Desktop fabrication is going to be an interesting one to watch.
Desktop fabrication is already HERE. We use CNC machines all the time in manufacturing facilities. There is even a small "CNC" machine for routing out one-off circuit boards. Instead of laying out a PCB, printing it, developing it, etching it, prepping it, you chuck up a copper-clad board and hit print. Not practical for multiple boards obviously, but saves a TREMENDOUS amount of time in prototyping. I can go from breadboard to PC board in an hour, instead of overnight.
There are also a few (expensive) CNC-type machines available for the hobbiest. Again, not a production-level machine, but you COULD do exactly what your post suggests, in the privacy of your own garage!
And before someone jumps up and says "You can't build a gun barrel for your AK!", yes, you can. Look in any black-powder gun magazine and you will find any number of companies that sell gun barrel blanks. Chuck one up in a lathe, bore it to caliber, rifle it, cut it to length... You get the picture...
I thought the Morse code was declared obsolete a few years ago.
It was never declared obsolete... It was just eliminated from the ITU rules for maritime radiotelephone operators. For us Hams, knowledge of it was also required for us to use any frequency below 30MHz. Since the ITU has eliminated it from the international treaties, most countries are eliminating it from their amateur radio requirements. The ARRL is also proposing a partial elimination of it for those of us in the US. It will be eliminated for every class of operation other than Extra (if the FCC approves it).
For one thing, standard printers are simply not very good at making even sub-standard counterfeit bills. The texture isn't right, the colors aren't quite right, there's no authenticity strip embedded in the paper (in $5's and above), and even the aroma of the paper and ink isn't quite right-- money has its own smell.
The simple solution to that is to take a bunch of $1 bills, bleach them, then reprint your $20 on the paper. Then you pass the bills to people who are too busy to notice, like the over-pierced bimbo chick at McDonalds (aka Liberal Arts grad student) during lunch time. You eliminate the texture/feel/smell problem and maximize your return on investment (the original $1 bill). If you do get caught, whip out a real $20, loudly exclaim WTF?!, pay for the purchase and get the hell outta there.
NOT that I've ever done that before... Honestly! I just remember reading that out of one of the "Getting Even" or "Revenge" type books...
I drive a huge '79 Ford Bronco with a lift kit and 40" tires. I have 4" drill casing for my front and rear bumpers and 3" casing for the side nerfbars. My suggestion is just to NOT drive in my blindspot! I don't care because I don't HAVE to!!
I know people who received the attachment, couldn't open it, and forwarded to to others to see if they could open it. Absolutely Amazing.
That is EXACTLY how I received SEVEN copies of the worm! My g/f, my daughter, my ex-wife, one of my daughter's friends, and 3 other friends forwarded me the damn thing, all complaining they couldn't open it and could I try and then send it back to them...
My daughter and g/f should know better... The others...
I should change all my sig files to say "NO, I will NOT work on your computer!"
First of all, I would ditch your idea of a WiFi intercom system. I think you'd end up spending WAAAAY more money than if you just purchased a professional intercom system.
The prevailing "standard" (if you want to call it that) is that ClearCom systems are used mainly in fixed locations, like your theater. Telex/RTS (my personal favorite) are used more in remote production trucks and broadcast facilities. I have always found that the RTS is the more versitle and adaptable of the two major players.
I would suggest that you check out each of these two websites and look at their lower-end products.
http://www.clearcom.com/ & http://www.telex.com/
They are still high-quality systems that will give you years of great service, but at a lower price than their full-blown premium systems. Once you find something that fits into your budget, check out eBay to see if they have any pieces, parts, or systems available.
There are also some great inexpensive no-brand-name systems available out there. You may want to check out Broadcasters General Store or Markertek to see what they may have. Their links are http://www.bgsfl.com/ and http://www.markertek.com/.
Undoubtedly the most expensive tech mistake I ever made was blowing up a $45,000 UHF TV transmitter power tube. I was a Chief Engineer at a UHF station in Murfreesboro, TN some years back, and had to do some transmitter maintenance at 0-freaking dark thirty on a Sunday night/Monday morning. We had been running 50% power for a few days until I could swap out a failed transmitter tube.
The spare tube had been in storage for over a year, and they sometimes get gassy. So I borrowed a portable high voltage power supply from EEV and proceeded to fire up the tube in the crate to burn off filament deposits and burn out the gas.
Except I misread the color code on the leads and hooked 8000 volts to the filament contact on the tube. The filaments are supposed to run around 8 volts.
The meters on the power supply pegged, the circuit breaker tripped, and the tube became a $45,000 crate of junk in about half a second.
Wanna try explaining that to the General Manager during your Monday morning staff meeting???
The most important criticism of Linux -- the most honest, the most brutal -- the one that you all know in your hearts is true but can't bring yourself to admit for fear of slowing adoption -- is in that PDF, on page 23.
Hey! Isn't that the same proof that SCO has offered up in THEIR war on Linux??? Hmmmmm... Two independent companies with the same damning proof... I guess us penguin lovers had better get the hell outta Dodge!
a wonder I haven't seen any model airplane cameras yet.
I used to have an ATV (Amateur Radio TV) transmitter and camera in my unlimited-class glider. Got some great footage at the last competition I participated in... Camera the size of an ice cube, transmitter the size of a postage stamp... Both ran on a 9v battery... The battery was actually bigger than the transmitter was!
To make it short become the microsoft of 82-83 again...
I would just as soon they NOT become the Micro$oft of 82-83... Didn't they steal enough and put enough other companies out of business back then?? At least now we know the beast, back then we were blind-sided by it.
I still have a beta-test copy of DRDos... And a letter from Gary Kildall thanking some of the members of our CP/M UG for testing it!
I also still have a paper tape of M$ BASIC 1.0. My other remaining paper tape is the copy with the BUG FIXES.
maybe for now. Just wait until there is a single tollbooth with a real person and the rest are EZ-Pass.
That's about the time I would be rigging an off-on switch to the damn thing! Just turn it on when you get to a toll booth, off the rest of the time... Would even put it on a pushbutton so it couldn't accidentally be left on...
The easier it is for Big Bro to use technology on us, the easier it is to find ways around it...
Strange choice to round up though. Wouldn't 22,200 have just looked like a cleaner number?
I've heard it quite commonly referred to as "22,500 miles". Yes, I'm a Broadcast Engineer and know that it's actually 22,239 +/- a few feet, but in general conversation, 22,500 is what I've heard the most...
Basically, it does everything, weighs in at under a meg, and looks and feels just like Media Player 6.4. Get it. Now.
THIS is the reason I like/. so much... I am not going to pretend to know everything about every thing... But reading through the crap sometimes lets me find a great alternative solution to the problem!
Thanks CD!
Personally, I think that M$ should be required to make the "Custom Install" the default installer. Go ahead and give us all the crap they currently include in their bloatware, but give us a check box that allows us to NOT install it when we load the system up. Then we could pick and choose item by item what we want on our boxen. Don't want IE? Don't check the box! Don't want Notepad? Don't check the box!
A solution such as this would be the only real way to satisify both sides of the M$/monopoly issue. Put the choice back into the hands of the consumer, while allowing M$ to continue their bloatware practices...
I still use my Kaypro 10 for my Amateur Radio logging, an old XT for antenna control, and a Radio Shack Model 100 for assorted terminal diagnostics.
I did get my daughter a C64, because a friend loaded me up with a lot of learning software, and it was certainly easier for a 5 year old to operate the C64 than it was my Kaypro!
My latest project is to get my Altos boxen up and running, and am planning on running Citadel-UX on it, and setting up a door to my old Radio Shack Model 4 so people can log in and look at my old Citadel 2.26 BBS.
Why?? Why the heck NOT??!! When you have to sit in front of a computer all day drawing lines on a screen, why not do something FUN with the stuff piled up around the house!!!
>remote control cars that took 10 NiCad AA batteries
If you look at the design of most radio contolled cars and planes, they have some sort of cooling for the batteries. Radio control planes usually have some sort of cowling that directs air over the DC motor and the battery pack. I've also seen radio controlled race boats that have small copper tubing as coils wrapped around motors and batteries, and have a water pickup that forces cool water into the cooling system to keep the batteries and motors from overheating...
There was also an arson case in Nashville, TN some many years back where two 9 volt batteries were connected to each other and then thrown into a room, where they finally heated up enough to catch fire and then set the carpet and interior on fire...
I have a VERY simple solution to this... Everyone buy SCOX short, and then let me know about it. I'll drop a few bucks into it on a regular transaction, and the stock will tank... I guarantee it! Trust me! It's happened to every other damn stock I've ever bought! If you want to kill off a company, just let me buy stock in it!
>We could educate him. With just his published home telephone number...
We don't need his published phone number... The Federal District Court in Oklahoma City's phone number is listed as 405-609-5000. I think everyone should call and ask Chief Judge Robin J. Cauthron what in the fscking hell he was thinking when he made that ruling.
Of course, if anyone has his home number, I'm sure that he wouldn't mind receiving a few calls there, either!
It's time we started making these untouchable public leaders start to think about their decisions. Wasn't it MaBell who used to use the ad campaign to "reach out and touch someone"? It's time to make shit-for-brains judges like this one realize that we CAN reach out and touch them!
>...switching to whitelists, and even at work, whitelists for internal mail only cuts spam almost 100%.
I have two personal email accounts and two work email accounts. The first account on each is set to accept mail from anyone... At home it's usually 99% spam, at work it's probabally 50-50... The SECOND email account is whitelisted. If I don't know you, or you didn't contact me through the open email account, you don't get through.
Both of my whitelist accounts enjoy 0% spam...
Personally, I'd love to see some of you "knowledgable" folks start DDOSing the spammers. If the dickheads can't access the 'net, they can't spam... Surely if the script kiddies can do it, some of/.'s users can... Since law enforcement is totally clueless and powerless, maybe it's time for some more heavy-handed grassroots efforts...
>And when Isabel destroys many of the cell towers, where will you be then?
I was down in the Homestead area about 8 hours after Andrew blew through... My cellphone stopped working somewhere just south of lake Okechobee and didn't start to work again for over 10 days. I worked with the Red Cross, SATERN, and other groups for close to 3 weeks.
As I have said before, to many "cellphones are the answer" kinda people, cellphones do not work when their towers are laying on their sides.
On the other hand, last June, during Field Day, we got hit with a particularly violent thunderstorm that knocked one of the local clubs completely off the air (http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/07/02/1/?nc =1). We were a few miles south of that group, but also lost an antenna, a tower, and half-way submerged a generator in the storm. However, we were back on the air with batteries and wire antennas in about an hour.
Amateur radio may not be "modern", it may not be fast, but one thing it is, is RELIABLE. Any time, any where, "When all else fails".
Slashdot Mirror
Desktop fabrication is already HERE. We use CNC machines all the time in manufacturing facilities. There is even a small "CNC" machine for routing out one-off circuit boards. Instead of laying out a PCB, printing it, developing it, etching it, prepping it, you chuck up a copper-clad board and hit print. Not practical for multiple boards obviously, but saves a TREMENDOUS amount of time in prototyping. I can go from breadboard to PC board in an hour, instead of overnight.
There are also a few (expensive) CNC-type machines available for the hobbiest. Again, not a production-level machine, but you COULD do exactly what your post suggests, in the privacy of your own garage!
And before someone jumps up and says "You can't build a gun barrel for your AK!", yes, you can. Look in any black-powder gun magazine and you will find any number of companies that sell gun barrel blanks. Chuck one up in a lathe, bore it to caliber, rifle it, cut it to length... You get the picture...
It was never declared obsolete... It was just eliminated from the ITU rules for maritime radiotelephone operators. For us Hams, knowledge of it was also required for us to use any frequency below 30MHz. Since the ITU has eliminated it from the international treaties, most countries are eliminating it from their amateur radio requirements. The ARRL is also proposing a partial elimination of it for those of us in the US. It will be eliminated for every class of operation other than Extra (if the FCC approves it).
73 de Paul, KC4YDY
The simple solution to that is to take a bunch of $1 bills, bleach them, then reprint your $20 on the paper. Then you pass the bills to people who are too busy to notice, like the over-pierced bimbo chick at McDonalds (aka Liberal Arts grad student) during lunch time. You eliminate the texture/feel/smell problem and maximize your return on investment (the original $1 bill). If you do get caught, whip out a real $20, loudly exclaim WTF?!, pay for the purchase and get the hell outta there.
NOT that I've ever done that before... Honestly! I just remember reading that out of one of the "Getting Even" or "Revenge" type books...
That is EXACTLY how I received SEVEN copies of the worm! My g/f, my daughter, my ex-wife, one of my daughter's friends, and 3 other friends forwarded me the damn thing, all complaining they couldn't open it and could I try and then send it back to them...
My daughter and g/f should know better... The others...
I should change all my sig files to say "NO, I will NOT work on your computer!"
The prevailing "standard" (if you want to call it that) is that ClearCom systems are used mainly in fixed locations, like your theater. Telex/RTS (my personal favorite) are used more in remote production trucks and broadcast facilities. I have always found that the RTS is the more versitle and adaptable of the two major players.
I would suggest that you check out each of these two websites and look at their lower-end products.
http://www.clearcom.com/ & http://www.telex.com/
They are still high-quality systems that will give you years of great service, but at a lower price than their full-blown premium systems. Once you find something that fits into your budget, check out eBay to see if they have any pieces, parts, or systems available.
There are also some great inexpensive no-brand-name systems available out there. You may want to check out Broadcasters General Store or Markertek to see what they may have. Their links are http://www.bgsfl.com/ and http://www.markertek.com/.
Good luck!
The spare tube had been in storage for over a year, and they sometimes get gassy. So I borrowed a portable high voltage power supply from EEV and proceeded to fire up the tube in the crate to burn off filament deposits and burn out the gas.
Except I misread the color code on the leads and hooked 8000 volts to the filament contact on the tube. The filaments are supposed to run around 8 volts.
The meters on the power supply pegged, the circuit breaker tripped, and the tube became a $45,000 crate of junk in about half a second.
Wanna try explaining that to the General Manager during your Monday morning staff meeting???
Hey! Isn't that the same proof that SCO has offered up in THEIR war on Linux??? Hmmmmm... Two independent companies with the same damning proof... I guess us penguin lovers had better get the hell outta Dodge!
Um, excuse me, but there is no cabal!
I used to have an ATV (Amateur Radio TV) transmitter and camera in my unlimited-class glider. Got some great footage at the last competition I participated in... Camera the size of an ice cube, transmitter the size of a postage stamp... Both ran on a 9v battery... The battery was actually bigger than the transmitter was!
I would just as soon they NOT become the Micro$oft of 82-83... Didn't they steal enough and put enough other companies out of business back then?? At least now we know the beast, back then we were blind-sided by it.
I still have a beta-test copy of DRDos... And a letter from Gary Kildall thanking some of the members of our CP/M UG for testing it!
I also still have a paper tape of M$ BASIC 1.0. My other remaining paper tape is the copy with the BUG FIXES.
Check out this group that rolled their own...
http://www.rric.net/
That's about the time I would be rigging an off-on switch to the damn thing! Just turn it on when you get to a toll booth, off the rest of the time... Would even put it on a pushbutton so it couldn't accidentally be left on...
The easier it is for Big Bro to use technology on us, the easier it is to find ways around it...
My first "monitor" was a Teletype ASR33 and the front panel of my IMSAI. I had paper tape instead of punch cards!
We carried shoeboxes full of punched cards over to the card reader. Woe unto those unfortunate souls who dropped theirs.
The only punchcard I saw was the electric bill from Tampa Electric. Until I got into college. THEN came the shoeboxes full of card decks...
We had Fortran, PL1, Assembler and JCL.
Fortran, Assembler, COBOL, BASIC, and BDS C...
Try 300 baud thru an acoustical coupler.
My ASR33 had a 110 baud modem with a ROTARY dial built into it.
The IBM 29 card punch weighed more than that. So did the Harris card reader.........
I could almost swear that some of my card decks weighed more than the reader! LOL At least they seemed that way!!!
Nayah, nayah, nayah!!! (Gawd, I love trading barbs with other old timers!!! )
I've heard it quite commonly referred to as "22,500 miles". Yes, I'm a Broadcast Engineer and know that it's actually 22,239 +/- a few feet, but in general conversation, 22,500 is what I've heard the most...
THIS is the reason I like /. so much... I am not going to pretend to know everything about every thing... But reading through the crap sometimes lets me find a great alternative solution to the problem!
Thanks CD!
Personally, I think that M$ should be required to make the "Custom Install" the default installer. Go ahead and give us all the crap they currently include in their bloatware, but give us a check box that allows us to NOT install it when we load the system up. Then we could pick and choose item by item what we want on our boxen. Don't want IE? Don't check the box! Don't want Notepad? Don't check the box!
A solution such as this would be the only real way to satisify both sides of the M$/monopoly issue. Put the choice back into the hands of the consumer, while allowing M$ to continue their bloatware practices...
Just my opinion, and you got what you paid for!
I don't know about you, but Google is my HOMEPAGE... If Mickey$oft were to take Google over, I'd go back to AltaVista...
No more than selling penis enlargement products to my lesbian sister!
I did get my daughter a C64, because a friend loaded me up with a lot of learning software, and it was certainly easier for a 5 year old to operate the C64 than it was my Kaypro!
My latest project is to get my Altos boxen up and running, and am planning on running Citadel-UX on it, and setting up a door to my old Radio Shack Model 4 so people can log in and look at my old Citadel 2.26 BBS.
Why?? Why the heck NOT??!! When you have to sit in front of a computer all day drawing lines on a screen, why not do something FUN with the stuff piled up around the house!!!
CP/M and Unix forever!!!!
If you look at the design of most radio contolled cars and planes, they have some sort of cooling for the batteries. Radio control planes usually have some sort of cowling that directs air over the DC motor and the battery pack. I've also seen radio controlled race boats that have small copper tubing as coils wrapped around motors and batteries, and have a water pickup that forces cool water into the cooling system to keep the batteries and motors from overheating...
There was also an arson case in Nashville, TN some many years back where two 9 volt batteries were connected to each other and then thrown into a room, where they finally heated up enough to catch fire and then set the carpet and interior on fire...
That's why I won't subscribe to /.
I enjoy reading it too much to kill it off!
We don't need his published phone number... The Federal District Court in Oklahoma City's phone number is listed as 405-609-5000. I think everyone should call and ask Chief Judge Robin J. Cauthron what in the fscking hell he was thinking when he made that ruling.
Of course, if anyone has his home number, I'm sure that he wouldn't mind receiving a few calls there, either!
It's time we started making these untouchable public leaders start to think about their decisions. Wasn't it MaBell who used to use the ad campaign to "reach out and touch someone"? It's time to make shit-for-brains judges like this one realize that we CAN reach out and touch them!
I have two personal email accounts and two work email accounts. The first account on each is set to accept mail from anyone... At home it's usually 99% spam, at work it's probabally 50-50... The SECOND email account is whitelisted. If I don't know you, or you didn't contact me through the open email account, you don't get through.
Both of my whitelist accounts enjoy 0% spam...
Personally, I'd love to see some of you "knowledgable" folks start DDOSing the spammers. If the dickheads can't access the 'net, they can't spam... Surely if the script kiddies can do it, some of /.'s users can... Since law enforcement is totally clueless and powerless, maybe it's time for some more heavy-handed grassroots efforts...
I was down in the Homestead area about 8 hours after Andrew blew through... My cellphone stopped working somewhere just south of lake Okechobee and didn't start to work again for over 10 days. I worked with the Red Cross, SATERN, and other groups for close to 3 weeks.
As I have said before, to many "cellphones are the answer" kinda people, cellphones do not work when their towers are laying on their sides.
On the other hand, last June, during Field Day, we got hit with a particularly violent thunderstorm that knocked one of the local clubs completely off the air (http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/07/02/1/?nc =1). We were a few miles south of that group, but also lost an antenna, a tower, and half-way submerged a generator in the storm. However, we were back on the air with batteries and wire antennas in about an hour.
Amateur radio may not be "modern", it may not be fast, but one thing it is, is RELIABLE. Any time, any where, "When all else fails".
73 de Paul, KC4YDY