Re:Bamboo bikes have existed for over 100 years
on
Bamboo Bike A Reality
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· Score: 1
IIRC a group of US aviation engineers in china built a working airplane out of bamboo and casein (a milk protein based glue) during world war two. i googled all over but couldn't find any more information on it.
Considering that Pakis are a toprated team and the Banglis are pretty much at the bottom of the ratings the ENTIRE GAME could have finished by then You Insensitive Clod (tm).
Hell we (the Sri Lankans) beat them (their innings and ours) in less than two hours.. and our guys weren't even trying.
the problem is that the sun is further away from Mars than it is from earth.. leading to a reduced amount of solar radiation hitting the surface. (it decreases at the ^2 iirc.. but don't quote me on that).. which means that solar power may not be as efficient, on the other hand a lack of atmospheric interference may help.. but i believe that the best bet may be to look for hydrogen isotopes that could be used to fuel nuclear reactors (deuterium and tritium iirc) which could be used to "crack" water to produce O2 and H2
Even when they want to pick their noses, more and more boys and girls are tending to use a thumb, instead of a finger.
+
The experts found that in fact, the trend of children using their thumbs more and more was particularly marked in Japan.
=
they also have these HUGE nostrils
happened to me a few days ago. i was installing SuSE from a CD-R (don't ask) and it must have had a flaw somewhere. i could hear it start whirring up and then *BANG*.. brought the entire office running to see how i'd managed to blow up a computer (i'm the office tech freak).. we had to pry that drive apart to get the pieces out.. so we're out one CD-ROM drive and i can't install SuSE 8.1 anymore.. (btw anyone got the ISO for cd2 of SuSE 8.1??)
it's a weird coinkidink that you should bring this subject up now, because i just got my copy of Sexual Intelligence (from sexEd.org, and well worth reading) and they were talking about this in one of the articles. some people believe that it SHOULD be tried as a double murder because Scott knew that Laci was pregnant and intended to kill thm both. but the scary part is that soon after the murder..
".. congressional Republicans renamed their pending bill that endows fetuses with legal rights separate from the expectant mother. They're now calling it 'Laci & Connor's Law,' and President Bush says he will sign it if passed."
this is very bad for the pro-choice crowd, and the thinking behind the name change is as bad as that for the naming of the US PATRIOT Act.
folks i read that damned interview and i gotta say that i am STUNNED... stunned that someone like greplaw would actually conduct such a vapid lacking-any-form-or-substance interview with what seems to be yet another airheaded bimbo... was it just me or was that interview painful to read.. i kept getting visions of Melody from Josie and the Pussycats (the comic book not the movie).. YMMV
the interview was poor, and i would agree with teh poster who said this was probably done on AIM with her father looking over her shoulder.. her answers to some questions are TOTALLY different from the style of her answers to others.. on the whole i would say that either a. her father was coaching her (which would totally take away the point of the interview which as she so rightly said 'is about her' b. she has MPS (in which case she needs help) c. she is playing a blonde bimbo when she is really a fairly vocal and insightful person (which i doubt, but if she is, putting forward her affected "dumb blonde" persona in an interview is insulting both to the interviewer and her audience)
if you want her you can have her, but i, personally, prefer a female of more substance than aimee deep
The AC is talking about Sri Lanka.. (and yes i live there).. in less than 10 years since the first cellphones were introduced here we have seen it change from a luxury afforded only by the uber-rich to an almost necessity.. you want a trishaw (three wheel taxi) you call the trishaw guy on his cellphone, some of them will even deliver anything from LP Gas cylinders to hookers and pot to your door (and i'm not kidding about the hookers and pot).. school kids carry cellphones.. i recently saw a father buying his 10 year old son a connection..
However, there is massive price gouging amongst the cellphone companies too, we were supposed to get incoming free at the beginning of the year.. but the telecommunications regulatory commission has been paid off to by the companies not to implement it.. recently the Minister for telecom said that if incoming was not made free by the end of july he would ask for the resignations of the TRC..
personally i think we will see this kind of occurrence in india as well.. price gouging, bribing.. whatever it takes to keep the prices high.. however, it must be remembered that asia is notorious/famous for being early adopters of technology.. this may serve as a test bed for the rest of the world.. asia may end up with crappy CDMA.. but the rest of the world may benefit..
But where are you going to find real wallpaper with a pic of pamela anderson with a mouthful of cum??
and are you REALLY going to hang that out in the open?
and if you change wallpapers as often as me and my friends do, you'll probably end up with a room that is about one inch less wide in about a month
the idea behind bringing music out on Tuesday comes from the charts. when Billboard mag comes out on saturday, they set the type for the charts on tuesday morning. this means that what gets "charted" is only what is at the top on Monday.. so new music is (usually) released on tuesday, so they have the maximum amount of time to crawl up the charts until next monday..
in a (slightly) related note.. all those chart shows that you hear on radio (Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40, and Casey Kasem) are usually in the radio stations by thursday in CD format.. even if they seem to have call-ins and stuff.. its ALL done on CD.. i used to work for a radio station in sri lanka and some of my most boring memories are of babysitting a CD player on saturday morning as it played the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
in fact thanks to time zones etc, sri lankans heard the top 40 WELL before the rest of the world.. (until those damned aussies started playing RDWT40).. 8-)
Suchetha
on the other more on-topic side, kudos to steve jobs for actually coming up with a realistic model for selling music online, this is probably not the end of the RIAA, it may be a dying dinosaur, but do you REALLY want to be under a dying dinosaur?... at worst youa re going to get ground into the topsoil during its death throes, at best you are going to get buried under a couple hudred tons of rotting dinosaur.. but lets face it.. this system is a realistic hope for the Industry to bow out gracefully.. whether they take it, or continue to fight a losing battle is entirely up to them..
OTOH i intend to keep downloading music off Kazaa Lite simply because i live in a country where almost the only way to get software/music is via bootleg CD's (you can get official game Cd's for some games but everything else is bootleg.. usually available within 1 week of release at about $0.75 per CD).. so no matter what my money goes to pirates
robots DO need cups
on
RoboCup 2003
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· Score: 2, Funny
simple.. you're posting on/... face it.. you're wasting your time
Suchetha
this CAN be used for good
on
Dial-A-Cam
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· Score: 1
idea from David Brin's "Transparent Society"
Imagine a place where this kind of cam is on top of every other streetlight, passing the information to ANYONE who wants it. Want to see if there is a mugger/billcollector/cop waiting at the corner of your street.. dial up the cam.. your kid gone missing.. dial the relevant cam.. the point is this CAN be used for surveillance by cops.. but the REAL issue is here.. when this kind of information be accessed by everyone.. when the cameras are EVERYWHERE.. the amount of privacy will lessen yes.. but society will adapt.. we will become more adept at using the information available to us... of COURSE there will be abuses.. but if as a people (not just in the US but EVERYWHERE) we can get together and force our lawmakers to allow the public access to WHAT THEY ARE PAYING FOR (sure like THAT will ever happen), this technology can be a great boon.
personally i have seen this kind of surveillance cam go up everywhere (i was in Bath, UK a few months ago and Big Brother is ALWAYS watching you).. and i would MUCH rather be in a place where the cams are accessible to and by everyone.. not just the cops
well i guess this would be must-have item in the wired home, but for me the biggest problem is that it is too big. for what it offers, yes it is a good unit.. but what if DON'T want to browse the web on my remote? i think that the PRONTO TSU3000 would be a better choice, simply because it's smaller, does only the remote functions and can be carried in a pocket (MUCH easier to lose under the sofa cushions)
Suchetha
(of course i won't be buying one until there is a MASSIVE price drop)
NASA Improves Computers With Tiny Carbon Tubes On Silicon Chips
The life of the silicon chip industry may last 10 or more years longer, thanks to a new manufacturing process developed by NASA scientists.
The novel method, announced in the April 14 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, includes use of extremely tiny carbon 'nanotubes' instead of copper conductors to interconnect parts within integrated circuits (ICs). Carbon nanotubes are measured in nanometers, much smaller than today's components.
A nanometer is roughly 10,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. ICs are very small groups of electronic components made on silicon wafers.
"NASA needs high-performance computing in small packages for future autonomous spacecraft," said Meyya Meyyappan, director of the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Calif., coauthor of the article.
"The bottom line is that computer chips with more layers and smaller components can do more for us. While we are working on carbon nanotube-based chips for long-term needs, we also are indirectly helping industry to keep silicon-based computer chips in use as long as possible," he said.
One advantage of using carbon nanotube interconnects within integrated circuits is that these interconnects have the ability to conduct very high currents, more than a million amperes of current in a one square centimeter area without any deterioration, which seems to be a problem with today's copper interconnects," said Jun Li, lead scientist of the team at ARC that developed the new process.
"Also, there is no need to create deep, narrow trenches on silicon wafers in which to bury copper conductors, a step that also is becoming a problem as components are made smaller and smaller," Li added.
"Our process allows us to use the tiny carbon nanotubes to replace copper to interconnect network layers on silicon chips," Meyyappan said. "We think this new process may well help to sustain the Moore's Law growth curve."
Moore's Law stemmed from an observation made by computer chip pioneer Gordon Moore in 1964 that the number of transistors in a given area of an IC had doubled every year since its invention. Moore predicted the trend would continue at a rate of about 18 months between doublings.
Continuing down this 'doubling' path is becoming increasingly difficult, according to Meyyappan.
"Roadblocks exist in several common technologies such as interconnects, lithography and others currently used to make the chips," he said. "However, I think our new process could be in use by industry for the next generation of ICs, removing some of these roadblocks," Meyyappan added.
"Using the new process, manufacturers will be able to add more cake-like layers of components to silicon chips to increase computer capability," Li said.
Because copper's resistance to electricity flow increases greatly as the metal's dimensions decrease, there is a limit to how small copper conductors can be.
In contrast, extremely tiny carbon nanotubes can substitute for copper conductors in smaller computer chip electronic configurations, because carbon nanotube electrical resistance is not high.
The new process includes 'growing' microscopic, whisker-like carbon nanotubes on the surface of a silicon wafer by means of a chemical process. Researchers deposit a layer of silica over the nanotubes grown on the chip to fill the spaces between the tubes. Then the surface is polished flat.
Scientists can build more multiple, cake-like layers with vertical carbon nanotube 'wires' that can interconnect layers of electronics that make up the chip.
What NASA has done is to make a switch from copper connectors to carbon nanotube connectors within the chip and (maybe) the boards. but while this IS a revolutionary step it will be a LONG while until we see this kind of chip for sale in teh home market because :
there are very few companies who are geared for this kind of manufacturing since everyone so far has been using copper for the past umpteen years
changing over to this kind of manufacturing will be a massive capital investment for a company, especially the companies in the East (asia not new york) where are a lot of these chips/boards are made
there are AFAIK no companies that make nanotubes in sufficient quantity and quality to feed the demand for the tubes at the moment
unless you are a gamer home computers are more than fast enough now for what we want (internet/email/minor word processing) this kind of tech will only benefit the "Power User" community..
that said i should add that this is a pretty cool tech.. and i hope it works out.. after all.. <toolman>more POW-er urrhh urrh urrh</toolman>
Suchetha
Dear Cyberdyne Systems,
I would like to pre-order a May type maid Robot, deliverable as soon as they become available. I would like to order one with full care for humans programming and pneumatic b00b13z.
Please make sure that the Robot is packaged properly because the last one i got had its' power charger damaged and i had to make a new one out of USB cable.
Thank You.
Suchetha
<Please make sure you send me the HUMAN FRIENDLY version. The last time i gave an order like this, it went to another Cyberdyne Corporation and i ended up getting chased around my neighbourhood by a robot modeled after a large caucasian male, who insisted he wished to terminate me.. my girlfriend had to drop a metal press on it to stop it..>
the first shuttle to go into space was the Columbia (R.I.P.) and she has been in active operation for the past 22 years.. in fact she was older than many/.ers.
lets face it folks, Columbia and her sisters were NEVER supposed to be in operation for this long.. iirc AIRLINES aren't allowed to fly planes which are more than 25 yrs old (i may be wrong on this one).. and the shuttle goes through MUCH more stress in reentry than your regular airliner.
the shuttles use outmoded technology and are designed for missions that are in many ways different from what they have to do now. should seven lives be risked just to get some satellites into space? or to get some supplies to the ISS? i would say the answer is no.. the US needs to get its priorities straight. start using rockets to get hardware into space, and then use the jettisoned hardware as part of the ISS, use a space equivalent of a delivery truck (pilot, copilot, navigator/arm controller ONLY, and lots of cargo space) for the kind of mission that absolutely HAS to have a human to handle the cargo and use a "space RV" which is what the shuttle was, to conduct some of the missions the shuttle did.. but i believe that once the ISS *REALLY* gets going a lot of those experiments that they were doing on the shuttle could be done just as easily on the ISS labs, with just the experiment components being brought to them via the "delivery truck" or by rocket.
lets face it folks, the shuttle as we know it is not the right tool for the job. so how about we put them out to pasture, and use the lessons they taught us to build a proper spacefleet?
this article hits home because i am one of the people the jobs are coming TO.
i live in Sri Lanka and work for the webdev section of a british dotcom. at the moment the company has 20 webdev people in the UK and 4 in SL (the rest of the team are support staff and grafx ppls), but according to the ceo they are thinking of downgrading the entire uk structure and hiring more people here in SL.
my point is here... by UK standards they are paying us peanuts!! i get paid less than 7% of what the job i do would cost if it were being done by a brit. (trust me, i checked the numbers, a dev guy would get UKP2,000 there i get the equivalent of UKP150)
but this amount lets me make about 10x of minimum wage here which is a decent amount.
but there are downsides to this.
MOST ASIANS ARE DRONES!!! if you want them to do a piece of work and keep doing it they are perfect. but our society and education system which puts more weight on conformity and herd-following (and no i DO NOT mean chasing a bunch of cows around 8-) ) means that if you want to do something innovative here you got to find those exceptional types who can think and improvise. and those ones are already in the US on their H1B
most people in asia don't speak english all that well. this leads to confusion and problems in communications with the westerners
i was hired because i am one of those few nonconformists who decided to come back to my country (went to uni in OKC, USA, saw the dot bomb about to drop and buggered off, also my parents run a moderately successful company here), i can think on my feet and i am am bilingual (i speak both languages well enough to pass for a native, in fact when i was in the US i frequently was)..
i see my friends trying to make a living in the US and i feel sorry for them (degree holding CS guys stacking shelves in wally world...) personally i would love to get them down here where the cost of living is low, and if you know how to manipulate the system (which, believe me i do) you can live and work. sure you'll miss your mega malls, and seeing the latest movies as they come out, no mtn dew, no game arcades and no DSL.. but we got great weather, cheap housing (by us standards anyway) and beaches...
personally i would LOVE to have a few slashdotters come join me here, and i am already running a dotcom that could use some help (so its not making money atm but i'm working on that part)
i guess the point i am trying to make is this. the US has been training its people for freedom and creativity, the east for drones. put the two together and you get a potent mix. we could use some creative thinkers here, you could do with some drones there.
Mr Monti and his staff are already considering a complaint that Microsoft committed illegal practices with older versions of its software.
That investigation has been going on for three years and a decision is expected in the next few months.
this means that they will give a decision on the older versions of M$FT in a few months.. so a decision on WinXP will take another three years.. by which time M$FT will have a new OS out.. and the whole rigmarole will start again..
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC a group of US aviation engineers in china built a working airplane out of bamboo and casein (a milk protein based glue) during world war two. i googled all over but couldn't find any more information on it.
Suchetha
sheesh
Considering that Pakis are a toprated team and the Banglis are pretty much at the bottom of the ratings the ENTIRE GAME could have finished by then You Insensitive Clod (tm).
Hell we (the Sri Lankans) beat them (their innings and ours) in less than two hours.. and our guys weren't even trying.
Suchetha
the problem is that the sun is further away from Mars than it is from earth.. leading to a reduced amount of solar radiation hitting the surface. (it decreases at the ^2 iirc.. but don't quote me on that).. which means that solar power may not be as efficient, on the other hand a lack of atmospheric interference may help .. but i believe that the best bet may be to look for hydrogen isotopes that could be used to fuel nuclear reactors (deuterium and tritium iirc) which could be used to "crack" water to produce O2 and H2
Suchetha
(dave my mind's going.. i can feel it)
Even when they want to pick their noses, more and more boys and girls are tending to use a thumb, instead of a finger.
+
The experts found that in fact, the trend of children using their thumbs more and more was particularly marked in Japan.
=
they also have these HUGE nostrils
Suchetha
happened to me a few days ago. i was installing SuSE from a CD-R (don't ask) and it must have had a flaw somewhere. i could hear it start whirring up and then *BANG*.. brought the entire office running to see how i'd managed to blow up a computer (i'm the office tech freak).. we had to pry that drive apart to get the pieces out.. so we're out one CD-ROM drive and i can't install SuSE 8.1 anymore.. (btw anyone got the ISO for cd2 of SuSE 8.1??)
Suchetha
it's cooled by beer.. and is powered by splitting the beer atom
this is very bad for the pro-choice crowd, and the thinking behind the name change is as bad as that for the naming of the US PATRIOT Act.
Sychetha
folks i read that damned interview and i gotta say that i am STUNNED... stunned that someone like greplaw would actually conduct such a vapid lacking-any-form-or-substance interview with what seems to be yet another airheaded bimbo... was it just me or was that interview painful to read.. i kept getting visions of Melody from Josie and the Pussycats (the comic book not the movie).. YMMV
the interview was poor, and i would agree with teh poster who said this was probably done on AIM with her father looking over her shoulder.. her answers to some questions are TOTALLY different from the style of her answers to others.. on the whole i would say that either a. her father was coaching her (which would totally take away the point of the interview which as she so rightly said 'is about her' b. she has MPS (in which case she needs help) c. she is playing a blonde bimbo when she is really a fairly vocal and insightful person (which i doubt, but if she is, putting forward her affected "dumb blonde" persona in an interview is insulting both to the interviewer and her audience)
if you want her you can have her, but i, personally, prefer a female of more substance than aimee deep
Suchetha
The AC is talking about Sri Lanka.. (and yes i live there).. in less than 10 years since the first cellphones were introduced here we have seen it change from a luxury afforded only by the uber-rich to an almost necessity.. you want a trishaw (three wheel taxi) you call the trishaw guy on his cellphone, some of them will even deliver anything from LP Gas cylinders to hookers and pot to your door (and i'm not kidding about the hookers and pot).. school kids carry cellphones.. i recently saw a father buying his 10 year old son a connection..
.. but the rest of the world may benefit..
However, there is massive price gouging amongst the cellphone companies too, we were supposed to get incoming free at the beginning of the year.. but the telecommunications regulatory commission has been paid off to by the companies not to implement it.. recently the Minister for telecom said that if incoming was not made free by the end of july he would ask for the resignations of the TRC..
personally i think we will see this kind of occurrence in india as well.. price gouging, bribing.. whatever it takes to keep the prices high.. however, it must be remembered that asia is notorious/famous for being early adopters of technology.. this may serve as a test bed for the rest of the world.. asia may end up with crappy CDMA
suchetha
But where are you going to find real wallpaper with a pic of pamela anderson with a mouthful of cum??
and are you REALLY going to hang that out in the open?
and if you change wallpapers as often as me and my friends do, you'll probably end up with a room that is about one inch less wide in about a month
Suchetha
First Post
sorry guys.. had to do it
Suchetha
the idea behind bringing music out on Tuesday comes from the charts. when Billboard mag comes out on saturday, they set the type for the charts on tuesday morning. this means that what gets "charted" is only what is at the top on Monday.. so new music is (usually) released on tuesday, so they have the maximum amount of time to crawl up the charts until next monday..
in a (slightly) related note.. all those chart shows that you hear on radio (Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40, and Casey Kasem) are usually in the radio stations by thursday in CD format.. even if they seem to have call-ins and stuff.. its ALL done on CD.. i used to work for a radio station in sri lanka and some of my most boring memories are of babysitting a CD player on saturday morning as it played the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
in fact thanks to time zones etc, sri lankans heard the top 40 WELL before the rest of the world.. (until those damned aussies started playing RDWT40).. 8-)
Suchetha
on the other more on-topic side, kudos to steve jobs for actually coming up with a realistic model for selling music online, this is probably not the end of the RIAA, it may be a dying dinosaur, but do you REALLY want to be under a dying dinosaur?... at worst youa re going to get ground into the topsoil during its death throes, at best you are going to get buried under a couple hudred tons of rotting dinosaur.. but lets face it.. this system is a realistic hope for the Industry to bow out gracefully.. whether they take it, or continue to fight a losing battle is entirely up to them..
OTOH i intend to keep downloading music off Kazaa Lite simply because i live in a country where almost the only way to get software/music is via bootleg CD's (you can get official game Cd's for some games but everything else is bootleg.. usually available within 1 week of release at about $0.75 per CD).. so no matter what my money goes to pirates
how else would they protect their nuts?
simple.. you're posting on /. .. face it.. you're wasting your time
Suchetha
idea from David Brin's "Transparent Society"
Imagine a place where this kind of cam is on top of every other streetlight, passing the information to ANYONE who wants it. Want to see if there is a mugger/billcollector/cop waiting at the corner of your street.. dial up the cam.. your kid gone missing.. dial the relevant cam.. the point is this CAN be used for surveillance by cops.. but the REAL issue is here.. when this kind of information be accessed by everyone.. when the cameras are EVERYWHERE.. the amount of privacy will lessen yes.. but society will adapt.. we will become more adept at using the information available to us... of COURSE there will be abuses.. but if as a people (not just in the US but EVERYWHERE) we can get together and force our lawmakers to allow the public access to WHAT THEY ARE PAYING FOR (sure like THAT will ever happen), this technology can be a great boon.
personally i have seen this kind of surveillance cam go up everywhere (i was in Bath, UK a few months ago and Big Brother is ALWAYS watching you).. and i would MUCH rather be in a place where the cams are accessible to and by everyone.. not just the cops
Suchetha
well i guess this would be must-have item in the wired home, but for me the biggest problem is that it is too big. for what it offers, yes it is a good unit.. but what if DON'T want to browse the web on my remote? i think that the PRONTO TSU3000 would be a better choice, simply because it's smaller, does only the remote functions and can be carried in a pocket (MUCH easier to lose under the sofa cushions)
Suchetha
(of course i won't be buying one until there is a MASSIVE price drop)
The life of the silicon chip industry may last 10 or more years longer, thanks to a new manufacturing process developed by NASA scientists.
The novel method, announced in the April 14 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters, includes use of extremely tiny carbon 'nanotubes' instead of copper conductors to interconnect parts within integrated circuits (ICs). Carbon nanotubes are measured in nanometers, much smaller than today's components.
A nanometer is roughly 10,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. ICs are very small groups of electronic components made on silicon wafers.
"NASA needs high-performance computing in small packages for future autonomous spacecraft," said Meyya Meyyappan, director of the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Calif., coauthor of the article.
"The bottom line is that computer chips with more layers and smaller components can do more for us. While we are working on carbon nanotube-based chips for long-term needs, we also are indirectly helping industry to keep silicon-based computer chips in use as long as possible," he said.
One advantage of using carbon nanotube interconnects within integrated circuits is that these interconnects have the ability to conduct very high currents, more than a million amperes of current in a one square centimeter area without any deterioration, which seems to be a problem with today's copper interconnects," said Jun Li, lead scientist of the team at ARC that developed the new process.
"Also, there is no need to create deep, narrow trenches on silicon wafers in which to bury copper conductors, a step that also is becoming a problem as components are made smaller and smaller," Li added.
"Our process allows us to use the tiny carbon nanotubes to replace copper to interconnect network layers on silicon chips," Meyyappan said. "We think this new process may well help to sustain the Moore's Law growth curve."
Moore's Law stemmed from an observation made by computer chip pioneer Gordon Moore in 1964 that the number of transistors in a given area of an IC had doubled every year since its invention. Moore predicted the trend would continue at a rate of about 18 months between doublings.
Continuing down this 'doubling' path is becoming increasingly difficult, according to Meyyappan.
"Roadblocks exist in several common technologies such as interconnects, lithography and others currently used to make the chips," he said. "However, I think our new process could be in use by industry for the next generation of ICs, removing some of these roadblocks," Meyyappan added.
"Using the new process, manufacturers will be able to add more cake-like layers of components to silicon chips to increase computer capability," Li said.
Because copper's resistance to electricity flow increases greatly as the metal's dimensions decrease, there is a limit to how small copper conductors can be.
In contrast, extremely tiny carbon nanotubes can substitute for copper conductors in smaller computer chip electronic configurations, because carbon nanotube electrical resistance is not high.
The new process includes 'growing' microscopic, whisker-like carbon nanotubes on the surface of a silicon wafer by means of a chemical process. Researchers deposit a layer of silica over the nanotubes grown on the chip to fill the spaces between the tubes. Then the surface is polished flat.
Scientists can build more multiple, cake-like layers with vertical carbon nanotube 'wires' that can interconnect layers of electronics that make up the chip.
Related LinksNanotechnology at NASA
- there are very few companies who are geared for this kind of manufacturing since everyone so far has been using copper for the past umpteen years
- changing over to this kind of manufacturing will be a massive capital investment for a company, especially the companies in the East (asia not new york) where are a lot of these chips/boards are made
- there are AFAIK no companies that make nanotubes in sufficient quantity and quality to feed the demand for the tubes at the moment
- unless you are a gamer home computers are more than fast enough now for what we want (internet/email/minor word processing) this kind of tech will only benefit the "Power User" community..
that said i should add that this is a pretty cool tech.. and i hope it works out.. after allSuchetha
Dear Cyberdyne Systems,
I would like to pre-order a May type maid Robot, deliverable as soon as they become available. I would like to order one with full care for humans programming and pneumatic b00b13z.
Please make sure that the Robot is packaged properly because the last one i got had its' power charger damaged and i had to make a new one out of USB cable.
Thank You.
Suchetha
<Please make sure you send me the HUMAN FRIENDLY version. The last time i gave an order like this, it went to another Cyberdyne Corporation and i ended up getting chased around my neighbourhood by a robot modeled after a large caucasian male, who insisted he wished to terminate me.. my girlfriend had to drop a metal press on it to stop it..>
the first shuttle to go into space was the Columbia (R.I.P.) and she has been in active operation for the past 22 years.. in fact she was older than many /.ers.
lets face it folks, Columbia and her sisters were NEVER supposed to be in operation for this long.. iirc AIRLINES aren't allowed to fly planes which are more than 25 yrs old (i may be wrong on this one).. and the shuttle goes through MUCH more stress in reentry than your regular airliner.
the shuttles use outmoded technology and are designed for missions that are in many ways different from what they have to do now. should seven lives be risked just to get some satellites into space? or to get some supplies to the ISS? i would say the answer is no.. the US needs to get its priorities straight. start using rockets to get hardware into space, and then use the jettisoned hardware as part of the ISS, use a space equivalent of a delivery truck (pilot, copilot, navigator/arm controller ONLY, and lots of cargo space) for the kind of mission that absolutely HAS to have a human to handle the cargo and use a "space RV" which is what the shuttle was, to conduct some of the missions the shuttle did.. but i believe that once the ISS *REALLY* gets going a lot of those experiments that they were doing on the shuttle could be done just as easily on the ISS labs, with just the experiment components being brought to them via the "delivery truck" or by rocket.
lets face it folks, the shuttle as we know it is not the right tool for the job. so how about we put them out to pasture, and use the lessons they taught us to build a proper spacefleet?
oh i remember why now.. PORK..
ah well... forget it then
Suchetha
i live in Sri Lanka and work for the webdev section of a british dotcom. at the moment the company has 20 webdev people in the UK and 4 in SL (the rest of the team are support staff and grafx ppls), but according to the ceo they are thinking of downgrading the entire uk structure and hiring more people here in SL.
my point is here... by UK standards they are paying us peanuts!! i get paid less than 7% of what the job i do would cost if it were being done by a brit. (trust me, i checked the numbers, a dev guy would get UKP2,000 there i get the equivalent of UKP150)
but this amount lets me make about 10x of minimum wage here which is a decent amount.
but there are downsides to this.
- MOST ASIANS ARE DRONES!!! if you want them to do a piece of work and keep doing it they are perfect. but our society and education system which puts more weight on conformity and herd-following (and no i DO NOT mean chasing a bunch of cows around 8-) ) means that if you want to do something innovative here you got to find those exceptional types who can think and improvise. and those ones are already in the US on their H1B
- most people in asia don't speak english all that well. this leads to confusion and problems in communications with the westerners
i was hired because i am one of those few nonconformists who decided to come back to my country (went to uni in OKC, USA, saw the dot bomb about to drop and buggered off, also my parents run a moderately successful company here), i can think on my feet and i am am bilingual (i speak both languages well enough to pass for a native, in fact when i was in the US i frequently was)..i see my friends trying to make a living in the US and i feel sorry for them (degree holding CS guys stacking shelves in wally world...) personally i would love to get them down here where the cost of living is low, and if you know how to manipulate the system (which, believe me i do) you can live and work. sure you'll miss your mega malls, and seeing the latest movies as they come out, no mtn dew, no game arcades and no DSL.. but we got great weather, cheap housing (by us standards anyway) and beaches...
personally i would LOVE to have a few slashdotters come join me here, and i am already running a dotcom that could use some help (so its not making money atm but i'm working on that part)
i guess the point i am trying to make is this. the US has been training its people for freedom and creativity, the east for drones. put the two together and you get a potent mix. we could use some creative thinkers here, you could do with some drones there.
anyone wanna come mix it up??
Suchetha
this means that they will give a decision on the older versions of M$FT in a few months.. so a decision on WinXP will take another three years.. by which time M$FT will have a new OS out.. and the whole rigmarole will start again..
Suchetha