/high demand service manual books on ebay (for backhoes believe-it-or-not!). Scanned them to PDF and resold copies of the books on CD-R on ebay for ~$100 apiece. They made $1000's on those auctions. It made me sick.
A very good money-making idea if you aren't bothered by piracy.
3500 cal/lb fat = ~35 miles of running or 10 days of careful dieting.
At least for me, once you start gaining weight, its very hard to lose weight from exercise alone. I'd walk (winter)/run(summer) 8 miles a day for several YEARS and couldn't lose the gut until I started paying attention to nutrition. Running will burn ~500 cal/hour. Walking: ~200 cal/hour. Problem is that you will want to eat more to compensate. Also, daily workouts tend to wear you down so you tend to be less active the rest of the day, also an improved cardiovascular system will require less calories to function during standby.
Read the labels on everything you eat and you'll be surprised how many calories some things have compared to others.
Stay away from Bread/Pasta/ Cereals (200+ cal/serving, Mayo/Salad Dressings (100+ calories / tablespoon), Nuts, and anything else high in Carbs/fat. Low cal bread (40 cal/slice) can substitute for plain (120 cal/slice) and tastes the same.
You need to avoid drinking soda (180 cal/can),Beer (250 cal/can), and juice (~130 cal/serving) Get used to drinking water or tea with every meal.
Eat things like lean meat (Usually low in calories, ~100 cal/serving), Tuna Fish from the can(~100 cal/serving), and Egg Beaters ~30 cal/ 1/4cup. Too many vegetables tend to give you gas, so you need to moderate. String Beans (~60 calories/serving won't give you gas).
You'll find that you can probably cut 350+ calories a day through moderate diet changes, eating the same portions, and will lose weight, even without exercise.
Surprised no one has mentioned this.. MP3 (audio) and especially MPEG-4 (divX video) codec development is pushing the edge of what was thought even possible 5 years ago.
If you buy chemicals, exotic electronics, avionics, biotech equipment, centrifuges, radio controlled airplanes, HAZMAT suits, welding tanks, or even a pallet load of aluminum tubes, you are raising flags by doing something "out of the ordinary".
I would be EXTREMELY surprised if the CIA, NSA, and FBI all were NOT automatically trolling the listings and keeping list of who was bidding on unusual items. ("Carnivore" sound familiar?) Its just too easy to do these days and you don't need Ebay's help or permission to do that. Its freely available information to collect and data-mine. A central data base containing a good percentage of the uncommon/unusual purchases people have made within the US and abroad. Its very easy to build profiles of people by what they buy and sell.
These agencies would be TOTALLY STUPID not to do so in the name of "homeland security". I would not be surprised if they even plant particular items to see who's interested, afterall its perfectly legal to re-sell "government surplus"!
I think people do have a reason to worry about that. Its uncomfortable to do business if "big brother" is looking over your shoulder. So yes, you DO need to wear a "tin foil hat" figuratively speaking and be careful about how you conduct yourself and what you buy, or else you might find it necessary to explain yourself to some large men in black suits one day. It stifles creativity, ingenuity, and freedom.
Sounds like there are MANY confused people out there. (Or I don't know what I am talking about, so help me)
Radio waves are long wave light that exhibit quantum effects on a large scale because they have a long wavelength. For radio at 100Mhz, the wavelength is 3 Meters. For light its ~0.4e-6 Meters. The quantum effects scale with the wavelength. Diffraction of light at microscopic scales is EXACTLY the same phenomenon as diffraction of radio waves at larger scales which have to do with loss of information concerning postion and momentum of the photon. Its a quantum effect. Quantum mechanics NEVER actually describes particles. Everything is a wave/field. Radio waves are really an example of quantum wave effects on large scales.
The photon can be best thought of as a thing that appears randomly within the electromagnetic field wich appears with a rapidness proportional to the intensity of the field. Quantum mechanics describes the nature of the field and thus where we most likely will observe particles. No one understands exactly why the fields manifest themselves as particles (and vice versa).
I'll admit to being an "armchair physicist". Posting this troubles me. Either I am total wrong or 90% of the people posting don't understand this basic physics.
Am I wrong? And why?
I've wondered if the supposed acceleration of the universe may be the result of pressure (Enegy/volume)induced by a slight anisotropy of the quantum vacuum fluctuation, implying some type of surface that we can't detect. (More stuff enters our universe from somewhere else than leaves)
I hear that the the game itself was dull, but everyone kept comming up to it and trying to pass their hands "through" the characters since they appeared to actually hover above the screen.
I've always wondered what happened to that technology.
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/students/bandw idth/charts.html
I've been told that the problem actually has a lot to do with employees and graduate students with too much time on their hands... streaming audio is also a big thing. Still $4 for each 2Gb/month seems VERY restrictive, especially for people who utilize the campus net for making backups and such. I think that they should regulate usage according to time of day since you can actually use up that much bandwidth in under two hours if connected through a decent port.
Also Diamond films can be extremely strong (>8GPa typical today). Perhaps coating optical fibers with diamond film or some other technology might improve the perfomance to make a large taper space elevator viable. The advantage is that materials are cheap and very refined manufacturing capability exists.
Fiber optic cable:
Tensile Strength:~3.9 Gpa (From manufacturer's data sheet)
Density: 2.0g/cm^3
Self Support height: 198km
Steel:
Tensile Strength 5.0Gpa
Density: 7.9 g/cm^3
SSH: 64km
At the same time there seems to be compelling evidence of free-radicals being one of the fundamental processes involved in ageing.
Could excessive ozone exposure result in shorter lifespans or the faster onset of chronic disease and/or systemic tissue damage? I've never heard of conclusive evidence either way.
As a side note, it was recently uncovered that welders have shorter lifespans and a MUCH high incidence of Parkinson's disease than the general population. Could ozone exposure be a factor?.. along with the other fumes?
Is is possible for spammers to obtain email ID's from the URL obtained from a banner ad's "referal" data? Or perhaps they can harvest emails ID's if you click on a banner ad. Isn't there some sort of HTML mechanisms to do this?... I don't know, thats why I'm asking.
What about if they serve flash animations? Can flash code be made to spit back the complete refering URL?
Its not so commonly known that lubricants improve electrical contact between conductive surfaces by preventing oxidation but at the same time do not themselves interfere with the resistance of the metal/metal contacts (proven my many informal experiments that people have done)
I personally wonder if there may be some unexplored physics at work? You'd think that the oil film between the contacts would increase the resistance, but it does not. Maybe the molecularly thin-film between the contacts becomes conductive or perhaps even tunneling effects come into play? (wild speculation...)
In any case, this method works. WD-40 tends to pick up dust which could be a problem later and so there are better lubricants to use. Thats really the only drawback to using WD40. This is something that people have been doing to restore older electronics for many years.
Bend back the connectors, clean contacts with Brasso polish (and DONT use Sandpaper since it will scratch through any plating!) and then clean with alcohol, and then apply lubricant (WD40 or Radio Shack "Tuner Cleaner") to the contacts.
My suspicion is that bending back the contacts is probably least important in these situations, I think it just applies more force to break through the thin oxidation layer. A few inserts will quickly remove the oxidation layer, but you need lubrication to keep it from re-forming. Once oxidation starts, its little like rust in that it accelerates its own formation.
This is not B.S., It works. This is commonly done by antique radio restorers to fix faulty switches and controls. It was also a trick used in the days of "slot cars". A similar thing is done by using di-electric grease on light bulb sockets and spark plug contacts.
Radio-shack TV tuner cleaner (which leaves behind a lubricant) is another thing you can use if you want to get fancy. Craig Labs "DE-OXIT" (available on the web) is what the pro's use.
WD-40 attracts dust so you can use the fancier stuff if you believe your gaming system is collectible.
This is from someone who does a lot of repair of high-end test instrumentation...
I agree, this is very exciting news. Anybody who has worked with embedded systems for robotics, avionics, machine control, medical systems, digital cameras, and even printers will tell you that running linux on a single chip has been viewed as the holy grail of the past few years in this field. AFAIK, Currently, only multiple chip linux based around the such processors as the 68000, i386/i486, etc have been avaiable and once you start using multiple chip sets, its often overkill for most quick-and-dirty embedded sytems applications and so you often sacrifice by using lesser perfomance embedded processors and less robust/more difficult to learn development tools. This linux based system will be nice since developers will be able to work with all latest standard file systems, networking protocols, and port interfaces, etc without re-inventing the wheel. Running a dedicated OS like this also simplifies development since you can make write driver code for your system and test/debug in real time. This is going to be very popular and probably lead to some very feature rich products. My hat's off to these guys!
My Point #5 Was poorly very worded. I didn't mean for all the user files to lump into a single level directory. (though that was actually the case in the first version of the Mac OS)
To clarify, I simply meant that user data should be forced separate from the OS and Application binaries such that the user can easily distinguish their own work (files and directories) from everything else. Yes, its done in unix to an extent but could be implemented better. When I open Windows explorer, 99% of the time, I don't need to see the entire harddrive structure, usually I just want to find out where MY files/directories are. (Afterall, windows lets me put them anywhere in the first place)
An extension would be objects (larger projects) that envelop smaller projects. (ie website project encumpasses various graphics projects) Ultimately I might like to see objects replace directories and have the OS automatically monitor the dependancies, making file moves and re-organization easier than it is now. On the other hand, an OOP based file system might make things too confusing.
Important thing to focus on is the need for Task/Project centric OS architecture. The OS should be designed to keep projects organized and make it easy to switch between projects rather than just between individual applications. Right now the user has do quite a bit of unnecessary leg work to keep things properly organized.